Goodbye California

I love California. I’ve always considered myself a California girl. I grew up in Santa Barbara,
graduated from Santa Barbara High School. I was married there, my daughters were born there. For the first half of my life I lived on the beach or within a block or two of it. I’m happiest
in or around the ocean. I love the sound of it, the smell of it. The sun setting on the water.

I was Michael Daniel Doyle’s tandem surfing partner. I sold Yater surfboards and made surf
trunks and bikini’s for surf shops. My husband was the World Champion dory racer along with
his partner Jeff White, of WhiteOwl Surf Shop.

After Christmas we’d bring our Christmas trees to the beach and build a big bonfire, saying
goodbye to Christmas and welcoming in the New Year. My kids, their friends, and dogs ran up
and down the beach all day. It was a blissful time. California was truly the Golden State. We
had the best schools, the best business environment, the best weather.

I always imagined my golden years being surrounded by my children and grandchildren in this
Golden State. But California is no longer a Golden State. California is now a 3rd World country.

We are #1 in poverty, #1 in homelessness, #1 in illegal aliens, #1 in welfare (we pay 1/3rd of the
entire country’s welfare), #1 in gas taxes, #1 in income taxes, and worst of all, #49 in education.

The state I’ve always loved is just a memory now. The state that brought us Reagan is now a
one party dictatorship. The people who settled this state, the generational farmers, ranchers
and citizens are no longer represented. The new “undocumented citizens” have more rights
than the rest of us. They are exempt from laws we are held to. And it is these policies that have
caused the divisiveness we are seeing today.

For most of my life I had never seen homelessness. Now it’s everywhere. Our politicians invite
in more with no plan on where they are to live. What is called “low income” housing costs
$600K EACH. There’s been no task force formed to find solutions. We have Typhus and
Typhoid. Rats and fleas spreading them, with no solutions.

I didn’t sit helpless and watch this happen. I’ve done everything I could to stop the destruction
of this beautiful state. I wrote my representatives, I was organizer of several Tea Parties, I
traveled to DC many, many times, I wrote a blog, I spoke to groups, I spoke to dozens of City
Councils, school boards, Sheriff’s Commissions, I was VP of American Freedom Alliance. We
brought people from around the world to inform and educate people. But with open borders,
with poor, uneducated people flooding across our border daily, we’ve simply been
outnumbered.

My hope, since most illegal aliens are from Mexico and South America and are very religious
and family oriented, they will eventually realize the Left is destroying both and that they will
then vote for representatives that will preserve religious liberty and family rights. But I don’t see
that happening in my lifetime.

It is with great sadness that I announce I will be leaving California March 20th. I am moving to
Prescott, Arizona. With such high gas and energy prices (and going higher), I can no longer
afford to live here. The good news is that for less than my one bedroom condo, I bought a two
bedroom house with a yard for Luci.

I do hope my friends will come visit me in Prescott. I have a guest bedroom now. It’s a six hour
drive or there is one flight a day from LAX to Prescott at 8:55pm. They are expanding the
airport, so I assume there will be more than one flight a day in the near future. I will be back to
visit family too. I plan to get involved in Arizona politics. I will still be writing my blog, and I’ll still be on Twitter and Facebook.

I think the hardest thing for me to accept is that California is no longer the state I grew up in
and loved. I pray the pendulum will swing back but I fear it won’t…..not after Bernie won the
primary here.