The Canary

One thing is clear when it comes to redistricting: Santa Barbara County’s 3rd District doesn’t make sense, and something needs to change!  Joan Hartmann’s district—which stretches from Lake Cachuma through the Santa Ynez Valley, down to Isla Vista, over to Lompoc and Vandenberg Space Force Base (I’m never going to get used to that), and […]

An outsized debate in Solvang prompted one City Council member to ask city staff to just make it stop.  “At the most minimal effort and cost, I want us to assist this group to make this go away,” City Councilmember Robert Clarke said during the Oct. 25 Solvang City Council meeting. Here, here, Clarke! This […]

Santa Barbara County dodged a bullet by telling the Natural Healing Center (NHC) to bugger off when it came to setting up an Orcutt cannabis shop.  NHC’s former big cheese Helios Dayspring finally and officially pleaded guilty to charges of bribery and tax evasion on Oct. 14. And a week prior, the city of San […]

The decades-long debate over off-roading in the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area ended this year when the California Coastal Commission decided there would be no off-roading there after 2023. Right?  Wrong! According to the Friends of the Oceano Dunes, which quickly fired off a bevy of lawsuits—Which now total five! Yes, five!—against the Coastal […]

As firefighters battled the Alisal fire in southern Santa Barbara County, dry vegetation and blustery wind (up to 70 miles per hour) enabled it to spread rapidly, growing 8,000 acres in 24 hours. At least that much land had burned by 3 p.m. on Oct. 12 along both sides of Highway 101, which was closed […]

Virus protection is like layering Swiss cheese armor on top of your body.  Masks are one layer, vaccination is another—distancing, well-ventilated air, and hand hygiene are still more. One hole-filled slice of aged cheese on top of another. The more layers, the fewer holes: Get it? And misinformation? Oh, well, that’s a cute little mouse […]

Who’s going to be the most impacted by climate change in Santa Barbara County?  I’ll give you one guess.  It’s not the people who own pieces of the pristine Hollister Ranch area—including filmmaker James Cameron and musician Jackson Browne—who like to keep their private portion of California’s coastline as inaccessible to the general public as […]

Is the world too touchy-feely these days? Do we need to go back to the days of gunslingers and fights in the street?  At least one man in Santa Maria thinks so! And he told everyone who attended what would normally have been a pretty benign meeting about the Santa Maria Police Department’s goals for […]

Just in case you guys were wondering, 5th District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino is ardently against Brussels sprouts.  “Brussel sprouts, I’m total anti-Brussel sprout. I’ll come out right now on that one. Anyone that orders it around me has got a problem, because I will tell you to please move it away from me. It smells,” […]

We’ve got a teacher shortage, a nurse shortage, and a student shortage—as in fewer students in school. And if you can guess why, I’ll give you a gold star for effort.  Yes! You’ve got it! You’ve been paying attention to the news!  It’s because we aren’t having a shortage of COVID-19 cases. In fact, that […]

I don’t want to write about good news. It’s no fun! But this week I have no choice. I have no choice but to give the county a pat on the back for its efforts on homelessness.  As San Luis Obispo County put forward a “safe parking area” on a dirt lot outside of its […]

Vaccine mandate.  Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down. Before you start yelling at me for daring to write those two words, let me get to the point. The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors is going to consider vaccine mandates at its next meeting—Aug. 31. Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down. It’s not for everyone! It would […]