From Our Inbox: Letters to the Editor for the Week Ending June 9, 2023

I was left with many questions after reading Josh Molina's June 2 article, "Santa Barbara School District Settles Case Involving Former Teacher Accused of Sexual Assault," about the Santa Barbara Unified School District's settlement of a lawsuit alleging that former SBUSD teacher Matef Harmachis repeatedly sexually harassed, groped and assaulted a female Santa Barbara High School student.

According to the news release, Molina mentions that Harmachis was charged with battery of the student in 2017, pleaded no contest and received a criminal sentence, had his teaching credential revoked, and was terminated by the district in March 2020.

The lawsuit alleged that Harmachis "had a 15-year history of inappropriate behavior with students and was reprimanded over the course of several years."

Where were the mandated reporters in this case: the administrators, the executive staff, colleagues and school board members?

School districts do not fork over nearly $1 million to settle a sexual abuse lawsuit unless there is a pattern of bad behavior.

Where there's smoke, there's fire. The 45-page complaint filed in November 2020 asserts negligent supervision, negligent hiring/retention, negligent failure to warn, train or educate, intentional infliction of emotional distress, assault, sexual battery, sexual harassment, gender violence, breach of fiduciary duty, constructive fraud, public entity liability for failure to perform mandatory duty.

The majority of the teachers our children will encounter are good, hard-working people. Many go above and beyond for our children, but the system we are supposed to trust to protect children appears to have broken down in this case.

Michelle de Werd

Los Olivos

Why is the Santa Barbara Airport proposing Business Activity Permit (BAP) fees of $2,000 per year while the Waterfront Department does just fine with BAP fees of $20 year?

The permit fees cover many of the same business activities: maintenance, instruction, detailing, electronics, etc.

Permit fees are not supposed to be revenue generators. They are supposed to cover only the administrative costs of issuing the permit.

So why does it cost the airport 100 times as much as the harbor to issue a permit?

One of the business activities covered by this "permit" fee is independent flight instruction. Independent flight instructors are Federal Aviation Administration-certified instructors who instruct pilots in the pilot's own plane.

Independent flight instructors are generally the most senior, most experienced, most qualified instructors on the field. Many of them are current or former airline and military pilots with thousands of hours. Others have been instructing for decades.

But with currently only one exception, none of them instruct more than 20 hours per year. A "permit" fee of $2,000 to be allowed to earn $2,000 is not an option!

Enacting this fee will drive out the best instructors on the field and leave all flight instruction to the one and only flight school on the field. Monopolies are bad for everyone (except the monopolist). The airport should not be taking action to create such a monopoly.

The same issue applies to maintenance and all the other airport BAPs. We need more maintenance on the field, not less. With the current maintenance available on the field, most pilots are forced to fly to other airports to get their maintenance. This is bad for many reasons.

Finally, the nonprofit Santa Barbara Flying Club was established in 1947 and has been in operation ever since. Now, for the first time ever, the airport wants to charge the club a fee of $2,000 per year! Why?

The City of Santa Barbara should turn down this abominable fee structure and just implement the $20 per year fee that has made the waterfront the dynamic operation that it is.

Carl Hopkins

Noleta

My wife and I spent four nights at the Hotel Santa Barbara over the Memorial Day weekend.

As wonderful as it was, there were a few drugged-out crazy people on State Street verbally threatening people. I was threatened by the same person screaming at me "You're Dead."

I warily watched him when I passed by as he made threatening gestures but did not attack. The police removed him the next day as he laid unconscious on the street.

Four hours later, we passed him on our way to dinner. He was shadow boxing in the street once again, threatening people passing by.

What is wrong with the police in Santa Barbara that they allow people to be threatened with bodily harm and do nothing? Are they waiting for someone to be hurt badly or killed?

The people being threatened were families with children enjoying State Street. The children were frightened, standing there eating ice cream while this thug walked up and down State Street. I saw other homeless sitting and egging him on.

Is this the way Santa Barbara sets out to "clean up" State Street? Sooner or later this will end in a disaster.

The Santa Barbara police chief is negligent and the rank-and-file officers should be ashamed of themselves.

David Chalfy

Las Vegas

Mark Patton's June 4 column, "Former Dos Pueblos Football Star Matt Houston Now Strengthens Miami Heat," was a great article. I forwarded it to my son, Andrew, a former Santa Barbara High varsity athlete.

Both Houston and my son benefited from the volunteer coaching of a quiet, humble, impressive man: Mwei Banks at the Eastside Boys & Girls Club.

Over the years, players and parents learned much from Banks and the many impressive volunteer coaches at the Eastside Boys & Girls Club, Page Youth Center, AYSO, Little League, Youth Tennis League, Santa Barbara Golf and water polo.

Coincidentally, I saw Banks at a January luncheon for another Eastside Boys & Girls Club basketball player and forever friend. He recognized me: the opinionated sideline parent who knew nothing about sports, questioned too much and had two athletic kids.

Troubled and concerned before games, I would ask Banks: "WHY is our team in the library, when opposing teams are on the court warming up?"

His response: "Mrs. Adams, my team is prepared. Sports is mental. We go to the library to get in the mindset to win. I know what I'm doing."

That he did!

Today, former players are mindful superstars in whatever each pursues going forward. They're analytical, prepared thinkers.

My son and daughter can name every coach and the life lessons learned via their gift of coaching. They left their values and marks on the lives of countless local youth by sharing their time, skills, expectations and words of wisdom.

Thanks seems an inadequate expression of my gratitude.

Denice Spangler Adams

Montecito

In his June 7 column, "State Farm Insurance Taking Leadership Role Against Climate Change," Robert Sulnick's attempt to marry the corporate interests of one of the largest insurance companies with the concerns of environmentally aware citizens seems embarrassing.

This is more than "strange bedfellows" stuff. Both Allstate and State Farm are financial manipulators that know how to price anything to assure their profit. But what they prize more is the removal of governmental regulators from the arena.

Californians have benefited greatly from voter-approved constitutional power to control insurance companies and limit their exploitative services. The insurance companies want to scare us into believing that we will be without home insurance if we do not remove these protections.

If Allstate or State Farm were really only concerned about the risk of wildfire, they could still write home insurance policies excluding that risk (much as they do now to exclude flooding in most circumstances).

This would leave customers to either use California state issue fire insurance, change carriers or possibly "go naked," and would probably bring increased competition that would benefit consumers in the end.

We must resist being bullied, frightened or pushed into actions that are fomented in deceit and which will have long-term heavy prices, such as letting insurance companies once again have free rein in these markets.

Glen Mowrer

Santa Barbara

"Climate change" absolutists like Robert Sulnick are as predictable as they are usually wrong.

Before he declares State Farm Insurance the Environmentalist of the Year, he should read the company's own words.

According to the official news release, it is leaving California due to "historic increases in construction costs outpacing inflation, rapidly growing catastrophe exposure, and a challenging reinsurance market."

B. Walker

Santa Barbara

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