Canary

Well, kids, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but just in case you don’t pay attention to anything vaguely internet-related: COVID-19 is back!  The omicron variant is sweeping the country (Thanks, globalization! Thanks, anti-vaxxers!), including Santa Barbara County, and it’s more contagious than ever! Yahoo! So mask up, vax up, and keep […]

This year is over, man. And it almost feels like the only thing left to do is shake my little bird head.  My takeaway from 2021 is that everything would be much easier if we all just learned how to communicate with others and genuinely sought out reality rather than ideas that strengthen our existing […]

I almost felt bad for the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors on Dec. 14 when they had to decide on yet another appeal of an approved cannabis cultivation project.  Only this time, the decision before them felt like it had higher stakes. Former Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado was on one side, and the Millers […]

Before I move to the dark side, I’m going to give a shoutout to the Alisal fire burn scar for making it through this last storm relatively intact!  According to Santa Barbara County Public Works rain gauges, areas of the county tallied between 1.3 and 7.5 inches of rain. Wowzers! And kudos to Santa Barbara […]

Well, I don’t like to say, “I told you so,” but it’s a a bit difficult to keep those words in my beak this week. Thanks to the Santa Barbara County Citizens Independent Redistricting Commission, change is in the air. The commission finalized its preferred map on Dec. 4, planned to make some tweaks early […]

What would the city of Lompoc give to have an extra $35,000 floating around in its general revenue fund just to spend on TV advertising? For one, it would mean the Lompoc Fire Department would have earthquake-retrofitted fire stations.  This year for the first time in more than a decade, Lompoc was able to balance […]

Do we actually think the Northern Branch Jail will open in December 2021?  I can’t even count then number of stories the Sun has run about when Santa Barbara County’s newest $110 million to $120 million detention facility is going to open. First it was September 2018, then it was August 2019, then May 2020, […]

How do we live well in reality while also dreaming about and moving toward a better future?  Well, some in authority don’t really do a great job of either, until they get caught or something gets broken. In the case of the Santa Barbara County Main Jail, both happened. The county got called out for […]

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 […]