Cover Story
Business as usual: Santa Barbara County supervisor candidates face little opposition for 2018 election
Change is coming to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. However, as the days until the June 5 primary slowly melt away, the painting emerging from below the surface is one richly layered in the region’s historical status quo. Indeed, as of March 6, neither 5th District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino nor 2nd District hopeful…
Spring Arts 2018
Make sure to check out our annual Spring Arts section, which explores a season of fun on the Central Coast!
Time warp again
The Santa Barbara County news cycle time loop I mentioned last week (“On repeat,” March 1) is still going strong: The county is hemorrhaging millions of dollars, another county jail inmate died, another Lompoc Prison inmate walked out of the facility, and lawmakers are stuck on gun control. Something that’s all too familiar to Sun…
The World of Pinot Noir featured more than 200 wineries showcasing their best
I will freely admit that I was floored when I set foot in the Ritz-Carlton Bacara’s Grand Ballroom in Santa Barbara for my very first ever World of Pinot Noir. The event is sort of legendary. Every year, hundreds of winemakers in California gather to show off their best and boldest pinot noirs. Sure, I…
‘Tony’s Zoo’ returns to Waller Park in sculpture form
Residents of Santa Maria who are old enough to remember “Tony’s Zoo” are in for a big surprise. Thanks to a collaboration between several county and nonprofit organizations, the animals are back in Waller Park, if only in sculpture form. Four large animal sculptures created by the late artist Morris Squire are on loan from…
The Elverhoj Museum of History and Art’s latest exhibit reimagines the book
Artists live to reinvent the visual world they embrace. This is a consistent theme in many contemporary exhibits. Reinventing, repurposing, reimagining, and reliving experiences, taking traditional perspective and turning it upside down, and asking the question: “What if this thing we know and trust and are comfortable with was actually an entirely different thing?” The…
Community debates school resource officers in wake of Parkland shooting
For two decades a school resource deputy roamed the halls of San Marcos High School in Santa Barbara. But just before the start of this school year, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors announced it could no longer fund the position, leaving San Marcos without the constant law enforcement presence available at every other…
Spotlight on: Kirkland’s
Another major chain store opened up shop at Santa Maria’s Enos Ranch shopping center off Betteravia Road and Highway 101. On Feb. 20, Kirkland’s held a soft opening at its newest location (645 E. Betteravia Road), where it offered door prizes and raffle drawings for new furniture. “At Kirkland’s we bring together great style and…
National gun retailers and lawmakers work to implement reformed firearm sales and safety policies
After 17 people were killed in a school shooting in Parkland, Florida, on Feb. 14, several major national gun retailers, including Dick’s Sporting Goods and Walmart, recently announced increasingly stringent firearm sales policies. Dick’s, which opened its first Santa Maria store on Feb. 23, was the first to make its changes public. In a media…
Portions of local beaches closed for snowy plover season
Vandenberg Air Force Base announced partial closures at three Lompoc-area beaches that began on March 1 and will extend until Sept. 30, the nesting season of the Western snowy plover. Closures at Surf, Wall, and Minuteman beaches are to protect nesting habitat for the plover, which is listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.…
County jail inmate found unresponsive in cell dies at hospital
An inmate at the Santa Barbara County Jail who was found unresponsive in his cell on March 1 was transported to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital before dying in the early morning hours of March 2. Henry Acuna, 60, of Santa Barbara was booked into the county jail on May 31, 2017, for attempted robbery and…
County estimates Montecito mudflows, Thomas Fire costs at more than $46 million
The current estimated costs associated with January’s Montecito mudslides and December’s Thomas Fire for Santa Barbara County is $46 million and rising, according to county staff and emergency officials. Assistant County Executive Officer Jeff Frapwell gave the Board of Supervisors the updated figures at their last meeting on Feb. 27. He said the costs given…
Bail reform key topic in NAACP-chaired community forum
A small group of lawyers and community leaders gathered on Feb. 28 in Santa Maria to discuss the criminal justice system, with particular focus on state Senate Bill 10, the California Money Bail Reform Act. If passed, the legislation would effectively ensure individuals are not kept in jail because they cannot afford bail. Proponents argue…
Nipomo High School presents two new theater productions
Nipomo High School Theatre Company is set to present two rotating repertory shows from March 8 through 24. She Kills Monsters, a comedic Dungeons and Dragons battle play, kicks off on March 8 at 7 p.m. in Olympic Hall. A reimagining of William Shakespeare’s tragedy Titus Andronicus begins March 9, also at 7 p.m. The…
Guadalupe hosts native garden beautification days
Local volunteer Judith Evans will be at the Guadalupe Native Plant Garden on the third Saturday of each month, and she’s seeking volunteers to assist with caring for the garden. Evans needs volunteers to help work with the local plants housed in the garden. The garden serves as an open space for the community of…
PCPA presents ‘The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence’
The Pacific Conservatory Theatre PCPA presents The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence showing from March 8 through 25 at the Severson Theatre. Madeleine George’s time-jumping play tells the story of four versions of characters named Watson, some based in literature and some in reality. One is the famous sidekick of Sherlock Holmes, one is…
Pioneer Valley High senior Daniel Geiger wins big at Teen Star competition in Santa Barbara
Local high school student Daniel Geiger was nervous the first time he performed at the Teen Star competition in Santa Barbara, but that was three years ago. When he took to the stage at this year’s competition, he was still nervous, yet that didn’t stop him from taking first place and top honors on Feb.…
Gun-free Australia
Ken McCalip either lied or failed to check his facts when he stated that since 1996, when Australia banned and confiscated certain types of weapons, they’ve “had ‘zero’ mass shootings” (“Australia got tough,” March 1, New Times; see commentary). Had Mr. McCalip taken the time to perform a quick Google search, “mass murders in Australia,”…
Hello, Sun
Thanks for publishing my oil letter (“Support offshore oil in California,” Feb. 15). But you insist on showing the anti-Trump jibber-jabber rantings of McCalip (“Attack on U.S. farming interests,” Feb. 15). Isn’t some balance needed in evaluating the work this great man—President Trump—is doing for us? Trump has done everything right for this country. Washington…
Now is the time to act on gun control
It’s time for all of us baby boomers as well as all Americans to take a look back to our time in high school and grammar school and visualize the classrooms in America that gave us a secure beginning and a basis for our future with loving and dedicated teachers. For the vast majority of…
Issaya Finley
Ernest Righetti High School student Issaya Finley fought his way to the top of his weight class at the 2018 California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section Masters Wrestling Championship on Feb. 23 and 24. There, the local high school senior outmaneuvered hundreds of wrestlers from more than 300 schools and took home a first place medal,…
Inmate walks out of Lompoc Prison
In the early morning hours of March 4, Lompoc Federal Correctional Institution staff discovered that an inmate had walked away from a Satellite Prison Camp in Lompoc, according to a release from the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). Mauricio Martinez, a 29-year-old Hispanic male serving time at the prison for dealing methamphetamine, was still at…
Political Watch 3/8/18
• Sen. Kamala Harris (D-California) issued a statement on March 5, the day President Donald Trump set as the deadline to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, saying that the Trump administration “callously rescinded” the program and “arbitrarily chose today as its final date.” “This administration created this crisis and sabotaged every…
