Cover Stories
What about the rest of us? County, cities, and nonprofits search for funding options to create long-term solutions for homelessness
Wide, bald, and barrel chested with a thick dark mustache wrapped around the top of an almost always half-cracked grin, Lompoc Police Sgt. Mauricio Calderon exudes friendliness and calm as he takes long strides toward the first makeshift shelter in the Santa Ynez Riverbed. Calderon became the department’s liason to the city’s homeless population earlier…
55 Fiction 2018
You can say a lot in 55 words. You can kill someone, love someone, or save someone. Tell stories about torture, divorce, or family drama. Make political statements. Riff on societal issues. But there are only a select few who can do it well enough to get published! For the last three decades, the Sun…
Shoes for Students works to address childhood poverty, schedules fundraiser for Sept. 9
Since Kate Ferguson and several of her colleagues launched Shoes for Students in 1998, they’ve received scores of thank you letters from local children, educators, and parents who have witnessed the program’s impacts firsthand. Ferguson saves her favorites in a personal notebook. “You and I can’t even imagine what is going on in some of…
Spotlight on: Whalebird Kombucha: Mike Durighello, CEO and founder
The first time Mike Durighello tried kombucha, he didn’t like it. His friend had handed him the fermented tea-based probiotic drink after a day of surfing along the Central Coast. Durighello was unimpressed. “It tasted bad,” he told the Sun. But there was a reason. “I wasn’t familiar with the world of fermentation and what…
As USDA tariff relief package details, local ag industry reports only minimal impacts of trade war
No clear end is in sight for the Trump administration’s trade war with China, and while farmers and ranchers across the nation are reportedly feeling its impacts, Santa Barbara County’s agricultural industry has largely made it through unscathed–for now. “For better or worse, the specialty crops that we grow here on the Central Coast are…
Moxie Cafe in Santa Maria keeps it health conscious
We’ve had a lot of conversations in our newsroom lately about eating “healthy,” especially when it comes to dining out. It’s hard to define what that means, exactly. When someone says “healthy,” they could mean any number of things–low fat, low calorie, low carb, low sugar, organic, all-natural. It’s a puzzling little word that quite…
A taste of Honeydrops: The California Honeydrops bring their signature soul sound to the Santa Maria Valley
A blasting horn section, screaming Hammond organ, bouncing baseline, and popping snare drum coalesce in one organic sound, like a party in your ears. It is a party, at least according to The California Honeydrops lead singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Lech Wierzynski. “We try to keep this fun,” he said, “first and foremost.” It’s a party…
PCPA jumps into a time warp with Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia
Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia starts with a stunningly blunt question, remarkable not for its tawdry nature but for the underlying mystery it presents. It is posed by Thomasina Coverly (Grace Theobald) to her tutor, Septimus Hodge (Luke Myers). The precocious and wildly curious 13-year-old girl asks him, with genuinely devious curiosity, “What is carnal embrace?” The…
Artist Chelsea Ward turns her talent into a unique business
Local artist Chelsea Ward is the founder and owner of Sketchy Notions, a card and paper goods business that features her own unique creations. Ward grew up in the Santa Ynez Valley, learning art at a young age. She attended the University of Texas in Austin where she learned printmaking and bookmaking and started her…
Solvang City Council eyes smoking regulations following cannabis vote
The Solvang City Council discussed amending city code for its smoking regulations during its meeting on Aug. 28. The talks on where one can and cannot smoke in public were placed on the agenda two weeks prior, when council members adopted the first reading of an ordinance allowing a medical cannabis dispensary to operate near…
Familiar questions asked at third city forum on H-2A
Roughly 40 Santa Maria residents, and city and state officials talked housing and employer requirements on Aug. 23 at the Edwards Community Center, where the city held its third of five community forums regarding the H-2A guest farmworker program. While the first and second meetings included presentations from city and county officials, the Aug. 23…
County prohibits duck feeding at Waller Park
Like bread for a duck, a new animal feeding ban at Waller Park could be tough to swallow. New educational signs outlining the park’s rules–and reasons for them–were installed on Aug. 23, and North County Parks Operations Manager Dan Pedersen said the move is an effort to protect Waller Park’s ducks, fish, and ponds. For…
Santa Barbara County supervisors mull improvement options for emergency dispatch services
Santa Barbara County staff presented to the Board of Supervisors four options to help improve emergency dispatch services at its Aug. 28 meeting. It’s been a little more than a year since the supervisors last received an update on the issue. Currently, the county’s Public Safety Dispatch Center is managed by the Sheriff’s Office, who…
Hancock College professor nominated for literary award
Diane Auten, a communications professor at Allan Hancock College, was nominated for a 2018 Author Academy Award for her book The Joys of Raising Boys: The Good, the Bad, and the Hilarious. Auten’s book is a memoir chronicling her life as a mother raising two boys. She spent more than 10 years writing the book,…
Local naturalist presents workshop on animals
The Santa Ynez Valley Natural History Society and Solvang Library will host naturalist Tim Matthews in a presentation titled Skulls and Skins of Local Animals. Matthews, a fisherman, birder, and avid hunter who has led many guided field trips for the Santa Ynez Valley Natural History Society, will present information on local wildlife using examples…
Response to Ruhge
Once again, Justin Ruhge demonstrated in his response to Ken McCalip’s excellent letter (“Misdeeds in La-La Land,” Aug. 9) that he’s been gulping the red Kool-Aid being brewed by the current administration and Fox News (“Too much Kool-Aid,” Aug. 16). There are so many mistruths in Ruhge’s homage to Donald Trump, one hardly knows where…
Vote Trump’s supporters out of office
Justin Ruhge’s recent letter “Too much Kool-Aid” (Aug. 16) is exhibit A in just how low the Republican Party has sunk under Donald Trump and how effectively Fox “News” has duped its adherents. President Trump is: (1) an impulsive liar (the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians was about adoption, size of his inauguration crowd,…
Enough with the egos
Canary, some thoughts on “Frenemies” (Aug. 23). So let me get this straight, a nonprofit, the Friends of the Santa Maria Library, created to support a public entity, the Santa Maria Public Library, with a limited budget wants no oversight, a free space to conduct business, and use the credentials of the public entity to…
City librarian got it wrong
I have been a volunteer in The Library Shop, which was built especially for the Friends of the Santa Maria Public Library, for 10 years. I do not support the city librarian, Mary Housel, or the city coming up with a requirement that was unnecessary until a control issue by the library arose. This librarian,…
Piling up
Have you ever ignored a problem for far too long, letting things pile up until you’re left with a festering, rotten mess? That’s why it’s handy for me to have all these newspapers around to line my cage, which I change out often. If I didn’t do that, this bird’s home might look and smell…
HOBNOB: Summer’s end soirees
You don’t have to be a sports fan to enjoy the annual Joe White Memorial Dinner and Auction. This event raises money for athletics programs at Allan Hancock College and thus has a sports theme. Quite a few of the auction items were sports related as well. About 300 trickled into the Santa Maria Elks…
Julia Vargas
Pioneer Valley High School golfer Julia Vargas is only a junior, but her years of experience on the varsity team are putting her ahead of the competition. As the lowest scoring player and captain of her team and an A-plus student, Vargas has a full plate. But head coach Marcus Guzman said her work ethic…
Political Watch 8/30/18
• After reports that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) planned to roll back Obama-era rules to regulate carbon emissions from power plants, known as the Clean Power Plan, Gov. Jerry Brown issued a statement condemning the Trump administration’s move. “This is a declaration of war against America and all of humanity–it will not stand,”…
