Letters to the Editor

News, March 7:  “Going Long on Short-Term Rentals”

Ghost Towns

Our neighborhoods are ghost towns, which serves no one. There are only a sprinkling of voters left—no one who is invested in our community. Off Hyde Park, there are multiple "developments" with 26 percent occupancy. Multimillionaires like Ernie Romero are still pushing through building more of these ghost houses. Check out his proposal for Estancias del Norte—the planning commission just passed the preliminary plans on a site that in 1995 was deemed unstable by the US Department of Conservation. It would cause inexcusable risk for all the residents who live below it. Mr. Romero will walk away with more millions and zero future responsibility.

ENOUGH.

Jennifer Johnson
Via Facebook

WTF, STR?

Somewhere around 2005, I began to ask the city of Santa Fe to enforce its ordinance that forbid the renting of residential houses for less than 30 days. Our little dirt dead end street of 11 homes in the historic neighborhood had two or three short term rentals with heavy turnover; I testified to the council that it was like living in a motel parking lot. … The city refused to enforce its ordinance, but they did hold a series of hearings to hear from the community about this issue. These hearings were heavily weighted by the short-term industry; the council ended up changing the law to permit this intense commercial use in residential neighborhoods. Even after this change, the city did not enforce the new ordinance either and actually claimed that they'd received only two complaints in 10 years.

There are now five STR permits on the little street with 11 homes. … Are there really not enough hotel/motel rooms in Santa Fe to accommodate our tourists?

I attended the council meeting when they ruled to expand the number of permitted STR from 350 to 1,000. … [It] was a glaring example of selling out the city and its young people for short-term profit. Each councilor gave lip service to affordable housing. …

Many other communities around the world struggle with this violation of neighborhoods.
There's nothing to see here about solving this problem. We've sold out.

Dena Aquilina
Santa Fe

Food, March 7:  “Noodle House Explosion”

Stahp

I enjoy reading your food articles in the Santa Fe Reporter, since I have a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition and have a fondness for cooking and fine dining.

However, in your most recent article, I was taken aback with your writing.

The first sentence of the second paragraph reads, "Winter in Santa Fe is a rough time for restaurants to open, especially a snowless, dry season like this one that cockblocks any kind of tourist presence…"

I wonder why you felt compelled to use the word "cockblocks," and why the editor felt it was okay to go ahead and print it.

A thesaurus is a wonderful tool to have.

Please consider elevating your writing which will then elevate the readers' perceptions of your articles and the SF Reporter.

Jennifer Falcone
Santa Fe

Cover, February 28:  “Stairway to Nowhere”

Judging by the Cover

I am a former SFUAD student, and … I wanted to write in to express how insensitive and disrespectful I think this cover is. Not the article itself, as the actual content and story were in-depth and very pro-student, but the cover in particular I thought was incredibly unfair to SFUAD's students. …

That campus is not "nowhere." I lived there myself for two years and attended classes for three, and it was the first place I ever felt a sense of community or home. I know many students have had the same experience I had, of loving SFUAD's campus despite its issues. It is not "nowhere" to us. …

As a student who couldn't finish at SFUAD, I don't think it's okay to represent our campus in this way. I think that this title and cover choice were an appeal to pity, an attempt by the Reporter to get attention and be sensational. While the content of the article wasn't bad at all, this cover is what the people of Santa Fe are going to be seeing first – and we as students don't want our entire city believing that our campus is nowhere. …

I have encouraged other students to write in, and I think that we deserve an apology. … If you were really on our side, as the article suggests you are, you would know there is a better way to speak about us and what we've lost.

Brianna Neumann
Santa Fe

Missed Opportunity

The fate of the SFUAD campus is perhaps the most important issue in this mayoral campaign, but we haven't heard much about it.

Hopefully, economic development and affordable housing will be part of the new plan, but what about the incredible creative media of the current college: drama, film-making, music, art and design? We need these—and the people who create them—to be part of the new campus, continuing to contribute much to our community, as they have for so long.

Anna Katherine
Santa Fe

News, February 28:  “Yes He Can”

Y Tho?

I could not help writing to you about your very brief and seemingly pointless interview with Steve Pearce. It was brief in every way and I am puzzled why it was written. There is so much to say about Pearce and his very conservative voting and political history on record that goes beyond the couple of issues you asked him about. He comes off as a benign representative of the people who wants to be liked—if only they knew how great he is!
What about his extreme stands and votes? What about Sarah Palin's endorsement? What about his "birther" position regarding Pres. Obama? … How did you let him explain away climate change with his stupid little tale of landing in the Kiribati Islands, which face rising sea levels, but "haven't disappeared?" I just can't believe you summed it all up with, "Pearce is a big-self determination guy. And that's what gets him out of the door early each morning, in a new town with new people to convince he's their guy."

I believe you wasted very valuable space that could have given voters a more detailed look at this guy's record!

Barbara Guss
Santa Fe