Cover Story
Snapshots: Central Coast photographers share life through their lenses in this year’s Winning Images contest
A picture is more than just the image it portrays. It encompasses the way the photographer who captured it sees light and dark, angles and lines, animate and inanimate. Each snapshot is as unique as the person holding the camera. Since 1994, New Times Media Group has invited local photographers to show us life…
Enough is enough
Everybody has a breaking point, when they just can’t take it anymore. But what does it take to get you to there? I know there are many who live on the Central Coast and pick up the Sun who voted for President Donald Trump, who are fond of the president and his policies. If you’ve…
The chaperone: Krider accompanies his wife on an extended field trip
What is the definition of the word “difficult”? Difficult is a 14-year-old boy trying to stand still for five minutes. Not only is it quite difficult for any boy to accomplish, it could actually be the definition of the word “impossible.” Fourteen-year-old boys move around a lot. I know; I used to be one. I…
Quinntin Perez
Just two weeks after earning an associate degree, former Allan Hancock College baseball player Quinntin Perez signed a letter of intent to continue his college career at the University of South Carolina. Perez chose South Carolina, which has one of the best Division I baseball programs in the nation, over offers from multiple other schools,…
City redesigns Safe N’ Strong program during Buena Vista closure
It’s been more than a year since Santa Maria first sanctioned off portions of Buena Vista Park for a much needed $1.3 million rebuilding project that was first proposed in October 2016. The park, which had been expected to open sometime this spring, will sit untouched by the general public until its grand reopening party,…
Spotlight on: Santa Maria city department closures
On June 14, Santa Maria public information officer Mark van de Kamp sent out an email explaining that some city departments would begin closing every Friday starting on June 29. He said the decision was made due to budget cuts. “The Friday closures are in an effort to aid staff in completing job duties during…
Wine with friends: Vino et Amicis pours hyperlocal wines in Old Orcutt
Old Town Orcutt is changing. It’s sometimes hard to pin down exactly what the boutique area is changing into, but the signs of transformation somehow always linger around every corner. Sometimes it’s a new sign on a building; sometimes it’s a revamped menu or name change. In whatever form it takes, it tells the same…
Not just a tribute: Two different tribute groups perform on the Central Coast as bands long gone, but still loved
Every generation gets to rediscover the great bands and singers that are no longer with us. Whether it’s the rock ‘n’ roll groups your parents listened to, or the iconic voices that epitomize a genre, there’s a timelessness to the music that touches everyone. That’s how Swan Montgomery felt growing up in Ireland, listening to…
Views of the valley: Nancy Davidson’s landscapes illustrate her love for Santa Ynez
To talk about art with painter Nancy Davidson is to talk about the Santa Ynez Valley and her lifelong love affair with its people and culture. “It’s just so beautiful here,” she said. “It’s a very special and magical place. There’s so much to it and its history.” Davidson is part of a new exhibit…
Solitude, Magic, and Majesty: Photographer Robbie Kaye’s new book explores the life of three trees in Santa Ynez
Even though photographer and writer Robbie Kaye has only lived in Santa Ynez for five years, she feels a lifelong connection to the landscape surrounding her. “In the time I’ve been here I have seen big oak trees downed and broken from the lack of water and blackened from fire,” she said. “I feel somewhat…
All aboard the Vet Express: Additional funding for veteran transportation and phone services passes House, moves to Senate
When Greg Shearer was finally called in to see his doctor at the San Luis Obispo Community Based Outpatient Clinic in 2006, he noticed she seemed distraught. The health care facility, which is run by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), provides varying degrees of health care services to veterans of all kinds on…
Waterwise: Twitchell Management Authority gives update on Santa Maria groundwater while wary of fluctuating future
The public has a little more than 30 days to comment on a report released by the engineering firm Luhdorff and Scalmanini detailing hydrologic conditions for the Santa Maria Valley Management Area. On June 12, at the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors hearing room in Santa Maria, Senior Hydrologist Liese Schadt told a small…
Santa Marians discuss concerns, solutions at first H-2A forum
Dozens of community members talked housing and farming needs at the city’s first of five forums regarding H-2A on June 14. The forums, which will be hosted by various city and county officials throughout the next five months, are the city’s effort to further understand the H-2A program, its importance to the region’s agricultural operations,…
ICE arrests 22 in county, 15 in Santa Maria
Officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested more than a dozen undocumented Santa Maria residents over the course of a three-day sweep beginning on Sunday, June 10. The arrests were part of a larger operation that resulted in more than 160 arrests in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties.…
Political Watch 6/21/18
• After President Donald Trump placed the fault for his administration’s policy of separating children from parents seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border on Democrats, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) introduced the Keep Families Together Act on June 8, which would prevent the Department of Homeland Security from taking children from their parents at the border…
Gloria Soto to announce candidacy for District 3 City Council
Lifelong Santa Maria resident Gloria Soto planned to announce her candidacy for the Santa Maria City Council District 3 seat at noon in the Minami Community Center on June 21. Soto, a nonprofit development manager, hopes to better represent the community’s needs and create a more responsive city government, according to a media statement released…
State water board launches web-based map for schools
California’s Water Resources Control Board recently issued a web-based map that it says can be used as a tool to show which public schools in California have had their drinking water tested for lead. “Our newly developed website allows the public to search the status of lead testing of drinking water at schools in their…
NatureTrack Film Festival now accepting submissions
The 2019 NatureTrack Film Festival in Los Olivos is now accepting long and short film submissions in both live and animated form in the categories of Adventure, Animation, Biography, Conservation, Kids Connecting With Nature, Scenic, Student, Music Video (short only), and a special category called Outdoors and Out of Bounds. Films will be judged by…
Rose Compass artists host discussion panel
The Rose Compass artists group will hold a panel discussion from 3 to 4 p.m. on July 8, which is the final day of The River’s Journey exhibition at the Wildling Museum of Art and Nature. The public is invited to hear stories from the six artists about their one year, 92-mile investigation along the…
Cat Canyon, oil or water?
My graduate studies were in water and air pollution. I’m on the advisory committee of a nearby Groundwater Sustainability Agency, but I am writing this on my own today and am not speaking for the agency. More than 100,000 people totally depend on this water. It sustains many thousands of jobs in agriculture. The entire…
Nothing to see here …
Collectively, countywide, for the fiscal year 2018 (July through June), taxpayers will spend nearly $2 billion on programs and services delivered by local governments. The largest expenditure will occur at the county of Santa Barbara, which just adopted a $1.1 billion budget. In an unprecedented move, the Board of Supervisors boiled down a $1.1 billion…
