The earliest stages of a bike plan that would likely link all the municipalities of the Santa Ynez Valley came a step a closer to approval at the last Santa Barbara County Association of Governments meeting. The board voted unanimously to pass the Santa Ynez Valley Bicycle Master plan forward to an eventual hearing in […]
William D'Urso
Posted inNews
CoastHills Credit Union moves in to its new, centrally located headquarters
When Paul Cook arrived at CoastHills Credit Union as its Chief Information Officer in 2015, the board was talking about building a new headquarters.What it would look like was still up for debate, but Cook had an idea: add an extra floor. Now the credit union is moving in to its new centrally located building […]
Posted inNews
The Santa Maria Joint Union High School District will go into the new year with a fresh superintendent
Decades ago, Antonio Garcia was just a Los Angeles kid, picking up English as he went along. Now he’s poised to become the top educator in the Santa Maria Joint Union High School District. After a seven-month search, community surveys, and meetings, the school board announced Garcia as the new superintendent at the Nov. 19 […]
Posted inNews
Dunes Center wins historic designation for former Far Western Tavern
When the Dunes Center museum acquired the Guadalupe building that once housed the famed Far Western Tavern, it wasn’t sure what to do with it. But since receiving the 2015 donation from the Minetti family, the museum has sought to register the pink building off Guadalupe Street as a historic structure. On Nov. 7, the […]
Posted inNews
After years of construction, Santa Maria Joint Union’s long-awaited Career Technical Education Center nears completion
The Santa Maria Joint Union High School District’s nameless new high school is nearing completion. It’s 72 percent of the way there, according to the school district, and officials estimate it could be all the way done in February, with students trickling in by the fall of 2020. For now, officials are calling it a […]
Posted inNews
Sears to close Santa Maria location
Sears may be shutting the doors on its Santa Maria Town Center location in February 2020, but leaders of the city’s business community say retail is still going strong. Suzanne Singh, the economic development director for the Santa Maria Chamber of Commerce, said she doesn’t see the town’s retail economy spiraling downward. She referenced the […]
Posted inNews
New urgent care proposal in Buellton could bolster health care services
The Buellton Planning Commission approved an item on Nov. 7 allowing a new urgent care facility into town. The proposal came from Cottage Health, a 125-year-old nonprofit with a network of 600 physicians, under the umbrella of a volunteer board of directors from the greater Santa Barbara area. Ron Biscaro, listed on the organization’s website […]
Posted inNews
Nearing a year in business, Cosmoton Academy adds a new certificate program
In a Lompoc strip mall next to a pizza shop and a vacant Chinese buffet is the Cosmoton Academy. It’s a starting point for people who want careers in hair styles geared toward men. But the school run by Michael and Laura Funkhauser recently added a new program to broaden the student base of their […]
Posted inNews
Local environmental groups battle against fracking leases
Local environmental advocates are fighting plans to expand or kickstart fracking on federal lands in California’s Central Valley and on the Central Coast. The directive to allow fracking and oil drilling on public land, which will impact about 725,000 acres on the Central Coast, comes from President Donald Trump. A final environmental impact statement released […]
Posted inNews
Santa Ynez Valley weighs merits and costs of a master bike plan
The idea began with Matt van der Linden, the Solvang public works director. He’d been thinking about bike lanes, how to get more of them, and how any plan his city might come up with would fit the surrounding area. “It didn’t really make sense for us to make a bicycle plan that didn’t mesh […]
Posted inNews
Santa Maria Bonita still sorting out school boundaries
The Santa Maria-Bonita School District is months away from re-establishing school boundaries that will determine which students attend which schools. Maggie White, the district’s spokesperson, said she expects parents and students to learn whether they’ll be moved to a new school in the early months of 2020. It’s a process that she said the district […]
Posted inNews
Guadalupe begins after-school arts, sports programs
Since he took over as superintendent of the Guadalupe Unified School District in 2018, Emilio Handall planned to establish after-school programs in Guadalupe. Now he’s done it, and he found an anonymous Santa Barbara donor to help. First, Handall had to connect with Roberto Rodriguez, the COO of the Boys and Girls Club of Mid […]