Letters: Don’t spoil the Santa Ynez Valley

Re “Tribal plan roils Santa Ynez Valley,” Dec. 16

The Santa Ynez Valley, where I live, has retained its rural ambience with carefully crafted zoning laws. Community members who have participated in the planning process labored over plans that stated the community’s preference for how development should proceed.

A key element of these community documents included a desire to keep as much agriculturally zoned land as possible outside the valley’s five population centers. The 1,400-acre Camp 4 property purchased by the Chumash is currently zoned to allow for parcels no smaller than 100 acres.

Any developer interested in building 143 homes within this agriculturally zoned property could expect community opposition. It is sad to read that tribal Chairman Vincent Armenta believes it is only the color of his skin that inspires objection to the Chumash plans.

Marjorie Popper

Solvang, Calif.

So the Chumash of the Santa Ynez Valley — here for many centuries before their land was expropriated by Spanish land grants — have learned the ways of the white man. Now, they intend to use their legal options to get what they want.

Congratulations to the Chumash for having learned their lessons well.

Thomas Michael Kelley

Newbury Park

I am confused as to what Armenta was attempting to indicate when he rolled up his sleeve and pointed to his skin in explaining local residents’ opposition to his tribe’s plans for development.

Is he unaware that my skin and the skin of millions of Hispanic Southern Californians are similarly brown? Is he unaware that we are also of Indian and Spanish extraction?

What exactly does Armenta think makes us so very different, such that when I buy land, it’s just land, but when he buys land, it becomes sovereign territory?

Charles Delgadillo

Corona

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