ZAC EZZONE

In an attempt to curb the number of kids using electronic cigarettes or vaping, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted to prohibit businesses from selling flavored tobacco products in unincorporated parts of the county. This move comes amid nationwide concerns over how vaping affects a person’s health have begun to intensify. According to […]

The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution declaring an emergency following the release of new information on the extent climate change is affecting parts of the Central Coast. The rhetoric throughout the course of the Dec. 10 meeting was milder than the language used when the board last discussed a symbolic resolution […]

Increasing the number of public art pieces in Santa Maria could make the city more beautiful and walkable, encapsulate its rich heritage, and boost the city’s economic vitality, according to the city’s public art master plan. But it’s hard to do any of that without funding. At its meeting on Dec. 3, the Santa Maria […]

Around 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 2, a teenager was shot near the 500 block of North L and M streets in Lompoc.  Following the incident, a family member transported the juvenile to the Lompoc Valley Medical Center to get treatment for the gunshot wound. The teenager was then transported to a different hospital via helicopter, […]

Gary Hall started his 20-slide PowerPoint presentation during the Nov. 19 Santa Maria City Council meeting with a joke. He told the council, “Yes, you’re getting tired of looking at me, and I’m getting tired of looking at you, too.” During a meeting one year ago, Hall argued for the city to adopt some sort […]

Weeks after a mother and her two children died in a car crash on Highway 154, the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments (SBCAG) unanimously established a committee to examine ways to make the roadway safer. At SBCAG’s Nov. 21 meeting, 3rd District Supervisor Joan Hartmann said the committee, which is made up of local […]

As Lompoc enters the final stretch of an application process to expand its boundaries for the first time since 1999, City Council has tasked its city attorney with taking a leading role. The city’s inability to expand its boundaries for the last two decades has stifled the number of new homes built in the city […]

By the end of next year, an energy developer is slated to build 29 wind turbines in a largely undeveloped area about 5 miles south of Lompoc. During a meeting on Nov. 20, the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission approved a conditional use permit that allows Strauss Wind LLC—which international company BayWa owns—to move forward […]