Parents hear about things. They hear about many alarming things like overdoses during the school day from their kids, from other parents, from teachers, from social media, etc. And when scary things happen in the environment their children are in eight-plus hours a day, parents should be getting the truth directly from the administration. […]
Opinion
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No place for hate
I’m getting kind of tired of writing about all the homophobia in the Santa Ynez Valley. But it seems to be the topic du jour. Now, Santa Ynez Valley Union High School is getting in on all the action. As the principal put it, the school was “unintentionally pulled into an issue that has divided […]
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Being LGBTQIA isn’t an ideology or a theory, Solvang
”We don’t want to promote one particular ideology; what we want in this city is a community that is welcoming to everybody, and that requires some limits on what some groups can do,” Solvang Mayor Mark Infanti said. As if supporting the LGBTQIA community is promoting an ideology or theory. But don’t blame us, it’s […]
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Is our water safe to drink or our food safe to eat?
How safe is the water we drink and the food we eat? I guess it depends on who you ask. My grandma told me that “you have to eat a pound of dirt before you die” after I inadvertently got some mud in my mouth. After all these years I suppose I have “eaten” more […]
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Relax, people
This little bird ruffled some feathers last week. Sweet! Write to us. Tell us how you really feel, so we can share it with our readers! The Sun also received some angry responses to the first installment in a two-part series on the Solvang City Council’s decision on a proposal to put Pride flag banners […]
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Solvang didn’t show Pride prejudice
I hope our little yellow dicky fluffer didn’t injure her spine bending over backwards trying to demonstrate that there’s no prejudice here (“Policy prattlers,” March 23). I don’t think the Solvang City Council demonstrated prejudice concerning overt displays of Pride colors and banners. I think it was a feeling of caution, as more permissive displays […]
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It’s too easy to forget that we’re all swimming in the same stream
I’ve been paddling in the turbulent waters of “extremist” ideology lately, from both sides of the political continuum. If our nation’s democratic spectrum can be described as a bell curve, these would be the “long tails” of that curve. Those are the places inhabited by the fanatics, the conspiracy theorists, the QAnon cultists on the […]
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Policy prattlers
Solvang is so far up its own ass about what “Danish” means that it can’t understand the evolution of the European country that it spends marketing money to emulate. I guess Solvang likes to live in the past—like almost 100 years ago, past: pre-1933 Denmark. You know? Back before it was legal to be a […]
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Santa Maria: Stop the gobble-gobble
The citizens of Orcutt are fed up with the actions of Santa Maria as they attempt to annex the Richards Ranch property into the city. It is located next to Highway 135 and Union Valley Parkway. The Parkway already has significant traffic. If approved, traffic will increase by 20,780 trips per day creating more unwanted […]
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Lompoc’s fire crews are well trained, but the city needs to fund a more robust department to ensure public safety
On Saturday evening, March 11, a very large fire occurred at the north end of Lompoc between Walmart and the airport. The property, known as the “Campbell Coolers,” is a very large vegetable processing facility. There are several football field-sized piles of construction material, pallets, and boxes stored on the property. It was one of […]
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Pipeline pressure
Are residents right to be worried about a plan to update the valves on an oil pipeline that was so badly corroded it burst in 2015, spilling more than 120,000 gallons of crude oil along the Gaviota coastline? If you ask the company that proposed the project, it’s just a matter of bringing the coastal […]
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An open letter to landlords and apartment managers
With homelessness in America spiraling out of control and homeowners and apartment managers able to rent out properties at obscenely high rates, you are in effect causing the homeless crisis. Nobody can criticize any of you individually because supply and demand is the main reason for the crisis. There simply isn’t enough affordable housing to […]
