Time to Vote

Tales of Tecolote – The digging of Tecolote Tunnel was what engineers call a “major bummer.” But hey: water P.6

Eclectic Entertainment – Rings of fire, heads of disco, and bubbling aerialists… is it a dream? No, it’s ElectriCirque at an event, P.16

TIME TO VOTE

The November 5th General Election is almost here… but what’s on the ballot for Montecito?

Well, find out inside along with a few of the MJ ’s endorsements (Voter’s Guide starts on page 5)

The Santa Barbara Foundation meets the community’s needs –both past and future, page 28

Scicli in Sicily – It’s herbed saunas, wildflowers, and dégustation al fresco as Leslie’s Sicilian escapades continue, P.40

A Saintly Proposal

All Saints’ Reverend Channing Smith writes to the Miramar, proposing a “swap” in their expansion plans and why it would be a win-win-win, page 11

Beautification at the Ready

Montecito’s day to get some communal care is almost here – meet the team behind this year’s upcoming Beautification Day, page 12

5 Voter’s Guide – The election is almost here and just in case you misplaced your ballot… here’s what’s on it – with a few recommendations along the way

Beings and Doings – To get the water from big ol’ Lake Cachuma to your bathtub meant chewing through a mountain range. The Tecolote Tunnel project was hellish from the get-go.

Montecito Miscellany – United Way has a ball, Fun with the Force, a historic ride through Scotland, and more miscellany

Voices – All Saints’ Reverend speaks about the Miramar and SBC Taxpayers Assoc. on the Biltmore opening

Society Invites – Celebrating the Night at MOXI, the Dream Foundation to host a No Gala Gala, and Jodi House plans its funding reception

16 In Any Event – A flush of fire, a head full of disco, champagne pouring from up high – it’s just another night with ElectriCirque 18 On Entertainment – Getting Lost in Yonkers, a shirtless vampire (as expected), Colin Mochrie makes things up, and more

20 Brilliant Thoughts – Ashleigh shares what is okay and not with that very expression of affirmation

24 Dear Montecito – Beatrice interviews aquatic biologist and marine scientist Francesca Nash to understand what real environmentalism looks like

26 Elizabeth’s Appraisals – The unmistakable smell of wood shavings and the slow, sawing whir of this childhood object brings forth memories and even a museum dedicated to them

28 The Giving List – The Santa Barbara Foundation has spent nearly the past century helping the community thrive – even in the digital age

30 Your Westmont – The college remembers service trip victims, and a former provost courageously takes the middle

32

The Water Column – With the fall here, so is the opportunity to dial in one’s garden (with some waterwise tips) for the coming year

38 Far Flung Travel – The time is right to paddle up to Drakes Estero and get a breath of fresh air and history

40

Travel Buzz – Fields of wildflowers, fresh juice and produce, sound baths and herbed saunas – just some of the many sights and sounds of Sicily

52

Calendar of Events – Films on the NatureTrack, return of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the incomparable Herb Alpert, and more

54 Classifieds – Our own “Craigslist” of classified ads, in which sellers offer everything from summer rentals to estate sales

55

Mini Meta Crossword Puzzles

Local Business Directory – Smart business owners place business cards here so readers know where to look when they need what those businesses offer

Photography: Alexis Adam

Voter’s Guide: Candidate Statements

Montecito, what’s on the ballot for November 5th Election?

by MJ Staff

Misplace your sample ballot? We have you covered. Here are the candidate statements for the upcoming election:

President and Vice President

Republican: Donald J. Trump / JD Vance

Peace and Freedom: Claudia de la Cruz / Karina Garcia

Democratic: Kamala D. Harris / Tim Walz

American Independent: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. / Nicole Shanahan

Libertarian: Chase Oliver / Mike ter Maat

Green: Jill Stein / Rudolph Ware

United States Senator

There are two U.S. Senate contests on this ballot.

- One for the regular 6-year term ending January 3, 2031

- One for the remainder of the current term ending January 3, 2025

You may vote for both contests.

Steve Garvey (R)

Occupation: Professional Baseball Representative

Adam B. Schiff (D)

Occupation: United States Representative

ENDORSED

United States Representative, District 24

Also referred to as a congressman or congresswoman, each representative is elected to a two-year term serving the people of a specific congressional district. Among other duties, representatives introduce bills and resolutions, offer amendments, and serve on committees. (Source: house.gov)

Thomas Cole (R)

Age: 67

Occupation: Data Analyst

Education and Qualifications: Dear voters, it’s time for a decision. For the safety of your children and the protection of your nation, we need you to decide. Do you want a country that fights endless wars?

Do you want $200 billion of your tax dollars sent to Ukraine while our homeless veterans die on the streets?

Do want a nation that has open borders?

Do you want schools that have men competing against your daughters and in their showers?

Do you want a nation where bicoastal political and media elites and tech barons prosper while you can’t afford basic necessities?

And, do you want continuing inflation destroying your paycheck, doubling the price of food and gas and your mortgage payment?

Now, I offer a solution and that is to vote for me, Thomas Cole for Congress, where your vote for me will mean a vote for America. A vote for your right to have safe schools, safe borders, plentiful jobs and stable money.

We need the government to get out of the way and allow the private sector to provide more energy jobs, more housing, and better education.

And, government should be providing the things we cannot do ourselves, like border security, infrastructure and national defense.

Instead, what you are getting is politicized schools promoting transgenderism,

Voter’s Guide Page 344 ENDORSED

Beings and Doings Terrible Bore: The Hellish Adventure of the Tecolote Tunnel

by Jeff Wing

This political season is sufficiently fraught that your fraidy-cat columnist is going to steer well clear of the melee and write about something we can all agree on. I’m talking of course about the inarguable virtues of Communism. Ha Ha Ha. Kidding. As has been lightly touched upon in endless cocktail party conversations (and more explosively documented in the noir classic Chinatown – a thrillingly serpentine story of murder and malice with tap water at its core), H2O in California is precious stuff. The fact is, there are few things in this world that won’t invite avarice, graft, and generally discouraging behavior when supply and demand are at odds. As Shakespeare pointed out with his ”paragon of animals” remark, humans are indeed a noble species – but we don’t always do well when faced with these little stress tests. When there is not enough of something to go around – toilet paper in one fairly recent and glamorous example – you can put money on our Better Natures taking a momentary hike.

Once everyone came out for the ’49 gold rush and decided to stay for the movie stars and the weather, the water situation in Alta California was just waiting to go off the rails. It seems The Golden State is about 40% desert. We

boast, for example, a tourist trap called “Death Valley,” if you can imagine – a natural wonder named before marketing was a thing. It would only be a matter of time before water and its disbursement in the state would become a source of sorrow.

By 1937 the water sitch had deteriorated to the point that the SB County Supervisors hired an engineering firm to see what would happen if we dammed the Santa Ynez River in order to create a water catchment; what non-hydrologists call a lake. Just broaching the idea caused some hell to break loose. By the late ‘40s people on both sides of the issue were up in arms. One post-WWII worry was that a big artificial lake just sitting there in the Santa Ynez Valley would be an irresistible target for an enemy atom bomb, whose demonstrably large explosion would “wash all the people and livestock downstream into the Pacific Ocean.” This homespun concern slightly misapprehends the chief downsides of a nuclear cataclysm. Other hollered objections were that capturing and distributing the water smacked of Socialism (see ill-advised opening lines of this essay), and that Santa Barbarans would be footing a bill that would mostly benefit farmers in Goleta and Carpinteria. Following much discursive to-and-fro, the seven-year drought and severe water

Beings & Doings Page 434

The pause that refreshes. Sulfurous 107° air and the threat of explosive gas won’t stop these intrepid smokers. (Public Domain)

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Montecito Miscellany United en Rouge

by Richard Mineards

Everybody was seeing red when United Way of Santa Barbara County hosted its 27th annual Soirée en Rouge at the Montecito Club.

The Red Feather Ball attracted 215 guests who raised around $400,000 to fund educational programs and initiatives which serve thousands of local children and their families each year.

The boffo bash, created by Montecito event planner Merryl Brown, also honored co-chairs Belle Hahn and Lily Hahn Shining who have, for more than

a decade, been an integral part of the United Way story, including significant financial commitments in support of programs like the Fun in the Sun summer learning program.

The ubiquitous Andrew Firestone emceed the glamorous fête with honorary co-chairs Xorin Balbes and Truman Davies. Among the festive throng were Steve and Amber Ortiz, Rick Oshay and Teresa Kuskey , Bob and Val Montgomery , Robert Ooley and Rodney Baker, Thomasine Richards, Scott Reed, Jonathan Bishop, David Reichert, and Paul Didier

Out in Force

A sea of blue swept over Bella Vista, the sprawling Summerland estate of polo playing hotelier Pat Nesbitt and his wife Ursula, with 500 guests raising around $300,000 with the annual Fun with the Force bash for the Santa Barbara Police Foundation.

The popular organization provides financial support for ill police personnel.

The bustling bash, co-chaired by James Nigro and Arlene Montesano, featured

Attendees ready in red for the night (photo by David Mendoza III)

Honorary co-chair Xorin Balbes and Anne Towbes (photo by Isaac Hernandez de Lipa)

Miscellany Page 224

Richard Scibird, Belle Hahn, Steve and Amber Ortiz, and Lily and Stewart Hahn

Shining, 2024 Fun in the Sun Scholars (photo by Isaac Hernandez de Lipa)

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Letters to the Editor

Support for P

Having lived and grown up in Santa Barbara over the last 70 plus years, my wife and I came to appreciate how important SBCC is to the health and welfare of our community. We attended local public schools and took advantage of SBCC upon graduating from high school. She was in one of the first graduating classes in the radiologic technician program in 1972 and practiced at all the local hospitals and for many doctors. I transferred in 1972 to Cal Berkeley and eventually got my MBA. SBCC launched our careers and allowed us to stay in Santa Barbara.

SBCC’s buildings and facilities are the same ones we experienced over 50 years ago. They are in desperate need of maintenance, repair and, in some cases, replacement for safety reasons. The extension of Measure P will provide critical funding for SBCC to continue to be the educational beacon for thousands of local students trying to get a start in life with an affordable education, WITHOUT INCREASING TAX RATES beyond what we approved in 2008. My goals in retirement are to give back to the community that lifted my family in life. So I volunteer with and support the United Boys & Girls Clubs and The SBCC Foundation to ensure that our community’s kids and students have the best chance to succeed. These institutions deserve our support to keep the vitality in this special community. Supporting Measure P is an investment in the future prosperity of the Southcoast.

Paul and Karen Menzel

Summer Plans

Reading Bob Hazard’s recent column was personally triggering as he rehashed

living through the long and difficult years of delays to improve our iconic hotels in Montecito – no easy task.

I served on teams for Ian Schrager and Ty Warner when they owned Miramar and can attest to the burdensome (to put it lightly) process.

When Ty Warner was the Miramar owner, he preserved and protected the blue-tiled cottages in anticipation of needing to apply them to the renovation. After some time – and some worrisome signals from the county – Warner’s team attempted to forecast a timeline to earn approval for his Miramar vision while he was going through renovations and approvals for the Biltmore and Coral Casino renovations.

The assessment made it clear to the Ty Warner team that the Miramar would be a long-drawn-out process and that it was prudent to sell the property and focus bandwidth and resources on the improvements to the Biltmore, Coral Casino, San Ysidro Ranch, and the Montecito Club as he did — investing millions of dollars to the legacy of those properties.

It turns out, the assessment on the Miramar was accurate, as it took more than a decade for a plan for the Miramar to be approved. (That said, rather than Caruso selling his interests to off-shore investments – as Hazard suggested – he should check in on Ty’s interest to take the hotel back. Maybe he’ll bring back the blue tiled roofs.)

Today Ty is investing in a second renovation for Biltmore after 20 years. The request before the Montecito Planning Commission is to approve pool amenities for hotel guests (unseen by the public) while offering a drastic reduction in the number of keys (rooms) to meet the desires of today’s luxury traveler. The plan will result in a huge increase

in new tax revenue of more than $15 million for the community with fewer neighborhood impacts. And Ty is still awaiting approvals.

Ty’s goal is to get approved asap so he can open for summer 2025. If there are further delays, Ty Warner and the community may have to wait until summer 2026 to reopen to capture the lucrative peak season.

John Davies

The Cost of Measure P

One fall day in the late 1970s in Pennsylvania, as I knelt on the roof of a new home and hammered nails into plywood in a bitterly cold wind, I had a sudden realization. My father’s long-ago advice was right: I needed a college degree.

So I came home to California, and settled in Santa Barbara, a few hours’ drive from where I grew up in Irvine. I entered Santa Barbara City College, intending to become a mechanical engineer, working on renewable energy projects, which I thought was the coming thing.

In a required introductory programming class, I found that I liked writing software. When I transferred to UCSB, I changed my major to computer science and graduated just in time for the takeoff of the internet.

All of which is to say, Santa Barbara City College changed my life for the better, in ways I couldn’t have predicted.

My education there was mostly at the expense of California’s taxpayers, in hopeful expectation that the beneficiaries of their largesse would become productive citizens, making life better for everyone. It was a good bargain both for the taxpayers and for the students.

Today, City College is still vital to our community. It must be well managed and sufficiently funded so that it can fulfill its educational mission for decades to come.

Which brings me to Proposition P, a bond measure on the November ballot advertised as raising $198 million from

Montecito Tide Guide

local property taxes.

Smiling graduates, slick mailers. I first heard of Proposition P when I received a glossy color mailer, with a picture of a smiling college graduate on the cover and, on the inside, photos of buildings in various states of decay.

The latter images were alarming, but they raised questions: if the buildings are in such bad shape, who was in charge of maintenance? Isn’t keeping the buildings in repair just as important as hiring the right professors?

The mailer claimed that Proposition P

Executive Editor/CEO | Gwyn Lurie gwyn@montecitojournal.net

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Account Managers | Sue Brooks, Tanis Nelson, Elizabeth Scott, Natasha Kucherenko

Contributing Editor | Kelly Mahan Herrick

Copy Editor | Lily Buckley Harbin

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Arts and Entertainment | Steven Libowitz

Contributors | Scott Craig, Ashleigh Brilliant, Kim Crail, Tom Farr, Chuck Graham, Stella Haffner, Mark Ashton Hunt, Dalina Michaels, Robert Bernstein, Christina Atchison, Leslie Zemeckis, Sigrid Toye, Elizabeth Stewart, Amélie Dieux, Houghton Hyatt, Jeff Wing

Gossip | Richard Mineards

History | Hattie Beresford

Humor | Ernie Witham

Our Town/Society | Joanne A Calitri

Travel | Jerry Dunn, Leslie Westbrook

Food & Wine | Melissa Petitto, Gabe Saglie, Jamie Knee

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Community Voices

All Saints by-the-Sea Makes Case for Miramar Affordable Housing

to be Adjacent to the Church

by Rev. Channing Smith, Rector of All Saints-by-the-Sea Church

All Saints-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church has been a part of the fabric of Montecito since the cornerstone was set for our Sanctuary in January of 1900. We strive to love our neighbors as ourselves and respect the dignity of every person. We have a legacy of inclusion, aspiring to tell and exemplify God’s love for every human being. It’s now our goal to include the people who work at the Rosewood Miramar Beach hotel in this loving embrace.

We are proposing that the affordable workforce housing being proposed by Mr. Caruso be located next to All Saints, what we are calling the “swap.” It entails putting affordable housing in two buildings next to All Saints at the corner of South Jameson and Eucalyptus Lane. Smaller than the retail stores and luxury apartments that are envisioned there now, the affordable housing’s scale would fit with the neighborhood. It would also preserve our view of the majestic Santa Ynez Mountain range.

The employees of the hotel would be welcomed into the residential neighborhood in which we are located. They would become part of the Parish School, the life of the parish, the Friendship Center, and the family atmosphere which permeates life along Eucalyptus Lane and in the surrounding area.

We have worked relentlessly and with integrity to present these ideas to Mr. Caruso and his team. The solution is truly a win-win-win for the hotel project, the church and the neighborhood. We are unsure why this was rejected by him, other than he feels prestigious retailers only want to be at the entrance corner of the property.

Community Voices Page 464

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Our Town Call to Join the Montecito Beautification Day & BBQ

by Joanne A Calitri

Society Invites says it’s time to make Montecito more beautiful at the November 2 Montecito Beautification Day event – held annually by the Montecito Association, the Montecito Fire Department, and members of this well-known village.

Fashionistas unite! Don your rhinestone sneakers with pride, and guys, think how chic David Beckham is whilst cleaning up his garden! Join in at 9 am at the upper Village green area for a full-on breakfast sponsored by the Rosewood Miramar Beach, while getting your gear and location assignment. The team leaders will provide safety vests, trash bags, trash grabbers, and a location map for the trash cleanup areas – the parks, beaches, trail heads, and neighborhoods in the upper/lower villages of Montecito.

After a few hours of that, it is time to party again. Meet at 12 pm at the Upper Village green for live music by guitarist Maitland Ward (who has played with Alan Parsons, Madonna, Kenny Loggins, Eddie Money, Michael McDonald, and others) and some surprise music guests.

The Montecito Fire Fighters will “man” the free BBQ, serving up their chili and hot dogs with buns donated by the Montecito Village Grocery,

side dishes from San Ysidro Ranch Chef Matt Johnson, and cookies by the MA. T-shirts available for cheap ($10).

Also in attendance will be formally-awarded Citizen of the Year – Lt. Ugo “Butch” Arnoldi – who has bravely kept on top of the crime in Montecito, Summerland and Carpinteria.

Twenty community partners including: SB County Search & Rescue, Montecito Trails Foundation, Friends of the Montecito Library, and the Montecito Community Foundation, will have info tables about their services and partnership with the MA on preserving and protecting the community.

The Beautification Team is Firefighter John Weber, Engineer Daniel Arnold, Firefighter/Paramedic Brandon Bennewate , Firefighter/Paramedic Trevor Oakley, Fire Captain Lucas Grant, Mindy Denson, Trish Davis, Andrea Newquist, Patty Zucherman, Nina Terzian, Jacqueline Duran, Dana Hansen, Houghton Hyatt, Melissa Miller, Stephanie Kaster, Jan Larson Rockenbach, Cindy Feinberg, Dana Newquist, Andrew Schmoller, Michael Edwards, Connor Rehage, Christy Venable, and Jillian Wittman, and Westmont College students.

And… add some candles to the cake; it’s Montecito Association’ s 75th birthday!

The Beautification Team is on the job! And you can be too! (photo by Joanne A Calitri)

Society Invites Annual Night at MOXI, Indeed a ‘Fun’d-Raising Event

by Joanne A Calitri

The annual Night at MOXI, was held on Saturday, October 5, at the MOXI, The Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation. The event this year, titled Wonder and Whimsy, was celebrated on all three floors of the museum. Attendees were dressed to impress, many of whom purchased full tables for their organizations and friends.

Entering the MOXI first floor, guests were greeted by Angie Bertucci, MOXI Director of Marketing and Communications, and treated to a photo op at the Step ‘n’ Repeat.

Cirque Berzerk entertainers performed contortion stunts, while an extraordinarily costumed waitress served jelly shots on spoons. The cocktail reception was held on the second floor with a dedicated bar, roaming wait-staff serving champagne, and a curated selection of appetizers.

I arrived early, meeting with the first group, MOXI’s star educator team –Director of Learning Experiences Kaia-Joye Wesolowski, Associate Director of Education Kristen Denton, STEAM Education Manager Jasmine Thompson, Camps & Outreach Manager Leah Forester, and Public Programs Manager Tommy Blanchard. At this opportunity, we chatted and took a photo op.

Next arriving in a drop-waist chiffon cocktail dress with colorful heels was MOXI President/CEO Robin Gose. She was followed by the Nights at MOXI presenting sponsor, Bank of America’s Senior VPs Mary Noor and Graham Bell. Bell is also a member of the MOXI Executive Committee. Noor and Bell posed with Gose for an important photo op and a quick briefing with me on the event.

Noor explained BofA’s continued support of MOXI for our readers. “Bank of America is all about making sure that we have economic mobility. Part of that is we believe in the arts. The partnership we have with MOXI goes from being able to have them be part of our Museums on Us program, having Graham Bell on their board, and this evening being the presenting sponsor for this incredible event – because we love what they do in the community and what they represent in our communities.”

Additional meet-greet photo ops were with the event co-chairs – MOXI Executive Committee Member Austin

Society Page 424

Kristen Denton, Jasmine Thompson, Leah Forester, Melissa Melendrez Jimenez, and Tommy Blanchard (photo by Joanne A Calitri)

Austin Lampson and Kate Shrout (photo by Joanne A Calitri)

Mary Noor, Robin Gose, and Graham Bell (photo by Joanne A Calitri)

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In Any Event ElectriCirque Entertainment

by Alisa Kay

Ladies and gentlemen, step right up and prepare to be amazed by ElectriCirque Entertainment! If you’re looking for something unique and mesmerizing to have at your next event (or wedding!), and a little out of the ordinary – look no further. ElectriCirque Entertainment offers electrifying stage shows, fire performers, and even elegant designs of living art and ambient entertainment.

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“We strive to make event planning easy when it comes to finding entertainment. It is our pleasure to spark joy, creativity, and add a touch of wonder to any wedding or event,” said Jessie Kat Moore, owner of ElectriCirque Entertainment and a Santa Barbara local.

Moore, who is a former cheerleader, joined a hip-hop crew, and then found the art of hula hoop dance, which opened the door to fire dancing, and circus-style arts like aerial and juggling. In 2018 she met her husband at Burning Man, who taught her how to juggle. They soon became the “Electric Jugglers.”

“We each had our solo careers and hobbies of fire dancing and circus performing before meeting, but combining our skills allowed us to grow and become something more,” said Moore. “I knew I wanted to build something bigger, beyond just ourselves. It was always my dream to choreograph big group shows.” This is

how ElectriCirque Entertainment then came to life.

ElectriCirque Entertainment offers cocktail hour enchantment, such as living flowers, human statues, aerialists, themed cocktail servers, stilt walking angels – and even a beautiful aerial electric violinist who flies and plays the violin. The stage shows are awe inspiring with fire performers, fancy feather fan dancers, and mind-bending magicians, which Moore said are always a hit.

For something truly outrageous and luxurious for a wedding – the company offers aerial bartenders and more.

“Champagne tastes better from the sky,” said Moore with enthusiasm. “Our aerial bartenders can balance, fly and hang upside down while pouring guests’ champagne. Our aerial bartenders have elegance, balance and skill, making this experience unforgettable.” Moore states this really can wow the guests. There is even a lady who wears a champagne-serving ensemble and strolls through the party, where guests can grab glasses off her big bell skirt.

Where does this company find such talented performers? Moore expressed that she met the myriad spirited thespians working as a solo artist, taking circus classes, and connecting with them through social media. Each of the performers she works with has years of experience and training in their specific

ElectriCirque is ready to serve at the next event (courtesy photo)

Fire dancing and performances can light up the night (courtesy photo)

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On Entertainment

Bonkers in Yonkers

by Steven Libowitz

Jonathan Fox was both surprised and moved when he saw Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers in its original Broadway run back in the early 1990s, back when he was still a grad student in New York.

“I was familiar with his earlier plays like The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park, so I was expecting a lot of one-liners and jokes, and wasn’t prepared for having such a moving experience,” he said. “It was very different from his other plays, much more from the heart. It’s stayed with me all this time, and in re-reading it I still found it a fascinating, dramatic, engrossing yet funny look at these young boys and the family who face all these trials and tribulations.”

The boys in question are young Brooklyn teenagers who find themself lost in Yonkers when their father drops them off at his mother’s house in 1942. Dad needs to take a job on the road to pay off debt from his deceased wife’s cancer treatment. Grandma, a Jewish refugee from Germany, lives above her candy store but has nothing sweet to her personality, making the teenagers’ new situation a challenging one to adapt to.

Fox is helming SBCC Theater Group’s production – which plays the Garvin Theatre from October 9-26. It is his first major directing job since departing Ensemble Theatre Company in the summer of 2023 after 17 years as ETC’s artistic director. He describes the production as containing plenty of Simon’s warmth and humor, which he explains is necessary to alleviate some of the play’s arguable darkness.

“We see this world through the eyes of the boys, who have a lot of wit,” he said. “It’s through them that we meet all the other relatives in the family. Their uncle is a gangster, their other aunt has a speech impediment, their father is in desperate straits and highly emotional, and their Aunt Bella has never left home. Bella is very much mentally and emotionally a child, but has a buoyancy and optimism towards life

TINA SCHLIESKE QUINTET

SATURDAY

and is finally acknowledging her own sexual desires. The humor is vitally important because the play would be pretty bleak without it. But instead it’s quite heartwarming and affecting.”

Fox said that Simon actually wrote that – in his view – Bella is the lead role in the play, as she undergoes a great deal of change, an assessment with which actress Leesa Beck concurred.

An icon in Santa Barbara and the Minneapolis music scene known for rock and Americana, Schlieske unveils her latest musical journey, The Good Life. Teaming up with a stellar ensemble, the artist embarks on a transformative jazz odyssey. This album, featuring renowned musicians Cody McKinney, Pete Hennig, Bryan Nichols, Brandon Wozniak, and Jake Baldwin, is a departure into uncharted jazz territory – a nod to the lasting allure of jazz, ushering in a new era yet paying homage to its timeless roots.

Lost in Yonkers delivers both feels and laughs (photo by Ben Crop)

JOIN US FOR A FESTIVE

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28TH

Enjoy a crafted 4-course pre-fixed dinner featuring locally sourced ingredients thoughtfully crafted for the occasion.

5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Adults $135

Children 4 to 12 Years $65

A prix-fixe menu featuring Chef Massimo’s take on holiday classics with a regional twist, that features seasonal ingredients harvested by local farmers.

3:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Adults $265

Children 4 to 12 Years $75

Honor traditions with a memorable gathering on the coast featuring holiday classics accompanied by festive activities for children.

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Buffet available from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

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Prices exclude tax and gratuity. Complimentary for children 4 and under.

Brilliant Thoughts

Okay or Nokay

by Ashleigh Brilliant

hy do we say “OK,” and say it so often? Where does it come from? There are various origin theories, but the one I like best involves a kind of humorous misspelling which, about 200 years ago, Americans used to think was very funny. One common expression at that time was “All Correct,” which had a wide application; simply expressing approval, confirmation, or agreement with someone or something. But then, as now, there were people who delighted in twisting and distorting the common language. So, instead of saying or writing “All Correct,” such folk would put: “Orl Keerect.” And this became so widely known that, instead of writing out the whole thing, they would just put the initials: O.K.

Another theory, dating from about the same period, has to do with a political nickname. Martin Van Buren, who was President of the United States for a single term, 1837-1841, came from a Dutch-settled place in New York State called Kinderhook. Then and since, Presidents had nicknames, just as Theodor Roosevelt (besides being called Teddy, and thus giving his name to Teddy Bears) was often referred as “T.R.” In the case of Van Buren, his nickname, instead of M.V.B, was based upon his own place of origin, and he became Old Kinderhook. And it was only natural for this this to be abbreviated to “O.K.”

Incidentally, Van Buren was probably our only President who grew up not speaking English as his native language. In the Kinderhook area when he was born, and probably long after, everybody spoke Dutch.

But, apart from such oddball instances, there aren’t, at least in English, many words or expressions which those particular letters could stand for. Two which came to my mind are: “Only Kidding” and “Off Kilter.” And there are also popular distortions, like “Okey Dokey.”

called a kind of linguistic imperialism, except that there’s little point in claiming the whole world as your empire. Anyway, it’s only one expression, whereas the British, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Dutch exported the whole of their languages wherever they went in the course of trade and conquest.

But how do we explain the universal popularity of O.K., or okay? For a start, it’s easy to write, and easy to pronounce, in practically any language. Then also, regardless of the situation, it’s a positive message. There’s a big difference between being OK and being not OK.

But one thing I have trouble with is that it’s not a sliding scale. There are no degrees of OK-ness. In some situations, when I’m asked “Are you okay?” it’s hard to give an honest and accurate answer. Sometimes I try to reply with something like “On a scale of one to ten, right now I’m at about a … “

Anyway, Americans can claim that OK originated in our country, though it is now the most widely used and understood expression all over the world. This might be

When we talk about universal expressions, sometimes it’s not the wording, but the idea which it seems you will find everywhere. I’m no multi-linguist, but one which has impressed me is the concept of “it doesn’t matter.” In our tongue, we say “never mind,” or “forget it.” In other languages, the idea of it being nothing occurs very frequently. I particularly like the French way of saying it: “Ça ne fait rien,” meaning, literally, that it makes or does nothing. In pronunciation, the “C” is soft, like an “S” and the “t” in “fait” is silent. I explain this so that you can understand the following: In World War I, to British soldiers stationed in France, the French way of saying that it doesn’t matter sounded like: “San Fairy Ann” which, for them, became a common expression meaning that it doesn’t matter, even if they had no knowledge of French at all.

The nice thing about Okay is that its usage is generally positive, and there are very few ways in which it can be taken to have a negative meaning, unless the speaker was being sarcastic. And it can sometimes pleasantly pop up as part of a word or name. The classic example is one of our states, whose name became part of a major Broadway musical and then a very successful movie. I’m referring, of course, to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma – whose opening number and theme climaxes with “OKLAHOMA – O.K.!”

That it’s part of a name is purely a coincidence. But then, if you’ll pardon my French, SAN FAIRY ANN.

Ashleigh Brilliant born England 1933, came to California in 1955, to Santa Barbara in 1973, to the Montecito Journal in 2016. Best-known for his illustrated epigrams, called “Pot-Shots,” now a series of 10,000. email: ashleigh@west. net. web: www.ash leighbrilliant.com.

This Montecito cottage evokes the style and charm of the iconic Biltmore Hotel bungalows, a short walk away. In a verdant garden setting, mature landscaping provides a calming sanctuary. The interior flows to a casual patio dining area, perfect for fireside entertaining under a majestic oak. Olive and fruit trees add to the Mediterranean aura. Hidden behind private gates and walls, this 3 bedroom, 3 bath, .37acre hideaway provides a historic sensibility with contemporary conveniences. Ideally located adjacent to Montecito’s trail system which provides for convenient strolls to Butterfly Beach, Coast Village Road, Miramar Beach and Hotel, and Montecito Union School. Offered at $4,885,000

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By Gordon Greenberg and Steve

OCT 10-27

WINE DOWN SCARY GOOD

6-9PM

welcomes from John Van Donge, foundation president, and Santa Barbara police chief Kelly Gordon, with the National Anthem sung by Brandon Wattz

A lifetime achievement award was presented to Pamela Geremia who served as the organization’s president, and Greg Hons, who started with the police department in 1997, was recognized for his dedication to the foundation after becoming a board member in 2013 and now executive director.

Silent auction prizes included a 10-course

Ladies in Red dinner in December at Bella Vista, dinner for ten couples prepared by Caruso’s executive chef Massimo Falsini and an overnight stay in a beachfront room at the Rosewood Miramar, Christmas shopping and dinner with Kathy Hilton and friends, and a Jeroboam of 1975 Château Lafite Rothschild, and a $500 gift card for Lucky’s.

Among those listening to the music of Ilya Serov and Ty Westbrook while sipping on the Code Red cocktails – a heady concoction of vodka, blood orange with a splash of lemon – and noshing on food from Ca’ Dario, Jeannine’s, Joe’s Cafe, Los Agaves, Lucky’s, Nick the Greek, and Tre Lune, were Bilo Zarif, Ginni Dreier, Holly Murphy, Denise Stanford, Kathryn Martin, and Mayor Randy Rowse

A splendiferous event for a good cause before the marine mist enshrouded the event – making it more like a scene from Wuthering Heights.

R-ides of March in Fall

Retired psychologist Margaret Wilkinson recently returned from Edinburgh, Scotland, after participating in a historical reenactment of a centuries old tradition, The Riding of the Marches.

Miscellany Page 504

Regina Fernandez and Adam Hagenbuch Photo: Zach Mendez

Rosen

Directed by Jamie Torcellini

Santa Barbara Police Foundation Board of Directors with special honoree Pamela Geremia and her family (photo by Viktoria Knotsedailo)

Master of Ceremonies Andrew Firestone with special guest Katy Perry (photo by Viktoria Knotsedailo)

Executive Director Greg Hons and Board

President John Van Donge honoring Pamela Geremia (photo by Viktoria Knotsedailo)

Margaret Wilkinson participates in Scotland’s historic Riding of the Marches

TO DREAM FOUNDATION’S 2024 NO GALA GALA EARLY ACCESS

Beginning today, Thursday, October 10th, Montecito Journal readers will gain early access to the season’s most anticipated virtual event — No Gala Gala!

You are invited to bid on an online auction, buy an opportunity drawing ticket, or make a gift. With no limits and no dress code, this is the event of your dreams. And your generosity will do just that, bring Dreams to life. 100% of funds raised will grant Dreams throughout the coming months.

■ Southwest Airlines

■ Troy Cox & Adeo Alday

■ Kenny & Elizabeth Slaught

■ Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians

■ Louise & Tim Casey

■ Robin & Roger Himovitz

■ Mario Muredda

■ Sheryl Zimmerman & Philip Sloane

■ Zegar Family Fund

■ Chad & Debbie Blomgren

■ Bob’s Discount Furniture

■ Jarvis Foundation

■ Sharon & Jeff Jordano

■ Deborah & Ivan Kallick

■ Montecito Bank & Trust

■ Anne Towbes

■ Hospice of Santa Barbara

■ Nancy Graham

■ Barry Levy

■ Sheri Smith

THANK YOU TO OUR AUCTION IN-KIND SPONSORS

Alaska Airlines • Anna Janelle Jewelry • Bar Le Cote • Bell’s Restaurant • Chicago White Sox • Clic

Colette Cosentino Atelier & Gallery • Rupa Danier • Doen • Dos Pueblos Institute • Duo Catering & Events

Emily Joubert • Chris Freeman • George • Robin & Roger Himovitz • Homewood Suites by Hilton San Diego • Hotel Le Toiny

Hudson Grace • J. McLaughlin • J. Wilkes • Janine Cifelli Representation • Kimpton Canary Hotel • Laykin et Cie • Loquita

Los Angeles Football Club • Los Angeles Rams • Los Olivos Wine Merchant & Cafe • LOU Los Olivos • Mac’s Car Detailing

Maison K • Margerum Wine Company • Mate Gallery • Montecito Country Mart • New Orleans School of Cooking

Palm Springs Aerial Tramway • Philadelphia Eagles • Sarah Johns Romo • Santa Barbara Sailing Center

Santa Barbara Symphony • Santa Barbara Together • Kenny & Elizabeth Slaught • Solage Resort & Spa • Andy Suriano

The Cultured Abalone Farm • The Inn at Mattei’s Tavern • The Tropicale Palm Springs • Tradewind Aviation

For more information, visit: www.dreamfoundation.org/NoGala WE EXTEND A HEARTFELT GRATITUDE TO OUR GENEROUS SPONSORS:

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Dear Montecito The Nuances of Environmentalism from Marine Scientist Francesca Nash

by Beatrice Tolan

Get up and out of your bunk at 4 am. Make coffee and a bagel… it’s burnt. Equip your waders, boots, headlamp, backpack, and lots of surveying equipment. Wade in the river and hike the woods for 12 hours, being cautious not to run into the man who lives in the shack made of bones. Count fish. Report fish. No breaks. Back in your bunk by 8 pm. Repeat six days a week, seven weeks straight.

This is the life of marine researcher and environmentalist Francesca Nash during the summers in Washington state, in the remote Northern Cascades. Originally from Carpinteria, Nash grew

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Since

up exploring the coast of California. It wasn’t optimal surfing or gorgeous views that brought Nash to the ocean daily. It was something more macabre.

“I’d find dead animals washing up. I found deep sea fish, slugs, and things I couldn’t describe, all showing up in different seasons.” Adding to Nash’s interest, the 2015 oil spill and ecological consequences fascinated her high school self. “How are we abusing the environment, and what can we do about that?”

Nash attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, studying Marine Sciences, and this June completed a Master’s in Marine and Environmental Affairs at the University of Washington, now working in the fishery and habitat restoration industry for an environmental consultancy in Washington.

Her clients include private energy companies, like those that run dams and power plants, as well as government agencies like NOAA, EPA, Tribal Nations, and nonprofits. “Our goal is to create a healthy ecosystem by calculating environmental impacts and creating more ideal habitat conditions for different species.”

When asked what people may not suspect about the fishery business, Nash stated, “It’s a contentious industry. It’s not just about fish, it’s political: it’s people’s resources, livelihoods, and income. There are a lot of negotiations between different stakeholders like the state government, federal government, landowners, tribes – even other countries. There are a lot of big feelings about it.”

Nash prefers smaller, local efforts versus massive corporate fishing endeavors.

Dear Montecito Page 364

Francesca Nash hyped to be surveying the coast

Francesca basking in California’s natural resources (and valuable trade good in Washington)

Elizabeth’s Appraisals Boston Vacuum Mount Pencil Sharpener

by Elizabeth Stewart

ew illustrious tourist attractions in Ohio rank higher than the Reverend Paul Johnson’s Pencil Sharpener Museum located in the middle of the State, a menagerie donated by the Reverend’s wife after he collected approximately 4,000 sharpeners from 1989-2010. He left her holding the collection when he died in 2010. She had no one to blame but herself as she bought him his first sharpener.

world. Mom’s Boston Vacuum mounted sharpener had an adjustable hole size and a twist off canister, and was made in her home state of New Jersey – Camden to be precise. When in 1957 the company moved to North Carolina it was purchased by X-ACTO, which was in turn absorbed by Elmer’s Glue.

Downsize

The Good Reverend collected pencil-sharpening Garfields, Mickeys, Tweety Birds, tractors, airplanes, trains, and U.S. presidents who sharpened with their mouths, as well as panda bear sharpeners, which sharpened pencils from the other end. The displays are grouped in relationship to his themes; you can visit food-themed sharpeners, music-themed, or travel-themed. My attention turned to the historically-themed sharpeners. In my past our family had a Boston Vacuum Mount Vintage Pencil Sharpener, circa 1950s, which belonged to my mom. I have it now in my kitchen to remind me of the sound of Mom’s hand cranking as she sharpened pencils for my daily math lesson.

How I dreaded that sound. Mom is a musical and math genius, and I had no talent for numbers and had youthful problems learning to count. So, the Boston sharpener, and what it represented, was not my friend.

The pencil sharpener, given its due, ranks among the finest tools of the

The pencil itself was invented under Napoleon’s watch by one of his army officers, a French scientist Nicolas-Jacques Conté in 1795. Back in Concord, MA, in 1812 William Monroe made America’s first pencil, and another Concord native, Henry David Thoreau, the famous philosopher and author, made his own improved design. Before the invention of the pencil, folks used graphite, but it was messy.

Aside from our family’s Boston sharpener, there exists a more “expensive” 1950s Boston Vacuum Mount Pencil sharpener which has a spring-loaded grip at the front of the different sized holes to hold the pencil while it is being sharpened, and the very advanced model has only one hole which because of a special grip could accommodate many pencil sizes. The Boston sharpener is a cylindrical “planetary” sharpener (a reference to the sharpener’s gearbox), using two gears which are conical, and is powered by a hand crank. The sharpeners are a pair of helix cutters.

The hole size issue was important because Europe and Great Britain had different sized pencils than the U.S., and Boston exported sharpeners. In England, the term for a sharpener was a “pencil pointer,” and in Ireland it was called a “Parer” or “Topper.”

the leading manufactory of which was the Automatic Pencil Sharpener Co., which dominated the market until the development of the electric pencil sharpener in 1917.

Other sharpeners serviced other types of pencils, such as one for flat sided carpenter’s pencils.

Before we had the luxury of a tool called a pencil sharpener, we had knives to do the whittling, until a Parisian mathematician applied for the world’s first pencil sharpener patent in 1828. England followed suit and patented a “Styloxynon” in 1833 with two sharp blades at right angles set in a block of wood with a hole. When the engineering of these tools developed to the point where the small block of wood held just one blade at a tangent, this was called a prism pocket sharpener, and was fraught with difficulty for a left handed person. America ruled the sharpener market in the mid-19 th century because one factory in Bangor, Maine, produced those small hand-held sharpeners we all know, and exported them widely throughout Europe.

Later, American ingenuity led to the development of a huge and weighty mechanical communal office pencil sharpener from 1890 -1917,

Atlas Obscura, which I love, tells us that if you are visiting the Reverend’s Pencil Sharpening Museum, you might make a detour to Springfield to see Mr. Ben Hartman’s Rock Garden – a circa 1930’s miniature rock garden of famous architectural structures, such as the White House in tiny pebbles. Or you might visit Eggshelland in Lyndhurst, Ohio, which began in 1957 in Ron and Betty Manolio’s front yard at Easter, where the couple blew out 50,000 eggs and dyed the shells to create a giant Eater Bunny and a 50 foot Cross. The traditions are kept alive by neighbors and friends in Ohio today. Looks like we are in for a road trip. The value of Mom’s Boston sharpener is $40.00.

Elizabeth Stewart, PhD is a veteran appraiser of fine art, furniture, glass, and other collectibles, and a cert. member of the AAA and an accr. member of the ASA. Please send any objects to be appraised to Elizabethappraisals@ gmail.com

Are you having flashbacks to grade school yet?

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The Giving List

Santa Barbara Foundation

by Steven Libowitz

For almost a century, the Santa Barbara Foundation has been a catalyst for change in Santa Barbara County, analyzing issues to identify challenges that burden people, and then convening community stakeholders to build coalitions and partner with nonprofits and other leaders working on the front lines to solve problems. While issues, approaches, and methods might have shifted over the years, the mission remains the same – to facilitate a thriving community for everyone.

Among the challenges the Foundation has taken on in recent years is to lift the burden of the high cost and low access to childcare for families, particularly those with middle incomes; they who make too much money to qualify for public programs but can’t afford market rates for childcare. Adding to the problem is limited availability of licensed providers, as research has shown that space is available for only one in 10 infants and toddlers countywide, resulting in a waiting list of more than 1,000.

“That’s an incredibly troubling statistic,” said Liz Thasiah, Santa Barbara Foundation’s Vice President of Programs. “Middle income families end up paying 35% of their income on childcare if they can find it. The cost of childcare is incredibly high. The gap in providers is also incredibly high. It’s a perfect storm within a community that relies on childcare for their workforce.”

SBF has been addressing the issue for a decade, launching initiatives to combat both fronts. Between 2019 and 2024, the nonprofit provided more than $2 million in grants for childcare scholarships and childcare capacity building. This funding enabled scholarships for 400 children and helped develop the

capacity of 44 childcare providers.

The good news is there is movement on that front.

While the pandemic exacerbated the problem, ARPA funding became available two years ago, and SBF received a $1.125 million grant to grow the childcare workforce and to increase the number of slots for infant toddlers. Working with two primary partners – Children’s Resource and Referral (CRR) and the County Education Office Child Care Planning Council (CCPC) –SBF took direct aim at catalyzing, enhancing and growing the childcare workforce.

“Working with our two primary partners, Children’s Resource and Referral (CRR) and the County Education Office Child Care Planning Council (CCPC), we’ve had remarkable results, actually unprecedented in the history of Santa Barbara County,” Thasiah stated. “The goal was to create 250 new early infant

toddler spaces through 2025. Just within the first year, we’ve created 1,070, quadrupling the goal with more than a year to go.”

That number includes 17 center-based providers adding 314 spaces to their childcare capacity, plus the licensing of 189 new family childcare in-home providers, which created 756 new infant toddler spaces, Thasiah said.

“These childcare home spaces are critical. They are able to offer variable hours, which empowers parental choice and flexibility for unusual schedules. And it also represents an opportunity for the workforce itself to develop a livable wage so the programs are sustainable.”

CRR also helped develop the childcare facilities needs assessment – which drills down on a city-by-city basis to uncover the gaps and decide how to meet the community’s unique needs. This has enabled the partners to begin developing a master plan, Thasiah said.

“It’s all really a testament to our partners and their ability to make those connections with the workforce. I’m in awe of all that they’ve accomplished. But we’re still addressing just a portion of what is needed.”

Indeed, the ARPA funding has been depleted, while almost 600 people are willing to work in the field but can’t afford the $3,500 it takes to get licensed.

“That would take about $2 million, and with that workforce they’d create 7,000 more spaces, which would go a long way toward covering the gap,” Thasiah said. “So we know it’s achievable, and now we are setting our sights on creating partnerships with donors and with state and federal funding opportunities. Now is the time to maintain the momentum to really move the needle on these numbers.”

Financial support would also help the Foundation support its partners in offering more childcare scholarships to alleviate tuition costs for working families.

“We don’t want our families having to leave Santa Barbara County to live,” Thasiah said.

Santa Barbara Foundation has also experienced another inspiring success story on yet another front, one that demonstrates the nonprofit’s ability to move quickly to take advantage of opportunities.

SBF convened the Digital Equity Coalition with a handful of partners two years ago, working to ensure broadband access to all county residents, where almost 10% of residents lack any internet access. Older adults, people with disabilities and low-income households are especially affected, limiting their access to education, healthcare and job opportunities.

Last November, shortly after Thasiah joined the Foundation, SBF became aware of already-allocated funds from the California Department of Social Services’ Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services; funds that would be returned to the state if unutilized. A request for proposal (RFP) has been issued, but there was one problem –none of the local nonprofits had the capacity to apply for and administer the funds on their own, given the huge amount of work involved.

The Santa Barbara Foundation is focused on facilitating a thriving community for everyone (courtesy photo)

Critics’ Pick: LA Times “Hot Ticket” for Fall London

Philharmonic Orchestra

Edward Gardner, Principal Conductor

Patricia Kopatchinskaja , violin

Sat, Oct 12 / 7 PM / Granada Theatre

“London’s most adventurous and dynamic mainstream orchestra.” The Times (U.K.)

Program

Tania León: Raices (Origins)

Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, op. 77

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 in F minor, op. 36

Aida Cuevas

Canta a Juan Gabriel 40 años después

Sun, Oct 20 / 7 PM / Arlington Theatre

“Cuevas is to Mexico what Aretha Franklin is to the United States: a powerful voice that encapsulates the essence of her nation’s spirit.” The Kansas City Star With a voice that has earned her multiple Grammys and avid fans all over the world, Aida Cuevas incarnates the spirit of Mexico in this evening of music in the mariachi tradition.

Essential African Pop from Mali Habib Koité, Aly Keïta, Lamine Cissokho

Mandé Sila

Wed, Oct 30 / 8 PM / UCSB Campbell Hall

“First there was Hendrix, then Stevie Ray, and now Habib.” – Bonnie Raitt

African polyrhythms merge with the propulsive beats of modern rock in the hypnotic grooves of Mali’s Habib Koité, joined by balafon virtuoso Aly Keïta and kora master Lamine Cissokho.

Your Westmont

Rocks of Remembrance

by Scott Craig, photos by Brad Elliott

On the morning of March 27, 1989, Westmont students Lisa Bebout, Patty (Hallock) Crosby, Megan (Harter) Adams, Alan Voorman, and Garth Weedman drove in Voorman’s bright yellow Toyota Corolla from their camp in Ensenada, Mexico, to a nearby village. As members of the Potter’s Clay Construction Team, they were renovating a dilapidated house there. But an oncoming car suddenly jumped the divider and landed on top of Voorman’s vehicle. Fellow students in two cars behind them screeched to a halt and piled out to rescue their friends as ambulances rushed to the scene.

In the days that followed, Bebout, Voorman and Weedman died. Crosby and Adams suffered critical injuries but survived.

About 70 people gathered on Oct. 4 during Homecoming to honor the 35th anniversary of the fatal accident during the college’s annual outreach to Ensenada during spring break. They stood in the stone pine forest below Westmont’s Dining

Commons around a monument of stones students brought back from Ensenada as a memorial to the three students who died.

The family members, former students and staff who spoke at the event shared their emotional stories about hope in the midst of devastating loss.

Carpinteria Speech and Language

Serving Carpinteria, Santa Barbara, Montecito, Ojai, and Ventura

Adams, who has written a book about the incident, shared her faith and neardeath experience, emphasizing the importance of love and sacrifice.

“I’ve seen such amazing things happen in my life,” she said. “I’m thankful to be a part of this for the revelation God has given me and an amazing testimony. I choose to look for the good, because that’s where God is.”

Former Westmont chaplain Bart Tarman ministered to 500 grieving students in Ensenada despite his own traumatic shock. He reflected on the question of where to go when faced with tragedy and the importance of faith.

“Our pain doesn’t go away, but it doesn’t have to tyrannize us anymore,” he said. “Our memories don’t go away, but they don’t have to tyrannize us.”

In 1989, students each collected three rocks from their Ensenada camp: one for a memorial there, one for the monument on campus, and the third to take with them to remember the victims. At the conclusion of the service in October, Campus Pastor Scott Lisea offered engraved, polished rocks for participants to take and remember.

Former Provost Offers a Hopeful Middle

Polarization in our culture and politics has led to division, tension and hostility in our churches, workplaces and even our families. Shirley Mullen, former Westmont provost and history professor, encouraged the Westmont community to instead claim the powerful, redemptive potential of the courageous middle.

“It’s one of the hardest things you’ll ever do, but it’s making your entire

story available to God to use you in those spaces in your life where you have people on both sides of you who trust you more than they trust others,” she said.

Mullen has written a new book, Claiming the Courageous Middle: Daring to Live and Work Together for a More Hopeful Future. She emphasized the importance of Christian liberal arts institutions in preparing graduates to navigate redemptive middle spaces while recognizing and resisting the pressure to shut out complexity. She stressed the role of historical perspective and scriptural understanding in fostering respect, dignity and humility.

Mullen, president emeritus of Houghton College, served for more than two decades at Westmont, winning the Bruce and Adaline Bare Teacher of the Year Award three times. She spoke in chapel and later at a lecture on Sept. 30 in the Global Leadership Center.

“Sometimes it’s inviting a community to focus on what they share rather than how they’re divided,” she said. “In times like ours, everyone is thinking first about what others don’t agree with, and there’s so much that we have in common in any of the arenas we’re in.”

Lynn and Dr. Scott Voorman, Megan Harter Adams, and Diana and Sig Weedman

Megan Harter Adams speaks at the memorial

Shirley Mullen (courtesy photo)

Scott Craig is manager of media relations at Westmont College

Imagine Having a Whole VILLAGE Behind You.

The Water Column Fall Is Gardening Season

by Laura Camp

Here on the central coast, November is traditionally an ideal time to plant native and drought resilient plants. Cooler temperatures, short, bright days, and a possibility of rain create the right conditions for new plantings to spread their roots through winter and be poised for growth come spring. A cozy blanket of mulch may also provide new and established plants with welcome insulation as temperatures dip. Remember – Montecito Water District has mulch rebates!

Need a Little Inspiration?

Last spring, Montecito Water District, Carpinteria Valley Water District, City of Santa Barbara, City of Buellton, Santa Ynez River Water Conservation District, and Vandenberg Village Community Services District all teamed up for the annual Countywide Waterwise Garden Recognition Contest. The Countywide and regional winners were recently announced, and you can find images online at www.waterwisesb. org/4333/_2034

Don’t miss the fabulous photos of Montecito’s own Dale Zurawski in a water-saving wonderland!

Local Favorites

This year’s regional contest entrants revealed some spectacular gardens. In Montecito Water District’s eyes, they were all winners, showcasing a couple of ideas so good we had to share:

1. Succulent Tapestries:

Succulent is synonymous with luscious. Fleshy and highly evolved at water storage, succulents can look amazingly lush when thickly layered in a variety of colors and textures. Highly admired for their distinctive looks, they are deceptively low maintenance and non-thirsty, requiring minimal hand watering or drip irrigation. A practical choice in small or larger spaces, many thrive even under oak canopy.

2. Bocce Ball Courts:

This festive use of garden space requires no irrigation whatsoever. Great entertainment when used for sport, and easily converted to extra space for entertaining with the occasional introduction of tables and chairs. When properly made with permeable surfaces, these allow rainwater to percolate back into the groundwater basin rather than race away as runoff. A win-win-win!

Takeaways

- Take advantage of rebates from Montecito Water District and Montecito GSA for improving land-

scape water efficiency and groundwater sustainability.

- Tend to your garden this fall to be ready for next year’s garden contest in March/April.

- Utilize local resources including www.waterwisegardeningsb.org where the waterwise partnership provides an inspiring database featuring beautiful, sustainable, climate-appropriate, and drought tolerant plants, trees and grasses that thrive in Santa Barbara County.

These two stunning examples of succulent tapestries from this year’s regional contest entrants are waterwise and low maintenance

Dale Zurawski, 2024 District First Place Winner, Countywide Waterwise Garden Recognition Contest.

Laura Camp is the Public Information Officer for the Montecito Water District

open borders with crime and thousands of homeless people many of them mentally disturbed and violent -- admitted into your neighborhoods.

It’s time for a change. I will be that change. Learn more at thomascoleforcongress.com

Salud Carbajal (D)

Occupation: Member of Congress

Age: 59

ENDORSED

Education and Qualifications: I’m Salud Carbajal, and I’m working to advance our Central Coast priorities in Congress.

I grew up on the Central Coast. My father worked as a farmworker in Ventura County. I attended UCSB while working two jobs to become the first in my family to graduate from a university. I proudly served our country in the Marine Corps Reserves, and my community as Santa Barbara County Supervisor. My wife, Gina, and I raised our family here, and now are watching our grandchildren grow up here.

In Congress, I’ve focused on supporting hardworking families and growing the middle class. I helped pass laws that are creating jobs, investing in our infrastructure and clean energy, and lowering costs of living including housing and health care.

I’m still fighting to defend reproductive freedom and restore abortion access nationwide. And as an immigrant, I am committed to advancing overdue fixes to our broken immigration system and restoring order at our borders. I’ve worked on legislation that protects our environment, addresses climate change, bans new offshore drilling off our coastline, supports our veterans, and makes our communities safer by getting guns and deadly fentanyl off our streets. At a time when Washington dysfunction is at an all-time high, I’ve remained focused on finding common ground across the aisle to tackle homelessness, improve child care availability, and prevent wildfires.

I would be honored to continue working for you in Congress.

For more information, visit SaludCarbajal.com

I kindly ask for your vote. Thank you.

State Senator, District 21

The California State Senate is the upper chamber of the California State Legislature. Alongside the California State Assembly, it forms the legislative branch of the California state government and works alongside the governor of California to create laws and establish a state budget. Legislative authority and responsibilities of the California State Senate include passing bills on public policy matters, setting levels for state spending, raising and lowering taxes, and voting to uphold or override gubernatorial vetoes. (Source: ballotpedia.org)

S. Monique Limón (D)

Occupation: California State Senator

ENDORSED

Education and Qualifications: As a lifelong resident of the Central Coast, I’m honored to represent Santa Barbara County in the State Senate.

I have a proven record of working to improve our schools, protect our environment, expand job training, advance women’s health care, protect consumers, combat the high cost of living, and bring resources to our area to prevent and fight wildfires. That’s why I am proud to be supported by a broad range of community leaders including teachers, nurses, and firefighters.

Since being elected, l’ve worked to tackle climate change, protect consumer privacy, improve mental health care and long-term strategies to prevent homelessness, improve access to quality healthcare including aging and Alzheimer’s, and help safeguard human trafficking survivors. Access to healthcare continues to be a priority for our community and I have worked with a coalition to protect and improve it. I earned a 100% voting record with Health Access California.

I’ve worked to protect our air, water and coastline, and earned a 100% rating from the Sierra Club and California Environmental Voters.

In response to the Supreme Court’s overruling of Roe v. Wade, I co-authored Proposition 1, which passed overwhelmingly by the voters of California, to enshrine the right to choose for women in our State Constitution. These challenging times require effective leadership and the integrity to stand up for the people of the Tri-Counties. I believe my record reflects both.

I would be honored to earn your vote for my re-election to the State Senate. Thank you for your consideration.

www.MoniqueLimonforSenate.com

Guide Page 444

“She has one of the biggest arcs from the beginning to the end of the show,” Beck said. “At first, she is truly lost, stuck in a situation for her whole life that has kept her from being able to blossom and grow as a person. But this situation they face as a family shakes things loose and causes her to grow and find the path that she’s supposed to be on.” Indeed, critics have said as much about Simon himself over the 30-plus years since the Pulitzer-and-Tony-winning Yonkers premiered. “There’s a depth of character, humanity and personal investment that place Lost in Yonkers among Simon’s more affecting works,” the New York Times wrote of the 2012 Broadway revival. “There’s still much to savor in his work.”

ETC’s ‘Dracula’: Count on the Laughter

While Lost in Yonkers walks a fine line between poignancy and humor, there’s no such balancing act in the play that opens Ensemble Theatre Company’s 46th season

On Entertainment Page 494 On Entertainment (Continued from 18)

You haven’t seen Dracula like this before.. well, you’ve likely seen a shirtless vampire before… (photo by Zach Mendez)

Lost in Yonkers will be in Garvin Theatre from October 9-26 (photo by Ben Crop)

Includes Live Cooking Demo An Evening with Yotam Ottolenghi

Mon, Oct 14 / 7:30 PM / Granada Theatre

Spend a delicious evening with world-renowned chef Yotam Ottolenghi as he shares his stories and influences from across the globe, discusses his new book, Comfort, and prepares one of his dishes live on stage.

Pre-signed copies of Comfort will be available for purchase, courtesy of Chaucer’s

Event Sponsor: Martha Gabbert

Financial Journalist and Author Josie Cox

Women Money Power: The Rise and Fall of Economic Equality

Thu, Oct 17 / 7:30 PM / UCSB Campbell Hall

FREE copies of Cox’s new book, Women Money Power , will be available while supplies last (pick up at event; one per household)

Examining the challenges women face today and the culture and systems that hold them back, journalist Josie Cox chronicles the historical fight to close the gender pay gap and asserts that the battle for equality is far from over.

Lead Sponsor: Dorothy Largay

Pulitzer Prize Finalist

An Evening with Percival Everett

Fri, Oct 25 / 7:30 PM / UCSB Campbell Hall

FREE copies of Everett’s new book, James, will be available while supplies last (pick up at event; one per household)

“The times are finally catching up to the satirical genius of this cult literary icon. Everett is a true American genius, a master artist.” Oprah Daily

skills, not to mention that they have learned from other professional circus performers. Most of their performers are teachers themselves.

This is definitely circus-style entertainment, especially considering the fire performers. For something truly decadent, wild, and exquisite for the disco lovers – ElectriCirque Entertainment offers quite the experience for an after-wedding party. There are disco head dancers, who Moore says are really popular. The party also offers main stage entertainment with fire performances, stilt walkers, mimes, magicians, and more to keep the dance floor full of energy.

The great thing about ElectriCirque Entertainment, is you can hire them for outdoor and indoor entertainment for guests. “We can do it all! We can even provide dance floors, lighting and trussing systems, which can allow our aerialists to fly anywhere. We have different types of equipment, stages and apparatuses to ensure we can create magic in any space,” said Moore with excitement. There are also ambient performers and roaming characters, who have the freedom and ability to fit through all types of spaces, big or small, whether you’re at a restaurant or throwing a huge wedding on a lawn.

“We bring our own fire safety team to every event. These trained fire safety technicians protect our dancers, your guests and venue, to mitigate any potential danger. They are equipped with multiple fire blankets and extinguishers. But we’ve never had to use an extinguisher. We also

wear specific costumes that have been treated with fireproofing spray as extra precaution,” explains Moore. She notes that every performer – and the company as a whole – has a very large insurance policy.

So for the next event, why not add a touch of the bubbly poured from the sky, or a Living Flower roaming the floor? Maybe a touch of magic during the cocktail hour or some disco head dancers and a stilt walking robot lit in LEDs at the after party? ElectriCirque’s services add a flare of performance and elegance to any event or wedding.

What does Moore find most fulfilling about this business? “Building connections with new clients, understanding their vision, and then seeing the smile on their face when it comes to life. It is so fulfilling. This job really does excite me. I’m constantly growing, evolving and pushing the boundaries. It feels good to step into the Santa Barbara event space with something new and fresh to bring to the table.”

The type of clients that would most enjoy hiring these circus type performers would be “corporate clients, brides and grooms, event coordinators, planners, venue and hotel owners, and anyone excited to add something new and fresh to their next party,” stated Moore. “I truly want to create lasting memories for wedding guests, corporate clients, and beyond.”

“Now you can take a giant vessel out and scoop up as many fish as you want. Our modern-day equipment is too efficient and is disruptive to the environment. What if you fished, but used more traditional gear? Rotated harvesting sites? Paid attention to seasonality?”

Aside from her fascination with marine species and habitat protection, she is invested in keeping outdoors spaces accessible to the public. “I’m proud to be from California where regardless of what house you live in, you are able to enjoy the same beaches that beach-front properties enjoy.”

Nash is also an advocate for everyone in local communities to have more agency and access to environmental resources like fishing and hunting.

“Although they come from a place of respect for the environment, some environmentally-conscious citizens who advocate privatizing resources and land fail to recognize their privilege. They are typically removed from the extraction and production of their food; while they’re happy to eat a fish in a restaurant, they’ll bar those who would prefer to harvest their own food, which is more environmentally sound.”

While we typically expect environmentalists to hold firm beliefs against hunting, Nash appreciates the more nuanced perspectives of resource extraction and sustainability.

“Initially, I had more stringent beliefs about what real environmentalism looked like, but that has changed to honor and respect lifestyles different from my own. For example, I don’t hunt, but I respect hunters – not trophy hunters – but those who connect to their environment and harvest their own food.”

“I used to not eat red meat, but if it’s ethically sourced and offered to me, I think it is respectful to accept someone else’s resources. People forget that meat is a valuable resource that takes years to develop.”

Nash also praised the communal act of trading resources for other resources; she squealed in delight when I told her I trade design services for instrument lessons, relaying that her parents send her boxes of avocados from Carpinteria to trade with folks in Washington.

Nash hopes to infuse her community-centric philosophy and practices into the industry of fishing. Nash is particularly excited about NOAA’s plans to designate the coast from San Luis Obispo to Santa Barbara as a marine sanctuary to the Chumash tribe, which has been in talks since 2015.

As the NOAA Chumash Heritage website states: “Marine Sanctuaries consider the interconnections amongst all the physical and biological features of the marine environment, as well as human interactions at each individual sanctuary site.”

Nash looks forward to contributing to inclusivity in an industry that, as of now, is predominantly male and white dominated. She and her partner of seven years David, her biggest supporter outside of her dogs Juno and Champion, plan on returning to California where they met in undergrad at Cal Poly.

Until then, Nash continues her exploration of Washington’s endless natural beauty. She misses Santa Barbara’s wonderful natural surroundings, and hopes people enjoy the abundance of resources available to them.

building community through unique perspectives and stories. beatricetola @gmail.com

Dear Montecito (Continued from 24)

Captain and Juno, Francesca Nash’s cheerleaders

Beatrice Tolan is a fine artist, animator, and writer living in Los Angeles after residing in Montecito for 20 years. She is invested in

Add a little disco to the dance floor (courtesy photo)

ElectriCirque has a host of aerial bartenders (courtesy photo)

Alisa Kay writes about dating, relationships and sometimes weddings. She is a crusader of love and just recently published a book on dating.

Cottage Neurosciences Clinic

Under the leadership of a dedicated team of neurosurgeons, the Cottage Neurosciences Clinic is committed to delivering excellent care from diagnosis to exploring treatment options and ongoing management of a wide range of conditions affecting the brain, spine and nervous system.

SERVICES OFFERED:

Minimally invasive procedures, surgical and nonsurgical approaches for the treatment of:

• brain and spine tumors •spine conditions •epilepsy

• neurovascular disorders •trigeminal neuralgia

For more information, please call 805-569-7820 or visit cottagehealth.org/ neuroclinic 2410 Fletcher Ave., Suite 302 Santa Barbara, CA 93105

Richard Chung, MD, PhD N. Nicole Moayeri, MD Brian Walcott, MD

Far Flung Travel

Ebb and Flow

by Chuck Graham

From the moment I slid my kayak into the water at the back end of Drakes Estero, I was in serious navigational mode within the Point Reyes National Seashore. It was 5 am, and pea soup fog persisted one hour north of San Francisco.

Drakes Estero is massive wetland, and a great biome to explore, but it’s only accessible for paddling from July 1 to February 28. The rest of the year it’s closed off so spotted harbor seals can pup unimpeded.

From the air, Drakes Estero resembles a withered human hand with several long, spindly fingers that lead to stunningly scenic natural harbors. They include Barries Bay, Creamery Bay, Schooner Bay, and Home Bay. Limantour Bay is the thumb of the Estero. It’s a long, gritty sandspit known as Limantour Spit buffering the entrance of the Estero. I put my kayak in the water at Schooner Bay. It’s right next to the narrow road that leads to the Point Reyes Lighthouse. There’s a sliver of a channel there that requires some tide to sneak into one of the main channels that leads to Drakes Bay and eventually the Pacific Ocean.

Drakes Estero is within the Phillip Burton Wilderness Area nestled within the National Seashore. Drakes Estero

and nearby Estero de Limantour are the only marine wilderness areas on the west coast of the continental United States.

Using the Land

Visibility was difficult. Low-lying fog hung tough through most of the morning. The combination of fog and muted brown/gray-colored water, sandbars, and tidal mudflats made it difficult seeking out the right serpentine channel leading to open water. I made several wrong turns that led to dead ends or into waters too shallow to paddle.

Wading great egrets proved to be a greater indicator of which water routes to avoid. There were many of them strolling the shallows preying on crabs and baitfish. I would’ve run my kayak into the mud if I paddled into their neighborhood. I also felt for moving water. The tide was on the ebb and was moving faster than me when I wasn’t paddling. Where the water was rippling, it was deeper, and the current was running toward one of the main, wide-open channels.

I stroked past broad, sweeping sandbars with no horizons. The fog hovered just above them, making visibility tricky.

Up close, double-crested cormorants huddled on the sandbars’ edge, sharing space with gulls and American white

pelicans. After about two hours of gradually navigating a path toward the ocean, I paddled past a significant hideaway by a famous British explorer.

Fortified by sand dunes, swaying dune grasses, and thorny wild roses, was a monument. Burly driftwood stood tall with a weathered plaque attached to it, commemorating Sir Francis Drake and his circumnavigation, sailing around the world.

The year was 1579, and Drake was hiding from the Spanish, who considered him a pirate. He needed to repair his ships, and so he tucked into what is now Drakes Bay but took it a little further and with extremely high tides was able to sail inside to what is known as Drakes Estero.

He possibly would’ve sailed past hordes of spotted harbor seals hauled out on a steep berm after entering the estero. He also would’ve seen migrating American white pelicans roosting alongside legions of cormorants, and majestic bald eagles perched in the Monterey cypress trees

The wetland was the perfect refuge. His crew would’ve had great vantage points on either side of the estero to spot the Spanish, sheer bluffs cloaked in coastal sage chaparral stood tall on either side of the estero. Food sources and fresh water were abundant.

Drakes Bay

While rounding a massive tidal flat that was several football fields long and a couple hundred yards wide, I noticed what was potentially a large piece of

driftwood or rock-outcropping in the middle of the flat. I ran the bow of my boat onto a berm and scanned with my binoculars. All by its lonesome and seemingly enjoying a reprieve from the open ocean was a snoozing northern elephant seal.

Slumbering the morning away, the bull elephant seal snored, snorted, and certainly didn’t have a care in the world. It never budged on the mudflat. It had used an incoming tide to reach its sleep spot, and it stayed there until the tide cycled through.

I kept paddling toward Drakes Bay, passing hundreds of harbor seals bobbing near Limantour Sandspit. There wasn’t another paddler the entire time. The fog lifted just enough to see the horizon east and west.

After returning to the monument, I waited for the tide to turn. The swift-moving tide returned me to the back end of Schooner Bay. It easily lifted me onto the slick muddy embankment where the day began. Just as the sun rises and sets, the tides turn every day.

Chuck Graham is a freelance writer and photographer based in Carpinteria, where he also leads kayak tours and backpacking trips in Channel Islands National Park

Just a lazy day at Drakes Bay

A plaque commemorating Sir Francis Drake and shipwrights in general

American white pelicans

“Hey! You took my toupée!”

That’s when SBF took the reins. Thasiah knew what had to happen.

“I said, ‘This is why the Santa Barbara Foundation exists.’ We’re here to support the nonprofit community to help mobilize when there are moments for strategic change like this.”

In May, the Foundation became the fiscal sponsor for the county’s $497,000 Digital Equity Access to Technology Grant, a pilot project to establish the skills-based development of digital navigators to assist aging adults and adults with disabilities with connectivity – using devices to access the internet. SBFG identified five nonprofit partners – the American GI Forum, CommUnify, Community Partners in Caring, Family Service Agency and the Independent Living Resource Center – and provided their staff with the necessary tools and knowledge to implement local digital inclusion efforts, contracting with a consultant and the Community Tech Network, a national leader in digital equity, to provide support.

The three-month program ended September 30, and it was a resounding success, Thasiah said.

“In a very short time frame, these partners worked in concert to distribute almost 600 devices to more than 500 older adults, providing in-home training and one-on-one support in English, Spanish, and

Mixteco. The devices were brought to them, set up with them, with staffers holding their hands as they helped them tailor it to their specific needs. We’ve heard that some of these families and adults who participated wept at having someone come to help them like that.”

As always, SFP credits the tireless efforts of its partners in implementing the program.

“They have reported that they are exhausted, but full of joy,” Thasiah said. “Because when you see the people who’ve been previously disconnected receive what they need with so much gratitude, it’s overwhelming. It makes it worth every moment.”

Part of the funds also went to growing the program moving forward, she said. The DEC has created a website to serve as a resource for all SBF’s nonprofit partners to grow the digital and advanced digital equity, and to support people directly.

“It’s a one-stop shop for resources, information about affordable classes around digital literacy, best practices for cities and communities, how to get involved, and more,” Thasiah said. “Now it’s about scaling up to help others who would benefit from a project like this one. We are about convening and accelerating opportunities for systems change. We couldn’t be more thrilled.”

means “investing in SBCC’s future without increasing tax rates.”

Measure P would extend for 20 years an $8.50 property tax charge, approved by voters in 2008 as Measure V, a previous bond measure to finance infrastructure improvements at City College.

It’s true that the rate of $8.50 per $100,000 of assessed property value would be the same as that on the bond passed in 2008. But because assessed values have gone up, so would the tax bill.

The notion that a nearly $200 million bond measure would be sprung on voters a month before ballots went out also seemed fishy. If that much money was so vital, shouldn’t they have presented a detailed case to the voters about why the money was needed, with enough time to make an informed decision?

The numbers behind Proposition P. I decided to look into the origins of Proposition P. What I found was not comforting.

Santa Barbara City College is in trouble. Some of that trouble is due to longterm demographic changes, some to changes in technology, and some to the COVID shutdowns. Some of it is due to not facing those problems.

The fundamental issue is that college enrollments have been dropping everywhere, for years.

City College enrollment peaked in 2010, at 18,761 full-time students. By 2023, that number had fallen to 11,565, a nearly 40 percent drop. Of that greatly diminished number of students in 2023, 39 percent of the classes they were taking were online-only – meaning students in those classes didn’t need to set foot on campus.

Families are smaller now, with fewer

children. In line with national trends, City College’s entering student population declined after 2010, then fell off a cliff during the COVID shutdowns, and has stayed at those lower levels since.

State funding, SBCC’s primary revenue source, is based on the number of full-time students enrolled. With enrollment shrinking, revenue shrinks as well, and by 2016, years of deficit spending set off alarm bells.

Then-Superintendent Anthony Beebe brought in a state-level organization called the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team to analyze SBCC’s problems and suggest solutions.

According to the team’s report, “the college’s financial situation continues to be dire, with a significant structural deficit… Unfortunately, the college continues to rely on reserves to cover overspending. Although reserves may seem sufficient to compensate for overspending, a permanent solution is needed since the district is not growing, so revenue options are limited.”

That’s the problem in a nutshell. Yet since 2016, little has changed. In six of the past ten years, SBCC has continued with deficit spending. The college’s adopted 2024/25 budget shows a $7.4 million deficit.

Dramatic changes are needed. Two fundamental issues must be addressed: facilities (classrooms, labs, and administrative offices) and staffing (teachers, administrators, and other support staff). In both of those areas, drastic changes are needed to fit the reduced size and

DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION

FLOOR LEVELING

• QUALITY REMODELING

• FOUNDATION REPLACEMENTS

• FOUNDATIONS REPAIRS

• EARTHQUAKE RETROFITTING

• RETAINING WALLS

•

• FRENCH DRAINS – WATERPROOFING

SBF identifies community stakeholders to build coalitions and partner with nonprofits and other leaders working on the front lines to solve problems (courtesy photo)

Travel Buzz

On the Road in Sicily: Part Two A Drive, Historic Towns, and a Spa

by Leslie Westbrook

Our short but harrowing lift, from La Bella Palermo to the car rental agency, was thanks to a hair-raising ride by our very own Parnelli Jones Our taxi driver seemed both skeptical and disdainful of the fact that I, a “woman of a certain age,” would be sharing the driving in Sicily with my friend Nigel, who normally drives on the other side of the road in England. He

suggested that we take lessons from him – a dreadful idea, as he skirted within a hair’s width of cars and motorcycles as he raced us to our destination.

You’d have thought I was about to have a bambino – despite my age. Thankfully, the car rental from Drivalia was easy. And soon we hit the road.

Piana degli Albanesi

While most tourists visit Palermo, Taormina, Cefalu, Mt. Etna (when she’s

not exploding), Noto, Siracusa/Ortigia, and other spots, very few make it to the small commune of Piana degli Albanesi located between Palermo and the coast (and not far from the more famous town of Corleone). The route may not be on many itineraries, but the drive through the island was the most picturesque of all roads taken on this journey.

Our very special stop in the town, formerly known as Piana dei Greci – when my great-grandparents married there on a beautiful spring day on April 19, 1891, before emigrating to America via New Orleans – began at the town hall followed by a tour of the Greek Orthodox/ Byzantine church led by winemaker Rossella Gioia, of Xeravuli winery, who hosted us for wine tasting and one of my favorite meals during my 10-day sojourn. She and her husband, a dentist in town, founded the award-winning winery that honors his familial roots. A simple “degustation” menu of local flavors, prepared by the very modest Rossella (we used Google translate on our phone to communicate), included the most delicious local breads, the best caponata I’ve ever had (a cold eggplant appetizer), the sweetest dried tomatoes and capers from the island of Pantelleria, drizzled with olive oil from her farm and topped with the thinnest slivers of orange rind. She also served us mackerel in olive oil with fava beans as well as a platter of excellent local farm cheeses and cured meats.

Naturally, we wanted to wash this all down with copious amounts of their excellent, small-production organic mountaintop wines – but Nigel was driving and in the event I relieved him, I minimally tasted the Catarratto (a delicious and popular Sicilian white varietal) and bought two bottles to take with us, including a Nero D’Avola from their high-altitude vineyards. We said “ciao”–

too full to sample the famous cannoli here – leaving reason to return.

ADLER Spa Resort Sicilia

Our next stop was the two-year-old swanky but sublime ADLER Spa on the coast. The drive was incredibly beautiful – the landscape carpeted with colors from springtime wildflowers as well as dotted with the reddest wild poppies (the Turkish opium variety, I later learned) I’ve ever seen.

The spa appears to be better known to German and other European tourists, and I seemed to be the only North American at the spa. The setting and contemporary architecture is spectacular – set right above the sea with very Zenlike rooms.

Three terrific swimming pools – a warm indoor-outdoor, a cooler lap pool, and one other a bit warmer – also boasted

SUNDAY THRU THURSDAY AM - PM 7:0010:00 FRIDAY AND SATURDAY AM7:0012:00AM

SUNDAY THRU THURSDAY 7:30 AM - 10:00 PM FRIDAY AND SATURDAY 7:30 AM - 12:00 PM

D’ANGELO BREAD

Poppy fields on the road through Sicily (photo by Leslie Westbrook)

Rossella Gioia of Xeravuli serving up a little “degustation” (photo by Leslie Westbrook)

Mediterranean Sea views. The busy spa was a study in calm – well-staffed with guests extremely well looked-after.

There was an outdoor Thalasso jetted pool and two of the best saunas I have ever been in – one with fresh herbs; a larger, hotter one with ocean views through a huge plate-glass window. Once you get into the rhythm here (which is very different from bustling

Palermo and other cities) and join other guests wandering quietly in matching hooded robes (“It looks like a cult!” my friend Nigel commented) you will be “in the flow.” This is a good break if you plan to spend time exploring the island, or would make a great first stop for some jet lag recovery.

The restaurant is also a stunning modern setting, offering a mix of buffet and menu service for dinner, and a terrific buffet for breakfast. I was over the moon to concoct a huge green salad from the buffet for my dinner starter. Salads as we know and love them (hello Tom Shepherd!) are strangely difficult to come by in Sicily. We only stayed one night and missed lunch – so can’t report on this – but it is offered buffet style by the trio of pools.

The ADLER Spa resort includes yoga, Pilates and other fitness classes. We engaged in an excellent, consciousness shifting 50-minute gong/sound bath before departing.

On to Scicli

Our next stop was one of my favorites – the town of Scicli – with a wrong stop in Modica (famous for its chocolates) that was rather hilarious. My iPhone put in the address of our booking for the night – but we ended up at a small

Great Kitchens Don’t Just Happen . . . They Happen by Design.

More explorations – Nigel went off to take his photo in front of the building where Inspector Montalbano was filmed – before moving on to Siracusa and the island of Ortigia for Nigel’s raison d’être: the continually operating 2,000-year-old outdoor Greek theater – Teatro Greco –for a performance of Fedra. Stay tuned!

Details

Xeravuli Vini – Small production winery with lovely stone tasting room; degustation menu open weekends. Via Morea, 40/a, Piana degli Albanesi, Sicily 90037 phone: +39 338 598 3284. info@ xeravuli.it

ADLER Spa Resort – Transport/trips for guests to the nearby ancient Greek ruins of Agrigento as well pick-up and drop-off from Palermo Airport are also part of the scheme. ADLER Spa is also a child-friendly retreat for families. Contrada Salsa, 92010 Siculiana, Sicily www.adler-resort.com

hair salon – where the proprietress kindly let me use her very tiny bathroom. Same street name, same street number, wrong town!

Once in the correct town – and after multiple rounds about the town trying to find our completely charming two-story apartment (built into stone walls), we had a delightful and inexpensive dinner and wine at Ùmmara – Vineria con Cucina, which we stumbled upon quite by accident, as the restaurants recommended were fully booked.

The next morning, we discovered a swell flea market in the town square – where I bought lovely embroidered vintage linens before we happened upon a tiny outdoor kiosk with wee tables and chairs where we had a typical Sicilian breakfast ($5) of coffee, the sweetest orange juice, and a pastry.

Ùmmara – Vineria con Cucina –“winery with food” in Scicli, charming small destination with indoor (few) and outdoor tables (make reservations). www.ummara.it

Dammusi Beneventano – Two level lodging built into the stone in Scicli. www.booking.com/hotel/it/dammusibeneventano.html

Leslie A. Westbrook is a Lowell Thomas Award-winning travel writer and journalist who loves exploring the globe. A 3rd generation Californian., Leslie also assists clients sell fine art, antiques, and collectibles via auction. www.auctionliaison.com

Just one of the many unforgettable views at ADLER Spa (photo by Alex Filz)

Dinner al fresco in Scicli at Ùmmara (photo by Leslie Westbrook)

Lampson and Kate Shrout. Their statement; “Tonight you join a community committed to empowering the next generation of innovators, explorers, and creative problem-solvers. Your support this evening means MOXI can continue to equip children with the skills they need for a bright and brilliant future. Thank you.”

The sit-down family style dinner with the event program and auction took place outside on the colorfully decorated rooftop. Gose welcomed the guests and touched on MOXI’s continuing partnerships with schools to increase museum access to kids across Santa Barbara County, sharing, “We’re thrilled that a school field trip to MOXI has become a rite of passage for kids from Ventura through Santa Maria and beyond. It’s important that these field trips remain affordable and accessible to schools so that kids have hands-on experiences to complement classroom learning.”

The live auction and ask were led by Geoff Green. The funding goal for the event is $200,000. Event proceeds will go to help MOXI serve more students, and to continue accessibility to as many students as possible.

The event closed with a silent disco, a late-night lounge area with bar, and live sitar by Ronobir Lahiri to chill out by.

411: Donations: https://53884.blackbaudhosting.com/53884/Indv-24-Education-Fund

The Dream Foundation Announces “No Gala Gala” Fundraiser

The Dream Foundation’s CEO Kisa Heyer has announced their annual fundraising event titled, “No Gala Gala 2024,” which is an online internet fundraising event from October 13 through 20.

The online event features two ways to donate to the mission of the Dream Foundation: item bidding and direct sponsorship. There are 19 auction items, including jewelry by Anna Janelle, an animation lesson with Emmy winner Andy Suriano (Spiderman, Star Wars), a vacay at St. Barts, two nights stay in the Solage Resort Napa Valley, an Ernest Jones-signed Rams helmet, ceremonial first pitch at Guaranteed Rate Field for the White Sox 2025, and a Tesla Mezcal Specialty Spirit, among others.

For background on the Dream Foundation’s event and need for funding, I interfaced with their PR magnet, Dani Cordaro who coordinated my interview with Heyer.

Q. What makes this year’s funding event special?

A. The No Gala Gala is our biggest event of the year and will surely be your favorite. We invite guests to stay home, bid on our online auction including luxurious international trips and a plethora of priceless must-haves, buy an opportunity drawing ticket to discover Napa’s great splendor, or make a gift, no matter the size. Do something amazing this fall and help us serve final Dreams!

Q. Is there a funding goal? And to what end are the proceeds this year going?

A. We set a $200,000 goal. And 100% of funds raised will grant final Dreams for terminally ill adults throughout the coming months.

Q. Who are your top sponsors?

A. Southwest Airlines, Kenny and Elizabeth Slaught, Louise and Tim Casey, Robin and Roger Himovitz, the Zegar Family Foundation, Board Chair Mario Muredda, Philip Sloane and Sheryl Zimmerman, Sharon and Jeff Jordano, Anne Towbes, and Montecito Bank & Trust.

411: https://www.dreamfoundation.org/event/no-galagala-2024/

Third Annual Jodi House Funding Reception at MOXI

Jodi House Brain Injury Support Center’s Executive Director Lindsey Black is inviting the town to attend their 3rd Annual Cocktail Reception on October 23 at MOXI, The Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation. The event is titled, “An Evening to Explore Jodi House at MOXI,” and will be held from 5:30-7:30 pm. This is a business cocktail attire reception with libations.

The event co-chairs are Board Members Dr. Angela Hsu and Kerry Kelly. Board President Adriana Mezic is the event vice-chair.

The cocktail reception will provide information about the Jodi House’s mission to empower brain injury survivors with the necessary skills and daily tools to thrive with a formal program, and a meet and greet with the executive team, board members, instructors, caregivers, and volunteer staff.

The funding goal of the event is $100,000. Proceeds will support programming for brain injury survivors that include rehabilitation classes, case management, and support groups.

I met with the team last week as they were being photographed at Jodi House. We talked about the work they do and why the event is important. Black explained, “Charitable support ensures that no one is ever turned away from Jodi House due to the inability to pay. This past year, Jodi House introduced a financial assistance program focused on diverting brain injury survivors from becoming unhoused or placed in an institutional setting. Jodi House serves 150 brain injury survivors annually while also providing needed respite for their caregivers. Since introducing our online programming, Jodi House’s membership has increased by nearly 20% over the last several years. To meet greater demand for our services, Jodi House will grow its staff in the year ahead. We were recently awarded an $825,000 grant from the CA Department of Rehabilitation that will enable us to hire an additional full-time case manager to ensure we are meeting the individualized needs of our members and their families. Jodi House is one of only six sites statewide that receives funding from the California Department of Rehabilitation to provide services to brain injury survivors, and the only nonprofit organization in Santa Barbara County that is solely dedicated to serving brain injury survivors.”

Dr. Hsu provided additional comments on the work of Jodi House; “The services provided at Jodi House extend the continuum of care for brain injury survivors after they leave the hospital. There is a limit to what medicine can provide to patients in recovery – Jodi House is there to help with the skills they need to carry out their daily lives.”

Mezic added, “Jodi House is unique in that its services are not time limited. Support with recovery is available to survivors and their caregivers for as long as it is needed and wanted.”

Kelly finished with, “Funds raised at this event will help provide brain injury survivors with the cognitive, emotional, and practical tools needed to reintegrate into their productive daily lives. By offering classes ranging from yoga to art therapy to communication skills and music, Jodi House supports survivors in their ongoing recovery.”

Event sponsors include the Chumash Foundation, American Riviera Bank, and Montecito Bank & Trust.

411: https://www.jodihouse.org/special-events

A Calitri is a professional international photographer and journalist. Contact her at: artraks@ yahoo.com

“Pumpkin spice lattes are eggnog for morning people.” – John Oliver

Angie Bertucci and Kaia-Joye Wesolowski (photo by Joanne A Calitri)

Dream Foundation’s CEO, Kisa Heyer (courtesy photo)

Scan here for more information

Dr. Angela Hsu, Kerry Kelly, Adriana Mezic, and Lindsey Black (photo by Joanne A Calitri)

Joanne

rationing that haunted this area in the ‘40s settled the argument. Mostly. Today when you turn on the tap in your humble abode, dwell momentarily on what it took to make wa-wa come out.

Tecolote.

Not the Bookshop.

Once Cachuma Lake was created they would need to pipe that captured water down to the American Riviera, The Good Land, and surrounding parched communities with lesser Chamber of Commerce-inspired labels. To everyone’s eventual regret, this would entail boring a 6.4-mile tunnel through the Santa Ynez Mountains. Sounds fairly simple to chew through six miles of solid rock doesn’t it? Spoiler alert! On a good day it is actually very difficult to do this. The vexatious Tecolote Tunnel would become a storied pain in the derrière (to borrow from typical miner’s language), the project so fraught with miserable surprises it would make for a feature in Life magazine. Construction lasted from 1950 – 1956. A consulting engineer on the project and “one of the nation’s foremost tunnel experts” – a Pasadena-based guy named Carl Rankin – had an inkling there would be some trouble with Tecolote, having overseen several other bumpy tunnel projects. Even he was surprised by the hellish obstacles the Tecolote Tunnel presented. Budgeted at around $5M, the tunnel would ultimately cost more than $14M. It is almost as if a mountain range was not meant for boring through.

Once they got deep into the bore, the interior of the tunnel was so hot the fully clothed workers would transit in to the daily gig via narrow gauge mining cart filled to the brim with cool water; you

know, like a bathtub? Surprisingly, there was No Mr. Bubble or wood-handled back brushes to make these tubs more inviting as they plunged their dungaree’d occupants into heat and darkness. What is described in accounts as a “rusty 12-inch sheet iron pipe” carried 3,000 cubic feet of air per minute into the tunnel, not that it seemed to help. Taking in a heaping lungful of wet, hot oxygen is no picnic. A commonly reported sense of mild suffocation made a shift in Tecolote a pure delight.

Explosometer

Work on the tunnel would be periodically stopped by ongoing, almost supernaturally awful eruptions of geologic bad luck. Superheated water would gush out of the solid rock at a pressure of 9,400 gallons a minute, ambient air temp for the workers averaged 107 degrees and 100% humidity, and clouds of toxic gas would fill the confined space. The air stank of sulfur. It was the sort of work environment attractive to folk who carry pitchforks and sport barbed tails.

Every so often, Bureau of Reclamation Chief Tunnel Inspector Max Hedges would produce a gizmo from his overalls and check the air for explosive gases. This little device was actually called an Explosometer, a name that may or may not have inspired confidence in the beleaguered workers. Of course photos from the period show men deep in the bowels of the Santa Ynez range working with the day’s omnipresent cigarette dangling from lips slack with misery. Explosive gas my… eye!

As for the mechanics of boring through a mountain range, the Tecolote project was begun hot on the heels of the first modern TBM (Tunnel Boring

Machine), and was not able to avail itself of that helpful technology. Today these enormous and terrifying drill bits can gnaw through rock solid what-haveyou at a rate of about a ½ mile a week. Tecolote’s old school method of pushing through 6 miles of mountain could, by contrast, reasonably be called a Cal/ OSHA safety inspector’s pornography. The guys would drill 28 holes into the tunnel head, stick the explosives in and get out of the way – as best they could in a room two miles long and a scant 7 feet wide. How this actually worked in practice I have no idea, which is why I’m a typist.

St. Kapow

The tunnel was completed in 1956, probably to a chorus of exhausted cheers, the men’s mirthless lips pinched around filterless Marlboros. This is what it took to get water to the central coast from the SYV. It is worth noting here that Santa Barbara is named after the patron saint of Munitions – a patronage based on the explosive death by lightning of her wildly abusive father. It is unknown how many times St. Barbara was desperately invoked in the course of blasting through the Santa Ynez range, but this is just the sort of factoid a fatuously selfpleased columnist is obliged to include. You understand.

Jeff Wing is a journalist, raconteur, autodidact, and polysyllable enthusiast. He has been writing about Montecito and environs since before some people were born. He can be reached at jeff@ montecitojournal.net

ON THE SIDE Safety First

Speaking of the wondrous Tecolote Tunnel –on lucky April 13, 1958, a newspaper called the Santa Barbara News-Press filed a troubling report.

Dynamite Remains Silent Since ’53 Disappearance – the hed politely murmurs, the forced editorial calm going on to explain that “…the floods of mid-January, 1952” caused the Santa Ynez River to so dramatically burst its constraints that the previously placid waters “…carried away 400 cases (10 tons) of dynamite from the drilling site at the inlet end of Tecolote Tunnel. There was great consternation that the dynamite, bumping along the waterway, might explode. Most of it was recovered almost immediately. The rest has never been heard from.”

Montecito

Strong

Page 23 of the November 2000 issue of National Geographic features an undoctored photo of a 100-year-old man hoisting a shot put – an iron ball weighing 16 lbs. The blurb’s headline? “A Fit Centurion.” The copy exclaims “…this retired businessman from Montecito, California, holds several world records in the shot put, discus, and javelin. John only took up these activities at 70, when a bad knee confined him to stationary field events. Before that he was a prizewinning swimmer, tennis player, and all-around athlete.” Mr. Whittemore and fam, we salute you! Kids, eat all your veggies. And while you’re up, mow the lawn.

Elijah Mack (R)

Occupation: College Student

There was no Candidate Statement filed.

Member of the State Assembly, District 37

The California State Assembly is the lower chamber of the California State Legislature. Alongside the California State Senate, it forms the legislative branch of the California state government and works alongside the governor of California to create laws and establish a state budget. Legislative authority and responsibilities of the California State Assembly include passing bills on public policy matters, setting levels for state spending, raising and lowering taxes, and voting to uphold or override gubernatorial vetoes. (Source: Ballotpedia)

Sari M. Domingues (R)

Occupation: Retired Business Analyst

Education and Qualifications: I’m Sari M. Domingues, and I’m honored to be your candidate for California State Assembly District 37. Growing up in this community, I’ve witnessed California’s potential firsthand and have experienced its decline. It is time to stop the decline and bring California back to the strong, vibrant state we all love. With 30 years of extensive experience in public service, I had to problem solve, project manage, be detail oriented and a critical thinker. I worked with all levels of employees including front-line staff, subject matter experts, technical staff, and administration. My work experience taught me valuable lessons on collaboration and has given me strength dealing with adversity. I have earned a master’s degree in Organizational Leadership based on Servant Leadership. My dedication to the principles of Servant Leadership, and love for my community make me the candidate capable of bringing positive change to District 37 and the State as a whole. With your support, I’ll work tirelessly to revitalize our local economy, promote job growth, strengthen our schools, and create safe and flourishing communities. Together, we can create a brighter future for District 37 and California. Please vote Sari M Domingues for California State Assembly District 37.

Gregg Hart (D)

Occupation: State Assemblymember

ENDORSED

There was no Candidate Statement filed.

Santa Barbara Unified School District, Governing Board Member Area 2

The Board of Education is the educational policy-making body for the District. To effectively meet the District’s challenges, the Board and Superintendent must function together as a leadership team. To ensure unity among team members, effective operating procedures, or protocols, must be in place. There are general protocols and those that are specific for the Board and for the Superintendent. This is a nonpartisan office.

John Robertson

Occupation: Retired Educator

Education and Qualifications: My entire adult professional life has been devoted to education and schools. I was a regular classroom teacher – dealing with all academic subject areas – in the upper elementary grades in Lodi USD followed by Glendale USD for 11 years, plus taught adolescents in Mexico, Egypt, Indonesia, and Malaysia for a total of 15 years. Back in Santa Barbara, I culminated my career with another 15 years teaching in the English as a Second Language (ESL) and English Skills departments at City College, followed by the English for Multilingual Students (EMS) program at UCSB. Now retired, I want to give back to my community with my interest and expertise in educational issues and institutions, which includes caring for the lives and welfare of students and their families, as well as faculty and staff.

Sunita Beall

Occupation: School Board Member/Doctor

Education and Qualifications: I am running for school board because I believe we can do better. I envision a Santa Barbara Unified School District where every child thrives in an engaging and safe environment. We need a district that values its students, teachers, staff, and community resources, ensuring equitable educational access for all.

With 25 years of experience as a physician in our community, I understand the importance of dedicated service. My children attended Peabody Charter School, Dos Pueblos High School, and Santa Barbara High School, which deepened my commitment to our schools. For the past three years, I have actively participated in the SBUSD Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) advisory committee, advocating for vulnerable students.

For much of the last decade, I have been a strong advocate for our students, addressing the board on crucial district policies and spending. My experience as a parent and professional has reinforced my belief in strong financial stewardship and transparency in school district governance.

As a current member of the Santa Barbara Unified School District Board, l am running for reelection to continue championing a unified district. I am dedicated to making our schools exemplary and ask for your support in this election. Together, we can ensure that SB Unified truly stands unified.

www.sunita4sb.com

Montecito Fire Protection District Board At-Large

3 Seats up for election. As obviously this is a position and organization that has a large impact on the Montecito community, and its safety, the MJ will be delving further into this election in the upcoming issue.

Jason Copus

Sylvia Easton

Cliff Ghersen

Michael N. Lee

Joseph Michael Pennino

And a word for Guy R. Walker, Santa Barbara County Board of Education Trustee Area 4

Although not specifically in Montecito, the MJ would like to add its support to Guy Walker. More than anything else, this moment calls for community building, and that is we strongly endorse Guy Walker for District 4 Trustee for the SB County School Board. Currently Chair of the Dunn School’s Board of Trustees, former Chair of the Endowment for Youth Foundation Board, and having served for 10 years, part of that as Chair, on the College School District Board of Trustees, Walker has a strong and consistent track record of thoughtful, intelligent, conciliatory leadership. A serious consensus builder, Walker thinks on a grand scale but works on the local level. And unlike so many would-be County Board members, Walker understands what the job entails. And it is within the limited purview of a County School Board member’s job that he wants to better connect Santa Barbara’s 20 school districts to one another, to advocate for better programs, better communication, and an overall better education. Walker also sees an opportunity for the County to take a bigger role in terms of helping folks understand how do these district systems work, how we can better access the district systems, and how we can better advocate, first and foremost, for kids! I can’t think of a better model for what this moment calls for in our leaders.

Proposition 2

YES

Authorizes bonds for public school and community college facilities. Legislative Statute.

Authorizes $10 billion in general obligation bonds for repair, upgrade, and construction of facilities at K-12 public schools (including charter schools), community colleges, and career technical education programs, including for improvement of health and safety conditions and classroom upgrades. Requires annual audits.

Fiscal Impact: Increased state costs of about $500 million annually for 35 years to repay the bond.

Supporters: California Teachers Association; California School Nurses Organization; Community College League of California Opponents: Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

Proposition 3

YES

Constitutional right to marriage. Legislative constitutional amendment. Amends California Constitution to recognize fundamental right to marry, regardless of sex or race. Removes language in California Constitution stating that marriage is only between a man and a woman.

Fiscal Impact: No change in revenues or costs for state and local governments. Supporters: Sierra Pacific Synod of The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; Dolores Huerta Foundation; Equality California

Opponents: Jonathan Keller, California Family Council; Rev. Tanner DiBella

Proposition 4

YES

Authorizes bonds for safe drinking water, wildfire prevention, and protecting communities and natural lands from climate risks. Legislative statute.

Authorizes $10 billion in general obligation bonds for water, wildfire prevention, and protection of communities and lands. Requires annual audits.

Fiscal Impact: Increased state costs of about $400 million annually for 40 years to repay the bond

Supporters: Clean Water Action; CALFIRE Firefighters; National Wildlife Federation; The Nature Conservancy.

Opponents: Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

Proposition 5

Allows local bonds for affordable housing and public infrastructure with 55% voter approval. Legislative constitutional amendment.

Allows approval of local infrastructure and housing bonds for low- and middle-income Californians with 55% vote. Accountability requirements.

Fiscal Impact: Increased local borrowing to fund affordable housing, supportive housing, and public infrastructure. The amount would depend on decisions by local governments and voters. Borrowing would be repaid with higher property taxes.

Supporters: California Professional Firefighters; League of Women Voters of California; Habitat for Humanity California

Opponents: California Taxpayers Association; California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce; Women Veterans Alliance

Proposition 6

YES

Eliminates constitutional provision allowing involuntary servitude for incarcerated persons. Legislative constitutional amendment.

Amends the California Constitution to remove current provision that allows jails and prisons to impose involuntary servitude to punish crime (i.e. forcing incarcerated persons to work).

Fiscal Impact: Potential increase or decrease in state and local costs, depending on how work for people in state prison and county jail changes. Any effect likely would not exceed the tens of millions of dollars annually.

Supporters: Assemblymember Lori Wilson

Opponents: None submitted

Proposition 32

YES

Raises minimum wage. Initiative statute. Raises minimum wage as follows: For employers with 26 or more employees, to $17 immediately, $18 on January 1, 2025. For employers with 25 or fewer employees, to $17 on January 1, 2025, $18 on January 1, 2026.

Fiscal Impact: State and local government costs could increase or decrease by up to hundreds of millions of dollars annually. State and local revenues likely would decrease by no more than a few hundred million dollars annually.

Supporters: None submitted

Opponents: California Chamber of Commerce; California Restaurant Association; California Grocers Association

Proposition 33

Expands local governments’ authority to enact rent control on residential property. Initiative statute. Repeals Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act of 1995, which currently prohibits local ordinances limiting initial residential rental rates for new tenants or rent increases for existing tenants in certain residential properties.

Fiscal Impact: Reduction in local property tax revenues of at least tens of millions of dollars annually due to likely expansion of rent control in some communities.

Supporters: CA Nurses Assoc.; CA Alliance for Retired Americans; Mental Health Advocacy; Coalition for Economic Survival; Tenants Together.

Opponents: California Council for Affordable Housing; Women Veterans Alliance; California Chamber of Commerce.

Proposition 34

Restricts spending of prescription drug revenues by certain health care providers. Initiative statute.

Requires certain providers to spend 98% of revenues from federal discount prescription drug program on direct patient/care. Authorizes statewide negotiation of Medi-Cal drug prices.

Fiscal Impact: Increased state costs, likely in the millions of dollars annually, to enforce new rules on certain health care entities. Affected entities would pay fees to cover these costs.

Supporters: The ALS Association; California Chronic Care Coalition; Latino Heritage Los Angeles

Opponents: National Org. for Women; Consumer Watchdog: Coalition for Economic Survival; AIDS Healthcare Foundation; Dolores Huerta

Proposition 35

Provides permanent funding for Medi-Cal health care services. Initiative statute. Makes permanent the existing tax on managed health care insurance plans, which, if approved by the federal government, provides revenues to pay for Medi-Cal health care services.

Fiscal Impact: Short-term state costs between roughly $1 billion and $2 billion annually to increase funding for certain health programs. Total funding increase between roughly $2 billion to $5 billion annually. Unknown long-term fiscal effects.

Supporters: Planned Parenthood Affiliates of CA; American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists; American Academy of Pediatrics, CA

Opponents: None submitted

Proposition 36

YES

Allows felony charges and increases sentences for certain drug and theft crimes. Initiative statute.

Allows felony charges for possessing certain drugs and for thefts under $950, if defendant has two prior drug or theft convictions.

Fiscal impact: Slate criminal justice costs likely ranging from several tens of millions of dollars to the low hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Local criminal justice costs likely in the tens of millions of dollars annually.

Supporters: Crime Victims United of California; California District Attorneys Association; Family Business Association of California

Opponents: Diana Becton, District Attorney Contra Costa County; Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice

SCHOOL: SANTA BARBARA COMMUNITY COLLEGE

DISTRICT

Measure P2024

Santa Barbara City College measure preserving affordable higher education career training without increasing tax rates.

To repair and update aging classrooms, labs, college/career-training facilities providing affordable, high-quality education in science, engineering, math, nursing, technology/skilled trades; and fix deteriorating roofs, plumbing, electrical, shall Santa Barbara Community College District’s measure be adopted authorizing $198,000,000 in bonds at legal rates, without exceeding the previously approved $8.50 per $100,000 assessed value (providing $13,255,000 annually) while bonds are outstanding, with oversight/ local control?

COUNTY

Measure H2024

Santa Barbara County essential community services measure.

To fund local services such as: maintaining 911 emergency communications; gang prevention; repairing deteriorating bridges, potholes, roads, transportation infrastructure; protecting groundwater; addressing homelessness; and general county services/purposes, shall the ordinance increasing Santa Barbara County’s Transient Occupancy Tax (paid only by hotel/short-term rental guests), in unincorporated areas (excluding cities), from 12% to 14%, providing approximately $3,000,000 annually until ended by voters; requiring public audits; all funds locally controlled, be adopted?

CITY OF SANTA BARBARA

Measure I2024

City of Santa Barbara essential local services measure.

Shall the measure maintaining 9-1-1 emergency fire/paramedic/police response, keeping neighborhood fire stations open; improving housing affordability; addressing homelessness; keeping public areas/parks safe, clean; maintaining library services; stormwater protection; improving natural disaster preparedness; retaining local businesses/jobs, and for general government use; by establishing a ½¢ sales tax providing approximately $15,600,000 annually until ended by voters; requiring audits, public spending disclosure, all funds used locally, be adopted?

All Saints-by-the-Sea Church contracted with a visual simulation expert who used the Miramar’s plans submitted to Santa Barbara County to create these renderings. He used their cross section and elevation measurements. He further used photographs, Google images and aerial photos to confirm the results of his simulation software. We also tested them against other renderings, photos and a light standard currently in place. We stand by their accuracy. All point to these being accurate. Furthermore, we showed these renderings to Mr. Caruso and his entitlement team. They had no comment or feedback.

As most in the community know… and what is the source of significant consternation for many… is the placement of two large structures with luxury shops and apartments next to the All Saints Sanctuary parking lot, with a 30-foot roofline hemming in our Church entrance and sacred spaces. Eclipsing the mountain views that have nurtured churchgoers and neighbors for nearly 125 years, it is out of scale, scope, and size with the neighborhood.

What makes sense is that the luxury shops and apartments be constructed on the larger plot east of The Manor House, where they would be easily accessible from the Resort’s main restaurants, pools, and Great Lawn, moving the commercial aspects of the project out of the neighborhood and into the center of the Resort. This approach would maintain exactly the same rentable square feet as the original Caruso proposal and reduce construction costs by eliminating underground parking north of the Sanctuary.

Shoppers and those at the newly proposed café would be more inclined to use the hotel’s valet service and not park in spaces reserved for the public and beachgoers. It would even enable ocean views from the luxury apartments and open space for a more enjoyable hotel experience. It would keep resort activities within the resort and put hotel employee residences next to our residential neighborhood.

Since 1900, our church community has been formed and informed by our connection to the mountains. Our church building was designed with the altar facing east and our entrance door facing north to the mountains. For 125 years, this historic structure, by its placement, has created this important experience for all who come to our campus. It symbolizes Psalm 121 which says, “I lift up my eyes to the hills; from where is my help to come?” Our priority today is to preserve the sacred. It is the mission and gift of the church. It is a sacred element of the practice of our faith. Our “swap” proposal will grow our neighborhood by placing affordable housing right next to the church and fits our mission. For us, the consequences are longstanding. It is about how we understand ourselves within the community for which we care.

Rev. Channing Smith is the Rector of All Saintsby-the-Sea Church

Community Voices Supporting the Reopening of the Four Seasons Biltmore Hotel

by Thomas R. Widroe

As representatives of the Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Association (SBCTA), we wish to address the ongoing discussions surrounding the reopening of the historic Four Seasons Biltmore Hotel in Santa Barbara. The prolonged stall tactics surrounding new pool amenities have taken an ironic turn that merits our attention.

To label this situation as mere “overreach” would be an understatement. There is an attempt to control the operational decisions of a vital and long-standing commercial enterprise that has served our community for decades. Let’s be clear: we are discussing private hotel pool amenities that are not accessible to the general public.

Ironically, the motivations behind these attempts seem deeply tied to a desire to punish hotel owner Ty Warner for what some perceive as delays in reopening the hotel. Unfortunately, this misguided effort to impose further delays in the approval process could result in the postponement of the hotel’s reopening by a full year if the pool plans are not approved this fall – without appeal.

Delays of this nature do not only hinder the return of a beloved landmark; they significantly affect our local economy. The reopening of the Biltmore is projected to provide a substantial economic boost of approximately $15 million in sales tax and Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) revenue. Additionally, it would bring back countless jobs, a critical need in our community as we recover from economic challenges in recent years.

Moreover, it is essential to consider the Biltmore’s forthcoming 100th anniversary. This landmark hotel has long been a cornerstone of Montecito’s history and a prestigious destination for travelers. As we approach this major milestone, we must celebrate and invest in our community’s legacy rather than impede its progress.

The proposed pool renovations are not only minor updates; they are a necessary evolution that aligns with the needs of today’s luxury travelers while preserving the hotel’s historic charm. Warner, renowned for his successful renovations of the San Ysidro Ranch and the Montecito Country Club, has demonstrated his commitment to enhancing our community’s offerings. This track record of excellence speaks volumes about his vision for the Biltmore.

Furthermore, it is important to note that the Biltmore project is not expanding but rather reducing its impact on the neighborhood. Square footage is being decreased, and room count is going down by about 40%, alongside the elimination of large corporate convention use. Ty Warner is even seeking to improve the public infrastructure surrounding the hotel at his own expense. Professional traffic reports show that all traffic impacts are being dramatically reduced, and multiple historian reports confirm that the project meets all historic standards. Notably, there has been no neighbor opposition; in fact, those who have commented support the project.

We should also acknowledge the recent meeting of the Montecito Association Land Use Committee, where members reviewed the project plans and recommended approval, urging County facilitation to expedite construction and reopen the hotel. The Biltmore has chosen to honor and respect the review process, with the project finally in front of the Montecito Planning Commission on October 16. We anticipate that SBCTA will be at that meeting to support the project, which we expect will receive unanimous approval and move forward smoothly with no further delay.

By allowing unnecessary appeals or burdensome reviews to delay the approval process, we jeopardize not only financial growth but the celebratory spirit of the Biltmore’s upcoming centennial. The hotel has been an integral part of Santa Barbara’s identity and a hallmark of hospitality for generations.

Therefore, we must advocate for progress and support the Four Seasons Biltmore’s timely reopening. It is crucial that we work together as a community to ensure the hotel can reclaim its rightful place as a vibrant travel and culinary destination, contributing to the local economy and enriching our cultural landscape.

We call upon all stakeholders to focus on collaboration and support the necessary decisions that will allow the Biltmore to reopen its doors. Let us unite in fostering growth, respecting the hotel’s historical significance, and looking forward to the future it can provide for our community. The time for action is now, and together, we can ensure that the Four Seasons Biltmore continues to thrive for another century and beyond.

Thomas R. Widroe SBCTA Executive Director

changing needs of the student population of the next 20 years and beyond.

First, facilities. SBCC has far too many buildings for the number of students, and most of those buildings have had insufficient maintenance for years and require major repairs.

A term of facilities geek-speak that is essential to understanding the depth of City College’s problems is the Facilities Condition Index (FCI).

FCI is defined as the cost of bringing a building to excellent condition (total deferred maintenance cost), divided by what it would cost to replace the building from scratch.

For example: assume that a building required $100,000 of repairs, and that to replace the building would cost $1 million. That would mean an FCI of 10%. A building in the FCI range of 5-10% is considered to be in excellent condition, and a building with an FCI of 30% or higher to is in poor condition.

According to a report by consultants Cambridge West, the average FCI of City College buildings is 43%, with some above 60%.

This speaks to a mind-boggling level of neglected maintenance over decades.

Proposition P asks the taxpayers for $200 million for facilities without a plan for how to reduce the number of buildings, either through re-purposing or demolition, or how the remaining buildings are going to be maintained in good condition.

One of the few details that Proposition P proponents have given us is that the biggest item on their list is an expensive new Physical Education building – at a total cost $100 million, with $65 million of that coming from Proposition P.

Since enrollment decline is the main issue facing the college, facilities spending must be concentrated on buildings that have the highest full-time on-campus enrollment. The PE building supports the fewest number of students of any of the major campus buildings, and so should be lowest on the list for more spending, if not for demolition.

City College’s second major problem is staffing. Salaries and benefits comprise 85% of expenses. There is no way to reduce the budget in line with the enormous decline in enrollment without reducing staff.

Though the report referenced above notes dramatically smaller class sizes resulting from the enrollment drop, and the ever-increasing costs of CalSTRS and CalPERS pensions, it has nothing to say about reducing staff in line with reduced enrollment.

Bottom line. Before Santa Barbara City College comes to voters asking for $200 million to paper over years of poor decisions or no decisions, it needs to level with the community about the problems it faces, and present us with a

serious, detailed, and factual plan to solve those problems.

The Board of Trustees and the administrative leadership owe that to the people who have faithfully supported the college for more than a century, and who want the college to succeed and to continue to fulfill its promises to us and to its students.

The full version of this editorial first appeared at Newsmakers with JR.

Dale Francisco, an alumnus of SBCC and UCSB, is a software engineer who served two terms on Santa Barbara City Council

Miramar’s Parking Problem

If you’ve ever unsuccessfully hunted for a parking space while going to Miramar, Hammond’s, or Fernald Point beaches, take it up with the Miramar Resort.

When the Miramar was approved, they agreed with the County to designate 87 parking spaces along Jameson and Eucalyptus Lane for public parking, labeling them “Public Use” to ensure exclusive public use and deter hotel guest use. The Miramar is supposed to monitor spaces on Jameson, Eucalyptus, Humphrey, and Miramar Ave to ensure those spaces remain available to the public and aren’t used by hotel guests or employees. These are our spots, used for beach access, not the Miramar’s spots for their guests or employees.

But in 2021, when the Miramar installed eight Tesla Superchargers, power supply and other equipment in the employee lot on the corner of Eucalyptus and Jameson, they converted and lost 20 parking spaces. And throughout the years, they’ve lost additional parking spaces in the Eastern lot by the freeway onramp.

The Miramar is underparked, violating its operating permits. This results in a parking shortfall with Miramar employees, visitors, vendors, and contractors parking in those 87 public parking spaces and the neighborhood, using spots designated for beachgoers.

After it was built, the Miramar applied for multiple changes before the County, increasing its retail stores from 1 to 10, and telling the County it still had 435 parking spaces. That wasn’t true since at least 2021. Each time, the County took their word for it and approved more retail stores. Now they want to add another 10-12 stores, right on the corner of Eucalyptus and Jameson. There could be 22 Miramar stores – one for every seven guest rooms. This will only make a bad parking problem worse.

The County should force the Miramar to follow their permits and fix their

parking problem before the County entertains the idea of adding more stores at the Miramar.

Sincerely,

Phil Dracht Montecito

Guy is Our Guy

I’d like to take this opportunity to share why I’m supporting Guy Walker for SBCEO Board Member Trustee Area 4. Guy has a deep passion for quality education and instruction for our youth and has a firsthand understanding of the lifelong value it provides. Our students and families deserve someone who is firmly committed to helping provide the necessary resources and opportunities for emerging generations to achieve excellence. Guy Walker is an exemplar in that regard and that is why he has my enthusiastic support!

Grant Carmichael, Buellton Resident

Vote “No” on Measure “P”

For the last 10 years, SBCC has been an institution in decline.

The 75-acre campus, on some of the most valuable land in Santa Barbara is under-used and no longer justifies the very large costs of maintenance as a City College.

The number of enrolled students at SBCC has declined from 19,331 ten years ago down to 12,575, a 35% loss.

Of the 12,675 students, over 4,199, study 100% on-line and do not need campus facilities.

Of the remaining 8,476 students, 4,900 study part-time on-line and parttime in classrooms, further reducing the utility of the 75-acre campus.

SBCC has been driven to rent classrooms to a local “For Profit” private university.

The SBCC current budget is $224,347,416, almost a quarter of a billion dollars a year.

Measure P seeks to add, until 2060,

almost a half of a billion dollars in principal and interest to the taxpayers’ burden. It would add to an existing bond that will continue to be paid by taxpayers until 2033.

We need to remember that no matter how SBCC presents its proposal, the interest on the bond usually exceeds the amount of the bond. That is why the real cost of Measure “P” is not just the principal amount of almost $200 million. In reality it is close to half a billion dollars.

Two of the most knowledgeable and experienced SBCC trustees on financial matters in SBCC voted “No” to “Measure P.” We need to know why they voted “No.” We, the public, and we the taxpayers must vote “No” on measure “P.” To do otherwise would be a foolish waste of an enormous amount of public money.

A deep investigation should be conducted by an independent body into why these everlasting demands for enormous sums of additional money by SBCC is requested, before we again approve new bond proposals from SBCC.

Where does all the money really go?

The underlying fundamental question is – why do taxpayers need to continue to pay the costs of maintaining 75 acres of some of the most expensive property in Santa Barbara for an institution that is not only declining in overall student enrollments, but also declining further in student use of the campus for education?

The effective, regular, physical use of the 75-acre campus by students is now down to 44% of the total student enrollment of 19,331; the enrollment figure of ten years ago.

We do not need to spend more taxpayers’ money on a new swimming pool and new gymnasium to attract more out-of-county and foreign students with country club amenities.

Why should Santa Barbara taxpayers subsidize attending students who will add to our extreme housing shortage?

A smaller site for SBCC seems a practical move to reduce ongoing costs. That would enable a much more profitable use for 75 acres in the center of Santa Barbara.

Derek Hanley

NOTICE OF APPLICATION AND PENDING ACTION BY THE DIRECTOR OF THE PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT TO:

WAIVE THE PUBLIC HEARING ON A CDP HEARING APPLICATION AND APPROVE, CONDITIONALLY APPROVE, OR DENY THE CDP HEARING APPLICATION

This may affect your property. Please read.

Notice is hereby given that an application for the project described below has been submitted to the Santa Barbara County Planning and Development Department. This project requires the approval and issuance of a CDP Hearing application by the Planning and Development Department.

The development requested by this application is under the jurisdiction of the Montecito PC and therefore a public hearing on the application is normally required prior to any action to approve, conditionally approve, or deny the application. However, in compliance with the , the Director intends to waive the public hearing requirement unless a written request for such hearing is submitted by an interested party to the Planning and Development Department within the 15 working days following the Date of Notice listed below. All requests for a hearing must be submitted no later than 5:00 p.m. on the Request for Hearing Expiration Date listed below, to Veronica King at Planning and Development, 123 E. Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara 93101-2058, by email at kingv@countyofsb.org, or by fax at (805) 568-2030. If a public hearing is requested, notice of such a hearing will be provided.

WARNING: Failure by a person to request a public hearing may result in the loss of the person’s ability to appeal any action taken by Santa Barbara County on this CDP Hearing Application to the Montecito Planning Commission or Board of Supervisors.

If a request for public hearing is not received by 5:00 p.m. on the Request for Hearing Expiration Date listed below, then the Planning and Development Department will act to approve, approve with conditions, or deny the request for a CDP Hearing application. At this time it is not known when this action may occur; however, this may be the only notice you receive for this project. To receive additional information regarding this project, including the date the CDP Hearing application is approved, and/or to view the application and plans, or to provide comments on the project, please contact Veronica King at Planning and Development, 123 E. Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara 93101-2058, or by email at kingv@countyofsb.org, or by phone at (805) 568-2513.

PROPOSAL: BOOTH ALTERATIONS

PROJECT ADDRESS: 1787 FERNALD POINT LN, SANTA BARBARA, CA 93108 1st SUPERVISORIAL DISTRICT

THIS PROJECT IS LOCATED IN THE COASTAL ZONE

DATE OF NOTICE: 10/10/2024

REQUEST FOR HEARING EXPIRATION DATE: 10/31/2024

PERMIT NUMBER: 24CDH-00023 APPLICATION FILED: 7/31/2024

007-380-029

ZONING: 1-E-1

PROJECT AREA: 0.62

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

Applicant: Loren Booth

� Proposed Project:

New CDH request for a height increase from 22 ft, 1.5 inches to 24 ft, 5 inches, for a residential remodel previously permitted by 21CDH-00000-00042. This request includes a revised landscape plan that will not increase the original impervious area of the property.

APPEALS:

The decision of the Director of the Planning and Development Department to approve, conditionally approve, or deny this CDP Hearing application 24CDH-00023 may be appealed to the Montecito Planning Commission by the applicant or an aggrieved person. The appeal must be filed within the 10 calendar days following the date that the Director takes action on this CDP Hearing application. To qualify as an "aggrieved person" the appellant must have, in person or through a representative, informed the Planning and Development Department by appropriate means prior to the decision on the Coastal Development Permit of the nature of their concerns, or, for good cause, was unable to do so.

Appeals must be filed with the Planning and Development Department online at https://aca-prod.accela.com/sbco/Default.aspx, by 5:00 p.m. within the timeframe identified above. In the event that the last day for filing an appeal falls on a non-business day of the County, the appeal may be timely filed on the next business day.

For additional information regarding the appeal process, contact Veronica King.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

information about this project review process may also be viewed at: https://ca-santabarbaracounty.civicplus.pro/1499/Planning-Permit-Process-Flow-Chart

Board of Architectural Review agendas may be viewed online at: https://www.countyofsb.org/160/Planning-Development

Published October 10, 2024 Montecito Journal

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS

NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Sea Smoke Cellars; Seasmoke Vineyards; Seasmoke Cellars; Sea Smoke VIneyards; Sea Smoke, 1604 N O Street, Lompoc, CA, 93436. CB Coastal, LLC, 50 East Broad Street, Rochester, NY, 14614. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on September 20, 2024. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk. I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office. Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL). FBN No. 2024-0002247. Published September 25, October 2, 9, 16, 2024

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS

NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Clutch Engineering, 3001 Vista Linda Lane, Santa Barbara, CA, CA 93108. Fearless Design, LLC, PO Box 5292, Santa Barbara, CA, CA 93150. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on September 17, 2024. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk. I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office. Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL). FBN No. 2024-0002210. Published September 25, October 2, 9, 16, 2024

NOTICE OF APPLICATION AND PENDING ACTION BY THE DIRECTOR OF THE PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT TO:

WAIVE THE PUBLIC HEARING ON A DEVELOPMENT PLAN APPLICATION AND APPROVE, CONDITIONALLY APPROVE, OR DENY THE DEVELOPMENT PLAN APPLICATION

This may affect your property. Please read.

Notice is hereby given that an application for the project described below has been submitted to the Santa Barbara County Planning and Development Department. This project requires the approval and issuance of a Development Plan application by the Planning and Development Department.

The development requested by this application is under the jurisdiction of the Montecito PC and therefore a public hearing on the application is normally required prior to any action to approve, conditionally approve, or deny the application. However, in compliance with the , the Director intends to waive the public hearing requirement unless a written request for such hearing is submitted by an interested party to the Planning and Development Department within the 15 working days following the Date of Notice listed below. All requests for a hearing must be submitted no later than 5:00 p.m. on the Request for Hearing Expiration Date listed below, to Alejandro Jimenez at Planning and Development, 123 E. Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara 93101-2058, by email at ajimenez@countyofsb.org, or by fax at (805) 568-2030. If a public hearing is requested, notice of such a hearing will be provided.

WARNING: Failure by a person to request a public hearing may result in the loss of the person’s ability to appeal any action taken by Santa Barbara County on this Development Plan Application to the Montecito Planning Commission or Board of Supervisors.

If a request for public hearing is not received by 5:00 p.m. on the Request for Hearing Expiration Date listed below, then the Planning and Development Department will act to approve, approve with conditions, or deny the request for a Development Plan application. At this time it is not known when this action may occur; however, this may be the only notice you receive for this project. To receive additional information regarding this project, including the date the Development Plan application is approved, and/or to view the application and plans, or to provide comments on the project, please contact Alejandro Jimenez at Planning and Development, 123 E. Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara 93101-2058, or by email at ajimenez@countyofsb.org, or by phone at (805) 568-3559.

PROPOSAL: STAR PROPERTY LB INVESTMENT LLC GRADING

PROJECT ADDRESS: 1379 OAK CREEK CANYON, MONTECITO, CA 93108 1st SUPERVISORIAL DISTRICT

DATE OF NOTICE: 10/10/2024

REQUEST FOR HEARING EXPIRATION DATE: 10/31/2024

PERMIT NUMBER: 24DVP-00021 APPLICATION FILED: 6/25/2024

011-280-031

ZONING: RMZ-40

PROJECT AREA: 4.63

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

Applicant: Steve Fort

Proposed Project:

Project calls for a new driveway to provide vehicular access to a permitted ADU from Oak Creek Canyon Road. The proposed driveway is approximately 95’ in length and 14’-8” wide and requires 197’-6” of retaining walls, with a maximum height of 6’. The driveway is proposed to be paved with Sweetwater cobblestone to match the existing driveway to the main residence. A 6' tall wrought iron driveway gate with sandstone pilasters measuring 6’-5” tall is proposed approximately 17’ back from the private drive. Grading for this project shall consist of 92 CY of cut, 143 CY of fill, and 51 CY of import. The parcel will continue to be served by the Montecito Water District, Montecito Sanitary District, and the Montecito Fire Protection District. Access will continue to be provided off of Oak Creek Canyon. The property is a 6.09-acre parcel zoned RMZ-40 and shown as Assessor's Parcel Number 011-280-031, located at 1379 Oak Creek Canyon in the Montecito Community Plan area, First Supervisorial District.

APPEALS:

The decision of the Director of the Planning and Development Department to approve, conditionally approve, or deny this Development Plan application 24DVP-00021 may be appealed to the Montecito Planning Commission by the applicant or an aggrieved person. The appeal must be filed within the 10 calendar days following the date that the Director takes action on this Development Plan application. To qualify as an "aggrieved person" the appellant must have, in person or through a representative, informed the Planning and Development Department by appropriate means prior to the decision on the Coastal Development Permit of the nature of their concerns, or, for good cause, was unable to do so.

Appeals must be filed with the Planning and Development Department online at https://aca-prod.accela.com/sbco/Default.aspx, by 5:00 p.m. within the timeframe identified above. In the event that the last day for filing an appeal falls on a non-business day of the County, the appeal may be timely filed on the next business day.

For additional information regarding the appeal process, contact Alejandro Jimenez.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

information about this project review process may also be viewed at: https://ca-santabarbaracounty.civicplus.pro/1499/Planning-Permit-Process-Flow-Chart Board of Architectural Review agendas may be viewed online at: https://www.countyofsb.org/160/Planning-Development

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS

NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: The Club, 632 E. Canon Perdido Street, Santa Barbara, CA, CA 93103. Boys & Girls Club of Santa Barbara, INC, 632 E. Canon Perdido Street, Santa Barbara, CA, CA 93103. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on August 20, 2024. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk. I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office. Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL). FBN No. 2024-0001996. Published September 18, 25, October 2, 9, 2024

Published October 10, 2024 Montecito Journal

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS

NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Albertsons #3171, 1500 N H Street, Lompoc, CA 93436. 1918 Winter Street ABS LLC, c/o Legal Department, 7 Corporate Drive, Keene, NH, 03431. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on September 5, 2024. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk. I hereby

certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office. Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL). FBN No. 2024-0002120. Published September 18, 25, October 2, 9, 2024

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS

NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Premier Essentials Lifestyle Coaching, 3521 Mercury Drive, 201, Santa Maria, CA 93455. Stylist Danielle Leshea, LLC, 3521 Mercury Drive, 201, Santa Maria, CA 93455. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on August 27, 2024. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk. I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office. Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL). FBN No. 2024-0002059. Published September 18, 25, October 2, 9, 2024

this month. Unless you count the challenge of mastering the fast pacing, quickchange scenes, joke-filled dialog and sheer physicality of Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors, Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen’s campy and gender-bending take on Bram Stoker’s legendary vampire tale.

Described as tossing Stoker’s story into a blender with Mel Brooks and Monty Python films, The Rocky Horror Show, and Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, this version of Dracula is a very new piece, having premiered in New York just 13 months ago.

“None of us have done it, or even seen it before,” said director Jamie Torcellini, referring to the all-Equity cast of five, split between ETC veterans and those making their debut with the company. “But we’re having an absolute blast.”

Indeed, Terrors – which plays at the New Vic Theatre October 10-27 – finds Torcellini in his element, helming a show in which the stage choreography, expressions, and timing are almost more important than the words and costumes.

“I love these kinds of sendup comedy shows that have so much physicality, with the actors playing so many different roles with quick changes,” said the Broadway and regional theater veteran. Torcellini has previously directed ETC productions of (yes) The 39 Steps, and starred in The Mystery of Irma Vep – a tonally similar satire/ sendsup set in Victorian England that the Terrors playwrights have acknowledged as an influence. “The tricky part is because it’s only one act, 90 minutes straight through, once you get going you have to go. The comedy, the transitions, the set changes, and the music that brings us to where we’re going is all fast and furious. We’ve got to move. It’s really difficult, but it’s exhilarating.”

Torcellini said that while the characters and situations are drawn from the literary Dracula’s adventures – from the English countryside to Transylvania – there’s a much more modern feel to Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors. Much of that comes from the idea of the Count as a swaggering, sexually omnivorous hunk who early on rips his own shirt off to reveal a solid six-pack – or perhaps more like a full case.

“There’s a lot of hip and sexy humor, gender bending and cross dressing – the writers call it ‘gay camp,’” he said. “One of the first lines in the show as they describe what you’re about to see talks about a hot guy who takes off his shirt.”

Ensemble isn’t shying away from Dracula’s thirst for both blood and sex regardless of gender, having booked a special night for the LGBTQ+ community on October 20. Indeed, the dramaturg writes that the adaptation moves beyond the coding of subtextual or implicit queer traits without overtly labeling them as such, “…instead boldly presenting these themes in the audience’s face in the campiest way possible.”

The key to making the show work, however, is to ground everything in as much reality as possible, Torcellini said.

“There’s a tendency to go too far and make it absolutely cartoony without any truth or substance behind it,” he said. “But we’re making sure that they’re still playing human people that have realistic reactions and human interactions.”

Even so, the director said, he hopes the audience walks away screaming.

“Screaming with laughter,” he said. “The show is just hilarious. Even in rehearsal, there are moments where I laugh every time.”

Step into Hitchcock’s Suspense Station

In a strange twist of fate, The 39 Steps itself is actually being showcased in another venue over the next two weekends. The Alcazar Ensemble will present Vintage Hitchcock: A Live Radio Play, Joe Landry’s stage adaptation of three of Hitchcock’s most renowned stories, October 11-13 and 18-20 at the Carpinteria venue. The thrilling world of Alfred Hitchcock comes alive as the suspenseful narratives of The 39 Steps – as well as Sabotage and The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog – are reimagined in a 1940s radio broadcast setting through dialog and live sound effects. The production comes complete with vintage commercials performed live, just as they were 85 years ago. Åsa Olsson, Lynne Herrell, and Leslie Vitanza AnneRenee direct.

Making a Mochrie of Needing a Script

Colin Mochrie has been doing improv professionally for more than 40 years, the last 35 or so as a cast member of Whose Line is it Anyway?, the popular TV series that features actors performing short-form improvisation games based on formats and audience suggestions. WLiiA started in Britain in the 1980s, moved to ABC in the ‘90s, and continues on the CW, where the current version just launched season 21. Mochrie has also been touring the country doing a live version of the show featuring extended games with a variety of partners over the years.

The improv vet returns to town on October 12, appearing at the Marjorie Luke Theatre where he’ll perform with his most frequent partner, recurring Whose Line guest Brad Sherwood

“We complement each other really well,” he said. “Brad is very verbal, and in my younger days I was very physical, but now I’m getting wily and doing more sitting.

But we bring different things to the show and it just sort of melds together. There’s also that trust between us that if you have no idea where they’re going to go, you just follow along because it’s probably going to work out.”

Asking for Trouble is the new title for the current tour, but Mochrie said it’s barely different from the last one, Scared Scriptless

“Coming up with a new name is the most work we ever do,” he said. “We actually sit down for a good five to 10 minutes to figure it out.”

Trouble has a couple of new games, as well as a musical tribute to the town they’re playing, with all the suggestions, as always, coming from the audience.

“We ask about the town’s history, events that have happened there, what people love about their city, the short Wikipedia versio, and then we turn it into the Broadway musical,” Mochrie said. “But only one of us can really sing ..” (hint, it’s not Mochrie) “..so that’s always fun.”

Old favorites drawn from the Whose Line canon are also a part of the show, including “Sound Effects,” where volunteers from the audience provide all the non-dialogue noises, and “Moving Bodies,” where the actors can’t move without assistance from their assigned volunteer. There are also variations on the TV show’s title game, which involves the cast members randomly reading aloud lines provided in advance by the audience and then reacting in real time to whatever comes up.

In fact, up to 80% of the games involve at least one volunteer on stage. Meaning there’s a very good probability that some of them will have no idea how to perform their task or offer sensible suggestions.

That’s perfect, Mochrie said.

“They often don’t know what they’re doing, which is a win-win for us either way,” Mochrie explained. “If they do everything we want ‘em to do, it’s great. And if they don’t, sometimes it’s even better because it gives us a lot to play with. Everything that we get from the audience is a nugget that we can explore and maybe make it a big part of the scene.”

If the volunteers are nervous, Mochrie and Sherwood are surprisingly at ease. In fact, the actor said he’s never more relaxed than when he’s on-stage doing improv.

“It’s a world of my own choosing. I’m with someone I trust. I know what I’m doing. It’s a very safe environment. Which is why I have the optimistic feeling that it’s all going to work out – unlike anything in real life.”

As for another season of Whose Line on The CW, it’s anybody’s guess, Mochrie said of the long-running weekly show – which films over two long weekends, two taping sessions a day, from which three to five shows are cobbled together.

“The last couple of years they’ve been ‘Well, this is the last one,’ but then it just comes back again,” he said. “We actually filmed the current season (launched last month) for the last one, but they had extra episodes, so they managed to get a new season out of it. Now I’m trying to figure out more ways for them to do shows without me having to do any more work.”

Steven Libowitz has covered a plethora of topics for the Journal since 1997, and now leads our extensive arts and entertainment coverage

Colin Mochrie is looking to do less work – any suggestions? (courtesy photo)

More than 200,000 spectators were in the Scottish capital for a day of pageantry, tradition and community spirit as the event, dating back to the 16th century, which reaffirms the city’s ancient rights and boundaries, took place with 280 riders riding 26 miles from the outskirts of the city up the Royal Mile led by bagpipers, wild knight jousters, a Jacobite ceilidh band, and a local high school pipe band before winding its way up to Edinburgh Castle which looms over city.

“It was a truly astonishing experience,” says Margaret – a good friend of Montecito philanthropist Anne Towbes – who lives in Solvang with her attorney husband Bob Andrews.

“We wanted to visit our grandson Jack Andrews, a graduate of Laguna Blanca, who is studying at the University of Edinburgh. Then I read that Stacy Adams of Active Riding Trips had eight places available for the Riding of the Marches, which coincided with my 75th birthday.

“Up here in the Santa Ynez Valley I’m a Western rider, and the Edinburgh event was Hunter Style, two-point riding in formal English attire.

“I’m someone who likes to sort cows for fun on my quarter horse and go trail riding. So I had some last-minute schooling from Tracy Ward on how to ride properly – and off I went.

“It was like riding on steroids!”

No word yet if Margaret purchased a kilt to mark the stirring equestrian occasion...

Gersh Unleashed

Montecito author David Gersh , a Harvard Law School graduate and retired attorney, just launched his ninth book – and the third in his comic novel series Unleashed: A Comic Relief – with a bijou bash at the bustling bibliophile bastion Tecolote in the upper village.

“It poses the existential question of whether people can trust a dog more than a politician,” says David. “Let me tell you, things are going to the dogs!”

The plot centers on San Buenasara,

south of San Luis Obispo, which is “ripe for the plucking.”

And the Mexican cartel wants to pluck, when the former chief of police is running for mayor following the former incumbent’s demise in an unfortunate accident involving a steamroller.

A new leash on life, perhaps...

Queens of the Stage

The Music Academy of the West launched the third season of its Mariposa concert series at Hahn Hall in truly majestic fashion with a recital of new arts songs celebrating the history and legacy of seven African queens

The unique program, with piano accompaniment from Kevin Miller , offered historical narrative with 11 songs, each about a special monarch, written for impressive soprano Karen Slack, a recipient of the 2022 Sphinx Medal of Excellence by various composers, including three recent guests to the Miraflores campus –Carlos Simon, Joel Thompson, and Jessie Montgomery

A memorable evening – by royal appointment.

Martin’s Mystery

Peter Martin is launching his third children’s book The Mystery of Trash Island, with a distinct environmental message.

Peter – husband of Santa Barbara Symphony president Kathryn Martin – took a year to write the colorful issue with illustrations by local artist Danuta Bennett. He says it is also an introduc-

tion to geography teaching as the main characters explore the highest mountains on each continent.

It is the latest in his Anna & Avis Fantastical Adventures series with the siblings and their endless imagination and dreams, using an imaginary solution to solve the real-life issues of plastics polluting the oceans.

All proceeds got to the Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation, with more than $25,000 being raised so far...

Notes of Lotus

Lotusland, the enchanting 37-acre Montecito gardens founded by the late opera singer Ganna Walska, is adding to its collection of fragrances.

Three years ago, as I revealed in this illustrious organ, they launched Osmanthus; a scent inspired by the delicate blossoms of Osmanthus fragrance

found in the estate’s Japanese Garden, while Lemon Arbor, launched last year, draws upon the citrus notes and the fresh scent of the garden’s lemon arbor.

Now, Los Angeles perfumer Douglas Little of Heretic Parfum has concocted Sacred Lotus inspired by the breathtaking annual bloom in Lotusland’s Water Garden, a stunning spectacle that captures the spirit and essence of the garden’s connection to nature and Walska’s profound spiritual vision.

Sacred Lotus promises to transport wearers into a realm of serenity and reflection, allowing them to experience the purity and resilience symbolized by the lotus flower.

With top notes of blue lotus absolute, ylang ylang, and jasmine samba, heart notes of tuberose and orange flower absolute, and base notes of Javanese vetiver and sheer white musk, it’s sure to be a blooming success.

It is available online and at Lotusland’s Garden Shop with all proceeds supporting the continued care and preservation of the legendary gardens.

And just in time for Christmas...

Dainer on Board

U.S. Navy veteran and medical director Rupa Dainer, M.D., has joined the board of directors of the Dream Foundation.

Dainer has been a member of the organization’s Dreams for Veterans advisory council since 2023. She will continue to work closely with the program, raising awareness about veterans’ needs, concerns, and dreams as they face the end of life.

“Even when they are in a situation in which their death is imminent, whether in the field of combat or their regular lives, veterans still think of others – their brothers and sisters in arms or their families and

“Once a pumpkin, always a pumpkin.” – Billy Corgan

Soprano Karen Slack, queen of the stage (photo by Emma Matthews)

David Gersh launches ninth book (courtesy photo)

Author Peter Martin launches third book in his children’s series (courtesy photo)

friends – above themselves,” says Dainer, who used to work for AstraZeneca.

“The mission of the foundation resonates so strongly with me. Veterans have dedicated their lives to a deep sense of service and commitment to others, and for those facing the end of life, there is nothing more poignant and meaningful we can do for them than to aid in fulfilling their last dream.”

A Snarky Start

UCSB Arts & Lectures kicked off its 65th latest entertaining season with a concert by Snarky Puppy, the North Texas instrumental band, at the Arlington.

Rousing solos from the powerhouse ensemble showed why they enjoy the justifiable reputation as proponents of jazz funk.

Dueling drummers and a rotating roster of elite solo musicians showed why their bark is as good as their bite.

On Tour

Prince Harry, after trips to New York and London, has been on a solo trip to South Africa, just a month before his older brother Prince William’s own private visit to the same country.

The Duke of Sussex, 40, visited Johannesburg following a series of

engagements in Lesotho where his charity Sentebale is located.

It comes just before the Prince of Wales also wings his way to present the 2024 Earshot Prize in Cape Town on Nov. 6, meaning the brothers will visiting the country just five weeks apart. So close, but yet so very far....

Ellen Au Naturale

Ellen DeGeneres, 66, has decided to ditch Botox and fillers.

The Montecito comedienne says on her Netflix special Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval she is embracing getting older and has stopped cosmetic procedures on her face.

“I used to say I didn’t care what other people thought of me. I realize that, looking back, that I said it at the height of my popularity. Hey, if I look older than when you last saw me, it’s because I’m older then when you last saw me. And I also stopped doing Botox and fillers.”

2024 Founder’s Awardees Named

The Association for Women in Communications Santa Barbara has announced three student, next-generation journalists as the recipients of the 2024 Founder’s Award in recognition of their work.

Next month Lois Phillips will present the annual awards to the journalists –Joyce Chi, Rosie Bultman, and Cebelli Pfeifer – at WorkZones in our Eden by the Beach. The award ceremony which will also feature a presentation by licensed psychologist Dr. Victoria Gonzalez

Chi is an internal news director at KCSB at UCSB, her second year in the role, while Bultman is external news director at the station and sole producer of The People’s Program, a global news show.

Pfeifer is a second-year student at Santa Barbara City College and this year’s fall 2024 Editor-in-Chief of The Channels, a student-run newspaper. She is also a double major in political sci-

ence and communications and plans to attend a four-year university soon.

Centenarian Carter

On a personal note, I congratulate President Jimmy Carter on his 100th birthday, making him the oldest living president.

I had the considerable pleasure of meeting him at a dinner party at the Upper Eastside Manhattan home of the late realtor Alice Mason when I arrived early for one of her socially gridlocked soirees. We talked one-on one for nearly half an hour when he was joined by his late wife Rosalynn, to whom he was married for 77 years until she died at the age of 96. Our conversation promptly concluded when President Carter was almost literally engulfed by TV newswoman Barbara Walters. It was a rare memorable moment with America’s 39th president, who served from 1977 to 1981.

Sightings

Jeff and Susan Bridges at the Mesa Cafe... Prince Harry at the WellChild Awards in London... Warbler Katy Perry in Melbourne, Australia.

Pip! Pip!

From musings on the Royals to celebrity real estate deals, Richard Mineards is our man on the society scene and has been for more than 15 years

U.S. Navy veteran Rupa Dainer joins Dream Foundation board (courtesy photo)

Joyce Chi (courtesy photo) Rosie Bultman (courtesy photo)

Cebelli Pfeifer (courtesy photo)

Snarky Puppy impresses (courtesy photo)

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Calendar of Events

by Steven Libowitz

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12

Chamber Players perform – The Santa Barbara Chamber Players Orchestra launches its 2024-25 season under the baton of co-founder Mary Beth Rhodes-Woodruff with a concert that offers a dynamic mix of contemporary and classical works, including new pieces by local composer Grace Fisher. The evening begins with Béla Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances, a set of six pieces filled with the rich melodies and rhythms of Eastern European folk music. Up next are two new works by Grace Fisher, the Santa Barbara native who painstakingly composes using a special mouth device since being paralyzed from the neck down by a rare neurological illness as a teen. Fisher’s Waltz of the Waves is influenced by the ebb and flow of the ocean, while A Critter Fable is a charming musical tale that brings the playful world of animals to life. The concert closer, Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 3, ‘Eroica,’” winds up the night with the masterful musical manifestation of the composer’s triumph over his increasing deafness. WHEN: 7:30 pm

WHERE: First United Methodist Church, 305 E. Anapamu Street (at Garden St.)

COST: $20 general, free for students 18 years and under INFO: www.sbchamberplayers.org

Fabulous Philharmonic – Santa Barbara’s official orchestral season gets underway tonight with a rare symphonic program under the aegis of UCSB Arts & Lectures that brings the London Philharmonic Orchestra to the Granada. Recognized as one of the world’s great orchestras since its founding in 1932 and heard by many millions on the soundtracks for The Lord of the Rings and other films, the ensemble features an elegant program and enviable soloist for its first Santa Barbara appearance in years. LPO favorite violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, who is known for fearless interpretations of established classical repertoire and avant-garde compositions alike, fronts the orchestra in exploring the depths of feeling in

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11

NatureTrack Film Festival – Nothing beats actually getting out into nature, sinking your feet into the earth, breathing in the fresh air and seeing all the marvelous vistas and formations our planet provides.

A close second? The annual NatureTrack Film Festival, an outgrowth of the nonprofit organization whose work is to take school kids and others into nature for free, which has a mission to “ignite a passion for nature through film.” NTFF is now happily ensconced in its post-pandemic home of Goleta’s Camino Real Cinemas and Marketplace, where it puts together an impressive program that rivals some of the touring festival slates. More than 80 films will be screened over the weekend, counting shorts and features, with an enviable seven world premieres, six North American premieres and four U.S. premieres as part of the lineup. Opening night boasts the Central Coast theatrical premiere of Jane Goodall – Reasons for Hope, plus two new shorts from local filmmakers (and composer) Cody Westheimer’s Open Space and Otter Space by Michael Love. Saturday’s highlights include Animal Pride, a PBS doc exploring queer animal behavior and its history through the eyes of naturalist Connel Bradwell, with a Q&A with the director and star, plus the premiere of UCSB’s Coastal Media Project short, Ploverize The fest closes on Sunday with the new film Tagliamento – The King of Alpine Rivers, followed by a Q&A with director Giuseppe Bucciarelli, the 2023 NTFF Audience Award winner. New this year is a full-on festival hub in the former Pier One space nearby, which will be open throughout the festival. Parties, happy hours and more round out the festival.

WHEN: Today-Sunday

WHERE: 7004 Marketplace Drive, Goleta

COST: $15 & up

INFO: www.naturetrackfilmfestival.org

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12

A Most Savory Herb – It would be hard to overstate the influence of Herb Alpert on contemporary music. The jazz trumpeter and singer was a massive star back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the only musician to hit No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 as both a vocalist (“This Guy’s in Love with You,” 1968) and an instrumentalist (“Rise,” 1979), a six-time Grammy winner, seller of some 72 million records worldwide and – at the tender age of 89 – an active artist whose 49th studio album, Wish Upon A Star, topped the Contemporary Jazz chart just last year. Alpert also co-founded (and is the ‘A’ in) A&M Records, whose roster included the Carpenters, Captain and Tennille, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Rita Coolidge, Quincy Jones, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, and Montecito’s Barry DeVorzon, to name just a few. Alpert has performed for decades with his Grammy-winning vocalist wife Lani Hall and their incredible band, which tonight will play an eclectic mix of American standards, Brazilian jazz, Alpert’s classic Tijuana Brass songs, the pop bossa nova of Brasil ’66 (for which Lani was lead singer), Beatles songs, and more – all in front of a giant screen that displays hundreds of classic photos, videos, and various memorabilia from the pair’s careers.

WHEN: 7:30 pm

WHERE: Lobero Theatre, 33 E. Canon Perdido St.

COST: $51 & $65 ($106 VIP tickets includes premier seating and a pre-show reception with drinks and hors d’oeuvres)

INFO: (805) 963-0761 or www.lobero.org

Shostakovich’s “Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 77,” considered one of the 20th century’s most ambitious concertos. Opening LPO Principal Conductor Edward Gardner’s program is the Santa Barbara debut of “Raices” (Origins) by Cuban-American composer Tania León – the Philharmonic’s Composer-in-Residence, a 2021 Pulitzer Prize-winner and 2022 Kennedy Center Honoree – with Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 36,” closing out the night.

WHEN: 7 pm

WHERE: Granada Theatre, 1214 State Street

COST: $58.50-$173.50

INFO: (805) 899-2222/www.granadasb.org or (805) 893-3535/https://artsandlectures.ucsb.edu

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13

‘Sing for Justice’ – Singer-songwriter Kate Wallace and her partner, acclaimed multi-instrumentalist-singer Doug Clegg, ran Trinity Backstage as a monthly concert for years before the pandemic put the final pause on the program. Now the pair are heading back to the same venue for a benefit concert to support the Santa Barbara County Immigrant Legal Defense Center (ILDC) and its work to provide legal assistance and advocacy for immigrants in the Santa Barbara community. The afternoon concert also features award-winning composer, producer, songwriter, author and educator James McVay, who spent 25 years in Los Angeles scoring movies and TV shows, including the Heather Graham vehicle Desert Winds. During intermission between the trio’s two sets, guests can meet the artists and connect with ILDC staff and volunteers and enjoy free refreshments and hors d’oeuvres on the Trinity Labyrinth.

WHEN: 3 pm

WHERE: Trinity Episcopal Church, 1500 State St.

COST: $40

INFO: (805) 886-9136 or www.SBImmigrantDefense.org.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 14

Yummy with Yotam – World-renowned chef and author Yotam Ottolenghi gets guests’ gastric juices going as he discusses his new book, Comfort, then prepares one of his dishes live on stage. Ottolenghi will share childhood stories, his influences, and his passion for bold flavors and colorful ingredients, then combine culinary innovation with suggestions and questions from the audience to create a mouthwatering live experience. Ben Mims – former cooking columnist for the Los Angeles Times and a

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12

Ball & Sultan Back Downtown – For decades, Tom Ball & Kenny Sultan, aka “American’s Good Time Blues Ambassadors,” have played Sunday afternoons at Cold Spring Tavern, the onetime stagecoach stop on the San Marcos Pass where bikers and guitar-harmonica lovers converge. But it’s a rare thing to see them indoors and in town, which last happened pre-pandemic for their 40th anniversary at the Lobero almost a decade ago. The duo will do it again downtown today, though, via 4xSB, the acoustic music series collaborative between The Community Arts Workshop and SBAcoustic. Opening act The Elderberries features Sean and Dorie Hutchinson with Jordan Bush and Jim Cutsinger singing and playing tenor guitar, ukulele, lap steel and banjo. The event kicks off with Adventures in Lutherie, a chat with ‘Oi Acoustics about building Hawaiian steel guitars, Weissenborns, ukuleles, and acoustic guitars and basses.

WHEN: 6 pm

WHERE: 631 Garden St.

COST: $25 reserved, $20 general INFO: www.sbcaw.org/upcoming

James Beard-nominated author of three cookbooks – will moderate. The chef is also the subject of Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles, the 2020 documentary film that screens on October 10, followed by a Q&A with film producer Steve Robillard

WHEN: 7:30 pm

WHERE: Granada Theatre, 1214 State Street

COST: $38.50-$68.50

INFO: (805) 899-2222/www.granadasb.org or (805) 893-3535/https://artsandlectures.ucsb.edu

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15

Fight Night – Belgian theater company Ontroerend Goed scored a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with Fight Night, a fun and thought-provoking night of interactive theater that now shows in town in the leadup to the 2024 presidential election. With no political ideology or even mention of politics, the piece puts digital voting devices into the hands of the audience, who decide which among the five “candidate” actors will win their sympathy and their vote. Similar to political campaigns, polls, predictions and debates challenge the voters’ loyalty and common sense, with the actors applying all possible tactics and strategies to topple the audience’s notion of free choice in the end, demonstrating how the concept of “rule of the people” is put into practice in contemporary democratic societies. Will your vote count?

WHEN: 8 pm

WHERE: Campbell Hall

COST: $37.50-$52.50

INFO: (805) 893-3535 or https://artsandlectures.ucsb.edu

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16

Mariza’s Magical Music – Gifted with an expressive and powerful soprano, Mariza is a chart-topping superstar of the fado movement in Portugal – a folk genre that emerged from Portuguese working-class neighborhoods. The Portuguese “fado” translates as “fate”, and the genre’s songs are typically broken-hearted laments. Beyond her native Portugal, Mariza has also enjoyed global success since the early 2000s. Over the years, the singer has distinguished herself and broadened her popularity by gradually incorporating elements from other folk and popular traditions into her music. A veteran of sold-out performances on festival stages from Québec and New York’s Central Park to the Hollywood Bowl and England’s Royal Festival Hall, Mariza makes her way back to Santa Barbara for her most intimate concert in town to date.

WHEN: 7:30 pm

WHERE: Lobero Theatre, 33 E. Canon Perdido St.

COST: $51 & $75 ($131 VIP tickets includes premier seating and a pre-show reception with drinks and hors d’oeuvres)

INFO: (805) 963-0761 or www.lobero.org

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TRESOR

We Buy, Sell and Broker Important Estate Jewelry. Located in the upper village of Montecito. Graduate Gemologists with 30 years of experience. We do free evaluations and private consultation. 1470 East Valley Rd Suite V. 805-969-0888

ELECTRICIAN

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PHYSICAL TRAINING & THERAPY

Stillwell Fitness of Santa Barbara In Home Personal Training Sessions for 65+ Help with: Strength, Flexibility, Balance Motivation, and Consistency

John Stillwell, CPT, Specialist in Senior Fitness 805-705-2014 StillwellFitness.com

GOT OSTEOPOROSIS? WE CAN HELP

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AUTOMOBILES WANTED

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AVAILABLE CAREGIVER

Trusted, Experienced Caregiver, CA State registered and background checked. Vaccinated. Loving and caring provides transportation, medications, etc. Lina 805-940-6888

Sweet woman with 20 years of experience as a caregiver.

I had been living at the area for 25 years. CA State registered and background checked. Tiana 805-722-8015

TILE SETTING

Local tile setter of 35 years is now doing small jobs only. Services include grout cleaning and repair, caulking, sealing, replacing damaged tiles and basic plumbing needs. Call Doug Watts at 805-729-3211 for a free estimate.

CARPET CLEANING

Carpet Cleaning Since 1978 (805) 963-5304

Rafael Mendez Cell: 689-8397 or 963-3117

LANDSCAPE

Casa L. M.

Landscape hedges installed. Ficus to flowering. Disease resistant. Great privacy. Licensed & insured. Call (805) 963-6909

AVAILABLE FOR RENT

Beautiful renovated mid-century 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom with Ocean views in Santa Barbara foothills, Available Dec 15th - March 15th (646) 206-4391

PERSONAL SERVICES

Tell Your Story

How did you get to be where you are today? What were your challenges? What is your Love Story? I can help you tell your story in an unforgettable way – with a book that will live on for many generations. The books I write are as thorough and entertaining as acclaimed biographies you’ve read. I also assist with books you write – planning, editing and publishing. David Wilk. Great references. (805) 455-5980 www.BiographyDavidWilk.com

PET/ HOUSE SITTING

Do you need to get away for a weekend, week or more? I will house sit and take care of your pets, plants & mail. I have refs if needed. Call me or text me. Christine (805) 452-2385

SANTA

BARBARA CEMETERY PLOT

Ocean view plot off of Bluff Ave. Island Edition-C #83 $39,000 For info (805) 455-0731

Mountain Facing Plot in Santa Barbara Cemetery

$16,000 (805) 455-3021

KNIFE SHARPENING SERVICES

EDC Mobile Sharpening is locally owned and operated in Santa Barbara. We specialize in (No-Entry) House Calls, Businesses, and Special Events. Call (805) 696-0525 to schedule an appointment.

SHORT TERM RENTAL

Mesa Furnished Rental – Ocean/ Island Views, Shoreline Park-100 Steps away. 3 Bd, 1 Bath. Quiet! OceanPalmsOasis@gmail.com www.vrbo.com/607590

PRIVATE WINE CURATOR

LA BAROLO

“Private Barolo Collection Experts” Routine shipments direct from Italy. Contact: nash@labarolo.com

LEGAL SERVICES

CA Property Tax Specialist

Law Office of Debra C. Cohen (818) 961 6841

AttorneyDebraC.Cohen@gmail.com

FOR SALE

Biedermeier sofa for sale.Frame is birch, Sweden,1820-1830. Very solid. H:40” L:96” D:31” seat height 25” $6500 call or text Barbara (626) 390-4039

BURIAL CRYPT

Burial Crypt, SB Cemetery, Mausoleum in the Pines Courtyard, Tier 6, Crypt 34. Holds full size coffin. Premium location, visit cemetery to view. Will work with buyer and cemetery to transfer ownership, $19,000 or best offer, plus $500 transfer fee, negotiable. Call or text (805) 698-2165

MONTECITO HOME FOR RENT

Charming 2-bedroom, 2-bath cottage-style home on a secluded, beautifully landscaped one-acre lot behind a gated, privacy wall. Home boasts hardwood floors, a stone fireplace, vaulted ceilings and large picturesque windows throughout. Located in the sought-after Montecito Union School District and in proximity to the Upper and Lower Villages makes it a perfect blend of convenience and serenity. $10,000 per month. Available now. Please contact Christy (805) 886-8451.

INTERIOR DESIGN SERVICE

ByPeteMuller&FrankLongo

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6 See2-Down

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8 "StarTrek"co-starGeorge

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