The Canary

Even as a fully fledged bird, I need a mother every now and again. Sometimes I miss the comfort of a sheltering wing; sometimes I just need to be reminded of what’s right and what’s wrong. But needing someone to fill that mama-shaped hole in my heart is no excuse for going all cuckoo on […]

Things got a little testy at a recent Guadalupe City Council meeting.  Any guesses as to the topic du jour?  Ding, ding, ding! Yes. It was the Royal Theater renovation project—you know the one, with grant issues, cost issues, redesign controversy, and the failed potential ballot initiative idea. Residents have complained multiple times about the […]

Richards Ranch sure has a bee in its bonnet about 4th District Santa Barbara County Supervisor Bob Nelson.  For the third meeting in a row, the development’s attorney, Beth Collins, has accused the county and Nelson of doing shady things in processing the two concurrent applications for the same project—one that aims to annex 58 […]

What can I say about quails? They’re kind of cute, especially the babies. They can’t fly like I can, but they are native to California. You can attract them into your yard by sprinkling the right food around and providing them with some thick shrubbery for cover. Which is cool, unless you live in Solvang’s […]

Should transgender students be able to use the bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identities? Should trans women be able to compete in women’s athletics?  These are complicated questions that we have been struggling to navigate and answer over the past several years, and we’ve made progress and gained a more complete […]

Buellton’s about to get one of the only art deco Arco’s in the United States.  After seven long years of fighting the city over its Avenue of Flags design requirements, Arco gave in!  “I think you guys know me very well by now. We’ve been here many times,” Alex Cuevas told the Planning Commission, which […]

Sable Offshore Corporation is heading for troubled waters—giant waves that most of us could see from a few miles away. The California Coastal Commission is pissed at the oil company for work it’s been doing to fix its old, janky pipeline that spilled oil all over Refugio Beach in 2015, work the company insists it […]

I’m so confused.  Why didn’t we build the Northern Branch Jail bigger the first time around? The original project—originally set to cost $80 million in 2012 but ballooned to $120 million by the time it was finished in 2021—built a jail with 376 beds and space for 32 medical and mental health beds. Now, just […]

If you were a legal resident of the U.S.—not a citizen—and had to choose between flying a drone over Vandenberg Space Force Base or being a pro-Palestinian protester on a college campus, which would you choose? One is illegal and the other riles up the delicate sensibilities of the Trump administration but is legal under […]

Sniff, sniff.  Do you smell that? Of course not. You need a Nasal Ranger to really get a good whiff of odorific cannabis. I don’t mean to make light of the plight of Carpinteria’s cannabis-odor-plagued residents, but tying a Santa Barbara County ordinance to something you wear on your nose is simply too much.  Especially […]

It looks like Allan Hancock College is reaping the rewards of its long-standing effort to bring a four-year-degree program to Santa Maria.  The school launched a partnership with Cal Poly at the beginning of this school year on its first bachelor’s degree program in sociology and just added a business major with two more as-yet-to-be-decided […]

Our North County Supervisors are looking to my waterfowl cousins for wisdom these days, drawing upon the adage, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” Instead of benefitting the area’s feathered friends, 5th District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino is crying fowl, I mean foul, about battery energy storage system (BESS) facilities being subjected […]