Santa Barbara Independent 12/15/22

Ellen Hoag’s

by Ryan P. Cruz

Dennis Allen, Gail Arnold, Sara Caputo, Christine S. Cowles, Roger Durling, Marsha Gray, Betsy J. Green, Amy Ramos, Jerry Roberts, Starshine Roshell Contributors Rob Brezsny, Melinda Burns, Ben Ciccati, Cheryl Crabtree, John Dickson, Camille Garcia, Keith Hamm, Rebecca Horrigan, Eric HvolbØll, Shannon Kelley, Kevin McKiernan, Zoë Schiffer, Ethan Stewart, Tom Tomorrow, Maggie Yates, John Zant

Director of Advertising Sarah Sinclair Marketing and Promotions Manager Emily Lee

Editorial Interns Ellie Bouwer, Melea Maglalang, Zoha Malik, Sasha Senal, Lola Watts

Growing up in Santa Barbara, and now renting on my own, I’ve watched the rates creep up, and I’ve personally seen how hard it is to find an affordable spot on a working wage. I’ve also experienced firsthand what it means to be taken advantage of as a tenant.

During COVID, my roommates and I were pressured into leaving an apartment using methods I later learned were illegal.

When I was in search of a new place, I felt hopeless. I didn’t qualify for most of the apartments that were available, and almost everything online would cost me more than 60 percent of my income. The only reason I was able to get in where I am now is because the landlord had previously rented to a family member. Hearing all of our readers’ stories just highlights how dire the situation is in Santa Barbara, and how rising rents may change the way our city looks and feels in the future.

Advertising Representatives Camille Cimini Fruin, Suzanne Cloutier, Remzi Gokmen, Tonea Songer

Digital Marketing Specialist Graham Brown Marketing and Promotions Administrator Anne Parayil Accounting Administrator Tobi Feldman Office Manager/Legal Advertising Tanya Spears Guiliacci Distribution Scott Kaufman

Emeritus Barney Brantingham Photography Editor Emeritus

of the WEEK

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Below-Market Housing Slated for State

Fourteen Units of Workforce Housing

Coming to Former Sur La Table

by Nick Welsh

For the last umpteen years, much of the big talk on rejuvenating downtown has focused on building housing on State Street. But given the astronomical cost of real estate, the even bigger question has been whether such housing could hope to be remotely affordable. Until Jason Yardi showed up on the scene last April and bought 821 State Street former home of Sur La Table and, before that, Betty’s Fabrics there’s been no good answer.

It simply could not be done.

But late last week, Ben Romo agent, friend, and spokesperson for the mediaaverse Yardi described exactly how Yardi got the permits needed to build 14 units of below-market workforce housing right in the heart of downtown across the Street from the El Paseo shopping complex still dripping with history and just spitting distance from the Paseo Nuevo mall.

Of those units, three will be affordable to people designated as low-income earners people making $42,000 to $56,000 a year and one deemed affordable to people defined as moderate income earners. More amazingly, Romo said, Yardi submitted permit applications this March and they were approved in only seven months, this October. More amazing still, Yardi never had to take his plans for review by the Planning Commission or the Historic Landmarks Commission.

Yardi an executive at Yardi Systems and son of the founder had initially been inclined to build a couple luxury units, Romo said, because he was apprehensive of getting sucked into the vortex of red tape for which City Hall is infamous. But highranking city officials, like administrator Rebecca Bjork and Community Development Director Eli Eliason, could not have been more supportive and helpful, Romo said.

The rental units proposed, admittedly, veer from small to tiny. The smallest are 290 square feet; the biggest is 501. Ten will be built on the second floor; four will be on the first floor, occupying half the square footage. The other half facing the front will remain commercial retail.  Mitigating the tightness of the quarters, are the high ceiling heights 13 feet on the first floor and 11 on the second.  Additional storage space is provided in the building’s basement, as well as washing machines and dryers, not to mention bicycle parking. (There’s no parking provided and no cars will be allowed.) Rents range from $901 per month on the low end to $1,750 at the top end. Given that many one-bedroom units are now priced north of $3,000, that qualifies as affordable in Santa Barbara’s excruciating

housing market. Architect Brian Cearnal, a 39-year veteran in the field who has design fingerprints over many of the most defining structures built in the past 25 years, said the target demographic are young single people who might otherwise be forced to share space with four to five others. “When you’ve reached that stage of life when you no longer want to worry about who’s taking your milk,” Cearnal said, “this might be the place for you.”

In a previous incarnation, Ben Romo had been aligned with the developers Andrew and Jeff Bermant, then on a tear to build what at the time had then just been dubbed “workforce housing.” Since then, Romo has run countless political campaigns the most recent include those of Congressmember Salud Carbajal and City Councilmember Meagan Harmon and has emerged as a ubiquitous go-between in Santa Barbara’s sprawling universe of nonprofits. But Romo still remains very much on a tear about “workforce housing.”

For Romo, there are two key take-away points he desperately wants highlighted. The first: Workforce housing on State Street is economically viable. It can be done. “We want other developers and owners to think of this as an option,” he said. “This can and will make money.” His second point, however, offers a slightly cautionary caveat; not all buildings are alike, Romo stressed. Not all are so structurally amendable to a rental conversion as the one Yardi bought.

Yardi’s building a two-story structure was originally built in in 1913 as a department store by the widow of acclaimed novelist Robert Louis Stevenson. With brick walls and concrete floors, this building for which Yardi paid $4.2 million was “built pretty stout,” in the professional estimation of Cearnal. That combination of building materials, Cearnal said, makes the building highly fireresistant. As such, it was exempt from state building code regulations requiring

sleeping quarter windows the occupant can escape out of if need be.  This seemingly technical detail proved critical. It enabled Cearnal and crew to draft plans with interior windows instead that draw upon the building’s “plethora” of skylights for natural light.  It didn’t hurt any that the building also came equipped with a functioning elevator, a large basement, and a sprinkler system already installed. Perhaps most critical from a cost-containment basis, Yardi never proposed knocking the existing building down and building something newer, bigger, and inevitably much more expensive in its place. All along, he proposed building within the building’s existing footprints and floor plans.

Because the building is located in the heart of downtown served by multiple parking structures no parking spaces were required. Because no changes were proposed to the building’s exterior, no discretionary review boards had to approve the plans. Because of recent tweaks in state housing law, Yardi was allowed to exempt himself from two city rules and regulations that would otherwise have limited his use of the space. In his case, Yardi chose to exempt

WEATHER

The music of running water returned to S.B. creeks after the rains on 12/10, with the continued overnight downpours topping seven inches at the San Marcos Pass and about an inch and a half in town by the end of the weekend. The cold night even brought a sprinkling of snow to the tops of the Santa Ynez Mountains. Lake Cachuma itself received about three inches of rain from the storm, plus runoff from the Santa Ynez River. The total increase was about 450 acre-feet of water, though the current capacity is just 31.5 percent of full. Gibraltar is similarly at 30.1 percent full, and Jameson Reservoir above Montecito is at 56.3 percent capacity.

COUNTY

Two new department heads joined the County of Santa Barbara, the County Executive Office announced 12/13, Dr. Mouhanad Hammami as Public Health director and Jose Chang as agricultural commissioner. Replacing Van Do-Reynoso, Dr. Hammami joins Public Health from Wayne County, Michigan, where he’s the chief health strategist. Chang comes from Monterey and Napa counties, where he’d been in weights and measures for 16 years. He takes the place of Cathy Fisher, retiring after 12 years as the county ag commissioner. Both new directors start their new jobs on 1/23/23.

In-home care caseworkers will be getting a raise of 50 cents on the first of the New Year, bringing their total compensation to $16.78/hour. Currently, the county has 3,670 In-Home Supportive Services caseworkers tending to the needs of 4,254 recipients. According to Amy Krueger of the county’s Department of Social Services, there’s a significant shortage of available caregivers both in Santa Barbara and throughout the state, and she and her department are actively recruiting. For those interested, call 1 (866) 313-1353.

PUBLIC SAFETY

Santa Barbara Middle School, a private school on Alameda Padre Serra, received a bomb threat over the phone at 11:10 a.m. on 12/14 and immediately evacuated. Though classes and sports were canceled for the day, and students sent home, the Police Department bomb squad gave the all-clear for faculty and staff to return by 1:30 p.m. They apparently found nothing, said Darren Brews, the school’s lead for communications, but were looking into the phone number that called in the bogus threat.

Paramedics rescued a 60-year-old cyclist who fractured his back after plummeting 70-80 feet off the Carpinteria Bluffs north of Rincon Beach on 12/11, according to Carpinteria-Summerland Fire. The man, whose identity was not released, was reportedly riding along the trail near the railroad tracks between Bates Beach and Carpinteria Pier when his bike struck a rock and sent him tumbling off the cliff to the beach below. A female pedestrian walking on the beach heard his cries for help around an hour later, and paramedics were called and transported him to Cottage Hospital.

The county Coroner’s Bureau has identified the body of a deceased diver recovered off Santa Cruz Island this November as missing Ventura man Ryder Sturt, 31. Sturt was declared missing after he failed to surface while tank diving for lobster with a partner near Painted Cave

RYAN P. CRUZ, CALLIE FAUSEY, TYLER HAYDEN, NICK WELSH, and JEAN YAMAMURA, with INDEPENDENT STAFF

TABLE FLIPPING: Of the 14 workforce housing units coming to 821 State Street, three will be affordable to people designated as low-income earners and one affordable to moderate-income earners, said agent Ben Romo (below)

COURTESY

PAUL WELLMAN

CITY

Council Appoints Police Commissioners

After adopting a new system of civilian oversight for the city’s police department in October, the Santa Barbara City Council officially selected the five members who will sit on the board a reconstituted version of the current Fire and Police Commission starting January 1, 2023.

Selected from a pool of more than 20 applicants, the new commissioners will be Linda Esparza Dozer, Lizzie Rodriguez, Ana Zepeda, Dan Herlinger, and Gary Jon Hill.

Dozer is a former FBI agent who has served as Santa Barbara City College’s Title IX Coordinator since 2019. She is one of three Latina women appointed to the board.

Rodriguez has extensive experience working with incarcerated youth and has served on several related commissions both at the city and at Santa Barbara City College, where she teaches and was selected to serve on the Diversity, Inclusion, Equity Resolution Committee. She previously served on the Fire and Police Commission and was selected as the board’s vice chair in 2020.

“This is a really great group, and I’m really proud the council appointed three Latinas,” Rodriguez said. “I look forward to getting down to it and looking at what the data tells us and figuring out what we do with that info.”

Rodriguez added that there was already a comprehensive audit being conducted in the S.B. Police Department that will serve as a baseline to find out how well the department

is currently doing with following its own policies and state law enforcement protocol, as well as exactly how many positions and which ones are vacant.

Zepeda is a newcomer to the scene but has worked extensively in community advocacy, primarily focused on youth and young adults who are currently or formerly incarcerated. She was part of the precursor to the commission the Community Formation Commission and is looking to build on her sociology education at UCSB by becoming a civil rights lawyer.

Herlinger has a background as a healthcare executive and worked as a senior associate with a management consulting firm that specializes in planning services for hospitals, medical groups, and physicians. He previously served as president and CEO of Catholic Healthcare West Central Coast and on boards of the Santa Barbara Channels, CenCal Health, and Santa Barbara’s Rental Housing Mediation Task Force.

Hill is a former attorney who specialized in arbitration and mediation with a focus on business law. He has been a member of the California State Bar since 1974.

Dozer, Rodriguez, and Zepeda received support from every member of the council and were selected to serve four-year terms until December 31, 2026. Herlinger and Hill received votes from Mayor Randy Rowse and Mike Jordan and were chosen to serve two-year terms. Ryan P. Cruz

Yardi, Romo, and Cearnal made a point to meet frequently with city officials well before ever submitting plans. It helped. “We saw them more as thought partners,” Romo said, “than permit processing agents.”

The total cost of construction, Romo said, will be $2 million. This week, Yardi has assigned the construction and management burden to the City of Santa Barbara Housing Authority. In addition, he effectively donated the entire property to a nonprofit affiliated with the Housing Authority. For the Housing Authority, Christmas came early this year.

himself from the city’s interior open space requirements. And because of state and local rules designed to encourage the production of workforce housing, Yardi wound up qualifying for five bonus-density units in addition to the nine to which he was already entitled under the building’s commercial zoning designation.

Because Yardi was willing to provide four capital-“A” affordable housing units, he was also entitled to an accelerated approval process. Just for good measure,

“We’ve always been looking for a place on State Street,” said Skip Syzmanski, Deputy Executive Director. Syzmanski noted that residents will need to work within city limits as a condition of their tenancy. “We want people who don’t have a car and can walk to where they work,” he explained. He said construction should start within a couple months and is anticipated to last five months.  For the capital-“A” affordable units, the highest rents will be $1,500 a month. For the affordable by design units, he said the max will be $1,750.

UC Strike Partially Ends

Some Contracts Ratified, Mediator Appointed for Remaining Negotiations

by Callie Fausey

On Monday, 12,000 of the 48,000 striking academic workers across University of California campuses returned to work after ratifying their new contracts, partially ending the largest higher education strike in U.S. history. But the thousands who remain on strike for better pay and benefits include those who teach undergrads and assign their grades, leaving many UC students in an uncertain spot as they head into wintervbreak.

On Friday evening following a weeklong voting process, the vast majority of postdoctoral scholars and academic researchers at UC voted to ratify their new contracts, which include salary increases that address the cost of living, eight weeks of fully paid family and parental leave, and industry-standard-setting protections against bullying and abusive conduct. The agreements also include new rights for international scholars and for postdocs and academic researchers with disabilities.

The two bargaining units initially reached tentative agreements on November 29, the 15th day of the statewide strike. Ratification of the contracts came on the 25th day of the strike, which continues for graduate student researchers and academic student employees, including teaching assistants and tutors.

“This new contract is a substantial improvement to the working conditions of postdoctoral scholars in the UC system and was won through years of effort and a historic strike by academic workers to protect our collective rights,” said Evan Plunkett, the UCSB representative on the postdoc bargaining team. “While our contracts do have language preventing us from declaring a sympathy strike as an entire union, our members are ready to continue providing the support we can to academic workers still on strike….”

United Auto Workers union bargaining teams representing the 36,000 workers still on strike recently voted in favor of moving to voluntary mediation for continuing negotiations with the UC. On Monday, the UC announced that Darrell Steinberg, the former senate pro tem and current mayor of Sacramento, will be taking on the role of

mediator, as a result of mutual agreement between the UC and the union.

Joe Costello, a striking graduate student researcher in UCSB’s Physics Department and a rank-and-file union member, said he is “hopeful that mediation can help find some middle ground on the remaining issues.”

“UC has a real opportunity to change the way graduate students live and work with us to forge a truly inclusive and fair workplace, but they do not seem willing to do so,” Costello said. “Hopefully our mediator Mayor Steinburg will help with that.”

In Monday’s announcement, UC President Michael V. Drake welcomed Steinberg’s selection as mediator, describing him as “a fair-minded public servant and skilled negotiator who brings people together” and is “uniquely positioned to help facilitate a fair and reasonable contract that allows us to support our students as they work towards their degrees.”

Steinberg is also a former member of United Auto Workers. He said it is his hope “that both parties will enter this mediation with an open mind, a spirit of goodwill, and a focus on compromise.”

“I will do everything I can to help the parties resolve this dispute fairly for each side,” Steinberg said. “In one weekend, I already see numerous paths to reach a principled compromise that respects both parties and allows work to resume with fair contracts and a stronger university.”

In the meantime, striking workers at UCSB will pause picketing but continue to withhold labor until a contract is agreed upon.

According to an email sent out to UCSB undergraduates by UCSB Student Affairs, some students may see a “no grade” on their transcripts for classes impacted by the strike, but it is a temporary placeholder. Any “no grade” markers will be replaced with a creditholding grade before winter quarter ends, the email says, if students have completed the work outlined in their course schedules. UCSB is also “working proactively” with offices across campus to meet the needs of students who have specific grading-needs, such as for financial aid, degree completion, or athletic eligibility. n

PICKET PAUSE: There’s no picket line at UCSB at the moment, but the remaining workers on strike will continue to withhold labor until a contract is

Photo by Todd Rosenberg Photography

WORLD

Mr. Carbajal Goes to Kyiv

With the Biden administration asking for $37 billion in support for Ukraine during a lame duck session, a small delegation from the House of Representatives visited Ukraine this past week, meeting with anti-corruption activists and talking with Ukrainian military leaders about tracking U.S. weapons and their use. The Ukrainian military demonstrated “transparency and accountability of all the equipment we have been providing,” said Santa Barbara’s Rep. Salud Carbajal, who was among the five members of the House Armed Services Committee who left for Kyiv last Thursday.

Very much on the QT, the group flew from D.C. to Poland and then traveled by train, with all lights extinguished, to the capital of Ukraine. There, they saw windows boarded up with plywood and sandbags in areas, and they could see air defense placements as they got into the city, said Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, who led the group.

In a brief press conference on Monday, the five congressmembers stated how impressed they were by the Ukrainian people’s resolve and resilience as winter approached and Russian missile strikes have plunged the city into darkness.

“We saw the incredible tenacity of the Ukrainians to beat their invaders back,” Carbajal said. “It is critical for Congress to hear this, and we need to continue to support Ukraine. It’s clearly making a difference, and we need to keep the momentum.”

Carbajal also said the Department of Defense had indicated the Ukraine funds

would run out by spring. “Delay would be disastrous,” he added.

An omnibus bill to keep the government in operation will come up by December 15, and Gallego said there was concern that the incoming Congress would be hostile to packages of this sort. Now was the time to secure funding for Ukraine, which he described as being in a dire situation to survive the winter.

Joe Wilson, a representative from South Carolina and the sole Republican on the trip, said the vote would be bipartisan: “The vast majority in the Republican conference support the people of Ukraine.”

In the 10 hours the group spent in Ukraine, they were able to observe some aspects of life in Kyiv. “Even as cold as it is, people were walking around, at cafés, going to bars. Even though it was dark, they were still going to live their lives,” said Gallego.

“The best we can do is give them the support they need to survive the winter, keep fighting back, and keep their freedom.”

on 11/29/2020.

COMMUNITY

In January 2023, La Cumbre Plaza will be home to a brand-new “Inclusive Arts Clubhouse” where people of all abilities can enjoy creative pursuits such as art, dance, and music, announced Grace Fisher on 12/9. A talented musician headed to the Berklee College of Music in Boston before she was paralyzed from the neck down in 2014, Fisher has since turned her efforts to the creation of the Grace Fisher Foundation, which brings the arts to kids of all abilities. The Gwendolyn Strong Foundation is collaborating with Fisher on the project, with additional partnerships to be announced.

COURTS & CRIME

Raytheon Company, the defense contractor with offices in Goleta, experienced a significant procedural defeat in court this week, as Judge Colleen Sterne rejected the company’s motions to toss out a racial harassment and retaliation complaint filed by Marcus Greene, fire marshal for the company’s environmental services department. Sterne ruled that there were many triable issues of fact and interpretation still to be sorted out, rejecting the company’s voluminous filings that there were neither. Full story at independent.com/raytheon-complaint.

Two recreational divers exploring a nearby underwater cave system on 11/5/22 discovered the remains and notified the Sheriff’s Office, who recovered the body near Seal Cove on 11/11. The diver’s body was transported to the Coroner’s Bureau, where detectives using rapid DNA positively identified the deceased diver as Sturt.

On 12/8, State Assemblymember Gregg Hart and 2nd District County Supervisor Laura Capps held a ribboncutting ceremony to celebrate the Public Works installation of Pride Block in Isla Vista, the intersection of Pardall Road and Embarcadero del Norte recently painted with four Progress Pride Flags. They were joined outside of Dublin’s Sports Grill by county staff and representatives from the Isla Vista Community Services District and Isla Vista Recreation and Park District. “This project is the first of its kind in Santa

Barbara County and brings visibility to the LGBTQ+ community in Isla Vista and in the county,” Hart said.

Jean Yamamura

COURTESY

Rep. Salud Carbajal in downtown Kyiv on December 10, where Ukrainian tanks were stationed

by Ryan P. Cruz

When 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was killed in police custody in Iran on September 16, her death lit a fire that had been building in the country for decades, sparking protests not only in Iran but across the world. Then last week, the country carried out two executions Mohsen Shekari on December 8, followed by Majidreza Rhanavard on December 12 both arrested for participating in protests and both hanged in public after being found guilty of moharebeh, or “waging war against God.”

Activist group Iranian Human Rights, which is monitoring the protests, says that as of December 7, at least 458 people have been killed in the recent protests in Iran, with at least another 18,200 detained.

Here in Santa Barbara, the Iranian Community has galvanized around the recent tragedies in Iran. Starting in late September, UCSB’s Iranian Academic Community (IAC) began holding weekly demonstrations every Wednesday. In October, those mid-week demonstrations were supplemented with weekend protests at Stearns Wharf, and the topic was the center of discussion at this year’s Women’s March on State Street.

Now, those involved are hoping this movement keeps growing until there is a regime change in Iran.

“First this was a demonstration. Now it is a revolution,” said Dr. Aazam Feiz, an Iranborn Persian Language Studies professor at UCSB, “and the goal is a regime change.”

While women’s rights have been central to the most recent wave of resistance, Feiz says that the roots of the problem with the current regime run deep and date as far back as the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

“It is not only the story of women; the people of Iran have many problems,” she said. “They have waited for 43 years.”

Part of that growing wave of youth here in Santa Barbara is fourth-year biopsychology student Aran Hosseini, a representative of UCSB’s IAC who has helped organize the weekly events on campus and lent his voice to the protests by speaking at the events and sharing updates daily via social media.

He has a personal connection to Iran’s troubled history, as his uncle was one of the thousands executed in the ’80s.

Hosseini says that this time around, he has seen a sustained effort by Iranians and allies across the world to keep these protests going strong. In 2011, protests against corruption in the 2009 election lost momentum when demonstrations were shut down and the world was distracted with other Arab Spring movements in Western and Northern Africa.

“Back then, the diaspora and people abroad had knowledge but weren’t super involved,” Hosseini said. “They would downplay the atrocities that occurred in 2011. This time, the diaspora, even people outside of the diaspora, have combined.”

Now, although Iran has experienced temporary internet blockages and it can be hard to get up-to-date news, the prevalence of social media apps like Telegram and Instagram have allowed people across the world to post news from the ground and organize together.

Following a “human chain” at Stearns Wharf on October 29, and a candlelight vigil in honor of protesters killed in Iran held in Isla Vista on November 23, UCSB’s Iranian Community held its weekly Rally for Iran with more than 200 universities across the world on November 20. Almost every Wednesday, the group can be found on campus holding signs and chanting songs.

At Stearns Wharf, the group plans to hold demonstrations every Saturday, weather permitting (last week’s was canceled due to rain). Now, Santa Barbara Women’s March and World Dance for Humanity participate in the demonstrations with dances in solidarity with protesters in Iran, who often are not allowed to express themselves in the street the same way they are allowed to here.

“The dance thing we do there is not allowed in Iran,” Hosseini said. “It’s an act of solidarity, an act of hope.”

He says that we should all be listening to Iranian voices and centering them during these times, but that people here in the U.S. can continue to “be their voice” to ensure that the world does not lose interest.

“Continue to be their voice,” Hosseini said. “One voice may seem insignificant, but when you join more voices together that puts pressure, that’s the most effective way to isolate the regime.”

For more info, or to see updates on local demonstrations, check Instagram: @iac_ucsb

Demonstrations at UCSB, Stearns Wharf Continue in Solidarity with Protesters in Iran

FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: Dr. Aazam Feiz speaks during a recent Rally for Iran hosted at UCSB’s campus.

No Sleep Near S.B. Airport

Residents to either end of the main runway at Santa Barbara Airport haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in two years. They populated a Goleta City Council workshop the evening of December 7 demanding solutions, or at least explanations, for the misery they’ve been enduring living in the City of Goleta near an airport owned and operated by the City of Santa Barbara.

The issues were manifold: the 5:15 a.m. departure time by airlines, the black soot falling on homes, the night-and-day noise of aircraft far and wide, the onetime noise abatement corridors, the complaints system, corporate jets, and a planned airport expansion. Fully 18,000 noise complaints were logged as of October from across the south coast.

The new airport manager, Chris Hastert, was at least there with his staff to listen and offer some answers. Airlines had moved to early morning departures to make connections at the hub in Denver, which had moved its times up. Clouds sometimes influenced pilots to come in lower for visibility’s sake. When UCSB built a new dormitory, the voluntary noise abatement pattern was changed to go away from the university and toward Ellwood instead a change Councilmember Stuart Kasdin opined made little sense, as many more people lived in Ellwood than on campus at a UCSB dorm.

The 800-pound gorilla in the room, though, was the Santa Barbara City Council, which appoints the Airport Commission members and runs the airport. Mayor Paula Perotte asked Hastert how Goleta’s rep could get voting status, which they currently do not have, referring to S.B.’s city charter. There, Section 812 states that public entities other than the S.B. council could appoint members who could be non-residents.

Offering her support, County Supervisor Joan Hartmann spoke, saying aircraft noise was the number-one complaint from her 3rd District constituents, who make up two-thirds of Goleta. Hartmann suggested that a Santa Barbara Channel program was a model for financial incentives and marketing advantages that could reduce problems whale strikes and also air and noise pollution in the case of the Channel program, which asks tanker ships to slow their speed.

Full story at independent.com/no-sleep Jean Yamamura

Efforts by the county supervisors to allow hikers, joggers, dogs, and cyclists to coexist with horseback riders for the first time on the Live Oak Trail located on the north side of Lake Cachuma took a major fall last week in Judge Thomas Anderle’s courtroom, when Judge Anderle ruled the county violated the state laws governing environmental review and awarded the equestrians who sued $300,000 in legal fees. The upshot is that county planners can either appeal Anderle’s ruling or submit the plans to the rigors of environmental analysis. Full story at independent.com/equestrians-win.

S.B. Police are still investigating a shooting that occurred on Stearns Wharf at 8:45 p.m. on 12/9 with few details being released. According to police reports, police and harbor patrol officers arrived on the scene as did AMR paramedics and firefighters and provided care to one shooting victim. The victim was taken via ambulance to Cottage Hospital. Police request that individuals with information on the shooting call them at (805) 882-8900.

Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’s former lawyer in lawsuits against Donald Trump, was sentenced last week to 14 years in federal prison for stealing millions of dollars from his clients and for obstructing the IRS’s efforts to collect more than $3 million in payroll taxes from an Avenatti-owned coffee business, according to the California State Attorney General’s Office. Of that stolen cash, $2.5 million paid for a portion

of Avenatti’s private jet hangared at Santa Barbara Airport. The funds came out of settlement money awarded to Alexis Gardner, one of Avenatti’s four clients named in the lawsuit. Full story at independent.com/ avenatti-sentenced.

ENVIRONMENT

For those who diligently try to save the planet by recycling their plastic PETE 1s and 2s, or squinting at the bottoms of big plastic bottles for 5s, the news this summer that the Planet Protectors program was falling victim to escalating fuel prices felt like the sad end of a good thing. It was the one place in the county that would accept thin-film plastic. But Sasha Ablitt, who started the program a dozen years ago, managed to find a truck and now has formed a nonprofit to capture the escalating costs of sending thin-film plastics to a confirmed recycler. Full story at independent.com/ the-planet-protectors.

Two marine protected areas off Santa Barbara Campus Point and the Channel Islands were among the five noted to be standouts in a new review by Environment California and Azul, research and policy groups for the marine environment. The three other notable areas were Matlahuayl State Marine Reserve off La Jolla, Point Lobos State Marine Reserve off Carmel, and Abalone Cove and Point Vicente off Rancho Palos Verdes. Full story at independent.com/ reserves-recognized. n

A United jet flying over Ward Drive on a low approach

COURTESY

That Didn’t

IS SILENCE GOLDEN? The thing of it is that it’s not a thing at all. Or seems not to be. I can’t wrap my head around it. That’s probably a good thing. But I’m not really sure.

Dredging up all this second guessing is the fact that Santa Barbara’s newest police chief, Kelly Ann Gordon, is gay She has a wife with whom she’s raised three impressive grown children At official events, she and her wife show up and smile at one another with casual warmth. They exchange those absent-minded pecks that many married couples do. Likewise, the police department’s public information officer, Sgt. Ethan Ragsdale, has a husband. So it says in the official biography put out by the police department itself. But this being Santa Barbara, none of this is mentioned, let alone remarked upon, celebrated, or even vilified. That’s probably not surprising Discretion has always been the better part of valor here

There are certain subjects one just doesn’t talk about here.

Contrary to most popular histories, the Spaniards did not “discover” Santa Barbara Wealthy refugees fleeing the violent cold of our midwestern winters did. Just so long as the hoi polloi knew not to ask too many questions or invade their privacy, these snowbird scions of unimaginable wealth were happy to donate lavishly to all the right causes.

For about 100 years, that’s been the social contract here in Santa Barbara

I bring this up because this week President

For those of us who grew up knowing not to cross one’s legs a certain way for fear of signaling to the world that one is gay, this is a very huge deal. But for everyone else, it seems, this is yet another case of the law finally catching up to the people. That the New York Times saw fit to bury the article on page A8 is telling. On the Gray Lady’s webpage, the story trailed after a news item explaining why men sprout hair in weird places as they grow older.

Translated, that’s a big “meh.”

Maybe that’s how it should be

Still, I remember all the exaggerated and cartoonish contortions a former head of Santa Barbara’s community development department felt compelled to make every time a woman with large breasts walked into the room just so people wouldn’t think he was gay. But he was and everyone knew it. Every Saturday, he and his partner could be seen walking down the aisles together at the Vons in Montecito. I will never forget the withering glare I got when broaching the issue of sexual orientation with former Mayor Harriett Miller. Miller, after all, had spent 45 years sharing a loving home with her lifelong companion, Elizabeth Harrison. Miller was one of the most competent and intimidating mayors the city has ever had. Some

gay activists at the time talked about outing Miller “for the cause.” But they quickly thought better of it. She was just too scary. To the extent Miller had anything to say, she let the pink tutu she wore at Solstice parades do her talking.

In the early ’90s, Michael Huffington, a gay man trapped in a straight marriage, ran for Senate from his Montecito home a property previously occupied by an heir of the McCormick fortune who was also a stark raving sex maniac who used the residence as both private prison and asylum against U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein. In person, Huffington was not a bad human being, but politically he was another empty-suited rich guy with nothing to say looking to buy a political office. Lots of people wanted to stop Huffington for lots of good reasons, but among the good-old-boy Republicans out to get him, there was always more than a whiff of homophobia involved. Feinstein won that one, obviously, but just barely.

Far more ominously, it’s worth remembering that the Atascadero State Hospital 111 miles up the coast functioned as a gay gulag from its founding in 1954 to the early 1970s. It’s where gay men were “cured” of their sexual psychosis by any means necessary. This included electroshock treatments, sleep deprivation, and prolonged chemical sedation. It also included something called “Errorless Extinction of Penile Responses” —EEPR for short in which a patient had electric wires attached to his penis and was then shown photos designed to sexually arouse him. Should he betray any evidence

of sexual response, he would be zapped. Worse yet were the administrations of anti-convulsive medication marketed as “Anectine.” This was a paralytic drug designed to keep patients receiving electroshock from harming themselves as they thrashed about. But it could also deaden all involuntary muscle movement, making the patient feel as if he was drowning. In essence, it was the chemical equivalent of waterboarding Gay marriage?

In just a few short years, the arch of love and of history has been irreversibly bent toward the light. It’s become so normal it’s almost boring.

Even now, it’s still hard to imagine.

Give Joe Biden credit. He got it right first by pushing President Barack Obama during a surprise interview back in 2012 to move beyond the second-class-citizen status of “civil unions.” Stealing a line from Bo Didley, Biden framed the issue simply, basically, and fundamentally. “Who do you love?” Biden asked. “Who do you love?”

Who, indeed? Even the Mormon Church gets it. The Mormons came out and endorsed this bill; by contrast, the Catholic Church could not. The four Mormons all Republicans who represent Utah in Congress all voted for it too. Mormons, it should be remembered, lead the charge back in 2008 when California voters narrowly approved Prop. 8, the statewide initiative defining marriage as an act between a man and a woman. They put up the bulk of the money and most of the volunteers.

Something has moved. Something big. So yea, I’d say it’s most definitely a thing

—Nick Welsh

angry poodle barbecue

Joe Biden signed the Marriage in Equality Act, which makes the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling recognizing the marriages of gay and lesbian couples bulletproof to possible second guessing and changes by conservative members of this or other Supreme Court majorities.

Aquaculture Debate

As an avid scuba diver, the health of the marine environment has always been important to me. Scuba diving changed my entire perspective on the ocean, showing me its beauty in ways otherwise impossible. That’s why the NOAA Aquaculture Opportunity Areas are concerning to me.

These proposed fish farms are essentially floating confined-animal-feeding operations. They advance the same industrial production methods that have degraded our waterways and soil, taken land away from small farmers, and produced unhealthy food. Because of the conditions that the fish are kept in, these floating confined-animal-feeding operations incubate and proliferate diseases that are extremely harmful to the marine environment and wild-catch fisheries.

It’s time we follow the lead of Washington State and keep harmful industrial-scale aquaculture out of our water federal and state. It is time for Californians and Americans at large to say no to industry and say yes to our oceans for those whose livelihoods currently depend on them and for those who wish to one day share them with their children.

—Bri Thompson, S.B.

Seafood, both wild and raised through aquaculture, is vital to our communities, economy, and planet. Aquaculture is an important way to produce healthy seafood, and while sustainable aquaculture practices have greatly improved over the years, much of the conversation around aquaculture has not caught up to the science.

Well-managed aquaculture, in both coastal and offshore environments, is now by far one of the most environmentally sustainable and efficient forms of food production, requiring less freshwater and producing less pollution and greenhouse gases than most other farming methods. The industry is supported and informed by the latest science, technology, and best practices.

As the U.S. aquaculture industry continues to expand, we have the opportunity to build a sector that reflects the public we serve, while improving access to cost-effective sustainable seafood, better community health, and enhanced climate resilience. An important building block in aquaculture expansion is NOAA’s science-based planning process to identify Aquaculture Opportunity Areas (AOAs).

Aquaculture Opportunity Areas are not proposed fish farms, but they instead represent small areas (500 to 2,000 acres) that may be suitable for commercial aquaculture. Aquaculture Opportunity Areas provide an opportunity for proactive stewardship and will help to encourage the sustainable growth of aquaculture by siting future projects in ways that minimize impacts to natural resources while maximizing public input in the process.

As the economic, environmental, and social dimensions of aquaculture evolve, NOAA continues to work with the aquaculture community to listen, learn, and achieve meaningful and sustainable outcomes together. —David O’Brien, Acting Director for the NOAA Fisheries Office of Aquaculture

Downtown Ills

After the Thomas Fire killed the holiday shopping season for State Street in December 2017, it looked like a lot of local shops would fold. I organized some “cash mobs” to bring them a bit of hope.

During one of the cash-mob gatherings, I asked the assembled locals if any of them would do the “No-Amazon” pledge for a month. None of them would. Okay. How about for two weeks? Again, none. One week? Nada. Not a single one would give up online shopping. And that was before the pandemic hit.

Our city had done everything it could to keep downtown retail alive. And then, we and cities across the U.S. got Amazoned. Retail, as this once was, is officially dead. So, please, city planners, do not fantasize that killing in-street dining will somehow stimulate in-store shopping.

Even though the current State Street peoplescape is intensely ad hoc and needs some real work, the daily spectacle of hundreds of people enjoying the street is a remarkable achievement. More people are having more fun every day on State Street than ever before. With actual planning and redesign, we can maintain this conviviality and build back beauty. Retail on State Street will never be what it was. We need to move on. —Bruce Caron, S.B.

The Independent welcomes letters of less than 250 words that include a daytime phone number for verification. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Send to: Letters, S.B. Independent, 1715 State St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101; or fax: 965-5518; or email: letters@independent.com. Unabridged versions and more letters appear at independent.com/opinions

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obituaries

Catherine

G. Cavaletto

2/12/1938 - 11/29/2022

was incredibly important to her, living and passed. She acted as the family historian, which was no small feat. Her large family represents two branches of longtime residents of Santa Barbara County – the Giorgi family in Santa Ynez and the Cavaletto family in Goleta. She had an incredible memory for names and dates, and could tell you the lineage of both sides of the family from Italy to California.

ber 14 at 10am. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in her name to the Parkinson Association Santa Barbara (mypasb.org) or Goleta Valley Historical Society (goletahistory.org).

and he played golf.

Jerry is preceded in death by his father, Dean Gorton (1999), his sister, Val Gorton (2011) and his stepfather, Jim Radcliffe (2021). He is survived by his loving wife, soulmate, and partner in crime, Barbara Gorton; mother, Helen Radcliffe; daughter, Marti Gorton; brothers, Tom Gorton (Catherine) and Mike Gorton (Mary), as well as scores of nieces, nephews, and cousins.

greenhouse.

Betsee kept close ties with her widely dispersed family – as far as the East Coast – and made yearly trips up and down the West Coast on visits from California, to family in Oregon and Washington, stopping along the way in order to take photos in preparation for her landscape paintings.

Catherine Cavaletto was born at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital in 1938, the 2nd child of Joseph and Selina Cavaletto (née Giorgi) after her brother Michael. She was the first granddaughter to her Cavaletto grandparents after 10 male cousins, completing the football team. She may have been a little spoiled as a result, at least until her sister Cecilia came along 2 years later.

She grew up in Goleta surrounded by her family and many cousins. Active in 4H, she received honors including Santa Barbara County All-Star. She attended Goleta Union School, Santa Barbara Junior High, and graduated from Santa Barbara High School in 1955. She received a B.S. in Home Economics from the University of California, Davis in 1959.

In 1962 she took a job as a research assistant in the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The position, meant to last a few years, turned into a 41-year career at the university. She received her M.S. in Food Science in 1968, and worked as a Food Technologist, Horticulturalist, Associate Professor, Associate Dean and Department Chair throughout her career. Always curious, she continuously educated herself and innovated in the field, publishing her research on papaya, guava, macadamia nuts, and coffee in numerous scientific journals. A lover of travel and culture, she seized opportunities to do sabbaticals in Australia in conjunction with the Department of Primary Industries in Queensland and the University of Davis; in Costa Rica through the Food and Agriculture Association of the United Nations; and in Switzerland at the Nestlé Research Center. She made lifelong friends all over the world as a result.

Although she lived far away, the family could count on her to be there for holidays and important events, always bearing leis and chocolate covered macadamia nuts from Hawaii. Her family

She retired to Goleta in 2003, where she enjoyed spending time with cousins and family again. She moved back into the historic family home at Rancho San Jose, which houses the San Jose Winery, the oldest structure in Goleta. Remaining active in her retirement, she volunteered as a Historian at the Goleta Valley Historical Society, oversaw a renovation of the family home, and enjoyed having space to garden.

Catherine loved to cook, taking as much pride in the presentation as she did in the flavor. Her fruit tarts were legendary. She looked forward to gathering family, especially the younger generations, to make family recipes like ravioli, Swiss pancakes, and bagna cauda. Every summer since her retirement, she hosted the Cavaletto Family BBQ at the ranch. She loved to travel, and visited family in Italy many times over the years.

Catherine’s quiet voice and deliberate manner of speaking made her quick wit and dry sense of humor all the funnier. She was generous, caring and thoughtful to those close to her, and deeply engaged in and informed about the world around her. She approached everything in her life with great care and consideration. A role model to many, she leaves behind an enduring example of a life lived independently with grace and dignity.

The last few months of her life were spent with her sister CC in Aliso Viejo, CA. Never one to skip a meal, she ate breakfast before passing away peacefully in her sleep.

Catherine is a beloved sister, aunt, great aunt, and friend. She is survived by her brother Michael and his wife Mary Lou Cavaletto, her sister Cecilia Villines, her nieces Lisa Thygeson, Laurie Moore, Jennifer VillinesMcCue, and Carrie Villines, and their families. She will be greatly missed by friends, family, and colleagues.

A funeral service will be held at Saint Raphael Church in Santa Barbara on Wednesday, Decem-

Jerry Gorton 9/8/1950 - 8/22/2022

Jerry’s most precious gift was his ability to connect with those in his life in a way that left us all knowing how fully he truly saw, loved, accepted, and appreciated who we were. Huge holes the sands of time slowly, mercifully, fill.

Betsee S. Talavera 6/19/1950 - 10/23/2022

Betsee’s innate kindness, generosity, humor, and intelligence were well known and she was much admired and respected by all who found themselves within her sphere of acquaintance and friendship – we will miss her greatly.

Betsee is survived by her son Adolfo Talavera, daughter-in-law Nuron Talavera, and granddaughter Arwen Talavera, of Washington state. Siblings Teri Heustis, and Bill Seegert of Santa Barbara, Chris Seegert of Oroville, and Junee Seegert of Oregon.

Jerry Gorton (September 8, 1950 to August 22, 2022) passed quickly, unexpectedly, and peacefully on August 22, 2022. He shared his atomic wit, humor, and incredible insights on life with those he loved to the very end.

He lived his life as a true Santa Barbara, CA Native. His family moved to Santa Barbara, in 1961. He graduated from La Cumbre Jr. High School and San Marcos High School where he played on the golf team, as did both of his brothers. Growing up in Hidden Valley, all three brothers would hike across the creek to La Cumbre Golf Course where they all worked for years for Sam Randolph and played golf incessantly.

Jerry also loved the ocean and surfing. He would hang out and surf at Hendry’s (The Pit!), and he loved Jalama. No family picture of Jerry exists of him in water without a smile on his face.

After high school, Jerry served his country in Vietnam and, like so many others, faced tough challenges upon his return.

For years he ran the family plumbing supply shop on East Haley Street. It was a busy, fun, and vibrant intersection of so many local lives.

After some years in Phoenix, AZ he and his wife Barbara returned to Solvang, CA to help care for his mother, Helen and her husband, Jim Radcliffe. He and Barbara made many close friends at Rancho Santa Ynez where they lived, and at the Alisal River Course where they both worked,

These brief words are written in honor of Betsee Seegert Talavera, who passed away in late October after a brief illness. Born and raised in Santa Barbara, California, and one of five children of Frederick and Rosemary Seegert.

Betsee was a well learned alumna and graduate of UCSB, earning a teaching degree in bilingual education. Betsee taught throughout Southern California, before settling down in Lompoc with her son Adolfo S.Talavera.

Known to her Hapgood Elementary school students as “Mrs. T”, Betsee quickly made many friends at Hapgood, faculty and students alike. After a long and productive teaching career, Betsee developed her artistic gifts and gathered additional friends throughout the Lompoc Valley art community.

A polymath, Betsee enjoyed researching her family history and genealogy, especially her Irish roots. As a lover of science and nature, she read widely and painted prolifically the hills and coastlines of central California and Oregon.

Never one to be idle, she loved knitting and very much enjoyed making garments for her family and friends. Betsee loved botany and tending to her extensive backyard flower garden. She was cultivating an interest in growing exotic flowers from seed in her

Eileen Z. Hough (nee Whitman) age 74, beloved daughter of Louis and Jacey Whitman (both deceased), dear sister to Harry, Francine, and Linda (Richard Tuckerman deceased), and friend to many, passed away April 25, 2022, in Santa Barbara. A graduate of Beachwood High School (Cleveland) and Sonoma State University, Eileen was the first licensed therapeutic masseuse in Santa Barbara County and provided the language for that certification. Eileen was a free spirit who danced to her own tune. She loved all animals and was a frequent visitor to her neighborhood dog park. She was especially fond of dolphins and whales and often went out on the Double Dolphin to see them. As per her wishes, her ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Santa Barbara where she will be swimming with the dolphins for eternity. A memorial service and celebration of her life was held in August with her family in Cleveland. Memorial contributions may be made to The Michael J. Fox Foundation, or the Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network

Arthur Conrad Lucero 10/26/1938 - 10/17/2022

Cynthia (Fred) Bittle, Michelle (Robert) Huff, and his son Jimmy (Mary Cashman) Lucero, and his sister Carmen Holloway. He was adored by his 9 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins, and extended family.

He always referred to his growing beautiful family as “a work of Art”. He will be dearly missed.

Santa Barbara, California.

Arthur Lucero, a Santa Barbara native who worked for 45 years for the Santa Barbara City School System, passed peacefully in the presence of his loving family on October 17, 2022. He was 83 years old. The cause of death was complications from a fall.

Mr. Lucero was a larger-thanlife personality whose wit and humor delighted everyone he encountered. He was a father figure to many and well-loved in the Santa Barbara community.

Besides working full-time, Art also worked weekends to save up for summer vacations with his family. His children fondly remember the annual camping trips and fun-filled adventures at the various amusement and National Parks.

Having played football in high school and competed in city league fastpitch softball, Art continued his love of sports by cheering for the Dodgers, Rams, and Lakers.

In 1956, he married Georgetta Nava who he met in his 8th grade math class taught by Mr. Pezzati at Santa Barbara Junior High. Mr. Pezzati would later teach all four of his children and proudly claimed the title of “match maker” for the Lucero family.

Mr. Lucero was a born leader and served as President of the California Schools Employee Association (CSEA) for many years. He received the Shining Star Award for his over 30 years of service to the Santa Barbara Boys and Girls club. He could always be found working and joking with his friends at the club’s booth during Fiesta. They raised thousands of dollars to support after school sports for Santa Barbara’s youth.

Arthur Conrad Lucero was born in Santa Barbara California on October 26th, 1938. His father Arthur Lucero Sr. was a chef and restaurant owner. His mother Barbara Cordero was a caterer and SBHS cafeteria worker.

In addition to Georgetta, his wife of 65 years, Art is survived by his daughters Lorraine Lucero,

A celebration of Arthur Lucero’s life will be held in late December, the actual date has not yet been determined.

Margaret had an unbroken record of service in education. She began her career teaching elementary school for the Carpinteria Unified School District and later moved to curriculum and program development for grades K-9. She served on the Board of Trustees of Crane School and Laguna Blanca School. In addition, she served as a counselor for St. Vincent’s School and a therapist for both Cottage Care Center and Project Recovery, which are rehabilitation programs focused on treatment for alcoholism and drug abuse.

Margaret served on the Board of Directors for Cottage Health System, the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, the Carpinteria-Summerland Fire District, the Serena Cove Owner’s Association, the Padaro Lane Association, It’s for the Kids Foundation, the Dream Foundation, and the Rehabilitation Institute of Santa Barbara.

When she wasn’t at a board meeting you could often find her walking with her dogs, friends, and family at the beach.

She is survived by her three children: Anne Marie Baker (Siegel) of Napa, married to Rudy Siegel; Brian Bradford Baker of Los Angeles, married to Greg Oehler; and Elizabeth Serena Baker of Ojai, married to Nathan Rellergert; and four grandchildren: Bradford Louis Siegel, Sydney Serena Siegel, Jameson Louis Rellergert, and Declan Theodore Rellergert. She has a brother, Willis (Bill) Daniel Baker, and sisters Barbara Joan Baker and Mary Ann Phillips (deceased). She was predeceased by her husband, Bradford Louis Baker, in 1990.

In lieu of flowers, please donate to foundations that meant so much to her: The ALS Association, the Cottage Health System, and the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden. A celebration of life will be held in the Spring of 2023.

(Debra) of Goleta, and Chad Williford (Alicia) also of Goleta. Leora is will be missed by 10 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren that love her deeply.

In lieu of flowers, please consider making a contribution to the California Retina Research Foundation: www.californiaretinaresearch.org/donate 525 East Micheltorena Suite A Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Harry Moffat

5/30/1962 - 10/21/2022

Margaret Ann Baker passed away peacefully on November 2, 2022 from complications associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). She was born on December 7, 1947 in Long Beach, CA to parents Willis Daniel Baker and Mary (O’Rourke) Baker.

Margaret graduated summa cum laude from Western High School Anaheim, CA in 1965 and received a bachelor of arts degree in history from California Western University in Point Loma in 1969, where she met her future husband, Bradford Baker.

Margaret and Brad moved to Carpinteria after college, when Brad began working for the business started by his father, Aluminum Filter Company (ALFCO). They lived near the factory on Cedar Lane until they built their dream house off Padaro Lane, where they could be next to the ocean, which was a central part of their lives.

Margaret obtained her teaching credentials and an MA in special education from UC Santa Barbara, as well as a master’s degree in clinical psychology from Antioch University in Santa Barbara. She was a certified mediator serving the Superior Court of

Margaret always gave top priority to her children, grandchildren, and her friends. She was known for being able to strike up a conversation with anyone about anything. Margaret was unwaveringly generous with her time and energy in support of causes that benefited the community and those who were in need or were underrepresented. She worked tirelessly to support the things that gave her fire in her life: Cottage Hospital, the Carpinteria-Summerland Fire Department, the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, Laguna Blanca School, Crane School, and many others. Working to solve problems and make improvements in important systems gave her purpose and energy. She cared deeply about the community and everyone in it.

Margaret always said exactly what she thought—her lack of a filter made her many great friends and some enemies, which didn’t bother her at all. Most important, she treated everyone equally— your social status or title meant nothing to her. She was going to learn all about your life, your hobbies, and your interests, and she always genuinely cared.

She had a diverse group of friends because she always wanted to be challenged, learn peoples’ perspectives and backgrounds, and she truly cared about making peoples’ lives better—or at least more fun. Among her many loves were her dogs and cats, fast cars, the beach, baking pies, cooking, entertaining, traveling, eating at great restaurants, bringing people together, being generous, and sparking engaging conversations.

Charlotte “Leora” Colclasure Williford 10/18/1931 - 11/29/2022

Harry Moffat was a Goleta native who grew up in Isla Vista and later in Rancho Embacadero in Goleta. He learned to surf at an early age at Haskell’s Beach after school and on the weekends.

One of his lifelong joys was ceramics. For the last thirty years Harry has been throwing ceramic bowls down at the Schott Center. He was affectionally known as Harry Potter and loved to give his bowls away to his friends.

A big thanks to Hospice and Serenity house who made his final journey as comfortable as possible.

Charlotte “Leora” Colclasure Williford passed peacefully at home in Goleta on November 29, 2022 weeks after celebrating her 91st birthday. Born October 18, 1931 in San Pedro, she was the third daughter born to Jeanne and Arlie Colclasure. Leora attended Downey High School (class of 1949) where that she met the love of her life, David Williford. They married in 1950 when they were just 19.

David and Leora were committed to our community: As early members of Goleta Presbyterian Church they served as leaders of the high school youth group. They were an active part of the campaign to save Dos Pueblos High School, Goleta’s development and eventual city-hood, and founding members of Goleta National Bank. Leora was a member of the Ladies Auxiliary to the Goleta Boys Club in the 1950’s that helped establish our existing Boys and Girls Club in Goleta.

Leora was preceded in death by her beloved husband, David. She is survived by their four children: Charlene Doty (Kenneth) of Goleta, Terri Reichel (Alan) of Henderson, NV, Arlie Williford

A Celebration of Life will be held at Goleta Beach on 1/7/2023 from 1-3pm. Some of Harry’s ceramics will be there for you to take home.

Michael Castillo

1958 - 2017

BROTHER

Today is full of memories

Of a Brother laid to rest And every single one of them Is filled with happiness

For you were someone special Always such a joy to know And there was so much pain When it was time to let you go That’s why this special message Is sent to heaven above

For the angles to take care of you

We all miss you so much

Margaret Ann Baker 12/7/1947 - 11/2/2022

obituaries

Wanda Evelyn Michalik

Brinkerhoff neighbors championed to have Brinkerhoff Avenue changed from a two-way street to a one-way street—no easy task in the City of Santa Barbara. Wanda carried the torch to the end and the avenue is now a one-way street. Wanda was a regular attendee of civic meeting and hearings, where she would sometimes just sit quietly observing the proceedings while knitting something special; she never hesitated to set down her needles to get up and speak. She was also a recipient of many awards recognizing her historic-preservation efforts.

ics that sent her into diatribes of complaint: computers, answering machines, and cell phones. She was a determined graffiti-removal volunteer for the Brinkerhoff Avenue area until her last days in the neighborhood.

Wanda was a loyal friend and supportive family member, remembering birthdays and searching—sometimes for years—for the perfect gift. She was a good listener and was equally good at dispensing a quirky mix of advice.

his social and political world view. He became a passionate advocate for people and causes, writing hundreds of letters to newspapers, government agencies, and people of influence in support of a better, fairer society.

Wanda Evelyn Michalik Livernois passed away November 15, 2022, from the effects of an agerelated illness. She spent the last year of her life in Salem, Oregon, near family.

Wanda was born in her grandmother’s home in Detroit, Michigan, November 9, 1938, the last of four children of Joseph and Hedwig Michalik, both Polish immigrants. Typical of many Depression-era families, the house sheltered a different branch of the family on each floor. With the house becoming crowded after her birth, her family moved to a new home in nearby Dearborn, where Wanda attended parochial grammar school. Freshman year of high school was spent at St. Joseph’s Academy, a girls’ boarding school in Adrian, Michigan. When the school year concluded, she informed her parents that “wild horses could not drag me back there,” so the rest of her high-school education took place at Dearborn’s Fordson High School, and she graduated in 1956. She was the first in the family to receive a college degree, earning a BS in Elementary Education from Eastern Michigan University in 1961.

She began her teaching career in the Riverview, Michigan, school district, but she and her good friend Kay Preston decided to relocate to southern California in the early ‘60s. Wanda continued her teaching career in the Los Angeles area and later in Carpinteria, California.

Wanda met Robert Livernois in Los Angeles, and they married in late 1964. Robert was also a Detroit native, who had relocated to California in the 1950s. The Livernois family has long roots in the Detroit area, having immigrated there from France in 1702. In fact, Wanda was born four blocks from Livernois Avenue. Robert and Wanda’s love created a strong union that lasted until his death in 2012.

Wanda and Robert moved to Santa Barbara, in June of 1965. They bought the Victorian cottage at 533 Brinkerhoff and began their successful partnership, which included over the years creating the Brinkerhoff Country Store antiques shop (later Robert Livernois Art & Antiques), acquiring and improving additional property and structures on Brinkerhoff and de la Vina streets, and supporting historic-preservation projects throughout Santa Barbara. Their tenacious efforts for historic preservation were rewarded by having the Brinkerhoff area designated the first Historic District in the City of Santa Barbara; Wanda was especially proud. Also, she, Robert, and

In 1980, Wanda changed careers. “After some soul-searching, real estate sales beckoned me in 1980,” she said, adding that “[m]ore than anything else, real estate is working with people.” She worked as a real estate agent into the late 2010s and enjoyed great success and satisfaction in that field.

Wanda was an individualist, often ignoring traditional expectations. In her college dormitory, she was denied breakfast one morning for having two clips in her hair, and her response was to draft a petition on the spot to change the rule. She spent the summer of 1959 touring Europe by bicycle, a venture, she admitted, that was ahead of its time. True to form, she confounded her Detroit auto-worker family by making her first vehicle purchase a VW Beetle. Especially surprising to the Michigan clan was her move to California, followed by marrying a man 10 years her senior. Her unique perspective and independent nature made her an inspiring role model to her nieces and nephews and a lively companion to her friends.

Wanda had a passion for many pastimes. A series of poodles kept Wanda and Robert company over the years: Snoopy, Margeaux, Gordon, Toby ( #1 and #2). She was an expert knitter and quilter and was especially adept at traditional hand-piecing, applique, and handquilting. She was a long-time member of the Coastal Quilters Guild of Santa Barbara and Goleta. She was a skilled gardener, she filled her yard with ferns, orchids, succulents, and most everything that flourishes in this climate. The natural world was especially appealing to her: she appreciated the waterfalls near her nephew Robert Mitchell’s home in Oregon, a patch of pink lady’s slipper wildflowers her niece Christine Brady found in Walled Lake, Michigan, and—of course–Santa Barbara’s beautiful land- and seascapes. For several years she was a dedicated docent at Lotusland in Montecito, California, and a board member at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Wanda was also known as a terrific cook, and many friends treasure recipes that she generously shared with them. In keeping with her “Buy Local” philosophy, she patronized the various Santa Barbara and Montecito farmer’s markets to gather the freshest ingredients to perfect her recipes and was well-known to the purveyors. Wanda was most comfortable entertaining at home in the Brinkerhoff “compound” she and Robert worked so hard to create, but she also enjoyed the bakeries and cafes in Santa Barbara, sharing a treat and a cappuccino with friends.

Many will remember the top-

Wanda Livernois was a Santa Barbara icon. Even if you didn’t know her personally, there’s a good chance you benefited from her intelligence, her wit, her kind heart, her tenacity, her generosity, or her civil activism.

Wanda was preceded in death by her husband, Robert Livernois; her parents, Joseph and Hedwig Kancyan; her siblings, Joseph Mitchell, Frances Michalik Niedzwiecki, and Thaddeus Michalik. She is survived by her nieces and nephews: Christine Niedzwiecki Brady, Diane Mitchell, Robert (Cheryl) Mitchell, James (Julie) Mitchell; her sister-inlaw Carmen Mitchell; and several distant cousins.

Cremation was conducted by Weddle Funeral Service in Stayton, Oregon. A memorial service and dispersal of ashes will take place at a later date in Santa Barbara; details to be announced. (Contact cbrady@ fiberpipe.net for memorial information.) Gifts made in Wanda’s honor may be directed to Lotusland, the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, or the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

Adopted by a family who survived on a bookkeeper’s modest salary, he later recalled (with much chagrin and regret!) trying to aid his parents with their financial difficulties by suggesting they sell his adopted brother Ken. The family scrimped and sacrificed to send Allan to a private school, where he excelled, eventually winning a scholarship to Melbourne University. He became the first person in his family to receive a college degree.

In 1965, Allan and his first wife Mira, along with their two-monthold son Albert, crossed the Pacific in steerage class on their way to Michigan State University, where Allan earned his doctorate in Statistics.

He did post-doctoral work at Stanford and was hired in 1970 to teach statistics to graduates and undergraduates in what was then the Biology Department at UC Santa Barbara. Allan was in some ways a fish out of water. He had not studied biology, and his students had not studied statistics, but they needed his expertise to design their experiments and analyze their data. During a much-deserved sabbatical to UC Berkeley, he met Linda, his wife of nearly 44 years.

Allan’s major contribution in applied statistics was detecting the effects of a single-point source of environmental damage, in this case the effects on marine ecological communities from effluent from a Southern California nuclear power plant. His widely cited and enormously influential paper on the subject became a standard in the field and is now conventional wisdom, with widespread application among field scientists.

like Watership Down, Lord of the Rings and Beowulf were big hits in the family, but he could make any work come alive. His grandson Alex remembers Papa Allan reading Microbe Hunters about bacteriologists to him when he was eight years old.

Allan was adored by his family. Yes, he could be crusty, opinionated, even argumentative, but invariably it was in the cause of getting things right. He was available to listen and discuss any topic from personal problems to world affairs and history. When his college-age grandson consulted him about the Classics, Allan, always ready with an opinion, gave his. Plato, he deemed “overrated.” Socrates, “a bit sarcastic.” Euclid, he declared, was “able to articulate what he thought and why he thought it. One of the finest things money can’t buy.”

He was kind, honest, smart, patient with children and insatiably curious (visiting a museum with him took forever). He was genuinely interested in other people and happily spent hours talking to friends his kids brought home about their lives. He was dedicated to inquiry of all kinds and served on several Grand Juries during his retirement.

For nearly 50 years, Allan began every morning with 45 minutes of calisthenics, followed by riding his cheap ten-speed bike from Hope Ranch Annex to UCSB. In his 60s and 70s, he proudly shared triumphant reports of outrunning mopeds along the Obern trial.

When Allan married Linda Stewart and was told she didn’t want to lose her last name, he adopted the hyphenated last name StewartOaten. He was a feminist and lifelong progressive. As early as 1976 he wrote a letter to university higherups advocating for the appointment of a female Chancellor over the entire UC system.

Allan Stewart-Oaten 5/5/1939 - 10/15/2022

A quintessential “absent minded professor,” Allan often showed up in rumpled clothing, with one shirttail hanging out (for easy access to polish his glasses). He was always welcoming and helpful, and his “office hours” were any time the door was open. He charmed students and peers with his genuineness, honesty and humor. One grad student fondly recalled him “eating half a head of raw cabbage during meetings” and “hunting for glasses that were on top of his head.” She also credited him for his “deeply thoughtful” counseling and helping her obtain “a fabulous fellowship.”

He served as Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education in the College of Letters and Science and spent two enjoyable years in Australia as Director of the U.C. Study Center.

When the Women’s March came to Santa Barbara, Allan marched. When people gathered for Black Lives Matter and knelt in support of George Floyd, 81-year-old Allan knelt (even though he had to be helped up.) Allan was a good man who wanted to leave the world better than he found it, and he did.

He is survived by his wife Linda, sons Albert, Nicholas, Josh and stepson Klee. Also by his beloved grandchildren Vanessa, Alex, Adrian, Jack, Leo and by two great grandchildren, Charlee and Avery. Also by his dear brother Ken Oaten and many friends and cousins in Australia. A gathering of family and friends to celebrate Allan’s life is planned for January 7. 2023.

Allan treasured his years at UCSB, instructing his students to take full advantage of their time there and urging them to choose a major not because of what it might pay, but because “it is so interesting it makes you want to live forever.”

He came from a humble background, and his early experience growing up in Australia shaped

After retirement Allan pursued acting and appeared in several plays at the Garvin Theater and elsewhere. Despite his many years living in the US, he never lost his Aussie accent and as a result he was frustrated to be frequently type cast as a British butler.

His accent, along with his enthusiasm for drama, came in handy when he read aloud, every night, to his children and later his grandchildren, using different voices for all the characters. Longer works

Donations in Allan’s memory can be made to: The Southern Poverty Law Center, Planned Parenthood, Doctors Without Borders, or Union of Concerned Scientists.

On December 15th, the UCSB campus flag was lowered to honor Professor Allan Stewart-Oaten. Chancellor Henry Yang described Allan as “an admired colleague and deeply dedicated teacher who touched the lives of generations of students.”

obituaries

11/7/1927 - 11/28/2022

taking holiday trips to every amusement park in Southern California.

Recharge

On Monday morning, November 28, 2022, Reyes Lopez, a native of Santa Barbara passed away due to a sudden illness. He was born on November 7, 1927 and had just celebrated his 95th birthday. He was born into a large family of 13, he was ninth in line of his siblings.

He attended Lincoln School + 1 year at Santa Barbara Jr. High yet never graduated as he helped to support his family. He worked odd jobs as a farm hand with A.C. Bryse, plowing, cultivating + harvesting crops, caring for livestock and poultry. What he never forgot were the days as a young boy selling newspapers on State St. What humbling times they were for him.

On February 22, 1946 he entered the Army, was assigned to basic training, gun crewman, squad leader and lastly as a mail clerk selling stamps, money orders, and postal supplies. Everyone in his troop depended on him to distribute mail from their loved ones back home. He served in this capacity for 3 months and was then stationed in Yokohama, Japan. On May 9, 1947 he was honorably discharged, returned home to Santa Barbara where he found work with Johnson Lemon Packing.

During this time he met the new girl in town (thru his family friend Socorro) from El Paso, TX. Her named was Bertha Olivas and pursued her for about 6 years until his marriage proposal, they were wed at St. Malachy’s Church on 82nd St. in Los Angeles, CA on a cold rainy day on January 15, 1955. They were married for 67 beautiful years, raised 2 daughters, Hilda and Patricia (Hector Balboa). He provided his daughters with the best Catholic school education. What enjoyment he felt

Yet nothing gave him the most pleasure than singing trio bolero music until his passing. He shared his love of music with everyone in his path. He not only sang his favorite trio music with local guitarists and compadres, Larry “Chalo” Hernandez and Tomas Myers but also sang with mariachis, Lalo Moreno (whom he’s known since 15 years old) and some big bands of the 1950’s. He became a fixture in Santa Barbara for his singing and in high demand at weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, reunions, etc.

He was a proud City of Santa Barbara Parks Department employee for 33 years from 1951 til his retirement in 1984. He managed the Santa Barbara Rose Garden (in front of the old mission) where he taught himself everything about roses. He became highly respected for his knowledge of rose care to receive no. 2 state recognition and was also a Santa Barbara Rose Society member as well as presenter at meetings showcasing his knowledge of how to prune, graft and maintain roses.

He is survived by wife, Bertha Lopez, daughters Hilda and Patricia (Hector Balboa), grandchildren Billy Fletcher Jr and Ariana McLaughlin, many nieces and nephews and brother, Leo London. He is preceded in death by his father Frederico, mother Geronima, sisters Isabel, Monica, Susana, Herlinda, Aurora “Goya”, Dolores and Carmen, brothers Celso, Frederico “Tito”, Ysidro, and John.

Funeral service will be Friday, December 16, 11 am at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, 227 N. Nopal St, Santa Barbara CA and Calvary Cemetary 199 N. Hope Ave, Santa Barbara, CA immediately following. Reception details to be announced after burial.

Rechargeable — Includes NickelCadmium (NiCd),Lithium-Ion (Li-ion), & Lead-Acid

Battery Embedded Electronics

Like toys, phones, smartwatches, and e-cigarettes

• Batteries that are placed permanently into an electronic device, typically rechargeable, but are sometimes single-use

• Batteries that are embedded in a device and can’t be removed should be disposed of as e-waste EXCEPT

for e-cigarettes

E-cigarettes or other types of smoking devices are HAZARDOUS and can spark fires. NEVER place these in the trash or recycling bin. These must be disposed of at a hazardous waste facility. Visit www.LessIsMore.org/ hazardouswaste for recycling options near you.

Recycle your old batteries at home! TAPE the ends of the rechargeable batteries, BAG in a clear plastic bag, and PLACE ON TOP of your recycling bin on collection days.

MarBorg ABOP Centers

• 20 David Love Place, Goleta, (805) 964-1498

• 132 Nopalitos Way, Santa Barbara, (805) 963-1852

Community Hazardous Waste Collection Center

• UCSB Campus at Mesa Rd., Bldg. 565, (805) 882-3602

Santa Ynez Valley Recycling and Transfer Station

• 4004 Foxen Canyon Rd., Los Olivos, (805) 686-5080

Waste Management Recycling Centers

• 1850 West Betteravia Rd., Santa Maria, (805) 922-9092

• 97 Commerce Dr., Buellton, (805) 688-7456

Help us STOP THE SPARK and recycle your batteries properly! 65% of fires at solid waste facilities are caused by batteries.

• Up to 92% of Li-ion batteries are thrown away where they risk being mishandled. Never place them in the trash.

• Mishandling of batteries causes them to spark. Fires can damage equipment, result in severe injuries, or can cause a wildfire

• 100% of materials in batteries can be reclaimed for making new batteries or base material for roads and bridges.

Reyes Lopez

BY KRISTIN FLICKINGER

Twenty years ago, I was a field organizer in the Oregon marriage campaigns. I remember a team of volunteers coming back from knocking on doors, wide-eyed and breathing hard as they told the story of being chased from a voter’s property with a shotgun after disclosing that they were there to talk about same-sex marriage. As a young lawyer, I had studied contracts and constitutions, but as an organizer, I had a front-row seat to the deep emotional connection that people had to the idea of marriage.

Marriage is not just one thing. It’s a contract. A complicated agreement between not only the partners, but the state as well. An agreement that allows and guarantees rights to flow from the state to the couple and its members. That’s why we’re talking about legal recognition in the first place. It’s also a meaningful, public demonstration of the love between two people. For many, it represents the validation of a couple’s union, and an ideal to which many aspire. Both of these things are important, and the combination makes marriage a talisman something both proponents and opponents of same-sex marriage hold close to as a proxy for acceptance and protection, if not equality.

I remember the day after we lost marriage in Oregon. I remember driving up the I-5 corridor on a crystal-clear day, looking at incredibly beautiful mountains, and having a moment where I realized that the people around me the majority of the people in the state didn’t think that I could or should experience joy or happiness because of who I loved.

The complexities of constitutional law and the intricacies of third-party contracts are one thing, but the impact of understanding truly understanding that you are protected and valued is quite another.

This week, Congress passed the Respect for Marriage Act (RMA). That is something to celebrate. The RMA is historic in its scope and in its bipartisan support for the LGBTQ+ community. It’s a protective measure, designed to spring into place if

the U.S. Supreme Court decides to overturn the Obergefell decision, which made same-sex marriage the law of the land across all of the United States in 2015.

While it’s limited by the complexities of the U.S. Constitution, what the Respect for Marriage Act can, and does, do is require states to recognize marriages that happen in other states, meaning that so long as a marriage takes place in a state where it’s legal, all other states have to recognize it. What it doesn’t do is require all states to allow same-sex marriages to take place within their borders.

Twenty years ago, I watched what happened when a state went from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, to issuing refunds for marriage license fees. More than 3,000 same-sex couples who had been married received refund checks in the mail for the $60 marriage license fee as their marriage certificate became nothing but a piece of paper.

The Respect for Marriage Act goes a long way toward protecting the tens of thousands of married same-sex and interracial couples in our country and the untold others who have planned their lives around the freedom to marry the person they love. That is a good thing. It also signals that our members of Congress are willing to protect LGBTQ+ people something especially encouraging since there is another bill, the Equality Act, that has been passed by the House and is waiting in the Senate. The Equality Act would go even further, providing federal non-discrimination protection in education, housing, health care, and more.

This week, Congress passed the Respect for Marriage Act, and within days, the president will sign it into law. As someone who has been in the fight for marriage equality for two decades, I’ll count this as cause to celebrate, but none of us should consider it the end.

Kristin Flickinger is the executive director of Pacific Pride Foundation. She has more than 20 years of experience in the LGBTQ+ movement and studied law and government at Willamette University College of Law.

Every Christmas Dinner You Give Can Change a Life!

When you partner with Santa Barbara Rescue Mission, each $2.65 you give provides a delicious holiday meal complete with turkey, potatoes with gravy, vegetables, a roll, a big piece of pie and a drink.

No One Should Go Hungry on

Christmas!

Scan now or go to sbrm.org/dinners to give.

Caught in the Rental Crunch

Our Readers Speak Out on the Struggles of Renting in Santa Barbara

by Ryan P. Cruz

It’s no secret that Santa Barbara is expensive. This year, U.S. News & World Report ranked Santa Barbara the fifth most expensive city to live in in the U.S. And according to LivingCost.org, a crowdsourced database that calculates and ranks the total cost of living for more than 9,000 cities across the world, Santa Barbara is in the top 0.1 percent the most expensive in California, second in the U.S., and fourth in the world with an average cost of living of $3,455 per month.

Back in December 2014, someone looking for a onebedroom rental could expect to find a listing for around $1,900 a month, according to data collected by Zumper, which analyzes active rental inventory in real-time and has kept track of prices over the past eight years. A two-bedroom in Santa Barbara in 2014 would run close to $2,700.

But since then and most dramatically in the past year these rates have skyrocketed, exacerbated by a higher demand for rentals, a lack of new affordable units, and an influx of high-salaried remote workers who have moved into town to enjoy a piece of what is considered one of the best places to live in the world. Based on limited listings collected by Zumper, the average rent in Santa Barbara as of December 3, 2022, was $2,815 for a one-bedroom apartment and $4,200 for a two-bedroom.

To get a fuller picture of the prices renters were seeing currently, the Independent conducted its own review into one- and two-bedroom units listed on Craigslist from Goleta to Montecito in the early weeks of December, compared to those listed throughout the month of September 2022.

In September, the average one-bedroom rented for $2,655, and two-bedroom apartments averaged $3,843. Three months later, a review of more than 300 active listings in December showed the prices had jumped even higher. Out of more than 120 one-bedroom apartments listed, the aver-

age price was $2,935, with listings ranging from $1,248 to $5,000. For two-bedroom rentals, the average of the more than 100 units listed was $4,464, with the cheapest listed at $2,400 and the most expensive a two-bed, three-bath home overlooking a golf course in Hope Ranch offered at $10,750 a month.

“I can’t talk to anybody who works here or lives here without talking about housing,” said Senator Monique Limón, who met earlier this month with members of the League of Women Voters of Santa Barbara’s Housing Committee and Santa Barbara County Action Network (SBCAN) for a roundtable discussion on the local housing crisis.

The topic was also at the center of discussion during a recent Santa Barbara City Council meeting, in which the city decided how to divide the $14.6 million budget surplus. After pleas from housing advocates and city workers, and a lot of back and forth, the council decided to keep half of the surplus in the city’s rainy-day reserve fund, give a quarter toward employee salaries and pensions, and the remaining quarter to the newly created Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Specifically, the housing trust gets $3.6 million, minus $250,000 toward a program that would provide legal counsel to tenants facing evictions.

In October, the Santa Barbara Tenants Union organized a “Rent’s Too High Rally” at the courthouse, where dozens of locals shared their rental horror stories, and advocates pushed for a rental registry and rent control to protect tenants, which make up 60 percent of the households in the city.

The Independent recently asked its readers to provide their own tales of tenant troubles, and our inboxes were flooded with locals eager to share their stories. What we received were entries covering the wide spectrum of Santa Barbara residents: a family of middle-class business owners cramped into a tiny apartment, a single mother struggling to

give her son the same Santa Barbara childhood she enjoyed, and Santa Barbara natives who spent their lives on the South Coast, now scattered across the country in new communities, still hoping for a day they can return and raise their children in their hometowns.

“This story might be a few years late,” wrote Eric Holguin, who was born and raised in Santa Barbara but has been living in southern Nevada since the spring of 2015.

Before he moved, Holguin said he was doing something that he loved coaching football at his alma mater Santa Barbara High School but with two young children about to start kindergarten, he thought the timing was right to move to somewhere more affordable.

“I had a family to think about,” he said. “I miss it to this day.”

Holguin’s story was just one of many we received in the past three months. Some were unwilling to share their identities, fearing retaliation from landlords, or stuck in legal battles that are still unresolved.

One kindergarten teacher who wished to remain anonymous for this story was evicted from her apartment when a major local developer remodeled the unit and raised the rent. She has since moved to South Lake Tahoe, where she hopes to start teaching full-time next year.

“It’s really unfortunate that the city is losing another teacher when there is such a shortage due to high rent prices,” she said. “Santa Barbara will always hold a special spot in my heart, and it’s just soul-crushing that I was booted for a remodel.”

There were also uplifting stories: of people helping each other find housing, of mom-and-pop landlords offering consistent and quality rentals to long-term tenants, and of people being grateful to have even a small slice of Santa Barbara life.

What follows is a selection of some of the stories sent in by Santa Barbara residents current and former mixed with input from local experts, housing advocates, and city leaders on where we are, why we’re here, and what we can do about the rental crunch in Santa Barbara.

Full-Time Struggles of a Young Mother

Angelina Montalvo moved into her current apartment with her ex-boyfriend in 2019. When she first moved in, she said they “barely qualified,” and even with full-time jobs making $18 an hour, they needed to pay a double deposit to secure the apartment.

Since 2019, she says her rent has been raised three times, from $1,750 a month to $2,025. She now lives in the apartment alone with her son, whom she takes care of full-time on top of a job at which she works 60-80 hours a week while trying to focus on her studies.

“I’m not sure how much longer I can afford to live here,” she said. “Between rent, utilities, car payment, insurance, groceries, gas, and basic hygiene needs, I’m left with nearly $200-$300 to myself, which goes to my son’s sports,” she said. “I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to enjoy my hometown. As much as my son wants to stay here and live in Santa Barbara as I did, it’s most likely not going to be that way.”

Montalvo is one of an estimated 5,000 people on the waitlist with the Housing Authority of the City of Santa Barbara, which has built and manages about 1,450 units of affordable housing and provides support services to thousands of lowincome households in the city.

“Two in five family households or 30,000 households in the city are considered lower-income, and most cannot afford the market rates of new construction,” said Jessica Wishan, CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Southern Santa Barbara County, during last week’s City Council meeting, where $3.6 million was earmarked toward fully affordable housing.

But even with programs like Habitat for Humanity and the city’s Housing Authority, which recently received the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art’s Gindroz Award for Excellence in Affordable Housing, the limited space for development and highly competitive market for any prospective properties have left housing advocates hungry for a permanent source of “flexible funding,” said Rob Fredericks, the Housing Authority’s executive director.

When a new property hits the market, the Housing Authority is forced to contend with private developers who have deep pockets and can close on an offer right away, where city agencies typically have a few layers of red tape to wade through before they can buy.

The $3.6 million recently put aside for the housing trust fund is a start, Fredericks said, but until there is a permanent source of local funding, there is simply not enough resources to provide for all those on the waiting list, leaving those like Montalvo who is a low-income single mother but otherwise healthy stuck behind a priority-first waiting list that moves seniors, veterans, and disabled people to the top of the list.

“About 75 percent of those eligible don’t receive assistance,” Fredericks said. “I’m hoping there will be additional funding for those on the waiting list.”

Healthcare Support $36,483

Firefighter $94,000 Social Worker $61,422

Preschool Teacher $40,000 Maintenance Worker $55,993

Grocery Checker $35,647 Retail Worker $46,612 Delivery Driver $33,500$51,000

Fast Food Worker $31,200

Paramedic $79,000

No Home for Me Here’

Amber Rouleau is another Santa Barbara native, born and raised. Her grandfather Wilbur H. “Ping” Ferry was a renowned figure who, among other endeavors, supported tenants’ rights in the city.

Though her family sold her childhood Mountain Drive home in the ’90s and moved to the East Coast, she always wanted to return “Hard to keep the S.B. girl out of town,” she says.

Six years ago, she and her husband sold their Connecticut home to have the chance to come back and live on the South Coast. For five years, the two rented a house on the Mesa, on a property with another tenant living below them.

“It worked well, and we were very happy,” Rouleau said.

‘There’s

“We became friends with the neighbors and became actively involved in town. When the debris flow happened, we volunteered every single weekend nonstop for three months to dig out homes, parks, and trees. We are deeply connected within the community, enjoying the rare gift of lifelong friendships.”

Still, she saw her rent increase consistently each year, all the while, she says, the property fell into disrepair without any maintenance from the landlord.

sector of Santa Barbara struggling with rent. And she worries that if short-term rentals are not addressed, and if the city doesn’t pursue a rental registry and rent control, “we’ll lose the people that are the heart and soul of this town for good.” (A rental registry would be an online service portal where property owners can register rental properties and update rental unit information, and the city can track real-time data on what landlords are charging. Housing advocates believe that a rental registry would allow more transparency as to what renters are actually paying each month.)

Dealing with the uncertainty and stress that comes with these scenarios can also weigh heavily on tenants’ mental and emotional well-being, Rouleau said.

“Zero work was ever done on the property we had several inoperable windows due to rot, and we repaired anything we could ourselves to avoid her threats of additional rent increases,” she said.

Then last year, she says the landlord offered her an ultimatum: Their rent would be increased by 45 percent, their downstairs neighbor could be kicked out, and they could take the downstairs space at $9,000 per month as a short-term rental, or all the tenants could be displaced and the whole house would be listed on Airbnb.

Rouleau felt that neither of those options was enticing, nor did they sound legal, so she got in touch with the Santa Barbara Tenants Union for legal aid.

“We learned what our landlord was attempting to do wasn’t legal. We ended up hiring an attorney and landed on a settlement no one was happy with, and all parties had to move out anyway,” she said. Later, she found her former rental listed on Airbnb for $925 per night.

Stanley Tzankov, cofounder of the Santa Barbara Tenants Union, also spoke during the council meeting, advocating for more funding toward housing, where he emphasized the need for the quarter-million dollars toward tenants who often cannot afford legal representation.

“Many people don’t know that tenants don’t have a right to legal representation in cases where they’re served with bogus eviction notices, illegal renovations, and more,” he said. “So more often than not, they expect that they just won’t show up to court, and when they don’t, they’re out of luck, out of their homes, or forced into much higher rent or pushed out of town.”

Housing advocate and Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE) organizer Wendy Santamaria told the City Council, “Affordable housing advocates in the city have been discussing [right to counsel] as a way to really address the loopholes that a lot of landlords are unfortunately taking advantage of in the law. There are plenty of loopholes that truly cannot be mitigated unless there’s counsel, and the harsh reality is that a lot of tenants simply can’t afford it.’’

Rouleau now helps volunteer with the Tenants Union, which hosts a weekly help desk to help others who are also unsure if landlords are using illegal means to evict or force tenants out with the common tactic of remodeling the unit and raising the price to the newest market rate. She says volunteering with these other tenants has exposed her to rental horror stories even worse than her own.

“Predatory landlords and unchecked short-term rentals are strangling the city,” Rouleau said. “People cannot afford $4,000 to $9,000 a month in rent. A home that a friend rented a few years for $3,000 a month is now $12,000 a month. None of this is tenable. Who will teach in your schools? Who will work in your stores? What happens when homes are all occupied by visitors for a week?”

She said she has seen people from every working

“Having an unstable living situation is and I don’t say this lightly a mental-health crisis,” she said. “The toll this has taken on our mental health is incalculable, and our situation is exponentially better than many others. My anxiety is higher than it’s ever been. We do not know where we’ll go or how long we can justify this. It’s a crisis that lives in my head all day, every day. Where do you move when you don’t want to move? My friends and family are here. My roots are here. My home is here but there’s no home for me here.”

One Bedroom, Family of Four (Plus a Dog)

Kristen Walker rents a one-bedroom apartment that she shares with her husband, their two daughters, and their 13-year-old dog which she says has become a sticking point anytime her family has had to find a new rental.

“Even just being able to have the simple pleasure of having a pet, something that can be a huge emotional support, is, for the most part, now only a luxury afforded to homeowners,” Walker says. “It used to be that you could find something here if you tried hard enough something below market, someone who would be kind enough to allow you to have a pet but in our search, we’ve found that almost all rentals are controlled by property management companies who are strictly about profit and by and large never allow pets in rentals.”

The family splits the space, with the girls sleeping in the one bedroom and Walker and her husband sharing the living room. “We thought this would be a temporary situation, but it has gone on many more years than we would have liked,” she said.

She says most people who complain about the housing crisis focus on high rent prices alone, but she hopes that the community can become more aware of the impacts of pricing out the city’s labor force.

“I’ve noticed conversations about the lack of doctors, especially for women’s health, and lack of childcare options,” she said. “These are, at least in part, symptoms of housing unaffordability in our area.”

According to the most recent median salaries for the Santa Barbara workforce, health-care support workers ($36,483 per year), food service employees ($31,200-$35,647), delivery drivers ($33,500-$51,000), schoolteachers ($40,000), retail workers ($46,612), maintenance workers ($55,993), social workers ($61,422), paramedics ($79,000), and firefighters ($94,000) would all be considered “rent burdened” or spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent.

Most landlords require tenants to prove that they make three times the rent per month. By those standards, in order to afford the average $2,935 one-bedroom apartment in Santa Barbara today, applicants would have to make at least $117,400 a year. For a $4,464 two-bedroom apartment, the applicants would have to make $178,560.

‘I’m not sure how much longer I can afford to live here.’

So Santa Barbara’s workforce is slowly moving away, commuting from Lompoc, Santa Maria, Ventura, or Oxnard. Or they’re packing into smaller apartments, sharing bedrooms, splitting living rooms, and sleeping on pullout couches like the Walker family. In Isla Vista near UC Santa Barbara, students sleep two to three to a room, and still there are hundreds of other students scrambling to find housing each semester, sleeping in cars or stashed in hotels throughout Goleta.

“I’d love to see some people talk about solutions, like taxing vacant houses,” Walker said. “As we huddle up in a one-bedroom, I can’t tell you how many vacant homes I pass on my way to work. Those vacant houses represent people who are not living and working here, not volunteering in our local schools like my husband and I do and should be taxed at a much higher rate to shore up the empty hole they represent in our community.”

Optimism for the Future

Dick Flacks, a retired UCSB sociology professor and South County CoPresident of SBCAN, is one of the loudest voices in the local fight for socially funded housing. Without a sustained, local source of funding, he doesn’t believe the city will ever meet the needs of its low- and moderateincome residents. And one of the best ways to accomplish that could be a number of new taxes funneled toward initiatives like the housing trust fund and the Housing Authority.

“The reliance on private development to do the job will not get us the affordable housing we need,” Flacks said. “Rental housing has to be subsidized.”

One of these options could be to increase the city’s transient occupancy tax a tax imposed on guests staying at hotels, motels, or other commercial lodgings for less than 31 days from 12 percent to 15 percent, he says, and use that 3 percent toward building affordable housing. Another would be to follow the example of Los Angeles and enforce a “mansion tax” on transfers of sales on properties over $5 million.

Either option would be another step toward addressing the housing crisis, he said, and with agencies like the Housing Authority being able to leverage city funding into more money to build 100 percent affordable housing, a little money can go a long way.

City leadership has already shown that it takes the problem seriously, by allocating surplus funds toward housing and by writing affordable housing into its goals in the upcoming Housing Element.

“I’m now more optimistic,” Flacks said. “Two years ago, housing wasn’t as big a deal.”

But it’s definitely a big deal now and at the forefront of discussion as the city tries to meet its need for affordable housing. Advocates are meeting with city leadership, urging them toward funding projects that would provide more than the 10 percent minimum affordable units that most private developers begrudgingly offer, and warming them to the once-far-fetched idea of passing rent control in Santa Barbara.

Economists and property managers balk at the idea of a rent cap, and Mayor Randy Rowse has been a vocal opponent to rent control anytime the issue is raised at City Hall, but tenants and advocates continue to bang the drum, and the council is now in a 3-3 split, with Councilmember Alejandra Gutierrez considered by many housing advocates as the swing vote that may tip the scales.

“Rent control enables people to stay in their apartments,” Flacks said. “Economists can’t argue with that; the data are clear. It doesn’t help people find apartments, it doesn’t increase supply, but I think it’s stupid not to realize we need some rent control.”

For many housing advocates, that leaves the city at a crossroads. If the soul of a city is in its people, then for Santa Barbara, it is in the unique mix of people who have landed here on the tip of the South Coast: the homegrown locals of every color and background; working-class first-generation Latino families; longtime business owners; transplants from all across the country; and Summer Solstice–celebrating, Fiesta-dancing, counter-culture-leaning SBCC and UCSB grads who found themselves in Santa Barbara for college and stayed forever.

If the only ones who can afford to live here are the wealthy, does Santa Barbara’s vibrant culture fade along with its workforce, and will it become another playground for the upper class, like the Hamptons? Where does that leave the rest?

For people who’ve already been priced out of town, like former S.B. High football coach Holguin, all that’s left to do for now is look forward to a future where they can once again afford to call Santa Barbara home.

“One day, I’ll be back in Santa Barbara,” Holguin said, “but for the time being, I’m going to ride this journey until my kids are done with high school. Sad to see what Santa Barbara has become.” n

NOW OPEN

Influenced by the pictorialist movement of the early twentieth century, Edward S. Curtis set out to create a photo and ethnographic record of Indigenous peoples living in Western regions from the Mexican border to Alaskan shores. 100 years later, Indigenous people still contend with “Indian” stereotypes that are consequences of Edward Curtis’s vision.

This exhibit endeavors to present his breathtaking photogravures within the context of American colonialism.

Storytelling

Native People through the Lens of Edward S. Curtis

2559 Puesta del Sol Santa Barbara, CA 93105 sbnature.org/storytelling

“Painting a Hat – Nakoaktok,” 1914, Edward S. Curtis

Sponsored by Knight Real Estate Group of Village Properties, First Republic Bank, Kathleen Kalp and Jim Balsitis, Kelly and Tory Milazzo

Andrew Chung Twenty seven years of banking on the Central Coast

My Unplanned Ultramarathon My Unplanned Ultramarathon

Polly Sumner detailed the early months of her long COVID experience with us in February 2022. We checked in with her recently to see how she is doing, now a year into her journey.

On a spring Saturday, the boys tumbled into the house from a surf session, sandy and animated. While attempting to help with tar-bottomed feet and damp towels, I quickly became exhausted and went to lie down. My heart rate had done some real acrobatics lately, and I’d been wearing my sports watch to track irregularities.

Santa Barbara Runner Lives with Long COVID

by Polly Sumner

As I tried to relax, my heart rate suddenly jolted, and I watched in shock as the numbers on the watch soared like a slot machine. I began to convulse and screamed for my husband to call 9-1-1. He and my 8-year-old son rushed into the bedroom. I thought I was having a heart attack, and this was it. I cried that I loved them and begged for my son to leave the room. He did not need this memory.  A prompt EKG when the paramedics arrived did not indicate a heart attack, but I was advised I needed to go to the hospital. As I left on the gurney, my son stood to the side with my husband, bravely fighting tears. His expression pierced my heart.

While at the ER, my heart rate twice more catapulted from a resting rate of 70 to 160 within a minute. I was alone and terrified as the monitor began flashing red and an alarm sounded. Repeated tests showed no heart attack or structural issues. At discharge, the attending doctor suggested my long COVID symptoms (more than 30 of them) were all a manifestation of anxiety. It was inaccurate and maddening. Too broken to engage, I asked that he stop. He then conceded, “I don’t really know much about long COVID.” I went home to my bed to weather the storm inside my body, strength and sanity elusive for the next 12 days.

Welcome to a year in the life of long COVID.

I’ve been active since a young age. My favorite childhood book was Heidi, which elicited a hypnotic pull toward the mountains. As a Girl Scout, I camped frequently in the Los Padres National Forest and would fantasize about living simply in a hillside cave. In high school, I played tennis and joined the track team, but I was abysmally mediocre as a sprinter. I never considered cross-country. For the next 20 years, I ran only sporadically, focusing instead on dance. Brazilian and West African occupied my soul, and I performed many times in the local Summer Solstice parade.

In my thirties, I found a quirky filmmaker husband, a

decathlete in college who, by the time we met, couldn’t think of a worse punishment than running. I, however, relished pushing boundaries and decided to try a half-marathon. It was an exciting, daunting goal, and I found my stride in the longer distance. Over the next several years, I began to do races, improving each time. Then, I herniated a disk. The doctor told me I’d never run again, and a month of debilitating sciatica was my first glimpse into chronic pain. Yet I was driven, and after two years of physical therapy and postural correction, I triumphed. But road running was hard on my back. I required softer terrain.

The mountains again sang their siren song, and my first race through Santa Barbara’s backcountry was the gateway to an intoxicating new world. It was a mix of unconventional and friendly people who enjoy the challenge of treacherous terrain. I had found my tribe. Over time, I did increasingly longer races, met trail friends, and became an “ultra-runner.” I had close encounters with a bear, bobcats, snakes, and angry hornets. Along the way, I stood on the podium a few times, and the trail was my therapist when I lost my dad. When COVID sent the globe into lockdown and so much tragedy and hurt pervaded the world, moving my body and mind in our mountain playground was a miracle.

Autumn 2021 found me physically at my peak. I’d just completed my first 100k (62 miles) at Mt. Hood, and seamlessly continued training for a technically more challenging race.  While my body was firing on all cylinders and working with a coach made me a smarter athlete, I was starting to burn out

and parts of my life were splintering. I expressed a desire to take a break from training after this next race.

Ask, and you shall receive. In spades.

Just days before the Nine Trails Endurance Run, I went to a concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl and came home with the Delta variant of COVID. In the acute phase of illness, my body was assaulted from every angle even my hair follicles hurt. After two weeks, I rallied and optimistically tried a short run. It was awful.

Then new symptoms began plaguing me. Episodes of tachycardia left me sleepless. My sympathetic nervous system went into overdrive. Paralyzing weakness, numb extremities, sound sensitivity, dizziness, anxiety, brain fog, purple nails, and vacillating body temperature all kicked in.

I was an endurance athlete, accustomed to fighting through the pain. But I wasn’t winning.  Admitting defeat, I visited the ER. A mass of tests revealed nothing amiss. “In fact, Polly, your heart and blood work look excellent.” The doctors, too, were stymied. And so I went home to face this war on my body on my own.

n the early months, even after I tested negative for COVID, others were still hesitant to be around me. I felt like a leper. My tenuous emotional state and lack of diagnosis left me hovering on brink. I began to dream about jumping to my death, watching my body hit the ground. Or dream that

my heart was exploding. I was unraveling.

I’d grown utterly reliant on my family for the smallest things, and I despised my neediness. But I have no idea how I would have survived the days I could not stand for more than 30 seconds or when my nervous system would go so haywire I had to be held until the colossal panic subsided. My husband and I were not in a strong place when I became ill. Yet, he unflaggingly carried me through the lowest moments. I was served a doubleheader lesson in gratitude for my partner and simple abilities like brushing my teeth. In the moments I felt okay, I would choke with appreciation for what I did have.

A fellow long hauler suggested acupuncture. I also began guided meditation, sometimes five times a day. I felt the benefit of both practices immediately, and so shined the first rays of sunlight in my dark cell. I decided to collect myself and find happiness in the simplest terms. Lying on the earth beneath massive palm trees. Watching comedies. Listening to piano music. Looking at photos with the family of past vacations.

For months, I did not tell many people about my condition. I feared skepticism. Long COVID is confusing and often invisible to the onlooker, absurdly unpredictable in its daily blitz. I could be covered in ice packs, too feverish to move one morning, yet sit as scorekeeper for my son’s basketball game that afternoon. Or in the ER on a Sunday and attend Open House at school the following Tuesday. To most, it appeared I was living a normal life.

Over the past year, I have seen at least 20 doctors, and the range of interest to understand the bizarre reaches of long COVID has varied greatly. My concerns have been marginalized numerous times, and I have even been told by sympathetic providers that I’m a guinea pig as researchers work to identify treatment. In my new primary care doctor, however, I found a brilliant and caring cheerleader within a medical system that hasn’t been altogether supportive. I finally felt heard.

Slowly, with supplements, herbs, meditation, an acupuncturist, therapist, and doctor, I began to improve. I also went public with my struggles, both stunned and fortified by the magnitude of support I received. By month six, I had increased my walks from short shuffles to actual hikes. I just had to watch my heart rate. I savored my rebounding health as the spring flowers bloomed. It was poetic. I was back.

And then, I got a cold.

Within three days, I viciously relapsed. Within two weeks, I was back at the ER twice. First for a shockingly low heart rate, then the traumatic heart attack scare. For days following, I was gravely ill, my nervous system

so unhinged each minute took work. I found out while in this fragile state that a friend had taken his life. The psychiatric ward was not out of the realm of possibility and I began sleeping with a stuffed animal. I sank down an even deeper hole.

Luckily, I had my wellness brigade in place and have spent the past several months in a slow rebuild. I became Reiki certified to self-heal, and even recently joined my son for his first ever trail race, a 5k that I walked as he ran. Then, ironically, on my one-year anniversary of COVID, I once again relapsed after fighting that rampant autumn cold. It was not nearly as ferocious as the takedown six months ago, but as I regroup, I constantly walk a tightrope. Each day I awake is an unknown, and often with nausea. My body is tired and updated tests reflect the toll. The endless non-diagnoses weigh emotionally.

My sister recently reminded me that the body, mind, and spirit are co-conspirators. With this, I’ve embraced the monumental importance of sleep, laughter, and leaning on others. I strive to celebrate the joys of now rather than borrow tomorrow’s fears. I no longer find myself obsessed with my lack of fitness, and revere the power of rest. I hope to one day hike to the top of our mountains again. What was once a routine morning jaunt is now a life goal. And that’s okay.

I’ve also been prodigiously fortunate, professionally. I’ve worked for nearly two decades for Easy Lift Transportation and the support I’ve received from the organization has been phenomenal. To work for a charity that specifically serves the physically and cognitively impaired community meant my ongoing struggles have been met with compassion, flexibility, and a sincere interest in my wellbeing. The financial burden of my illness has been massive and to be able to remain employed despite my unpredictable schedule has been an immense blessing.

Before I became sick, my next ambition was to do a 100-mile race, the crown distance for an ultra-runner. It turns out not all races are spent on your feet, and this past year has been an unplanned 100-miler often on my back. My coach says the secret to finishing a long race is nutrition. And so I work to nourish myself. Sometimes I need to be fed, like a toddler. Yet sharing my vulnerability has opened doors to deeper, unexpected bonds.

Several friends I was not necessarily close to reached out about their own chronic illness battles, and not just Long COVID. Lyme disease. Fibromyalgia. Chronic fatigue syndrome. I now have ongoing dialogues with numerous people as we navigate both the low points and the milestones in illnesses that are often invisible, isolating, and without direct treatment paths. This support network is a medicine of its own that like our illnesses, cannot be quantified, but is absolutely real. Compassion is a powerful connector, and never have I felt so loved. The darkest chapters yield the brightest light when dawn arrives.

COVID-19 VENUE POLICY

FARMERS

Shows on Tap

Ages 21+. Sat.: 5th Annual Holiday Sweater Party featuring Molly Ringwald Project, 7pm. $25. Ages 21+. Sun.: Sandy Cummings & Jazz du Jour, 12:30-3:30pm. Free Tue.: New Beginnings at Christmas with Shawn Thies & Friends, 7:30pm. Free-$20. Wed.: Rose Valley Thorns with Will Breman Band, 8pm. $12-$15. 1221 State St. Call (805) 962-7776. sohosb.com/events

12/16-12/18, 12/21:

THURSDAY 12/15

SATURDAY 12/17

12/17-12/18: Open Weekend at Arroyo Hondo Preserve Reconnect to nature and enjoy the winding trails, creek, trees, and views of the preserve. Reservations are required 10am-3pm. Arroyo Hondo Preserve, CA-1, Goleta. Free. Call (805) 966-4520. sblandtrust.org/events

12/15-12/18:

Presents

12/16:

12/17-12/18: Cold Spring Tavern Sat.: McGuire/Moffet Band, 1:30-4:30pm; The Nombres, 5-8pm. Sun.: Tom Ball and Kenny Sultan, 1:30-4:30pm. 5995 Stagecoach Rd. Free. Call (805) 9670066. coldspringtavern.com

of the

and

End hit The 39 Steps, has refashioned Charles Dickens’s holiday classic into an inventively comic holiday delight filled with humor and heart. Thu.: 7:30pm. Fri.-Sat.: 8pm; Sun.: 2pm. The New Vic, 33 W. Victoria St. $40-$94. Call (805) 965-5400 or email boxoffice@etcsb.org. etcsb.org/whats-on/season

12/15:

FRIDAY 12/16

12/17: The Good Good Show Have a laugh and a craft beer at this monthly stand-up comedy show that will feature Eliza Skinner, John Wynn, Julie Weidmann, Andy Rider, and Brandi Denise. 7:30pm. Night Lizard Brewing Co., 607 State St. $10. Ages 21+. tinyurl.com/GoodGoodShowDec17

SUNDAY 12/18

12/18: Baad Sunday Shop from various vendors and enjoy food, music, and drinks at this community flea market on every third Sunday of the month. Noon-4pm. Eos Lounge, 500 Anacapa St. Free. Ages 21+. tinyurl.com/BaadSundayDec18

12/18: Island Brewing Co. The Yules/Ugly Sweater Party, 4-9pm, music: 6-9pm. Island Brewing Co., 5049 6th St., Carpinteria. Free (805) 745-8272. tinyurl.com/IslandBrewEvent

12/19: Red Piano Shawn Jones Trio, 7:30pm. 519 State St. Free Call (805) 358-1439. theredpiano.com

12/16:

S.B. High School’s 19th Annual Fall Dance Recital More than 150 students with different backgrounds and various experience in dance from four different course levels will perform a variety of dance forms including jazz, hip-hop, tap, modern, ballet, ballroom, and ethnic/folk traditional dances. 7-8:30pm. S.B. High School Theatre, 700 E. Anapamu St. $5-$10. Call (805) 9669101 X5250 or email bgoldman@sbunified.org. tinyurl.com/DanceRecitalSBHS

12/18: Elks National Free-Throw Hoop Shoot Contest/Concurso nacional de tiros libres de baloncesto Elks  Calling all kids ages 8-13! Each participant will shoot 24 free throws with the highest scorers, including tie-breaker scores, from each age group, and will be invited to compete at the district level contest on January 28, 2023. A birth certificate or current passport must be presented at check-in. Los niños de 8 a 13 años lanzarán 24 tiros libres y los que obtengan las puntuaciones más altas, incluidas las de desem-

pate, de cada grupo de edad, serán invitados a competir en el concurso a nivel de distrito el 28 de enero de 2023. Se debe presentar un certificado de nacimiento o pasaporte vigente al momento de registrarse. Registration: 1-1:30pm; contest: 1:30-4:30pm. Page Youth Center, 4540 Hollister Ave. Free. Ages 8-13. Call (805) 570-9181. tinyurl.com/HoopShoot2022

VICTORIA SNIDER by & TERRY ORTEGA

Freedom Warming Centers S.B. County The mission of the Freedom Warming Centers is to relieve suffering and save lives of unsheltered homeless people on nights of severe weather conditions (forecast to be below 35 degrees or more than a 50 percent chance of rain). To donate clothing or other goods, contact Jill Drewisch at (805) 448-8020. Centers open through March 31, 2023. Hours: 6pm-6am. Carpinteria Community Church, 1111 Vallecito Rd., Carpinteria; Trinity Episcopal Church, 1500 State St.; Peace Lutheran Church, 1000 W. Ocean Blvd., Lompoc; S.B. Grogan Ctr., 1155 Rancho Verde, Santa Maria. Warming Ctr. Hotline (805) 324-2372. facebook.com/FreedomWarmingCenter

Ensemble Theatre Company

A Christmas Carol Patrick Barlow, writer

Broadway

West

Mark Capri, Bo Foxworth, Jenna Cardia, Louis Lotorto

S.B. Jr. High School Winter Concert The SBJHS Music Department invites you to  support the talented musicians of the Jazz Band, Concert Band, and Orchestra, who will all perform holiday favorites. 7-8pm. The Marjorie Luke Theatre, 721 E. Cota St. Free. Call (805) 884-4087. luketheatre.org/events

COURTESY

COURTESY

COURTESY

Molly Ringwald Project

The Foodbank’s new Sharehouse will increase the amount and quality of food we can provide to the community during hard times like these. With your support, Santa Barbara will be ready with ample healthy food when the next disaster strikes! FoodbankSBC.org/Sharehouse

THE WEDNESDAY 12/21

12/21: UCSB Women’s Basketball vs. Cal Lutheran Support the

of basketball in this game between UCSB and Cal Lutheran. Doors open at 2pm. 3pm. The Thunderdome, UCSB. $5-$12. tinyurl.com/TicketsDec21. tinyurl.com/SafetyGuidelinesUCSB

12/21: Mind Games This fun and supportive class will focus on keeping your brain in tip-top shape as you partici pate in puzzles, games, movement, brain exercises, problem-solving activities, and more. 2-3pm. Carpinteria Commu nity Library, 5141 Carpinteria Ave. Free. Call (805) 684-4314. tinyurl.com/MindGamesDec21

Holiday Hap

12/15: Silent Night, Silent Disco Wear your ugliest sweater and be prepared to dance and sing along to deejays mixing your favorite holiday tunes through complimentary headphones. There will be refreshments, prizes, and snowfall at 5:30 and 6:30pm. 5:30-7:30pm. Center Court, Paseo Nuevo, 651 Paseo Nuevo. Free paseonuevoshopping.com/holiday

12/15-12/18: Alcazar Ensemble Presents

Miracle on 34th Street See a live production of this Christmas classic about Kris Kringle, the Macy’s department store Santa, who claims he is the real Santa Claus. With a cast of 30+, this will be a holiday feast for the eyes. Thu.-Fri.: 7pm; Sat.-Sun.: 3pm. The Alcazar Theatre, 4916 Carpinteria Ave., Carpinteria. $15-$20. thealcazar.org/calendar

or email iceinparadise.org

12/17-12/18:

Quire of Voyces’ 2022

Enjoy the sacred cathedral sounds of motets by Thomas Tallis, an old French carol, the joyous hymn of nativity, and more. Buy tickets at the door, or in advance at Chau cer’s Books or SBCC Garvin Theater until Dec. 12 at noon. 3pm. St. Anthony’s Chapel, Garden Street Academy, 2300 Garden St. $15-$20. Call (805) 965-5935. facebook.com/quireofvoyces

12/17-12/18:

Celebration of the Winter Solstice December 1743 Treasured traditions will be revisited by a diverse company of actors, singers, and dancers with colorful costumes, dancing, music, and bagpipes. and 7:30pm; Perdido St. GA: $16-$56; VIP: $51-$81. Call (805) 963-0761. lobero.org/events/christmas-revels-2022

12/17-12/18: Hear seasonal favorites and songs from around the world as well as instrumental solos. 4pm.

Santa Bárbara State Historic Park Chapel, 123 E. Canon Perdido St., $58; St. $38. Call (805) 260-3223. folkorchestrasb.com. lukethetre.org/events

12/18: S.B. Community Flute Ensemble Winter Concert The ensemble will perform a varied selection of music ranging from whimsical and wintery to thought provoking and pensive featuring the entire flute family of the piccolo, flute, alto flute, bass flute, and contrabass flute. 6pm. The Notre Dame School, 33 E. Micheltorena St. Free sbcfe.org/events

12/16:

Series invite you to get into the holiday spirit featuring the celebrated girls’ choir the Ojai Pixies along with S.B. Symphony string quartet, pianist and tenor “Roko”, singer J.B. White, Kevin Conahey (percussion), and Ruben Salinas (saxophone). 7-9:30pm. Matilija Middle School, 703 El Paseo Rd., Ojai. $35. tinyurl.com/ ThePixiesDec16

12/16: Emmet Cahill: Christmas in Ireland

Acclaimed Irish tenor Emmet Cahill will perform powerful renditions of majestic church hymns , Broadway hits , opera arias and adored Irish classics, and more. 7:30pm. Trinity Episcopal Church, 1500 State St. Meet & Greet: 6:15pm. $55; GA: 7:30pm. $35. emmetcahill.com/ tour-1/santa-barbara

12/17: Holiday Ice Skating Show This holiday show on ice will get you in the spirit of the season. 12:30 and 3:30pm. Ice in Paradise, 6985 Santa Felicia Dr., Goleta. Upstairs; $20; on the ice: $30. Call (805) 879-1550

12/18: Holiday Sing-Along Enjoy a craft beer and get into the holiday spirit at this legendary sing-along. 5pm. Island Brewing Company, 5049 6th St., Carpinteria. Free. Call (805) 745-8272. tinyurl.com/SingAlongDec18

12/18: Family Chanukah Party Join for candle lighting, games, crafts, and great food including latkes and jelly doughnuts (sufganiyot)! Please RSVP. 4-6pm. Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara, 524 Chapala St. Free. Call (805) 957-1115 or email rvargeson@sbjf.org. tinyurl.com/PartyChanukah

12/20-12/21: 31st Annual Living Nativity The community is invited to see the silent re-creation of the Holy Night with actors in costume along with live animals, such as camels, donkeys, sheep, and goats, that will surround the manger through December 23. 5:307:30pm. First United Methodist Church, 305 E. Anapamu St. Free. Call (805) 963-3579. tinyurl.com/31stLivingNativity

fierce women

Smitty and Julija Present The Pixies! Holiday Show Smitty and Julija and the Euterpe Farms Music

Health

‘Yoga Behind Bars Can Free a Man Within’

I

followed the sounds of Irish music as I made my way up the paved path of Blueberry Hill Park in Goleta. It led me to a group of 15 adults, each positioned on their own yoga mats around one man at the center.

It was the day before St. Patrick’s Day, and Michael J. Lewis was conducting his weekly “After Dark in the Park” yoga class. Each of Lewis’s classes has a unique theme with a specifically curated playlist to match. While his message of peace and love aligns with that of other yogis, the presentation is often more accessible to a less spiritually inclined audience.

Many of Lewis’s students are adults with full-time jobs and kids. My roommates and I are known as “The Vaqueros,” since we are the youngest members by at least a decade. For the past year, I have been captivated by the distinct power of Lewis’s teachings, and I continue to be inspired by his story.

In 2004, a rough separation prompted Lewis to move to Texas to find work. At the time, he had two baby girls and would send half his paychecks to California to support them. On his birthday, he was served with official divorce papers and spun into a pattern of “drinking and raging,” turning to alcoholism to cope with his emotions, and then yoga to cope with his alcoholism.

The

Story of Mike Lewis

by Sophia Blair

Lewis took his first yoga class with Joseph Stingley in Arlington, Texas, after a 19-year hiatus from the practice and all its “humming and chanting.” He didn’t see it as a valid workout that is, until Stingley “kicked our ass really hard. A good, physical class, and that’s what I needed.” At the end of it, as he lay in the Savasana pose, Lewis remembered tears streaking down his face and realizing “how much I needed to start to heal from all my shit. I wasn’t done drinking yet, but yoga was keeping me from being suicidal.”

In 2013, after a stint in Arizona, he returned to Santa Barbara. At 52 years old, he was going into kidney failure and diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis, a disease that was a direct result of his alcoholism. He knew he needed help. “This was my first legitimate moment of clarity in regard to the concept of surrender,” he said.

Lewis’s yoga and sobriety journeys intertwine, and he attributes his ultimate success to mentors in both areas. One of these is a woman named Christine at the Unity Church, who opened his eyes to the concept of forgiving himself. Marty, his therapist, taught him about mindfulness and meditation, and after attending his first AA meeting, he met Jim, his sponsor.

“As soon as I was willing to let go of being in charge of my own life, which I had messed up pretty badly, admitted my powerlessness over alcohol and drugs, and asked for help, help showed up,” he explained. With the support of his loved ones and case manager, Emily, Lewis moved into a homeless shelter called Transition House and took a job as a dishwasher at Santa Barbara City College. Humbly, he began to piece his life together.

One day, in his fifth month of sobriety, he received a life-changing phone call from a woman named Ginny Kuhn who was teaching yoga to female inmates as a part of her master’s degree project. “She had decided that it was time to start a men’s program, and she

thought of me,” Lewis said. “The rewards of sobriety were coming fast to my life.”

The classes have become “the best two hours of my week,” Lewis said. He has countless stories about teaching the men about mindfulness. One of his students, Jaime, stopped cutting himself after Lewis introduced him to meditation. “I knew it was going to be fun to work with that population, but I didn’t know what was going to happen to me as a result,” Lewis said. “I didn’t know it was going to radically change my whole perspective on my own freedom and my own appreciation of being sober.”

One of the biggest strides the Yoga Prison Project has made was getting into the federal penitentiary in Lompoc, a high-security facility with more than 125 men in solitary confinement. Federal rules prohibit instructors from interacting directly with inmates, so Lewis created a video that is positioned outside the Special Housing Units on flat-screen TVs for them to follow along to.

Lewis’s next goal is to train inmates in a mentorship program to become certified yoga teachers. “A lot of guys get out of jail and come to my yoga class,” Lewis said. “I’m proud to tell people, ‘I have friends in low places,’ because you can learn and grow from the most unexpected people.”

Outside the prison project, Lewis has cultivated a yoga community like no other in Santa Barbara. His dad jokes at the weekly park get-togethers create an easygoing environment where imperfection is accepted and encouraged. Every student has their own story. “We have our tribe of misfits,” Lewis said. “I like to get to know everyone.”

In 2010, Mike Lewis didn’t believe in miracles. Now, he says, “They happen on a weekly basis.”

“I look at my two little grandsons, and I realize I wouldn’t have a relationship with my daughter and I wouldn’t be able to be a grandpa if I wasn’t sober,” he said. “My other daughter is turning 20 and I’m taking her to a surprise concert next month. If I wasn’t sober, I wouldn’t be able to do any of this. That’s the miracle right there.”

The impact Lewis has made on inmates and the Santa Barbara community as a whole is immeasurable. But he remains modest. “I don’t wanna sit here and pretend like, ‘Oh, I’m helping all these people,’” he said. “These people are helping me!” n

The Channel League Award Winners

The high school fall sports season is in the rearview mirror, and many of the competitors were honored with post-season awards and All-Channel League selections to commemorate their accomplishments.

Fall Sports Standouts Are Recognized

by Victor Bryant

The Channel League currently consists of  Santa Barbara County schools Dos Pueblos, San Marcos, and Santa Barbara as well as Ventura County Schools Buena, Ventura, Rio Mesa, Pacifica, Oxnard, and Channel Islands (football only).

Football

Santa Barbara High shared the Channel League title with Pacifica and Rio Mesa as all three teams finished with 7-1 records in League play.

Quarterback Abel Renteria was named Channel League Offensive Player of the Year. Renteria eclipsed 2,200 yards passing and tossed 21 touchdown passes in 11 games. He also rushed for more than 500 yards and nine touchdowns.

The primary recipient of Renteria’s passes was Kai Mault, who received Channel League Wide Receiver of the Year recognition after falling just short of 1,000 yards receiving and hauling in 11 touchdown passes.

Santa Barbara High also had four All–Channel League First Team selections, including AJ Gomez, Nathan Barrios, Damian Stehno, and Andrew Tobin. The Second-Team selections from Santa Barbara High were Winston Bartley, Malachi Johnston, Julian Castro, Jacob Nevarez, and Roark Norton. Honorable Mentions were Adrian Chavez, Noah Ortega-Napoles, Murphy Cisneros, and Benicio Garcia Holland.

Lastly, JT Stone and his staff at Santa Barbara High were named Varsity Coaching Staff of the Year.

San Marcos High was also well represented on the All-Channel League teams. Running back Andrew McCullough, offensive lineman Ebrahim Alfar-Diaz, and linebacker Owen Lauderdale were First Team selections.

Josh Engel, Johnny Frohling, Patrick Kelley, and Carlos Gomez were Honorable Mentions from San Marcos.

Dos Pueblos High had one First Team selection in punter Gregory Tripathi. Three Chargers made the Second Team, including David Buso, Cairo Rios, and Nicolas Bitar. The Honorable Mentions from Dos Pueblos were Ryan Marsh, Daniel Johnston, Brody Fredrickson, and Juan Carlos Torres.

Girls’ Volleyball

Santa Barbara High won the Channel League championship outright with a 13-1 overall record, and head coach Kristin Hempy garnered Coach of the Year honors.

The Santa Barbara County First Team All–Channel League recipients include the Santa Barbara High trio of Shae Delaney, Gracie Meinzer, and Nicole Schuetz.

San Marcos High was represented by Eloise McGibbon and Elena Thomas on the First Team, and Chloe Hoffman was named to the First Team from Dos Pueblos.

Riley Green and Josie Gamberdella of San Marcos were on the All–Channel League Second Team along with Tessa de Albergaria and Emmy Werner of Santa Barbara and Makeila Cervantes of Dos Pueblos.

Honorable mentions include Malia Alzina and Whitney Meister of Santa Barbara High, Lily Blakenhorn and Devyn Brunet of San Marcos, and Malia Brofferio and  Halle Rillie of Dos Pueblos.

Boys’ Water Polo

After an unbeaten run through Channel League play, Santa Barbara coach Mark Walsh was named Coach of the Year. Santa Barbara senior Jerrard Burford shared Player of the Year honors with Buena’s Nico Furneaux.

The First Team All–Channel League players from Santa Barbara High were Jaxon Buford and Landin Romo. Ryder Green and John Shafer of Santa Barbara were on the second team.

San Marcos finished in second place in the Channel League with an 8-2 record, and two Royals made the first team in Nic Prentice and Mathew Demboski. In addition, Charles Franzen, Jordan Lind, and Luke Burns were named Second Team All–Channel League.

Dos Pueblos had one player on the first team, Brody Luke, and one player on the second team, Jaden Moore.

Shane Davis and Mateo Obando were the only Honorable Mentions from Santa Barbara County.

For more, see Independent.com

Strange World (PG): Fri, Mon/Tue: 4:45, 7:15.

Sat/Sun: 2:15, 4:45, 7:15. Wed: 2:15. Thur: 1:30.

The Menu (R): Fri, Mon/Tue, Wed: 5:05: 7:45.

Sat/Sun: 2:25, 5:05, 7:45.

Violent Night (R): Fri, Mon/Tue: 5:15, 8:00. Sat/Sun: 2:35, 5:15, 8:00.

Puss in Boots* (PG): Wed/Thur: 1:45, 3:00, 4:15, 5:30, 6:45, 8:00.

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance

w Somebody* (PG13): Thur: 4:00, 7:30.

Avatar Way of Water* (PG13): Fri-Sun: 12:00/3D, 12:45, 1:30/3D, 2:20, 4:05/3D, 5:00, 5:45/3D, 6:40, 8:20/3D, 9:15. Mon-Thur: 12:00/3D, 12:45, 1:30/3D, 2:20, 4:05/3D, 5:00, 6:40, 8:20/3D, 9:15.

Avatar Way of Water* (PG13): Fri: 11:00, 11:30/3D, 12:30, 1:30/3D, 2:30, 3:00, 3:30/3D, 4:30, 5:30/3D, 6:30, 7:00, 7:30/3D, 8:30, 9:30/3D. Sat: 10:30, 11:00, 11:30/3D, 12:30, 1:30/3D, 2:30, 3:00, 3:30/3D, 4:30, 5:30/3D, 6:30, 7:00, 7:30/3D, 8:30, 9:30/3D.

Sun: 10:30, 11:00, 11:30/3D,12:30, 1:30/3D, 2:30, 3:00, 3:30/3D, 4:30, 5:30/3D, 6:30, 7:00, 7:30/3D, 8:30. Mon-Wed: 12:30, 1:30/3D, 2:30, 3:00, 3:30/3D, 4:30, 5:30/3D, 6:30, 7:00, 7:30/3D, 8:30. Thur: 12:30, 1:30/3D, 2:30, 3:30/3D, 4:30, 5:30/3D, 6:30, 7:30/3D, 8:30.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (PG13): Fri-Thur: 12:45, 4:15, 7:45.

Babylon* (R): Thur: 4:00, 8:00.

HITCHCOCK

371 South Hitchcock Way SANTA BARBARA 805-682-6512

White Noise (R): Fri-Wed: 5:00.

Empire of Light* (R): Fri, Mon-Tue: 4:00, 6:45, 8:05. Sat/Sun, Wed: 2:15, 4:00, 6:45, 8:05.

Thur: 2:00, 4:45, 7:30. The Whale* (R): Wed/Thur: 2:15, 5:00, 7:45.

Strange World (PG): Fri, Mon/Tue: 4:20, 7:00. Sat/Sun: 1:45, 4:20, 7:00. Wed: 1:45, 4:20.

Thur: 1:45.

Violent Night (R): Fri, Mon/Tue: 5:00, 7:45.

Sat/Sun: 2:15, 5:00, 7:45. Wed: 5:00, 7:45.

Thur: 5:00.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (PG13): Fri, Mon/Tue: 4:30, 7:30. Sat/Sun: 1:20, 4:30, 7:30.

Wed/Thur: 12:30, 4:00, 7:30.

The Menu (R): Fri, Mon/Tue: 4:50, 8:00.

Thur: 8:00.Sat/Sun: 1:55, 4:40, 8:00. Wed: 8:00.

Ticket to Paradise (PG13): Fri, Mon/Tue: 4:45, 7:20. Sat/Sun: 2:10, 4:45, 7:20. Wed: 2:10.

Thur: 1:30.

Puss in Boots* (PG): Wed/Thur: 12:45, 2:00, 3:15, 4:30, 5:45, 7:00, 8:15.

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance w Somebody* (PG13): Thur: 4:15, 7:45.

Devotion (PG13): Fri, Mon-Wed: 4:20, 7:30. Sat/Sun: 1:00, 4:20, 7:30. Thur: 7:30. The Banshees of Inisherin (R): Fri, Mon-Wed: 5:10, 7:50. Sat/Sun: 2:30, 5:10, 7:50. Thur: 4:45.

The Fabelmans (PG13): Fri, Mon-Wed 4:00, 7:20. Sat/Sun: 12:40, 4:00, 7:20.

Emancipation(R): Fri, Mon-Wed: 7:40. Sat/Sun: 2:00, 7:40.

Spoiler Alert (PG13): Fri-Wed: 5:00.

Babylon* (R): Thur: 3:00, 4:30, 7:00, 8:30.

FOOD & DRINK

FOOD & DRINK

benefits

Raising Awareness Through Ethiopian Cuisine

Chef Saba Tewolde’s favorite holiday is the Fourth of July. Born in a war, she escaped Ethiopia for a chance at American freedom.

“When I came to America, I said, ‘Wow, I’m a woman with a country,’” she recalled, “‘a country where I can enjoy life without being worried.’”

Though relieved to be removed from the harrowing struggles of a war-torn country, Tewolde never forgets her homeland, and she uses her career as a chef to provide stewardship and support for her people.

Through her grandmother’s teachings, Tewolde learned to cook at a young age amid the struggles of day-to-day life. Even then, she held an altruistic ethic, sharing what money she made with neighbors. From these experiences, she pushed forward, immigrating to the U.S. in order to give back and paving a successful career in her humanitarian efforts and cuisine. Most recently, Tewolde served Ethiopian cuisine during the lunch hours at Embermill Restaurant, formerly on State Street, but has hosted delicious evenings of compassion and charity for years. “The way I raise money is by cooking and telling my story,” she explained.

Her next event is on December 29, when

Chef Saba Tewolde

Tewolde hosts a Feed the Children Fundraiser at SOhO Restaurant & Music Club (1221 State St.) to celebrate the recent peace deals between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Though she intends to bring awareness to the many people who are still suffering in the wake of that conflict, Tewolde desires to entertain this moment of peace by sharing her authentic dishes with the public. As attendees dine on traditional Ethiopian cuisine, they’ll be entertained by musical guests, including Zoe Guess and others.

Below are but morsels of the menu that Tewolde intends to serve, all to honor her culture and story.

Berbere: “You have to have the chili powder that only comes from Ethiopia,” said Tewolde of this predominant spice. Chili peppers, cardamom, dried onion, garlic, cinnamon, basil, and a myriad of other common and lesser-known spices combine to make an aromatic, indelibly savory experience embodied in most Ethiopian dishes. “The chili powder from India, Mexico, and other places can never be berbere,” which boasts a flavor all its own and is the soul of the cuisine.

Injera: Bread and grain are the foundations of daily meals globally, and their consumption dates back thousands of years. Injera is funda-

mental to Ethiopian cuisine, acting as both bread and utensil. The ancient grain teff and water come together in a process of fermentation that takes multiple days before then the dough is thinned with water and cooked in a similar style to a crêpe, ultimately yielding a thin, airy flatbread on which various stews and garnishes are spread. Traditionally, injera is consumed by hand, acting as the vessel for various dishes. The only thing different about Tewolde’s injera is that it is not cooked on the traditional clay plate; despite this, her injera is undeniably authentic (and gluten-free).

Doro Wat: First it is the scent of the berbere diffused through the steam of the stew that teases the sense of smell. Then the rich red color beckons further exploration. “The delicious sauce comes from cooking the chicken very slowly,” said Tewolde of this famous chicken stew. Tender pieces of chicken are companion to boiled eggs saturated in a complex mélange of spices: To eat doro wat cradled in injera is an experience both rich and comforting.

Messer Wot: As in the case of doro wat, the vibrant colors of the tender lentils in messer wot initiate the dining experience. Red lentils combine with berbere to create a spicy, stimulating sensation. Yellow lentils and Ethiopian turmeric, unique and exceptional like berbere, form a fragrant stew for those who do not prefer spice but enjoy dynamic flavors.

COURTESY PAID ADVERTISEMENT

Northern European cuisine. 9am -6pm daily, closed Tuesday. A family owned Landmark for 45 years plus. A nice selection of homemade cakes & desserts, Scandiavian kringle, Strudels, the famous Butterings, & specialty coffees. Breakfast, lunch & dinner. High Tea service for 2 or more. Date night boxes. Dine-In or Take out. Happy hour 3-6 everyday. Events & Special Occasions. Restaurant connection for delivery service. CALL (805) 962-5085 TO ORDER • 1106 STATE ST. STATE & FIG ANDERSENSSANTABARBARA.COM Now Open! 4pm daily* Closed Wednesday Happy Hour Daily 4-5:30p AUGIESSB.COM • 805.664.0516 • 700 STATE STREET Enjoy delicious French comfort food and savory Ethiopian cuisine. We are now providing lunch and dinner. Please call to make a reservation. We appreciate your support LUNCH: French lunch: Tuesday - Saturday, 11:30 am - 2 pm Ethiopian coffee ceremony every Mon. from 10am - 12pm by appointment only 1114 STATE STREET #14 (IN LA ARCADA PLAZA) • (805) 966-0222 • PETITVALENTIEN.COM Sustainable Heart ~ Transformational Life Counseling ~ Relationships • Occupation and Career • Meditation Grief and Loss • Major Life Transitions • Anxiety Spiritual Issues • Communication • Conflict Michael H Kreitsek, MA Transpersonal Counseling Psychology Counseling From a Buddhist Perspective 805 698-0286

Sustainable Heart ~ Transformational Life Counseling ~ Relationships • Occupation and Career • Meditation Grief and Loss • Major Life Transitions • Anxiety Spiritual Issues • Communication • Conflict Michael H Kreitsek, MA Transpersonal Counseling Psychology Counseling From a Buddhist Perspective 805 698-0286

Sustainable Heart ~ Transformational Life Counseling ~ Relationships • Occupation and Career • Meditation Grief and Loss • Major Life Transitions • Anxiety Spiritual Issues • Communication • Conflict Michael H Kreitsek, MA Transpersonal Counseling Psychology Counseling From a Buddhist Perspective 805 698-0286

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FOOD & DRINK

Can you surf in the Pacific Ocean and hit snowy mountain slopes on the same day? If so, Figueroa Mountain Brewing will reward you with a hoodie, the crown for completing the “California Twofer Challenge.”

by Matt Kettman

The ongoing contest was launched in conjunction with a new “Surf/Snow Report,” which is posted at figmtnbrew.com/californiatwofer and, if you sign up, sent to your email inbox as a newsletter every Friday. A recent report advised hitting up China Peak outside of Fresno and then surfing at Sand Dollar Beach along the Big Sur coast. (That’s about a five-hour drive.) Another recent day advised skiing Mt. Baldy before riding wave-sliding at Bolsa Chica in Orange County. (A mere 90 minutes, traffic depending.)

Then there’s a form on the website to prove you completed the deed, or you can take same-day selfies in both the snow and beach, upload to Instagram with the hashtag #FindYourTrail while tagging @figmtnbrew, and then DM the brewery to claim your sweatshirt.

The campaign is part of the Buellton-based brewery’s “Find Your Trail” initiative, which encourages people to enjoy the Golden State’s natural wonders. “As lifelong Californians, we’ve heard so many times that the ability to enjoy the snow and the sand in the same day is one of the many things that makes this state so great,” said marketing director Dan Shapiro. “The shame is that it seems so few have actually experienced it, which is why we wanted to give our guests both the encouragement and the tools to go out and do it.”

Who’ll do it first? See figmtnbrew.com n

Black Sheep Debuts Downtown

The Black Sheep “S.B. Brasserie” opens Friday, December 16 at 18 East Cota Street, around the corner from Joe’s Café. This turn-of-the-century historic building has housed many eccentric tenants over the last century, including one of Santa Barbara’s most beloved original French Restaurants, Mousse Odile, in the ’80s and ’90s.

The vision from local coowners General Manager Ruben Perez and Chef Jake Reimer is that of a modern classic Santa Barbara brasserie (French kitchen and pub) that captures the story of Old Town Santa Barbara and is an ode to Mousse Odile.

“We really wanted to do something special in the community,” says Reimer. “We are a California French Pub from locals to locals where the food is super elevated, with a great wine list, great beers, a casual atmosphere, but we are really executing at a higher level. We listened to what the public was asking us and wanting, and there was such a great cult following at the last Black Sheep [on Ortega Street], so what we did was infused the old Mousse Odile with the Black Sheep.”

The menus at the Black Sheep feature fun farmers’-market-driven items changing often with the season as well as some classics and favorites that will remain staples. “We felt with so many restaurants having absentee owners or from out of town lately that we could really deliver a unique special experience for everyone to join,” says Perez. “We all love what we do every day and feel it is not only our passion but our privilege to share with all of you and our team the love you have shown us over the last two decades.  It truly has been a humbling and fantastic experience getting to know so many people here who share our passion for food and wine.” Call (805) 965-1113 or visit blacksheepsb.com

ELENA’S KITCHEN OPENS: A new restaurant, brought to you by the owners of S.B. Sweets and City Hats in the Paseo Nuevo mall, had a grand opening this week at 738 State Street in the former home of Kai Sushi. At Elena’s Kitchen, husband-and-wife team Julio Rodriguez and Maria Elena Rangel are offering authentic Mexican food as well as their popular crepes served at S.B. Sweets. The menu includes Sweet Crêpes, Savory Crêpes, Mini Pancakes, French Toast, Conchita Toast, Waffles, Huevos a la Mexicana, Omelets, Chorizo con Huevo, Chilaquiles, Tacos, Flautas, Burritos, Quesadillas, and Croissants. “Thank you and congrats to Maria and Julio,” says their son and manager Salvador Rangel. “Honestly, they are a great couple.” Hours are Monday-Thursday, 6 a.m.-10 p.m., and Friday-

Saturday, 6 a.m.-midnight. Call (805) 679-5657. Thanks to reader David P. for the tip!

PEPE’S REOPENS IN GOLETA: Readers JK and John Paul let me know that Pepe’s Mexican Restaurant at 254 Orange Avenue, an icon in Goleta since 1958 that closed after a kitchen fire in December 2020, has reopened. The eatery used the unexpected closing as an opportunity to do an extensive twoyear remodel, including putting on a new roof. Hours are Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m., and Sunday, 9 a.m.-9 p.m. I am told there have been a few changes to the menu but it remains mostly the same. Call (805) 967-0313 or visit pepesgoleta.com

HAPPY MONTH

AT PASCUCCI:

Pascucci, a local favorite for 29 years at 509 State Street, has decided to declare December as Happy Month. Happy Hour is normally Monday-Friday 3-6 p.m. and it will now be available all day/night, seven days a week until the end of the year with the purchase of a meal. Specials include House Margarita ($6), House Chardonnay and Cabernet ($5), Well Cocktails ($5), and Bottle Beer & White Claws ($4).

SNEAK PEEK: I stopped by several up-and-coming restaurants to see how things are progressing, and here is an update: Construction has not yet begun at Silvers Omakase, 224 Helena Avenue; and Santa Barbara Fish Market, 7127 Hollister Avenue, Suite 18 in Goleta. Construction has stalled for months at SocialEats, 6521 Pardall Road in Isla Vista. Construction is well underway with a few months to go at Longoria Winery, 732 State Street; and The Landing, 5690 Calle Real in Goleta. Construction is underway but slowed to a crawl at The Ellwood, 5905 Sandspit Road in Goleta, formerly Beachside Bar-Café.

BLACK SHEEP 2.0: Co-owners General Manager Ruben Perez (left) and Chef Jake Reimer at the new Black Sheep restaurant at 18 East Cota Street, offering a fusion of Californian and French cuisine

JOHN DICKSON

RUTH ELLEN HOAG’S ARTFUL JOURNEY

Exhibit at Thomas Reynolds Gallery Chronicles

Prolific Painter’s Work ‘So Far’

Ruth Ellen Hoag’s professional life didn’t begin with a paintbrush. A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, she turned to watercolors and acrylics only after winding down a 30-year orchestral career that brought her and her French horn to venues across the country, including in New York, Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara. In fact, it was while playing first horn in the orchestra in a 1975 production of West Side Story at the Lobero Theatre that Hoag met her husband, Richard.

“He was Riff, the leader of the Jets,” she recalled.

When her husband’s work took him to Japan in 1989, Hoag joined him. Little did she know that sojourn would represent the first steps toward a new career, this one as a fine artist. “I really wanted to go, but there was no point in taking my horn,” she said. “What would I do with it there? So, I left it behind, conscious of the fact that I’d probably never play professionally again.”

In Japan, Hoag, who had always enjoyed drawing, directed her artistic attention toward calligraphy. Upon returning to the U.S. a little more than a year later, she turned to painting. She allowed herself two years of working exclusively on her art to see if she could make a go of it.

And make a go of it she has. That brief experiment has resulted in a vast body of award-winning work, decades as a painting instructor, and three years as the owner of REH Contemporary Gallery in the Funk Zone (she closed the gallery in 2022 to devote herself to painting).

This month, her circuitous journey brings her to the Thomas Reynolds Gallery, where a solo show representing her work over the past 20 years is on exhibit through January 5.

My Journey So Far, which opened last month, features 20 pieces done in Hoag’s signature watercolor or acrylic. With vibrant colors and slightly abstract figures or characters, as Hoag refers to the individuals who populate her work each painting tells its own unique story.

“When you get an idea for a painting it’s never the one that comes out in the end,” she said. “It’s the kernel of a story about the people, about what’s going on with them. You start drawing them, and then you’re figuring out how they go together. They didn’t start out together but came together in the painting.”

Hoag knew early on that she wanted to do figurative work and, as she said, took every figure drawing and anatomy course she could find to hone her skills and develop her technique. “I’ve never lost my desire to paint people,” she noted. “But they’ve always had an abstract quality to them. I think of all my work as being abstract, but people don’t see it that way because they can see the figures; they can see the story.”

Hoag has shown her work with the International Society of Acrylic Painters and the Annual National Juried Exhibition of Works on Paper, among others. In addition, she holds signature status with the American Watercolor Society, National Watercolor Society, San Diego Watercolor Society,

already formidable collection of photography. SBMA, in sync with a city in which photography holds a passionate spot, has maintained an admirable commitment to the medium going back to the 1980s.

L I F E

Rocky Mountain National Watermedia, California Watercolor Association, and Watercolor West.

When she began painting, Hoag’s medium was primarily watercolor and India ink. “Then I got the mural commission, and it had to be in acrylic,” she said. The commission, titled “East of Yesterday” and located at 10 East Yanonali Street, consists of two large, vivid pieces that depict the history of Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone. Painted in 2016, the murals received the Santa Barbara Beautiful 2019 Hugh Petersen Award for Art in Public Places.

Despite her accomplishments, Hoag is humble about her work. When “Retrospective,” a piece currently featured in the show at Thomas Reynolds Gallery, took top honors at the San Diego Watercolor Society’s annual international show in 2012, Hoag was more than a little surprised. In writing about it, the judge noted the quality of the work and Hoag’s unique point of view. “It was a clue to trust myself and not judge myself too harshly,” she said.

That is a piece of wisdom she shares with the students in the painting classes she has taught for nearly 20 years. “Trust that what you’re doing has value,” she said, “and stick with it long enough to have it become your voice.”

And when her students have moments of self-doubt, she urges them to keep working. “I tell them, ‘You’re just not done yet,’” she said. “If the painting’s not quite together, you’re just not done yet. Don’t throw it away. Keep going until you have wrenched out every ounce of juice you can. And either it works, or it doesn’t. And if it doesn’t, you do it again.”

—Andrea Weir Estrada

Awol Erizku’s large and color-filled portrait of young Black poet Amanda Gorman, who earned global fame with her reading at President Joe Biden’s inauguration, serves as an inspiring and bold invitation into the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s (SBMA) McCormick Gallery these days. Gorman’s heroism, humility, and humanity radiate outward from the photograph, which also contrasts her ebony skin and warm yellow dress. She draws us into the gallery on a high note. In a way, though, this powerful portrait of a bona fide contemporary celebrity is something of an anomaly in the current exhibition filling the gallery (and beyond), A Time of Gifts: Six Years of Photographs Given to the Collection, 2016-2022 The show’s images are largely black-and-white in format, and celebrity imagery is otherwise absent from the mix here (unless we count the subcultural celebrity of spiritual leader/folk singer Ethel Predonzan in Diane Arbus’s eccentrically fascinating 1964 shot from Santa Barbara, “Bishop by the Sea”).

Consider the innately diverse nature of what the show is made of fresh and often robust additions to the museum’s

Despite the wide-ranging nature of the show’s inventory, certain themes and social issues come forward, across lines of specific artists. Several famed photographers whose work pursued intentional photo essay–like series are included here, such as August Sander’s “Face of Our Time” image of a lanky high school student with suit and cigarette in tow, and in Mike Disfarmer’s bleak-chic Americana.

Compassionate “mean streets” imagery is represented by Mary Ellen Mark’s iconic “Tiny, Halloween, Seattle (1983)” and Ernest J. Bellocq’s early 20th-century ode to New Orleans’ Storyville “red light district.”

Influenced by the German expressionists, Larry Fink’s Social Graces series yields a shot from the urban landscape, using handheld flash to selectively illuminate a dizzy New York bar scene. Santa Barbara’s own Nell Campbell deftly captures our eye and sense of place with one of her vibe-filled color images from the humid Louisiana atmosphere, “Little Chenier.”

Black lives and Black subject matter do matter here, starting with another striking color portrait of a Black woman in the entryway, Kwame Brathwaite’s 1973 image “Changing Times,” a potent example of Brathwaite’s “Black is beautiful” celebration of African-American life in the age when the Afro reigned. Civil rights indignation has its corner, including Ernest C. Withers’s “I Am a Man,” its title emblazoned on protest signs as if in a

Photography follows many muses and rewards our gaze in multiple ways, as this parade of new acquisitions amply reminds us. We Santa Barbarans should be proud, by proxy.

A Time of Gifts: Six Years of Photographs Given to the Collection, 20162022 is on view at Santa Barbara Museum of Art (1130 State St.) through January 15, 2023. For more information, visit sbma.net

visual echo chamber. More contemporary Black expression turns up in the form of Dawoud Bey’s “Night Coming Tenderly, Black,” a murky-dark view of turf from the slavery era’s Underground Railroad.

—Josef Woodard

Kwame Brathwaite, ”Changing Times,” 1973, printed 2021

Artist Ruth Ellen Hoag with a few of her paintings on view at Thomas Reynolds Gallery

SANTA BARBARA READS

Our 2022 Roundup of Books by Local Authors

by Leslie Dinaberg

December is a great time to buy books as gifts, as well as to restock your own shelves and bedside tables with some enticing reads. Here’s a peek at what some of our local scribes will have been up to in 2022, and what you can find in bookstores this season.

Children’s & Middle-Grade Books

New York Times best-selling author and illustrator Rachel Ignotofsky wrote and designed her latest creation The History of the Computer: People, Inventions, and Technology that Changed Our World from her new home on the Mesa. Her striking illustrations are also jam-packed with painstakingly researched information that takes readers of all ages on an entertaining and educational journey from the ancient beginnings to the modern-day inventors and innovators of the computing machines that now dominate so much of modern life. “I’ve been drawing on the computer since I was 7,” shared Ignotofsky, when asked about her fascination with the subject. “We started our own vintage computer collection as part of this project.”

The friendship between an eastern blue jay and an American elm tree takes center stage in Charlie’s Dream, the sequel to writer/illustrator William Dalziel’s book Ulma, the Kidnapped Tree. Both books revolve around themes of courage, dreams, and freedom.

Dragons on the Purple Moon, by Peter G. Martin, with illustrations by Sabine Michael Ovesen, follows the exciting space adventures of siblings Anna and Avi as they travel to a mysterious purple moon in the land of the stars and face their fears together when they have an unexpected encounter with dragons.

Additional titles on the kid-friendly front include: Monty’s Marvelous Adventures by Dori Edwards, with illustrations by Ryan Carr, a penguin story that benefits the Santa Barbara Zoo; sports biography Who Is Cristiano Ronaldo? by James Buckley Jr.; an ABC board book with a twangy twist, Ashley Hayes’s ABCs for Future Country Music Stars, which features illustrations by Derek Mast; a tale for budding young environmentalists, Wiggly Worm and Her Friends Recycle Organics, by Lissa Landry; and coming-of-age adventure The Ghost and the Greyhound by Bryan Snyder.

Also: Themes of respect for other people and the planet

are embedded into Colleen McCarthy-Evans’s The Crazy Old Maid and How She Became Known as Flora, the Quite Sane, Age-Defying, Domestic Goddess; literacy expert Judith E. Torres’s ABC book An Alphabet Pet Parade in Topsy-Turvy Town, Population 26; the story poem Parsley, by Ann Lewin-Benham, with illustrations by Karen Busch Holman; Janet Lucy’s award-winning Makana Is a Gift, illustrated by Alexis Cantu; Bruce Hale’s energetic Clark the Shark, with illustrations by Guy Francis; James Burks’s spy adventure Agent 9: Mind Control!; space adventure Abby in Orbit by Andrea J. Loney, with illustrations by Fuuji Takashi; and the mutant bagel adventure Bite the Bagel, by Joel Ross, illustrated by Nicole Miles.

Young Adult

Set in Montecito, Elizabeth Foscue’s YA novel Pest follows a young protagonist whose father owns a pest control company, while she spends her days traipsing from one lavish estate to the next … spraying ant poison.

Mary Penney’s new novel, Green Eyes and Ham, is a heartfelt story of a young boy who discovers he has a crush on another boy, while Golden Secrets by Anita Perez Ferguson explores some of our local history through the eyes of a 14-year-old Mexican girl, and Everything Within and In Between by Nikki Barthelmess is about a young woman’s journey to rediscover her Mexican roots.

Fiction

Novellas, like the fine pair found in Victoria Shorr’s 2022 book Mid-Air, are a lovely way for today’s short-attentionspan-plagued readers to explore the fictional form. Aside from Shorr’s appealingly rendered prose, these two stories are linked by the upswing and downswing of family fortunes. In “Great Uncle Edward,” a formerly aristocratic family gathers for dinner, and “Cleveland Auto Wrecking” follows an immigrant clan through the Great Depression through the booming American West. Both of these “fine novellas unfurl the kind of complicated family tapestries that every generation ends up weaving from money and love,” writes Daniel Akst in the Wall Street Journal.

A page-turner from screenwriter David Koepp, Aurora is a terrific setup for a disaster movie and it is reportedly coming to Netflix with Academy Award winner Kathryn Bigelow at the helm. Meanwhile on the page, the lights go

out not just in Aurora, Illinois, but across the globe and an estranged family’s complicated history takes center stage.

Renowned for his short stories, TC Boyle is at it again with his new collection, I Walk Between the Raindrops: Stories. The title story involves a woman walking into a bar and claiming she has ESP not exactly a tough scenario to imagine at any of our local watering holes.

Other fiction titles with local connections include: Romeo’s Breakfast, a short story collection from Gary Delanoeye; Metropolis by Monte Schulz; A Hard Place by Dennis Koenig, which explores the idea that we can sometimes be our own worst enemies; Beyond the Clouds the Sky Is Blue, a story that spans three generations by Dennis Santos; Oil and Water: Stories from the Windward Shore, a collection of coastal-centered tales by Terry Dressler; A Parable of Lies by Lawrence Spann, which the author describes as “an experiment in healing fiction”; and the reflective novel As Time Goes By by W. Royce Adams.

Also: Former Indy writer DJ Palladino’s novel Werewolf, Texas explores the dark side of a bloodthirsty dynasty; Tracy Shawn’s novel Floating Underwater mashes magical realism with psychology and mysticism; and Native Air, Jonathan Howland’s novel about friendship, is set in the world of mountain climbing.

Mystery & Thriller

Max Talley’s newest work, Santa Fe Psychosis, is the story of an out-of-work private investigator who, in his hunt for a missing teenager, discovers a child trafficking operation.

Set in Santa Barbara, Eva Shaw’s new Beatrix Patterson historical mystery, The Finder, explores a disbanded cult and a dodgy inheritance in our town, post-WWII; Murder in a Small Town by AJ Harris takes place in 1941 in the small, quiet town of Newbury, Wisconsin; Other People’s Money by Cynthia Hamilton is the seventh book in the beloved Madeline Dawkins series of mystery novels; The Angkor Abduction by Austin I Pullé takes place in Cambodia; and The Transentients, by Sergio Missana, translated from Spanish by Jessica Powell, is a psychological thriller set in Chile.

Stay tuned … next week’s print edition will continue our 2022 book roundup with local nonfiction, historical fiction, memoir & autobiography, and poetry offerings. You can also dig into the entire list online at Independent.com.

Santa Barbara Empty Bowls

THANK

UBS Financial Services Inc.

Brylen Technologies

California Learning Center

CenCal Health

Frank Schipper Construction Company

Montecito Bank & Trust

Pacific Premier Bank

Union Bank

OUR COMMITTEE

Elisa Atwill

Danyel Dean

Merrillee Ford

Sarah Hanna

RAFFLE DONORS

Alessia Patisserie & Cafe

American Airlines

Artisan Jewelry by Felicia

Barbareño Restaurant

Bluewater Grill

Bradford Renaissance Portraits

Chaucer’s Books

Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara

CorePower Yoga

The Daisy Restaurant

Eureka! Restaurant

FLOAT Luxury Spa

Fresco Café

Grace Wine Company

Hudson Grace

Yardi Systems

Katherine Bower

Danyel Dean & Peter Castellanos

Barbara Ford

Merrillee Ford

Shannon & James Frew

Doug Hamilton

Donnalyn Karpeles

Kathleen Knowles

Nancy Krug

Collette Mason

Island Seed & Feed

The Landsby

Lucky’s Steakhouse

Margerum Wine Company

Montecito Landscape

Mountain Air Sports

NS Fine Art

Olio e Limone Ristorante

Opal Restaurant & Bar

Park Lane Jewelry

Pierre Lafond & Co

Powell Peralta Skate Shop

The Riviera Towel Company

Rosewood Miramar Beach

Salt Cave Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara Beach Yoga

Susan Hersberger

Cyndee Howard

Kathleen Knowles

Donnalyn Karpeles

Elizabeth & Leon Olson

Susan Rose

Mary Thompson

Elizabeth Olson

Laurie Potter

Shanon Sedivy

Peggy Shoemaker

Santa Barbara Gift Baskets

The Santa Barbara Inn

Santa Barbara Museum of Art

Santa Barbara Zoo

Sea Landing Stella Mare’s Bistro

Toma Restaurant & Bar

The Upham Hotel

Vices & Spices

Wendy Foster

Elisa Atwill

Danyel Dean

Jenifer Sanregret

Julie Vanderwilt

Deirdre Woode

Bob

Clay Studio

Cold Spring School

Crane Country Day School

Dos Pueblos High School

Laguna Blanca School

San Marcos High School

SBCC School of Extended Learning

Michael & Christine Adcock

Elisa Atwell

Mark Bennett

Joe Campanelli

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY by Rob Breszny

ARIES

(Mar. 21-Apr. 19): Aries painter Vincent van Gogh was renowned for translating his sublime and unruly passions into colors and shapes on canvas. It was a demanding task. He careened between torment and ecstasy. “I put my heart and soul into my work,” he said, “and I have lost my mind in the process.” That’s sad! But I have good news for you, Aries. In the coming months, you will have the potential to reach unprecedented new depths of zest as you put your heart and soul into your work and play. And hallelujah, you won’t lose your mind in the process! In fact, I suspect you will become more mentally healthy than you’ve been in a long time.

TAURUS

(Apr. 20-May 20): “The soul is silent,” writes Taurus poet Louise Glück. “If it speaks at all, it speaks in dreams.” I don’t agree with her in general, and I especially don’t agree with her in regard to your life in the coming weeks. I believe your soul will be singing, telling jokes, whispering in the dark, and flinging out unexpected observations. Your soul will be extra alive and alert and awake, tempting you to dance in the grocery store and fling out random praise and fantasize about having your own podcast. Don’t underestimate how vivacious your soul might be, Taurus. Give it permission to be as fun and funny as it yearns to be.

GEMINI

(May 21-June 20): The coming weeks will be an excellent time to expand your understanding about the nature of stress. Here are three study aids: (1) High stress levels are not healthy for your mind and body, but low to moderate stress can be good for you. (2) Low to moderate stress is even better for you if it involves dilemmas that you can ultimately solve. (3) There is a thing called “eustress,” which means beneficial stress. It arises from a challenge that evokes your vigor, resilience, and willpower. As you deal with it, you feel hopeful and hardy. It’s meaningful and interesting. I bring these ideas to your attention, dear Gemini, because you are primed to enjoy a rousing upgrade in your relationship with stress.

CANCER

(June 21-July 22): Long before he launched his illustrious career, Cancerian inventor Buckminster was accepted to enroll at Harvard University. Studying at such a prestigious educational institution was a high honor and set him up for a bright future. Alas, he was expelled for partying too hard. Soon he was working at odd jobs. His fortunes dwindled, and he grew depressed. But at age 32, he had a pivotal mystical experience. He seemed to be immersed in a globe of white light hovering above the ground. A disembodied voice spoke, telling him he “belonged to the universe” and that he would fulfill his life purpose if he applied himself to serving “the highest advantage of others.” How would you like a Buckminster Fuller–style intervention, Cancerian? It’s available if you want it and ask for it.

LEO

(July 23-Aug. 22): Leo-born Judith Love Cohen was an electrical engineer who worked on NASA’s Apollo Space Program. She was also the mother of the famous actor Jack Black. When she was nine months pregnant with Jack, on the day she went into labor, she performed a heroic service. On their way to the moon, the three astronauts aboard the Apollo 13 spacecraft had encountered a major systems failure. In the midst of her birth process, Judith Love Cohen carried out advanced troubleshooting that helped save their lives and bring their vehicle safely back to Earth. I don’t expect you to achieve such a monumental feat in the coming days, Leo. But I suspect you will be extra intrepid and even epic in your efforts. And your ability to magically multitask will be at a peak.

VIRGO

(Aug. 23-Sept. 22): When you’re at the height of your powers, you provide the people in your life with high-quality help and support. And I believe you could perform this role even stronger in 2023. Here are some of the best benefits you can offer: (1) Assist your allies in extracting bright

ideas from confusing mishmashes. (2) Help them cull fertile seeds from decaying dross. (3) As they wander through messy abysses, aid them in finding where the redemption is. (4) Cheer on their successes with wit and charm.

LIBRA

(Sept. 23-Oct. 22): A blogger named Daydreamydyke explains the art of bestowing soulful gifts. Don’t give people you care for generic consumer goods, she tells us. Instead, say to them, “I picked up this cool rock I found on the ground that reminded me of you,” or “I bought you this necklace for 50 cents at a yard sale because I thought you’d like it,” or “I’ve had this odd little treasure since childhood, but I feel like it could be of use to you or give you comfort, so I want you to have it.” That’s the spirit I hope you will adopt during the holiday season, Libra as well as for all of 2023, which will be the year you could become a virtuoso gift-giver.

SCORPIO

(Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In 1957, engineers Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes invented three-dimensional plastic wallpaper. No one bought the stuff, though. A few years later, they rebranded it as Bubble Wrap and marketed it as material to protect packages during shipment. Success! Its new use has been popular ever since. I suspect you are in a phase comparable to the time between when their plastic wallpaper flopped and before they dreamed up Bubble Wrap. Have faith in the possibility of there being a Second Act, Scorpio. Be alert for new applications of possibilities that didn’t quite make a splash the first time around.

SAGITTARIUS

(Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I applaud your expansive curiosity. I admire your yearning to learn more and more about our mysterious world as you add to your understanding of how the game of life works. Your greed for interesting experiences is good greed! It is one of your most beautiful qualities. But now and then, there come times when you need to scale down your quest for fresh, raw truths and work on integrating what you have already absorbed. The coming weeks will be one of those times.

CAPRICORN

(Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Better than most, you have a rich potential to attune yourself to the cyclical patterns of life. It’s your birthright to become skilled at discerning natural rhythms at work in the human comedy. Even more fortunately, Capricorn, you can be deeply comforted by this awareness. Educated by it. Motivated by it. I hope that in 2023, you will develop your capacity to the next level. The cosmic flow will be on your side as you strive to feel the cosmic flow and place yourself in closer and closer alignment with it.

AQUARIUS

(Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Anne, a character in a book by L. M. Montgomery, says she prefers the word “dusk” over “twilight” because it sounds so “velvety and shadowy.” She continues, “In daylight, I belong to the world … in the night to sleep and eternity. But in the dusk, I’m free from both and belong only to myself.” According to my astrological assessment, you Aquarians will go through a dusk-like phase in the coming weeks: a time when you will belong solely to yourself and any other creature you choose to join you in your velvety, shadowy emancipation.

PISCES

(Feb. 19-Mar. 20): My Piscean friend Venus told me, “We Pisceans feel everything very intensely, but alas, we do not possess the survival skills of a Scorpio or the enough-isenough, self-protective mechanism of the Cancerians. We are the water sign most susceptible to being engulfed and flooded and overwhelmed.” I think Venus is somewhat correct in her assessment. But I also believe you Fishes have a potent asset that you may not fully appreciate or call on enough. Your ability to tune into the very deepest levels of emotion potentially provides you with access to a divine power source beyond your personality. If you allow it to give you all of its gifts, it will keep you shielded and safe and supported.

EMPLOYMENT

COMPUTER/TECH

CLINICAL SOCIAL WORKER

STUDENT HEALTH

CUSTOMER SERVICE

FINANCE

PROFESSIONAL ADMINISTRATIVE COORDINATOR

GEOGRAPHY DEPARTMENT

Works closely with the Director of the Center to manage spatial@ ucsb’s administrative functions. Serves as the primary contact for the Center and organizes events and meetings, technology demonstrations, and outreach activities to pull in researchers both on and off campus.

Researches extramural funding opportunities and assists with the development of proposals in coordination with the C&G Manager in Geography. Arranges and processes travel advances, reimbursements and other payments as needed. Prepares graphics and layout for hard copy printed material and web pages.

Reqs: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent training and/or experience. 1‑3 years experience with project management. 1‑3 years experience in financial and cost accounting and financial analysis. Notes Satisfactory conviction history background check. Position is 50% FTE (20 hrs/wk). $27.56/hr. The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Application review begins 12/20/22. Apply online at https://jobs.ucsb.edu Job # 46415

Provides a full range of social work services, with emphasis on identifying treatment resources and providing psychosocial interventions (individual, group, crisis) not offered by other campus resources, to assure that students receive optimal benefit from medical and/or psychiatric care. The primary client population to be served is students with significant psychosocial stress, acute and chronic mental illnesses and in need of short and long term social services, including long term counseling and case management support. Reqs: Must be currently registered as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in the State of California at all times during employment. Master’s degree from an accredited school of social work; or an equivalent combination of education and experience. Three years of post‑master’s experience; or an equivalent combination of education and experience. Notes: Mandated reporting requirements of Child & Dependent Adult Abuse. Must successfully complete and pass the background check and credentialing process before employment and date of hire. To comply with Santa Barbara County Public Health Department Health Officer Order, this position must provide evidence of annual influenza vaccination, or wear a surgical mask while working in patient care areas during the influenza season. Must have a current CA Licensed Clinical Social Worker license at all times during employment. Any HIPAA or FERPA violation is subject to disciplinary action. Salary commensurate with experience. The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Apply online at https://jobs.ucsb.edu Open until filled.

Job #41572

DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT

OFFICE OF DEVELOPMENT

Works to optimize philanthropic support for the College of Engineering (COE) and other collaborative fundraising initiatives in response to academic priorities established by the dean of COE (“dean”) and select affiliated program directors. As a member of the Development Office staff, fundraising efforts are devoted primarily to engineering with the remaining time to other University initiatives, as appropriate. Fundraising focus will be on computer science and bioengineering while still inclusive of the broader College of Engineering. Approximately ninety percent time on fundraising activities for gifts of $25,000 and up, with emphasis on gifts of $100,000 and more. Focuses ten percent on other activities related to fund raising and administrative duties such as coordinating and executing aspects of the engineering

development program. Coordinates and executes planned strategies for the identification, cultivation, solicitation, closing and stewardship of gifts primarily from individuals, but may include, as appropriate, corporations and foundations.

Works personally with donor prospects and supports the dean, faculty and volunteers in prospect relationships when appropriate, in order to maximize philanthropic support for engineering and UC Santa Barbara, raising gifts to meet identified fundraising priorities. Reqs: Bachelor’s Degree in related area and / or equivalent experience / training.

1‑3 years Annual gift and major gift experience, raising four to six‑figure gifts. 1‑3 years Demonstrated skill at gift negotiation and gift solicitation to engage complex and sophisticated individual, corporate, and foundation donors toward significant philanthropic outcomes.

Notes: Satisfactory completion of a criminal history background check.

Must maintain valid CA DL and a clean DMV record. This is an annually renewable contract position with no limit on total duration. Flexibility and willingness to travel frequently.

Ability to work comfortably with a flexible work schedule including some evening and weekend work. The budgeted salary that the University reasonably expects to pay for this position is $100,000‑$117,000/ yr.. The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Application review begins 12/22/22. Apply online at https://jobs.ucsb.edu Job #45933.

LEGISLATIVE

LIAISON

ASSOCIATED STUDENTS

Serves as an expert informational resource for students on the A. S. Legal Code. The Legal Code is comprised of the A.S. Constitution, the A.S. By‑laws, and Standing Policies. Updates Associated Student Legal Code based on legislation passed at weekly meetings maintains the historical records of changes and provides research and information on past policies and procedures. Reqs: Bachelor’s Degree in related area and / or equivalent experience / training. 1‑3 years Experience in political science, public policy, or law. 1‑3 years Experience in an institution of higher education working with college students in an academic advising or counseling capacity, or other field that is directly related to the functions of the position or equivalency as determined by the hiring authority. 1‑3 years Experience in working with diverse communities and across multiple identities and respect and consideration for all identities, perspectives, and differences. Notes: Satisfactory completion of a criminal history background check. Campus Security Authority. Some evenings and weekends are required. $58,940 ‑ $64,700/Yr. The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/ Affirmative Action Employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Open until filled. Apply online at https:// jobs.ucsb.edu Job #46211

regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Open until filled. Apply online at https:// jobs.ucsb.edu Job #46015

MEDIA CENTER SPECIALIST ASSOCIATED STUDENTS

Responsible for developing and coordinating student services provided by the A.S. Media Center. The Media Center Specialist is responsible for collecting, compiling, and writing information for various workshops,

NOW HIRING

social media, and other various forms of written communication. Reqs: Bachelor’s Degree Bachelor’s degree in related area and / or equivalent experience / training. Knowledge of media equipment and software. Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail. 1‑3 years Experience with microsoft office suite, Google Suite or equivalent. Notes: Satisfactory completion of a criminal history background check. Campus Security Authority. $26.31 ‑ $28.57/

Inside Sales Administrator

The Independent is seeking an inside sales administrator to join its sales team. This role is responsible for prospecting advertising clients, collecting and processing legal notices, classified ads, open house listings, and maintaining and fulfilling our print subscription database. This position will work full time in our downtown Santa Barbara office, ready to greet and assist our readers and customers.

Qualified candidates must have a positive attitude and need to be self-motivated and highly organized with outstanding written and verbal communication skills. Responsibilities include providing excellent customer service (through email, on the phone and inperson), attending weekly sales meetings, and data entry with strong attention to detail. Must also be able to work under pressure in a deadline-driven environment and have a basic understanding of marketing and sales.

Compensation will be hourly + commission. Full-time positions include health, dental, and vision insurance, Section 125 cafeteria plan, 401(k), and vacation program.

Please introduce yourself, reasons for interest, and a brief summary of your qualifications, along with your résumé to hr@independent.com No phone calls, please. EOE m/f/d/v.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT SPECIALIST

LETTERS & SCIENCE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Under the supervision of the Business Manager, using a high level of professional and independent judgment, the Financial Support Specialist assists with the department’s overall business operations, which encompasses: general office administration, all facets of payroll and personnel actions (UCPath), time reporting (Kronos), travel and entertainment (CONCUR), procurement (Flexcard and Gateway), financial reporting, inventory tracking, facilities maintenance, and safety.

Reqs: High School Diploma or GED. 1‑3 years computer skills and experience of Microsoft Suite products. 1‑3 years office and administrative experience.

Note: Satisfactory conviction history background check. $26.09 ‑ $29.97/ hr. The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Application review begins 12/15/22; open until filled.

Apply online at https://jobs.ucsb.edu

Job # 46202

MARKETING

SPECIALIST

HOUSING DINING & AUXILIARY ENTERPRISES

Involves the marketing of activities, services or product; provides marketing support activities. Involves the analysis of identifying possible constituencies / audiences and the development of programs, services, and outreach to meet identified needs and influence public perception; may involve “brand” development or enhancement, and may involve working with the media (press, television and radio). Reqs: Bachelor’s degree in related area and / or equivalent experience / training. Excellent written and interpersonal communication skills. Knowledge of marketing principles, concepts, strategies and best practices. Knowledge and experience in Adobe Creative Suite applications: Illustrator, Photoshop & Premiere, and other applications: Canva, Hootsuite, or similar Social Media management systems. Notes: Mandated Child Abuse Reporter. Maintain a valid CA driver’s license, a clean DMV record and enrollment in the DMV Employee Pull‑Notice Program. Satisfactory conviction history background check. $55,100‑$74,300/yr. The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/ Affirmative Action Employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without

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DONATE YOUR CAR TO KIDS Fast Free Pickup – Running or Not ‑ 24 Hour Response ‑ Maximum Tax Donation – Help Find Missing Kids! Call 1‑888‑491‑1453. (CalSCAN)

REAL ESTATE

MONEY TO LOAN

RETIRED COUPLE $$$$ for business purpose Real Estate loans. Credit unimportant. V.I.P. Trust Deed Company www.viploan.com Call 1‑818‑248‑0000. Broker‑principal DRE 01041073. No consumer loans. (Cal‑ SCAN)

RENTAL PROPERTIES

APARTMENTS & CONDOS FOR RENT

STUDIOS $1440, Studios with patio $1500, 1BDs $1560, 1BDs with patio $1620, in beautiful garden setting! Pool, lndry & off‑street parking at Michelle Apartments. 340 Rutherford St. NP. Call Erin 805‑967‑6614

LEGALS EMPLOYMENT

(CONT.)

hr. The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Apply online at https://jobs.ucsb.edu Job #45751

LEGAL NOTICESTO PLACE EMAIL NOTICE TO LEGALS@ INDEPENDENT.COM

ADMINISTER OF ESTATE

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF: PHILOMENE GERMAINE SMATHERS, CASE NO# 22PR00553

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both of PHILOMENE GERMAINE SMATHERS

A PETITION FOR PROBATE has been filed by: Alexander Spatz in the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara.

THE PETITION FOR PROBATE requests that (name): Alexander Spatz be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.

PAYROLL ANALYST

BUSINESS & FINANCIAL SERVICES

Uses critical thinking, analytical, and problem solving skills to research, analyze and develop solutions to a wide range of complex campus payroll and general ledger questions, issues, and concerns. Researches and troubleshoots business processes and system issues and demonstrates good judgment in selecting methods and techniques for obtaining resolution within tight deadlines.

Reqs: Bachelor’s degree in related area and / or equivalent experience / training. Experience processing and responding to basic inquiries regarding payroll. Experience with an automated, integrated payroll system.

Note: Satisfactory conviction history background check. $26.39 ‑ $30.00/ hr. The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Open until filled. Apply online at https://jobs.ucsb.edu

Job # 44248

PROGRAM COORDINATOR

RESIDENTIAL OPERATIONS

Provides program coordination to all units within Residential Operations and Transportation & Parking Services. Comprehensive understanding of the programs and systems utilized to support Residential Operations managers and staff. Assists with research and analysis on various issues relating to payroll/ personnel/employment actions, data management, and training/ learning development procedures. In compliance with HDAE goals and objectives, affirms and implements the department Educational Equity Plan.

Reqs: 1‑3 years of experience in an administrative, clerical, or operations role. Must be able to interpret and apply numerous complex policies, analyze information, make substantive recommendations to management.

Maintains confidentiality as it pertains to personnel policies and procedures. Excellent communication and organizational skills, including the ability to work independently and with frequent interruption. Excellent problem‑solving abilities, prioritize workload, meet frequent and changing deadlines and perform all duties to a very high standard. Strong customer service skills. Proficient in Microsoft Office & Google Suite.

Notes: Maintain a valid CA driver’s license, a clean DMV record and enrollment in the DMV Employee Pull‑Notice Program. Satisfactory conviction history background check. $26.09‑ $31.35/hr. The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/ Affirmative Action Employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Open until filled. Apply online at https:// jobs.ucsb.edu Job #45618

A PETITION FOR PROBATE has been filed by: William Smathers in the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara.

THE PETITION FOR PROBATE requests that (name): William Smathers be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.

THE PETITION requests the decedent’s will and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The will and any codicils are available for examiniation in the file kept by the court.

THE PETITION requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.)

The Independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING ON THE PETITION WILL BE HELD IN THIS COURT AS FOLLOWS: 12/22/2022 AT 9:00

AM, DEPT. 5 SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SANTA BARBARA, located at 1100 Anacapa Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. Anacapa Division.

IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR OR A CONTINGENT CREDITOR OF THE DECEDENT you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58 (b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

YOU MAY EXAMINE the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE‑154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code Section 1250. A Request for Special notice form is available from the court clerk.

Attorney for Petitioner: Harold K. Kono, 831 State Street, Suite 289, Santa Barbara, CA 93101; (805) 962‑8412. Published December 1, 8, 15, 2022.

NOTICE OF PETITION

TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF: MICHELLE SPATZ, CASE NO# 22PR00565

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both of MICHELLE SPATZ.

THE PETITION requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.)

The Independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING ON THE PETITION WILL BE HELD IN THIS COURT AS FOLLOWS: 01/05/2023 AT 9:00

AM, DEPT. 5 SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SANTA BARBARA, located at 1100 Anacapa Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. Anacapa Division.

IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing.

Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR OR A CONTINGENT CREDITOR OF THE DECEDENT you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58 (b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

YOU MAY EXAMINE the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE‑154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code Section 1250. A Request for Special notice form is available from the court clerk.

Electronically Filed, Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara Darrel E. Parker, Executive Officer 11/22/2022.

Attorney for Petitioner: David E. Graff, 317 E. Carrillo Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101, (805) 963‑8611. Published December 8, 15, 22, 2022

FILED IN SUPERIOR COURT, CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SANTA BARBARA OCTOBER 24, 2022, NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF: JEREMY M. KERMIT, CASE NO# 22PR00527

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both of Jeremy Maxwell Kermit.

A PETITION FOR PROBATE has been filed by: Taryn Bazzell in the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara.

THE PETITION FOR PROBATE requests that (name): Taryn Bazzell be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.

THE PETITION requests the decedent’s will and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The will and any codicils are available for examiniation in the file kept by the court.

THE PETITION requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration

of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.)

The Independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING ON THE PETITION WILL BE HELD IN THIS COURT AS FOLLOWS: 1/05/2023 AT 9:00

AM, DEPT. 5 SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SANTA BARBARA, located at 1100 Anacapa Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. Anacapa Division.

IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR OR A CONTINGENT CREDITOR OF THE DECEDENT , you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58 (b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code.

Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

YOU MAY EXAMINE the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE‑154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code Section 1250. A Request for Special notice form is available from the court clerk.

Petitioner: Taryn Bazzell, 2114 Red Rose Way, Santa Barbara, CA 93109. (661) 330‑1333. Published December 8, 15, 22, 2022.

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF ERNEST M. GRAZIANO.

CASE NO.: 22PR00601

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both of: ERNEST M. GRAZIANO.

A PETITION FOR PROBATE HAS BEEN FILED BY NORMAN GENE GRAZIANO in the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara.

THE PETITION for probate requests that: NORMAN GENE GRAZIANO be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.

THE PETITION requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.)

The Independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING ON THE PETITION will be held in this court as follows: 2/2/2023 AT 9:00 a.m. Dept: 5, SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SANTA BARBARA, 1100 Anacapa Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93102. Anacapa Division.

IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your

objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58 (b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

YOU MAY EXAMINE the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE‑154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code Section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.Darrel E. Parker, Executive Officer Date: 12/7/2022 By: April Garcia, Deputy. Petitioner: Norman Gene Graziano, 504 S. Oak St., Sisters, OR 97759. (805) 350‑0981. Published December 15, 22, 29, 2022.

FBN ABANDONMENT

STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME The following Fictitious Business Name: ABSTRAX TITLE SERVICES is being abandoned at 12348, A, Cactus Drive, Desert Hot Springs, CA 92240. The original statement for use of this Fictitious Business Name was filed on 11/26/2019 in the County of Santa Barbara. Original File no. 2019‑002931. The persons or entities abandoning use of this name are as follows: Ralph Peter Folsom (same address). The business was conducted as an individual.

SIGNED BY RALPH PETER FOLSOM, INDIVIDUAL. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on 11/21/22, FBN2022‑0002826, E40 and is hereby certified that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL). Published: December 1, 8,15 22, 2022.

STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME The following Fictitious Business Name is being abandoned: CREEKSIDE STORIES, 902 Mission Canyon Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93105. The original statement for use of this Fictitious Business Name was filed 10/15/2021 in the County of Santa Barbara. Original File no. FBN2021‑0002901. The persons or entities abandoning use of this name are as follows: Jan Dewitt, 902 Mission Canyon Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93105; Charlene M Huston, 203 Hitchcock, Santa Barbara, CA 93105. The business is conducted as a general partnership.

SIGNED BY CHARLENE HUSTON, PARTNER. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on 11/18/22, FBN2022‑0002818, E47. hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL). Published: December 1, 8, 15, 22 2022.

STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME The following Fictitious Business Name is being abandoned: GALILEO COACHING, 121 Via Alicia Santa Barbara, CA 93108. The original statement for use of this Fictitious Business Name was filed 7/29/2019 in the County of Santa Barbara. Original File no. FBN2019‑0001822. The persons or entities abandoning use of this name are as follows: Executive to Executive Inc .(same address).

The business is conducted as a corporation. SIGNED BY KATHRYN M. DOWNING, PRESIDENT. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on 12/06/22, FBN2022‑0002930, E47. I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL). Published: December 15, 22, 29, January 5, 2023.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person (s) is/are doing business as: TASCA TRAVEL, 11 W. Figueroa St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101; Established 1992, LLC (same address). This business is conducted by a limited partnership. SIGNED BY ANGELA TASCA‑ZUNGRI, PRESIDENT. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 15, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E30. FBN Number: 2022‑0002790. Published: December 8, 15, 22, 29 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person (s) is/are doing business as: LEONE ARMS at 87 Galaxy Way, Lompoc CA 93436; Jeffrey L Monteleone (same address). This business is conducted by an individual.

SIGNED BY JEFF MONTELEONE, OWNER. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 14, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E30. FBN Number: 2022‑0002782. Published: November 23, December 1, 8, 15, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SOMETHING THIS WAY MAGIC at 2460 Lillie Ave, Unit 2, Summerland, CA 93067; Joseph H Detar (same address); This business is conducted by an individual. SIGNED BY JOSEPH DETAR, OWNER. Filed by the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 07, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E49. FBN Number: 2022‑0002736. Published: November 23, December 1, 8 15, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person (s) is/are doing business as: Fatima Andrade Martinez, 809 East De La Guerra, Unit 2, Santa Barbara, CA 93103; Fatima Andrade Martinez (same address). This business is conducted by an individual.

SIGNED BY FATIMA ANDRADE MARTINEZ. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 14, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E30. FBN Number: 2022‑0002777. Published: November 23, December 1, 8, 15, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FLASH FAST PHOTOGRAPHY, 2832 State Street, apt 10, Santa Barbara, CA 93120; Alehxa C Jones (same address). This business is conducted by an individual. SIGNED BY ALEHXA JONES. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 17, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E47. FBN Number: 2022‑0002809. Published: November 23, December 1, 8, 15, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CLASSICS WITH THE CARDINALS

at 95 Alpine Dr, Goleta, CA 93117; Classics with the Cardinals (same address). This business is conducted by a corporation. SIGNED ROBIN HURLEY, PRESIDENT. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 18, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E30. FBN Number: 2022‑0002820. Published: November 23, December 1, 8, 15, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person (s) is/are doing business as: Abstrax Title Services, 315A Meigs Road, #178 , Santa Barbara, CA 93109; Patricia OConnell (same address). This business is conducted by an individual.

SIGNED BY PATRICIA I OCONNELL, INDIVIDUAL. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 21, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E40. FBN Number: 2022‑0002827. Published: December 1, 8, 15, 22, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CHARMADILLO PRODUCTIONS, 72 Santa Felicia Drive, Goleta, CA 93117; Charlene Huston, 203 Hitchcock Way #119, Santa Barbara CA 93105. This business is conducted by an individual.

SIGNED BY CHARLENE HUSTON, OWNER. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 18, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E47. FBN Number: 2022‑0002819. Published: December 1, 8, 15, 22, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person (s) is/are doing business as: BIG MIKE’S MARKETING , 7216 Fordham PL, Goleta, CA 93117; Michael R Sexsmith (same address). This business is conducted by an individual. SIGNED BY MICHAEL R SEXSMITH. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 16, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E30. FBN Number: 2022‑0002801. Published: December 1, 8, 15, 22, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GRAMMAR GRIZZLY, 535 E Arrellaga St, #22, Santa Barbara, CA 93103; Elke Ichau (same address). This business is conducted by an individual. SIGNED BY ELKE ICHAU. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 22, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E30. FBN Number: 2022‑0002845. Published: December 1, 8, 15, 22, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person (s) is/are doing business as: RARE SOCIETY, 214 State St., Santa Barbara, 93101; Brad L Wise, 1125 W Morena Blvd, San Diego, CA 92110. This business is conducted by a limited partnership. SIGNED BY BRAD WISE, PRESIDENT. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 21, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E30. FBN Number: 2022‑0002831. Published: December 1, 8, 15, 22, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MEDBRIDGE BILLING ASSOCIATES, 121 Gray Avenue, Ste 200, Santa Barbara, CA 93101; Medbridge Anesthesia Management, LLC (same address). This business is conducted by a

LEGALS (CONT.)

limited liability company. SIGNED BY DAVID ODELL, MANAGING MEMBER. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 21, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E30. FBN Number: 2022‑0002839. Published: December 1, 8, 15, 22, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person(s) is/are doing business as: INTEGRATED HOME DESIGNS, 601 Micheltorena, 38, Santa Barbara, CA 93103; Vanessa B Rabatin, (same address); Kristina Wong, 1207 San Andres, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. This business is conducted by a general partnership.

SIGNED BY VANESSA RABATIN, PARTNER. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 14, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E49. FBN Number: 2022‑0002779. Published: December 1, 8, 15, 22, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SOBOBA STUDIOS, 317 Milpas Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93103; James T Long, 805 Canon Perdido, Santa Barbara, CA 93103. This business is conducted by an individual.

SIGNED BY JAMES THOMAS LONG, OWNER. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 28, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E40. FBN Number: 2022‑0002870. Published: December 8, 15, 22, 29, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person (s) is/are doing business as: TSR ENTERPRISE , 1113 Camino Viejo, Santa Barbara, CA 93108. Timothy S Romano (same address). This business is conducted by an individual.

SIGNED BY TIMOTHY S ROMANO, OWNER. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 23, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E30. FBN Number: 2022‑0002867. Published: December 8, 15, 22, 29, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LOUBUD WINES, 331‑C Northgate Dr., Goleta, CA 93117; Loubud Wines L.L.C. (same address). This business is conducted by a limited liability partnership.

SIGNED BY LAURA ROACH, MEMBER‑MANAGER. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 28, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E30. FBN Number: 2022‑0002874. Published: December 8, 15, 22, 29, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person(s) is/are doing business as: COASTAL REALTY GROUP , 330 James Way, Suite 270, Pismo Beach, CA 93448; Coastal Community Builders, Inc. (same address). This business is conducted by a corporation.

SIGNED BY GARY H. GROSSMAN, CEO. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 22, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E47. FBN Number: 2022‑0002848. Published: December 8, 15, 22, 29, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person (s) is/are doing business as: BETTER CALL MICHAEL!, 2785 Alta Drive, Santa Barbara, CA 93105; Michael S Miller (same address). This business is conducted by an individual.

SIGNED BY MICHAEL MILLER, OWNER. Filed with the County

Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 30, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E49. FBN Number: 2022‑0002898. Published: December 8, 15, 22, 29, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person (s) is/are doing business as: SANTA BARBARA PSYCHOTHERAPY, 21 E. Canon Perdido Street, Suite 213, Santa Barbara CA 93101; Kristine J Schwarz, 2767 Miradero Drive, Apt E, Santa Barbara CA 93105. This business is conducted by an individual.

SIGNED BY KRISTINE J. SCHWARZ. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 22, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E30. FBN Number: 2022‑0002852. Published: December 8, 15, 22, 29, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CRTN MEDIA, 28 Vereda Cordillera, Goleta, CA 93117; Garrett D Norvell(same address). This business is conducted by an individual. SIGNED BY GARRETT NORVELL. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 28, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E30. FBN Number: 2022‑0002881. Published: December 8, 15, 22, 29, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person (s) is/are doing business as: TEAGUE, 929 Laguna Street, Unit E, Santa Barbara, CA 93101; Walter Dorwin Teague Associates Incorporated,110 Union Street, Suite 400, Seattle, Washington 98101 This business is conducted by a corporation.

SIGNED BY JOHN BARRATT, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 30, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E30. FBN Number: 2022‑0002899. Published: December 8, 15, 22, 29, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person (s) is/are doing business as: THE SANTA BARBARA THEATRE COMPANY, 1024 Olive St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101; The Santa Barbara Theatre Company (same address). This business is conducted by a corporation. SIGNED BY ELLEN PASTERNAK, MANAGING DIRECTOR. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on December 2, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E40. FBN Number: 2022‑0002916. Published: December 8, 15, 22, 29, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person (s) is/are doing business as: 7TH MIND, INC. 5266 Hollister Ave., Suite 320, Santa Barbara, CA 93111; 7th Mind, Inc. (same address).7th Mind Publishing; Brain Aware Training. This business is conducted by a corporation. SIGNED BY BRITT ANDREATTA, CEO. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) on 11/22/22. FBN Number: 2022‑0002847, E30. Published: December 15, 22, 29, January 5, 2023.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PACIFIC RIVIERA INTERIOR DESIGN , 1015 Diamond Crest Court, Santa Barbara , CA 93110; Judith L Flattery (same address). This business is conducted by an individual. SIGNED BY JUDITH FLATTERY, OWNER/DESIGNER. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on 11/29/2022. This statement expires five years from

the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL). FBN Number: 2022‑0002891. E30. Published: December 15, 22, 29, January 5, 2023.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person(s) is/are doing business as: COMPLEMENTARY ORTHOPEDIC ACUPUNCTURE & SPORTS THERAPY, 5142 Hollister Ave, #237, Santa Barbara, CA 93111; Kenneth E Luke, 4748 Camino Del Rey, Santa Barbara, CA 93110. This business is conducted by an individual. SIGNED BY KENNETH LUKE. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on 12/06/2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL). FBN Number: 2022‑0002936. E30.

Published: December 15, 22, 29, January 5, 2023.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BACKPOCKET LIFECOACH COUNSELING SERVICES INC., 5266 Hollister Ave, Ste 210, Santa Barbara, CA 93111; Backpocket Lifecoach Counseling Services Inc. (same address). This business is conducted by a corporation. SIGNED BY BRANDI DAVIS, OWNER, filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on 11/29/2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL).

FBN Number: 2022‑0002893. E30. Published: December 15, 22, 29, January 5, 2023.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person (s) is/are doing business as: SANA PSYCHOLOGICAL CENTER, 315 Meigs Road, Suite A, #104, Santa Barbara, CA 93109; Denise R Jaimes‑Villanueva (same address). This business is conducted by an individual. SIGNED BY DENISE JAIMES‑VILLANUEVA. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on 12/09/2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL). FBN Number: 2022‑0002967, E30. Published: December 15, 22, 29, January 5, 2023.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person (s) is/are doing business as: EPIC BUILDERS, 916 Linden Avenue, Carpinteria, CA 93013; Carrillo Painting and Decorating (same address). This business is conducted by a corporation. SIGNED BY LUIS IBARRA, VICE PRESIDENT. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on November 15, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E30. FBN Number: 2022‑0002793. Published: December 15, 22, 29, January 5, 2023.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GALILEO COACHING, 121 Via Alicia, Santa Barbara, CA 93108. Kathryn M. Downing (same address). This business is conducted by an individual. SIGNED KATHRYN M. DOWNING, PRESIDENT. Filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on 12/6/22, 2022. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk, Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL) by E47. FBN Number: 2022‑0002931. Published: December 15, 22, 29, January 5, 2023.

NAME CHANGE

IN THE MATTER OF THE APPLICATION TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME: JOSHUA CAMPOVERDE, CASE NUMBER: 22CV04287

TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS: A petition has been filed by the

above named Petitioner(s) in Santa Barbara Superior Court proposing a change of name(s) FROM: JOSHUA CAMPOVERDE TO: JOSHUA CAMPOVERDE HERNANDEZ.

THE COURT ORDERS that all persons interested in this matter shall appear before this court at the hearing indicated below to show cause, if any, why the petition for change of name should not be granted. Any person objecting to the name changes described above must file a written objection that includes the reasons for the objection at least two court days before the matter is scheduled to be heard and must appear at the hearing to show cause why the petition should not be granted. If no written objection is timely filed, the court may grant the petition without a hearing. NOTICE OF HEARING DECEMBER 28, 2022 10:00 AM, DEPT 3, SANTA BARBARA SUPERIOR COURT HOUSE 1100 Anacapa St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101, Anacapa Division. A copy of this ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE shall be published in the Santa Barbara Independent, a newspaper of general circulation, printed in this county, at least once each week for four successive weeks prior to the date set for hearing on the petition. Dated: November 08, 2022, Thomas P. Anderle, Judge of the Superior Court. Published November 23, December 1, 8, 15, 2022

IN THE MATTER OF THE APPLICATION TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME: SARAH JANE JENKINS, CASE NUMBER: 22CV04514

TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS: A petition has been filed by the above named Petitioner(s) in Santa Barbara Superior Court proposing a change of name(s) FROM: SARAH JANE JENKINS TO: VICTORIA JANE JENKINS.

THE COURT ORDERS that all persons interested in this matter shall appear before this court at the hearing indicated below to show cause, if any, why the petition for change of name should not be granted. Any person objecting to the name changes described above must file a written objection that includes the reasons for the objection at least two court days before the matter is scheduled to be heard and must appear at the hearing to show cause why the petition should not be granted. If no written objection is timely filed, the court may grant the petition without a hearing. NOTICE OF HEARING JANUARY 27, 2023 10:00 AM, DEPT 4, SANTA BARBARA SUPERIOR COURT HOUSE 1100 Anacapa St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101, Anacapa Division. A copy of this ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE shall be published in the Santa Barbara Independent, a newspaper of general circulation, printed in this county, at least once each week for four successive weeks prior to the date set for hearing on the petition.

Dated: November 29, 2022. Donna D. Geck, Judge of the Superior Court. Published December 8, 15, 22, 29, 2022.

Attorney for Sarah Jane Jenkins: Bruce A. Pence MULLEN & HENZELL L.L.P. 112 E. Victoria Street Santa Barbara, CA 93101 (805) 966‑1501

AMENDED IN THE MATTER OF THE APPLICATION TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME: LEANDER DEAN LOVE‑ANDEREGG, 1338 Portsuello Avenue, Santa Barbara, CA 93105.

CASE NUMBER: 22CV03635

TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS: A petition has been filed by the above named Petitioner(s) in Santa Barbara Superior Court proposing a change of name(s) FROM: LEANDER DEAN LOVE‑ANDEREGG TO: LEANDER DEAN LOVE ANDEREGG. THE COURT ORDERS that all persons interested in this matter shall appear before this court at the hearing indicated below to show cause, if any, why the petition for change of name should not be granted.

Any person objecting to the name changes described above must file a written objection that includes the reasons for the objection at least two court days before the matter is scheduled to be heard and must appear at the hearing to show cause why the petition should not be granted. If no written objection is timely filed, the court may grant the petition without a hearing.

NOTICE OF HEARING JANUARY 25, 2023, 10:00 AM, DEPT 3, SANTA BARBARA SUPERIOR COURT HOUSE 1100 Anacapa St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101, Anacapa Division. A copy of this Order to Show Cause shall be published in the Santa Barbara Independent, a newspaper of general circulation, printed in this county, at least once each week for four successive weeks prior to the date set for hearing on the petition. DATED DECEMBER 07, 2022, THOMAS P. ANDERLE, JUDGE OF THE SUPERIOR COURT. Published December 15, 22, 29, 2022 and January 5, 2023.

THE PETITION OF ARGELIA REYNOSO, 58 MAGNOLIA AVENUE, APT. D, GOLETA, CA 93117. ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME. CASE NUMBER 22CV04575.

TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS: A petition has been filed by the

above named Petitioner(s) in Santa Barbara Superior court proposing a change of name(s): FROM: ARGELIA REYNOSO TO: ARGELIA CONTRERAS OSORIA.

THE COURT ORDERS that all persons interested in this matter shall appear before this court at the hearing indicated below to show cause, if any, why the petition for change of name should not be granted. Any person objecting to the name changes described above must file a written objection that includes the reasons for the objection at least two court days before the matter is scheduled to be heard and must appear at the hearing to show cause why the petition should not be granted. If no written objection is timely filed , the court may grant the petition without a hearing.

NOTICE OF HEARING 1/23/2023, 10:00 AM, DEPT 5 , SANTA BARBARA SUPERIOR COURT HOUSE 1100 Anacapa St., P.O. Box 21107 Santa Barbara, CA 93121, Anacapa Divison.

A COPY OF THIS ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE shall be published in the Santa Barbara Independent, a newspaper of general circulation, printed in this county, at least once each week for four successive weeks prior to the date set for hearing

on the petition. Signed and Dated December 1, 2022 by Colleen K. Sterne, Judge of the Superior Court. Published: December 15, 22, 29 and January 5, 2023.

PUBLIC NOTICES

EXTRA SPACE Storage will hold a public auction to sell personal property described below belonging to those individuals listed below at the location indicated: 6640 Discovery Drive, Goleta, CA 93117.

December 29, 2022 at 3:30 PM Dominic Garza boxes and equipment Adam Hewett household items

The auction will be listed and advertised on www. storagetreasures.com. Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction. Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder takes possession of the personal property.

ORDINANCE NO. 22-XX U

AN URGENCY ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF GOLETA, CALIFORNIA, Amending Title 17 of the Goleta Municipal Code to Update Procedures and Regulations for Accessory Dwelling Units Pursuant to Assembly Bill 2221 and Senate Bill 897, Case No. 22-0005-ORD, Determining the Ordinance to be Exempt from CEQA, and Declaring the Urgency Thereof

On December 20, 2022, at Goleta City Hall, 130 Cremona Drive, Goleta, California, the City Council of the City of Goleta (“City”) will consider possible adoption of a proposed Urgency Ordinance that would amend Title 17 (Zoning) of the Goleta Municipal Code (GMC) related to Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs)

If adopted at the above-mentioned meeting, the Urgency Ordinance will take effect immediately, following such adoption by the City Council.

Any interested person may obtain a copy of the proposed Urgency Ordinance at the City Clerk’s Office, cityclerkgroup@cityofgoleta.org or by calling City Hall at (805) 961-7505.

Deborah S. Lopez City Clerk

Publish: Santa Barbara Independent, Thursday, December 15, 2022

Notice of Funding Availability

CITY OF GOLETA INVITES APPLICATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2023-2024 FUNDING THROUGH THE GOLETA CITY GRANT PROGRAM AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT (CDBG) PROGRAM

The City of Goleta is accepting applications for grant funding through its Goleta City Grant Program and the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program. The application process is combined for both programs and will open on December 16, 2022. Applications must be submitted electronically through ZoomGrants no later than 5:00 pm on Friday, January 27, 2023. The City will no longer be accepting paper applications. Visit the City of Goleta’s website (https://www.cityofgoleta.org/i-want-to/apply-for/grants) for a link to the online application.

For Fiscal Year 2023-2024, approximately $285,000 in funding is available for civic services, community projects, cultural activities, educational programs and special events that are of benefit to the residents of the City of Goleta. $35,000 of that is CDBG funding, which must be used to provide public services to the homeless and low to moderate-income residents of Goleta.

GRANT FUNDING REQUIREMENTS

All programs and activities must benefit Goleta residents.

Programs and activities must be sponsored by non-profit organizations or governmental agencies.

Categories of programs and activities eligible for grants include:

Civic projects or services sponsored by Goleta community organizations

Cultural activities (e.g. music, art, dance, recreation, etc.)

Educational programs

Special events

Regional projects of benefit to Goleta residents f. Public services benefiting low-income Goleta residents (e.g. senior services, youth programs, health services, services for the homeless, etc.)

Questions regarding the grant application and funding process should be directed to Shanna Dawson, Neighborhood Services Department, at sdawson@ cityofgoleta.org or (805) 690-5126 (leave message for return call).

Publish: Santa Barbara Independent on Thursday, December 15, 2022