Simply Staggering

Resting Place 29 APRIL - 6 MAY 2021 VOL 27 ISSUE 18

SERVING MONTECITO AND SUMMERLAND

The Sarah House has withstood the perils of COVID in order to serve those looking for a respite, either permanent or temporary, page 36

Simply Staggering

(Cover photo: 1117 Las Alturas Road, listed for sale by Calcagno & Hamilton Partners)

To say that the South Coast housing market is hot and record-breaking almost doesn’t tell the whole story – not when the median sale price is some $660,000 higher than it was just 12 months ago, aided by 13 homes that have sold for more than $10 million (story begins on page 48)

‘Our Voices are Silenced’

The ongoing battle at Cold Spring School has more than 150 locals calling for further support of the board, district, and teachers, page 10

‘Revered’ Staycation

The itch to travel is returning, but our Travel Buzz columnist says a great meal is close by – the Rosewood Miramar’s Revere Room, page 42

Inclusion, a Human Right

Kalyan Balaven, the new Head of School at Dunn, says inclusivity is borne out of the community’s commitment to change, page 5

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MONTECITO JOURNAL

29 April – 6 May 2021

Montecito B E S T - K E P T

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29 April – 6 May 2021

• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

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Inside This Issue

5 Guest Editorial

Kalyan Balaven, new Head of School at Dunn, says inclusion isn’t a special interest, it’s a human right, and SB County could lead the way for the country

6 On the Record

Amanda Rowan files new lawsuit against Cold Spring School

8 Letters to the Editor

Gail Steinbeck writes that the Montecito Association’s continued fight against two fair housing bills is impacting quality of life for frontline workers

10 Community Voices

Lily & Ann wearing Queen Bee PJ’s and Slippers

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Julia Asher is tired of the proverbial and “inaccurate” target on Cold Spring School’s back, and says it is time for the community to stand up

11 On the Water Front

Former GM of Montecito Water says that privatization of our water supply allows for a monopoly, a result that benefits no one

13 Village Beat

Saying one final goodbye to Read ‘N Post; Montecito Rotary holds “Back 2 School” Fundraiser; Susan Read Cronin releases book of poetry

14 Seen Around Town

Girls Inc. of Carpinteria holds annual Women of Inspiration luncheon virtually; Friendship Center’s fundraising events

16 Montecito Miscellany

Thanks to the Pillow family, a local musical was able to go on under the guidance of Janet Adderley, moving from the Lobero to a private residence

20 Stories Matter

Set in Kraków in 1942, The Woman with the Blue Star tells a haunting and hopeful tale centered on Sadie, a girl hiding beneath the city to escape the liquidation of the Jewish ghettos

22 Hot Topics

Christina Favuzzi is a Santa Barbara native who has experienced all that fire season has to offer — now she will inform us all as a member of Montecito Fire

24 PERSPECTIVES

by Rinaldo S. Brutoco

Earth Day: Backwards and Forwards.

Looking at the ebbs and flows of environmental wins.

The Optimist Daily

A coalition of conservationists purchase and protect Belize Maya Forest

27 In Passing

Remembering George E. Handtmann and Penelope Ruth Williams

30 On Entertainment

Steven Gilbar, a former attorney, is nearly single-handedly keeping the memory of little-known Santa Barbara authors alive through his own writing

32 Dear Montecito

Dana Raymond Glass reflects on how Montecito has changed over the years

Brilliant Thoughts

Ashleigh Brilliant on his own personal weight-watching journey

33 On Science

As scientists learn more about other planets, Tom Farr says that what is learned beyond Earth is helping us understand more here at home

34 On Art

New art exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara hits close to home with its similarities to pandemic emotions

36 The Giving List

Sarah House has stayed open throughout the pandemic as a family-friendly facility for those who need it

42 Travel Buzz

The Miramar’s newest restaurant, The Revere Room, combines standout food and wine with the ability to reminisce about the days gone by

46 Legal Advertisement 48 Real Estate Snapshot

Kelly Mahan Herrick provides readers with a glimpse of sales and sales prices of this historic real estate market

50 Nosh Town

Chefs welcome spring with recipes incorporating natural bounty of our locale

51 Mini Meta Crossword Puzzles 54 Classified Advertising

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

55 Local Business Directory

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

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29 April – 6 May 2021

Guest Editorial

by Kalyan Balaven

Developing Inclusivity and Community Go Hand-in-Hand

I

nclusion is not a special interest; it is a human right.

For the educator in me, this is a mantra that safeguards the term inclusion from how it trends currently in our discourse. In the rhetoric of our time, it has lost both its efficacy and meaning. It has become threadbare in its overuse and yet, from where I sit as the new Head of School at Dunn School, inclusion is a fundamental right that means every student is thriving because they are seen, heard, valued, and know that they belong.

In recent years, especially in education, Offices of Inclusion have proliferated in an attempt to turn the abstract promise of inclusion into an actionable human right, especially with regards to equity and full access to the promise of educational opportunities. I know, I’ve been a pioneer in this area. Now, I feel compelled to say they are no longer enough. At best they now epitomize a tokenistic rendition of inclusion to be used as a shield against critiques of ignorance and exclusion; and at worst they actively engage in the polarization of the very communities they were set up to heal.

We need inclusion now more than ever, as we suffer from an epistemological crisis in which ignorance manifested as prejudice and racism, reigns supreme.

Cell phones have captured the vitriol and violence, and social media has given the world a glimpse of the sheer magnitude of the problem we face. Yet hope remains in education.

If education, both public and private, could come together to create a community-wide partnership on inclusion, generate programs that help students approach dialogue without embarrassment or guilt, and help each student they serve see each other fully as human beings, then we would matriculate students who are equipped to traverse the world as interculturally fluent builders of multicultural community, and thereby thrive.

So, yes, I believe education is the key, but I came by my faith in education the hard way.

Decades ago, while in law school, I half jogged across the slick floor, straight past the iconic statue of Martin Luther King, Jr., which greeted visitors to UC Davis’s King Hall. My mind was on the ride I was able to finagle from my friend Keenan at such a late hour, and I didn’t want to be late to meet him.

My eyes were so weary after a long evening looking up terms in Black’s Law Dictionary and making tiny margin notes in my Civil Procedure reader that I didn’t see the dark silhouettes approaching me as I took my first rushed step outside the building.

I heard an audible click as their bright flashlights blinded me. I squinted hard and I was greeted with a gruff, “Who are you?” from the smaller, darker silhouette. Before I uttered a syllable, the larger figure beside it yelled with accusing aggression, “You’re not supposed to be here!” A crackle came from his bulky shoulder, “shhwwerp, do you have the suspect?”

“Who are you!?” asked his partner.

Still startled, I swallowed dry air, found some semblance of voice, and barely cracked out, “I-I-I’m a law student, I was just studying in the lib—.”

“Stop lying, who are you!?” They cut me off.

I instinctively reached towards the front right pocket of my green Adidas windbreaker to pull out my ID and keyset to King Hall hoping to prove to the interrogators that I really was a student. I stopped mid-motion when I was told to put my hands up. Paralyzed with fear, my body limply complied as I succumbed to the motions of my arrest. Ironically, as a UC Davis Law Student, I’d been asked to study the Miranda rights in my Criminal Law class, but I already had the words memorized from my lived experiences as a BIPOC man in America.

I sat terrified in the dank backseat of the squad car and ran through all the scenarios I’d become familiar with in my casebooks. I hadn’t done anything wrong — I had permission to study in the building. Why was I a suspect? I heard my arrestors utter phrases like “sexual assault,” “rape,” and the name of one of the residential dormitories nearby.

I began to understand as the officers spoke to dispatch that there had been an assault and that “I fit the description” of the culprit in their minds, or at the very least I did not fit their description of a law student. From the corner of my eye, I made out Keenan’s green Mitsubishi minivan driving slowly past the cop car, but it didn’t stop. The radio then crackled, “bzzsh… victim says it was a white male…”

29 April – 6 May 2021

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• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

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On the Record

In lieu of payment, a donation was made to Simon �idston’s charity of choice.

by Nicholas Schou

Nicholas Schou is an award-winning investigative journalist and author of several books, including Orange Sunshine and Kill the Messenger. If you have tips or stories about Montecito, please email him at newseditor@ montecitojournal.net

New Lawsuit Alleging Missing Documents is Latest Salvo in Ongoing Cold Spring School Standoff

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revious articles in the Montecito Journal have described what by now has become a no-holds-barred legal conflict between the Cold Spring School and Amanda Rowan, a parent of a child who was suspended from the classroom last year, and who was subsequently named in a restraining order filed on behalf of three employees of the school by the school district’s principal, Dr. Amy Alzina.

Now, having already filed a motion claiming that the restraining order against her was allegedly in retaliation for her fiercely vocal criticism of the administration, Rowan is demanding that the school hand over records relating to the school’s previous bond measure campaigns. Although Alzina and other Cold Spring officials have stated that everything relevant to Rowan’s inquiry about prior bond measure expenditures has been posted on the school’s website, Rowan alleges in her April 21 lawsuit that the school has failed to respond to five specific California Public Record Act (PRA) requests that she filed dating from December 10, 2020 to March 15, 2021.

Rowan’s suit claims that her request for information is for “records of vital importance to enable accountability within the School District on core public issues such as accounting for the expenditure of bond funds, curriculum being taught to students, identification of possible conflicts of interests by District administrators, possible non-compliance with multiple California laws including the Education Code, possible unprofessional conduct by certificated educators, possible dissemination of false information about the existence of a Citizens Bond Oversight Committee that is legally required to oversee the expenditure of funds raised by a bond measure approved by the public, and a host of other issues of public accountability at a government agency, the Cold Spring School District.”

If that sounds a like a mouthful, it is. But wait, there’s more.

The lawsuit specifically mentions the suspension of Rowan’s child as a retaliatory action against Rowan. “As a result [Rowan’s] child and another classmate became the first students to be suspended from the School District in over 10 years,” the suit states. “Petitioner’s child was treated unfairly as a result of Petitioner’s activism and this appeared to be a way of retaliating against and attempting to intimidate Petitioner so that she would be forced to cease her community activities.”

So far, Cold Spring School hasn’t filed an official response to Rowan’s lawsuit.

Attorney Greg Rolen, who represents the school, didn’t respond to an interview request for this story. However, attorney Karl Olson, who is representing Rowan, described the suit as essentially self-explanatory. “It’s pretty straightforward,” he said. “We asked for records, none of them were produced, and none of them are exempt from being produced under the law. It’s not rocket science.”

Olson specializes in public records law and says that it’s not rare for public agencies to fail to respond to record act requests in a timely fashion. “A lot of agencies out there will just stonewall, and the requester will just go away,” he explained. “But Amanda has a strong feeling that the public has a right to know how its money is being spent and in the words of our California Supreme Court, openness in government is essential to the functioning of a democracy.”

Several hours after the lawsuit was filed, Olson added, Cold Spring School did release some records that had been requested. “It was kind of too little too late,” he said. “They produced some records but didn’t say when they would produce the remainder of them. When an agency engages with you and gets back to you and says we are on it and we will disclose these records and ask for an extra week, most requesters will say ok, but they didn’t engage with us, they just kind of pretended we didn’t exist so that is what required us to file this lawsuit.”

Foothills Forever Announces Fundraising Milestone

The campaign to purchase the West Mesa of the San Marcos Foothills is nearing the finish line but Foothills Forever, which has been raising cash for the conservation effort, is still looking for last-minute angel investors. This week, the group announced a partnership with Allemall Foundation, which recently helped the Redwood Coast Land Conservancy complete the purchase of the Mill Bend Conservation Project in Mendocino County.

“Ol’ man Simon, planted a diamond.” – Shel Silverstein

On The Record Page 384 384 29 April – 6 May 2021

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29 April – 6 May 2021

• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

7

Letters to the Editor

If you have something you think Montecito should know about, or wish to respond to something you read in the Journal, we want to hear from you. Please send all such correspondence to: Montecito Journal, Letters to the Editor, 1206 Coast Village Circle, Suite H, Montecito, CA. 93108. You can also FAX such mail to: (805) 969-6654, or E-mail to letters@montecitojournal.net

Fighting Fair Housing Initiatives is Counterproductive

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n reference to the recent Montecito Association meeting held on April 13, I was deeply disappointed to see that our esteemed, highly respected former senator, Hannah-Beth Jackson, has agreed to represent the anti-growth side of the discussion regarding California State Bills 9 and 10, or SB-9 and SB-10. The legislation proffered by Governor Newsom will help to regulate the indefensible redlining that haunts our society, yet the Montecito Association is preparing to fight this fair housing initiative.

Exclusionary zoning laws like minimum lot sizes, mandatory parking requirements and prohibitions on multi-family housing have sent housing prices soaring and locked families, seniors, educators, healthcare professionals and others who serve our community, out of areas that offer more opportunities. We have countless fire personnel, nurses, educators and so

many others who choose to serve, and have already contributed to Montecito as well as the rest of Santa Barbara, yet they can’t afford to live here.

Having read both SB-9 and SB-10, I found them to be a step in the right direction. As a good friend of mine once said, “If you find some mold on a block of cheese, you don’t throw out the cheese, you cut away the mold and use the rest.”

On one hand we claim we want to honor our frontline workers, while on the other hand we are indirectly keeping them from being a fully integrated part of our community.

We like to think we are a country of fair and equal rights, yet the nouveau riche seem to do all they can to keep that “certain element” from having a home in “their” neighborhood. Too many of you may well be talkin’ the

Letters Page 254

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29 April – 6 May 2021

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• The Voice of the Village •

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2/3/21 12:46 PM MONTECITO JOURNAL

Community Voices Despite Recent Narrative, Cold Spring School Deserves Community’s Support

Dear Concerned Community,

R

ecent stories have been shared by the press which portray our beloved Cold Spring community as a war-torn battlefield, the casualty of infighting between the parents, teachers, school board, and administrative staff.

Although that narrative is interesting, entertaining and presumably sells papers and gets clicks, it is also hurtful and grossly inaccurate.

The far less exciting reality is that the majority of families get along and are regularly seen enjoying all that Cold Spring School has to offer. The teachers and staff are wonderfully supportive, effective, and do an amazing job of raising the next generation of thoughtful and courageous little humans. The board regularly conducts meetings, full of ordinary and sometimes mundane tasks, to a typically vacant auditorium.

However, their stories aren’t told because they are filled with gratitude rather than drama. They are respectful of people’s privacy and are shared internally rather than blasted on social media or other outlets that shamefully fuel falsities and encourage those armed with rumors and gossip to make a name for themselves by making noise. And sadly, they are silenced by the fear of retaliation and the retribution of one neighbor.

Recently, a letter written anonymously and attached below, was circulated by text message and email from one parent to another. There was no mass publication, agenda or fanfare. Its intention and result were simply to show support for those working for, and at, Cold Spring School.

More than 90 signatures were submitted anonymously within days. This current letter was similarly circulated and received more than 150 signatures, by individuals that wish to now show their public support and many additional community members privately support this message. Clearly, we, the majority of families, love and support the community, the teachers, and the school.

We are tired of the noise and need to take action to change the narrative and ensure the teachers who go above and beyond are not ostracized by the antics of one. Truthfully, most of us work at least one job, take care of our children, our parents, volunteer where we can, and have responsibilities that prevent us from effectively countering the baseless attacks on our community. They may be the loudest, but they do not represent us.

And although the fight isn’t fair, and we are not at fault, we the community, find ourselves saddled with this problem of skewed narratives and personal vendettas. When the dust eventually settles and the teachers have finally reached a breaking point, it is the children who will be left paying the price. If you support and appreciate the teachers, staff, board, administration, and even parent volunteers, it is time to show them that support.

Place supportive signs in your yard or on your fence. Wear your school spirit around town. Appreciate them for the difficult and often thankless work they all do. Write and send your opinions to outlets like the Montecito Journal, Independent, and Noozhawk, but be mindful that some publications choose which opinions to publish, and often, our voices are silenced.

Come to board meetings so that you are informed of the facts and can base your opinions on the truth, rather than what you have been spoon-fed by those that take comments out of context or refuse to take responsibility for their own actions.

Board meetings are published on the school’s website and listed on the marquee in the parking lot. Please get involved by volunteering and participating where you can. Stand up for the teachers, and children of those teachers, who are being targeted. Most of all, be mindful of the fact that most of us don’t have all of the information, and never will.

I leave you with the previous letter anonymously supported by many families: •••

Dear Fellow Parents and Community Members of Cold Spring School,

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to you today in hopes of gathering your names as a show of support for our incredible school, its teachers, and staff.

Most of you are aware of the well-deserved and fantastic reputation of Cold Spring School. Our little haven of education manages to outperform larger and better funded schools year upon year. It offers a profound educational founda-

10 MONTECITO JOURNAL

tion for our children, while instilling in them the basics of good citizenship. Yet, the school itself is just a building made up of bricks and mortar. The real success of Cold Spring is due to the teachers and staff who work there. The men and women who often spend more time with our children than their own. These people love our children and shed blood, sweat, and tears for them. They are giants among us.

These giants are under attack. By now, many of you have seen the article in the Santa Barbara Independent on March 29, 2021. How did it make you feel?

Were you surprised and angry that our teachers are feeling so stressed from the bullying caused by one parent/community member that they required medical attention? Are you upset that our school has had to pay a whole teacher’s salary to defend against the constant and frivolous litigation produced by this same person? This additional senseless expense could mean that there may be one less classroom that can be split next year. What about the fact that our administration has to waste countless hours of their time dealing with this nightmare and the constant and excessive requests for public and private information that is either confidential or has been disclosed? The school should be able to focus on our children during a public crisis, not on one person who has decided to target the school for their own vendetta! Personally, I am livid that my children are not getting the best education possible because one parent is having a tantrum.

I am angry, saddened, and concerned for our giants. The teachers and staff that we all love and appreciate need our support now more than ever.

Although that narrative is interesting, entertaining and presumably sells papers and gets clicks, it is also hurtful and grossly inaccurate.

I would like to show them my support and am asking you to do the same.

By signing this form, you are telling Cold Spring School teachers and staff that you believe in them. That you support them and appreciate them, especially during these difficult times. That you agree no one should have to withstand the bullying that has occurred and want it to stop. That you thank them for their hard work during this year and for doing their best in educating our dearest possessions. We are Cold Spring Strong.

In order to ensure this majority opinion would be published, we’ve purchased ad space. We love and support the teachers and want the baseless rumors, vexatious litigation, and attempt to rip apart the community to end.

With concern and love, Cold Spring Families, including: Julia Asher, Ann Pattison, Bill Asher, Kirsten Moore, Adriana Peña, Jim Bain, Lara Wooten, Erika Easter, Tricia Bergakker, Kelly Orwig, Kelly Pierce, Justin Pierce, Mathew Gradias, Jean Gradias, Chris Orwig, Mathew Gradias, Kirsten Moore, Elke Kane, Deann Zampelli, Jesse Wooten, Coral Godlis, Bryan Smith, JR McGinnis, Erin Duarte, Trevor Pattison, Zoe Copus, Jason Copus, Sunny Godlis, Malcolm Stevens, Jean Gradias, Zoe Stevens, Renee Dektor, Jesse Wheeler, Malcolm Stevens, Andrea Krautmann, Jay Krautmann, Kate Krautmann, Sam Krautmann, Jane Krautmann, Damien Krautmann, Crystal Jensen, Michellene Parker, Kristopher Parker, Sean Stevens, Kelly Smith, Jeremy Smith, Josh Kane, Linda Godlis, Adam Graham, Jessica Kasztelan, Cynthia Hawkes, Jen Miller, Tony Miller, Josh Kane, Patrick McNerney, Jennifer Fitch, Ryder McNerney, Kasen McNerney, Gavin Roy, Holly Kane, Justin Kane, Chrissy Snodgrass, Zoe Stevens, Rosey Bishop, Whitney Yadav, Iris L Ramirez, Carly Walters, Preston Walters, Harlow Walters, Hunter Walters, Shannon Montanaro, Jon Montanaro, Jordan Quivey, Ali Quivey, Mari Callahan, Jude Callahan, Alex Arconian, Jon Montanaro, Ashley Walmsley, Jesse Wheeler, David Bruemmer, Tricia Bergakker, Mike Snodgrass, Antoine Joulie-Mares, Ikon Joulie Mares, Angela Hueber, Pierre-Alain Hueber, Jeff Metcalfe, Edward Song, Susan Robinson, Jon Ohlgren, Greg Jensen, Jette Asher, Jette Mavris, Jane Asher, Kymberly L. Barlow, Jeremiah Barlow, Kanlaya Keyser, Alan Keyser, Angelina Keyser, Alan K Keyser, Alisa Keyser, Robert Brighton, Bonnie Brighton, Stephen Coetzer, Lynda Kest, Giovanni Vigna, Kimberly Bloom, Cara Christensen, Gary Fuller, Sonia Kermen, Elsha Narachi, Justin Sparks, Woody Sears, Makiko Zusho, Barbara Fuller, Christy Peterson, Aimee Roy, James Fuller, Bonnie Green, Patrick Cavanaugh, Janita Cavanaugh, Van Haas, Paul Arria, Paul Arria, Laurel Finster, Brian Finster, Michelle Kerwood, Monique Otero, Dan Otero, Barbara Srur, Marcel Srur, Taran Collis, Jonathan Micah Fitzgerald, Sascha Liebowitz, Stefanie Shuman, Craig Shuman, Robert Steinberg, Ashley Walmsley, Michelle Kerwood, Tamra Murphy, Lynn Barker, Amber Neely, Erin Duarte, Katie Osumi, Paul Darin, Tessa Darin , Kristen Riley, Eileen McQuade, Jim McQuade, Katie Szopa, Gabrielle Haas, Josiah Hamilton, Justine Hamilton, Claudia Jaco, Jack Larson, Nan Larson, A. Marcia, Michael Mavris, F. Bejar, Charie Skinnell, Ryan •MJ Skinnell, Miles Bramson, Cody Bramson

“The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.” – George Bernard Shaw

29 April – 6 May 2021

On the Water Front

by Bob Roebuck

Bob Roebuck is a former General Manager for the Montecito Water District

The Privatization of Our Water is a Bad Idea, as is Combining Districts

T

he Community Voices article in the April 15 edition of the Montecito Journal by Charles C. Read and Eileen White Read attempted to identify the motive for suggesting that the Montecito Water District (MWD) and Montecito Sanitary District (MSD) should merge.

However, it reminded me of what someone told me several years ago.

That person stated that they overheard a small group of people at the Birnam Wood Golf Club discussing the possibility of privatizing the operation of MWD and/or MSD. For clarification, privatizing a district transfers its operations from public to private control. A quick search of how to define privatization is as follows: “Proponents of privatization believe that private operations more efficiently deliver goods or services than public due to free market competition. It is argued that over time this will lead to lower prices and improved services.”

However, with water and sanitary districts, this philosophy is flawed because privatizing those services creates a monopoly rather than increased competition. Frequently it leads to permit violations and reduced levels of service without alleged cost reductions.

As past Water Resources Manager for the city of Santa Barbara and General Manager of the Montecito Water District, the decisions that my staff and I made were intended to be in the long-term interest of our customers. We were not motivated by increasing a company’s profit, but by providing the best possible service for those we serve. If the Board of Directors of the MWD or MSD decide to privatize their operations, the focus changes from public service to profit, despite the privatizing company’s assurance that their primary focus continues to be the customer and the product.

This can be a lucrative venture for a private company, as, in effect, they are given a contract to be a monopoly. They then make decisions to maximize profits which can include reducing maintenance activities, eliminating employees, and selecting less expensive materials or equipment that has a shorter service life.

These decisions move through the accounting ledger down to the bottom line as profit. The goals of providing high quality, reliable service, and a product that meets and exceeds 29 April – 6 May 2021

all permit requirements, is of lesser importance.

In the informal meeting I referenced earlier, privatizing the districts was represented as an economic opportunity with some benefit to those who contribute to electing a new slate of Directors. Perhaps there is no connection between that meeting and the large sums of money that were contributed to electing new majorities on both the MWD and MSD boards.

However, usually in district elections, there are little or no contributions, and incumbents are normally re-elected unchallenged. Directors receive little financial compensation to serve on the board despite the fact that they invest significant time and effort in discharging their duties and responsibilities.

Specializing in Fine Homes • Concept to Completion • Exceptional Home Design • Board of Architectural Reviews

If the Board of Directors of the MWD or MSD decide to privatize their operations, the focus changes from public service to profit, despite the privatizing company’s assurance that their primary focus continues to be the customer and the product.

My hope is that the new directors on both boards recognize that there is no benefit to combining the districts. MWD and MSD operate as individual legal entities under authority of the State of California. The permit for each agency is issued by a separate state agency and is distinct due to the nature of their business.

Their employees are required to have education, experience, and be tested and certified for their respective disciplines which are very different in nature. Combining the districts is a bad idea with no perceived value.

If it ain’t broke — don’t fix it!

Last, my personal observation of the MWD Board of Directors is that they are qualified, hard-working, and appear dedicated to serving Montecito and its water customers. I find it hard to believe that they would support combining the two districts or entertain the idea of privatization.

•MJ

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Village Beat

by Kelly Mahan Herrick Kelly has been editor at large for the Journal since 2007, reporting on news in Montecito and beyond. She is also a licensed realtor with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, and is a member of Montecito and Santa Barbara’s top real estate team, Calcagno & Hamilton.

Read ‘N Post Closes

J

an Hendrickson, longtime owner-manager of Read ‘N Post in Montecito, was honored by staff members and friends during the store’s last day on Saturday, April 24. Jan was presented with two books of pictures and handwritten messages from dozens of customers and others, created by Read ‘N Post staff member Carol Finston.

The beloved store was open for nearly 40 years, and in Montecito Country Mart for the last nine years.

The post office will continue to operate while a new store, The Read ‘N Post team: Jackie Terry, John Devereaux, Gerardo Montecito Mercantile, gets ready Marcos Ocampo, Eva Bartha, Jan Hendrickson, Carol Finston, and Robin Machado (photo by Blake DeVine of KEYT) to open this summer.

Montecito Rotary’s “Back 2 School” Fundraiser

The Rotary Club of Montecito is virtually hosting its annual “Back 2 School” fundraising event for Santa Barbara City College student scholarships on Wednesday, May 19, 2021 at 4 pm.

Providing funding to the Santa Barbara City College for more than 25 years, the Rotary Club of Montecito continues to organize around raising money for scholarships allocated to students pursuing two-year degrees in career technical and vocational fields. This year’s event is centered upon different “sponsorship levels” of varying amounts that include opportunities for exposure of people or businesses that choose to donate. Featured activities include a silent auction and special entertainment for attendees.

In partnership with the SBCC Foundation, the Rotary Club of Montecito and its donors have awarded over $100,000 to high-achieving students that have

demonstrated academic excellence and community involvement. The scholarships for the Club’s fundraiser are awarded to a collection of students, focusing on a wide array of interests, like medical studies, multimedia arts and technology, film production, early childhood education, marine diving technology, business entrepreneurship, and automotive technology. Recipients of the SBBC Foundation scholarships are nominated by SBCC Career Technical Education Program faculty members.

“Service above self,” is the motto of Rotary International and the foundation of the work done by Montecito chapter. Founded in 1953, the Rotary Club of Montecito regularly serves as an example of the impact countywide financial assistance can have on a community and the members that live there. The club regularly participates in volunteer activities in Montecito, the surrounding community, and in countries around the world.

Rotary is a network of more than 35,000 clubs in almost every country. The organization has 1.2 million members who come together to complete service projects to make positive, lasting change in their communities.

For more information about the Rotary Club of Montecito and to attend the “Back 2 School” fundraising event, visit www.MontecitoRotary.org.

Montecito Author Releases New Poetry Book

OPEN, the newest book of poetry by Susan Read Cronin, explores issues of love, life, death, and family. Sometimes written as seen through the eyes of a child, Cronin’s poems remind the reader of what it is like to try to make sense of the world around us. Weaving steadily between dark and light, her poems parry with their swords of wit and thrust with humor and twists.

OPEN is an approachable collection of well-wrought poems destined to be pulled off the bookshelf again and again.

Cronin grew up on the shores of Long Island and in the hills of Vermont. She graduated from The Madeira School and went on to complete a degree in English at Williams College. She was Montecito’s Susan Read Cronin has published her newthe founder, designer, and mail-order est poetry book, OPEN, available at Tecolote Book Shop purveyor of Suzo costumes for chil- in the upper village dren, and is a photographer, bronze casting sculptor, and poet.

For the past twenty years, she has served on the board of Vermont Studio Center. She is the author of Bronze Casting in a Nutshell, and a poetry chapbook, Notices. She currently resides in Montecito.

Copies of her books may be purchased locally at Tecolote Book Shop or online at www.susanreadcronin.com.

•MJ

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Seen Around Town

by Lynda Millner

Carpinteria Girls Inc.

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Our Mission...

is to help our neighbors with buying and selling their homes by offering our knowledge, experience, and expertise in an approachable and reliable manner.

From connecting you to others in the community to supporting you in selling or buying your next home, our core values of honesty, integrity, teamwork, and impeccable customer service drive everything we do.

irls Inc. of Carpinteria recently held its annual Women of Inspiration luncheon via Zoom.

The luncheon is always inspirational to those of us who attend. Who doesn’t like to hear success stories?

This year the keynote speaker was health guru and motivational coach Jenny Schatzle. She is the creator of Bond Fitness (formerly the Jenny Schatzle Program). Jenny’s motivation to change the conversation on body image, self-worth, and movement came about because of her own battle with self-esteem growing up. She hated the way she looked and kept seeking validation that would never make her happy. Next came accepting and loving herself first.

Jenny has a fitness facility in Santa Barbara that helps people around the world. Her philosophy is as much about health and wellness as about negative behavior that is so limiting.

Girls Inc. of Carpinteria executive director Jamie Collins said this: “A key part of our mission at Girls Inc. is to provide girls with opportunities to build their confidence and develop leadership skills in order to be effective leaders in their communities – and we know that confidence to lead rests on the foundation of their well-being. Jenny’s holistic approach to health and her passion for encouraging a positive self-image make her a role model for all girls. We’re proud to have Jenny share her inspirational story at this year’s luncheon.”

Jenny likens her organization to Girls Inc. which is focused on changing the conversation for young girls.

She told the girls how it allowed her to discover that she was “Strong, Smart, and Bold” and how they could do the same.

Among her credits, Schatzle has

We sell more homes than anyone else in Santa Barbara and Montecito, year over year.

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Girls Inc. keynote speaker Jenny Schatzle at the Women of Inspiration luncheon Ms Millner is the author of The Magic Makeover, Tricks for Looking Thinner, Younger and More Confident – Instantly.

If you have an event that belongs in this column, you are invited to call Lynda at 969-6164.

delivered two TEDx talks and been featured in dozens of media outlets worldwide. She was named Female Business Owner of the Year in 2015 by the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO). Her latest book was released last year called Breaking the Cycle.

Also honored at the virtual luncheon were the Women of Inspiration 2021 awards to Nirasha Rodriguez,

Seen Page 454 Women of Inspiration Junior Honorees Laura Flores and Isa Alarcon

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• The Voice of the Village •

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The cast of Into the Woods (photo by Priscilla)

ubbly Janet Adderley, founder of the Santa Barbara Youth Ensemble Theatre, was getting back to her roots when the talented young members staged the Stephen Sondheim musical, Into the Woods, at the Montecito estate of Terry Pillow, former CEO of Tommy Bahama, and his wife, Kelley, whose 14-year-old son, Sam, was in the thoroughly entertaining show.

Under normal circumstances the production would have been staged at the Lobero, but given the pandemic, Janet initially hoped to stage the production at the Santa Barbara Courthouse Sunken Gardens but tells me that just a month before the show dates the board overseeing the venue would only allow the locale for religious services.

Fortunately, the Pillows, who had made their estate available for rehearsals, stepped up and said: “Let’s just do the performances here!”

Adding to the show was a film crew making a documentary on Jack Dylan Grazer, nephew of Oscar winning Hollywood producer Brian Grazer, 69, and partner with Ron Howard in Imagine Entertainment, whose films, including Splash, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, and Frost/Nixon, have grossed more than $15 billion.

Jack, who played Cinderella’s prince and the wolf in the energized show, has been part of Janet’s ensemble since the age of six and created the Jack “All gardeners know better than other gardeners.” - Chinese Proverb

Dylan Scholarship Fund, which sponsors a scholarship for two students to the youth ensemble theatre annually.

He is now launching his own production company with the distribution of the documentary, which he hopes to show at various films fests, including Santa Barbara in due course.

After the show Jack, 17, headed to Atlanta, for a three-and-a-half-month film shoot in Shazam 2, having starred in the 2019 DC Comics original.

Adding to the celebrity factor was James Corden, the English host of CBS’s Late Late Show since 2015, who watched his son Max, 10, play Jack of beanstalk fame with his wife, Julia, and daughter, Carey, 6.

Interestingly enough James, 42, who hosted the Tony Awards in 2016 and 2019, and the Grammys in 2017 and 2018, starred in Rob Marshall’s 2014 Disney film version of the musical — based on the intertwined plots of several Brothers Grimm fairy tales — with Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, Johnny Depp, and Christine Baranski, as the baker, while also narrating.

Max was also meant to star as Gavroche in SBYET’s production of Les Misérables two years ago, but had to pull at the last minute when he had to wing to London with his parents for the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

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Miscellany Page 514 29 April – 6 May 2021

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29 April – 6 May 2021

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17

On Art

by Zachary Rosen

No Need to Whisper, This Art Installation Hits Close to the Heart

W

ith vaccines becoming more available and establishments reopening, it seems that a sense of normalcy might possibly be on the horizon. The recent changes offer a chance to safely get out and see some entertainment that doesn’t take place over Zoom or in the context of one’s own home.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara (MCASB) is set to reopen as well, and its newest installation unexpectedly touches on what we’ve all been experiencing. The exhibit, Shana Moulton: The Invisible Seventh is the Mystic Column, is an extension of Shana Moulton’s ongoing series, “Whispering Pines,” named after the mobile home park her parents ran when she was a child.

“Whispering Pines” originated in 2002 and features the episodic video installations and performances that feature Shana’s alter ego, Cynthia, as she explores ideas of self-help and consumerism while seeking the answer to

the eternal question: “What is wrong with me?”

MCASB Curator Alexandra Terry had been following Shana’s work for years and when Shana moved to the area to become an associate professor at UCSB, Alexandra was ecstatic for the opportunity to work with her. Of course, the pandemic changed everything over the course of their year and a half of discussions around the exhibit, including the meaning behind the exhibit.

In the past, Cynthia has often been viewed as a hypochondriac filled with anxieties that may seem extreme or absurd. In the context of the quarantine, the isolation and fear that Cynthia expresses has a more relatable message. Alexandra says, “One thing I love about the timing, the fact that we’re able to open now, particularly in this video, she’s really exploring a lot of what we’ve all gone through: anxiety, isolation, fear of something happening to you, but not quite knowing.”

The Pink Tower is inspired by the story of Saint Barbara and was filmed at the UCSB campus

The installation is projected onto archways and walls and features Cynthia practicing breathing patterns and exercises in isolation, while also interacting with Alexa and different sculptural objects made from home items that resemble various cleaning

and homeopathic tools. The art videos feature a characteristic tonguein-cheek tone that is almost palpable with low-tech effects and editing that match the legitimacy of the different gadgets and solutions she explores. As she uses a slew of homespun devices and self-help healing, Cynthia is an exploration of oneself, both in the confidence and doubts in one’s own questions and answers.

The Invisible Seventh is the Mystic Column is the newest piece of work, however the exhibit also features two of her past installations along with several sculptural works from her previous performances.

In the museum entrance stands The Pink Tower (2019) which tells the story of our town’s namesake saint.

The story of Saint Barbara, which also inspired the tale of Rapunzel, tells of a daughter who was locked in a tower by her father. During the story she has three windows installed in a new bath house being built to represent the holy trinity and her faith. Shana pulls from this iconography with three monitors stacked on top of one another to form a tower painted in flamingo pink, matching the exhibit’s color palette, which can best be described as trailer park pastel. Shana shot the content around the UCSB campus and the viewer will

On Art Page 344

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19

Stories Matter

by Leslie Zemeckis

Finding Hope in the Dark

D

eep in the sewers of Kraków dwell humans, hiding, starving, barely surviving. NY Times bestselling author Pam Jenoff (The Lost Girls of Paris) has finished another taut historical fiction. Imagine living in darkness and filth for over a year?

That is the premise – based on true events – of The Woman with the Blue Star by Pam Jenoff. Set in Kraków in 1942, Sadie is eighteen years old, on the verge of womanhood. Instead of parties and dances, she is forced to hide beneath the city to escape the liquidation of the Jewish ghettos where she and her family have been living.

Sadie forges an improbable friendship with Ella, an affluent Catholic girl who happens upon a pale face staring up from a sewage grate. Ella begins to sneak her food, an act not without its dangers, as Ella’s stepmother is sleeping with the enemy. For Sadie, the friendship that grows is a physical as well as mental lifeline. Sadie suffers one heartbreak after another, nearly giving up hope of ever living above ground, when she is told, “Find the things that give you hope and cling to them.”

Jenoff paints a vivid picture of Kraków under Nazi rule and the idea that bravery and courage is doing what is right, that we go on for others, when we

Matthew Pifer, MD

cannot go on for ourselves. Though the sewers are quite literally a metaphor for the dark heart of humanity, the reader is left with hope, as the world is full of people willing to sacrifice for others. The surprise ending will leave readers reaching for their Kleenex in this emotional, riveting novel.

Jenoff told me she was inspired by the real survivors of the sewers and their finding “human connection in such isolating circumstances.” Relevant today.

For more tales of survivors, visit the Jewish Federation of Santa Barbara.

Sadie suffers one heartbreak after another, nearly giving up hope of ever living above ground, when she is told, “Find the things that give you hope and cling to them.”

More stories: We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker is set in a small California town. Prepare to fall in love with the local police chief Walk; Star, a drug-addicted beauty struggling with memories of her sister Sissy’s tragic death; and Star’s children, fragile five-year-old Robin and thirteen-year-old Duchess, a self-proclaimed “outlaw.” When Vincent, the man who killed Sissy, is released from prison and returns to town, he sets off a chain of events that will lead to another death, arson, and secrets bubbling to the surface. You see, Star is in love with Vincent. And Walk was the best friend who turned him in thirty years ago. This is a thriller that will keep you turning pages until the heart-wrenching end.

The much-anticipated release of Chanel Cleeton’s The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba is a historical novel based on real-life Cuban rebel, Evangelina Cisneros, who in the late 1800s was unjustly imprisoned in a Havana jail, and made a daring escape with the help of a William Hearst newspaper man. Cleeton weaves the story of a girl reporter, Evangelina, and a secret courier for the revolutionaries in this nail-biting story that helped compel American into the Spanish Cuban war.

•MJ

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Darenysus | Xander Wright | VADA Senior

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WHERE

Basqiatite | India Knox Kelly | VADA Senior

May 1-12

EARLY BIRDIES $250 Front of line pass, first come, first served.

You will be assigned a two-hour window to choose the art piece at vadasbhs.org

Ominous | Mila Speer | VADA Senior

WHEN

GOTTA HAVE IT $500 and select your favorite piece immediately!

Social Distance | Frankie Barana Mora | VADA Senior

VADA Draw 2021: 12 Days of the Draw

Secure your place in line to select your favorite artpiece by reserving your ticket today!

Basqiatite | India Knox Kelly | VADA Senior

Ominous | Mila Speer | VADA Senior

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ior

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WHEN

• Reaching every student - making sure they had access to art WHERE ART LOVER $100 supplies, whether that meant shipping materials to homes or First come, first served. You will be An Online hand-deliveringassigned them a two-hour window to Gallery

artand piece at vadasbhs.org We’re so grateful to ourchoose donors,the past present, and we need your support moving forward so we can continue our work with Santa Barbara youth.

We hope you’ll join us in this year’s VADA Draw or consider making Scan the QR code for a a donation directly to VADA.

direct link or go to

vadasbhs.org/vada-draw-2021 Daniel Barnett, VADA Program Director

SPECIAL THANKS TO • The Voice of the Village •

DRAW COMMITTEE co-chairs JENN MISLANG CECILIA MARTINI-MUTH

Consumed by Shadows Jackson Scranton VADA Senior

MONTECITO JOURNAL

21

Hot Topics

with Montecito Fire’s Christina Favuzzi

It’s Personal: Hometown Girl Now Charged with Informing Area About Fire Safety

A

s spring nears an end, many of us look forward to warmer weather, backyard barbeques, lazy beach days, and the innate relaxation of the summer season. Yet, the transition to summer comes with a layer of uneasy anticipation.

After studying fuel conditions and weather predictions, the local fire jurisdictions of Santa Barbara County have declared High Fire Season in our region will begin May 3.

The 2021 fire season will start two weeks earlier than in 2020. By this time last year, Montecito had received more than 17 inches of rain, according to the Santa Barbara County Flood Control District.

That’s just shy of average for our area.

So far in 2021, our community has received about 10 inches of rain making this one of the driest rainfall years in the last decade.

My name is Christina Favuzzi, and fire season is personal for me. I recently joined Montecito Fire as the department’s first public information officer. I am incredibly honored to serve as a liaison to our media partners, participate in education programs, and provide crucial information to our community.

The role of public information officer was created as the result of the community’s request for better access to educational resources on emergency preparedness, response, and recovery. Additionally, the crises of the Thomas Fire and Debris Flow highlighted the need for a dedicated information professional.

New Summer Styles are Here!

I’m stepping into this role with a deep connection to the South Coast, the fire service, and communicating with community members.

I was born and raised in Santa Barbara. As I reflect on my memories of growing up on the South Coast, my childhood is punctuated by wildfires: Zaca, Gap, Tea, Jesusita, and White, to name a few.

The eerie orange glow of the sky at dusk as a wildfire burns in the front county, the feeling of warm sundowners, peppery ash falling on my skin, emergency alerts blaring across the TV screen, donning an N-95 mask to avoid breathing in smoke — these memories are hallmarks of a Santa Barbara County summer.

The impact of fire season manifested in a new way in my adult life. While in college at Cal Poly studying broadcast journalism, I interned at various news outlets and quickly understood that drought conditions would essentially be a perennial news story across California.

In one weekend as a rookie TV news reporter, my story for Saturday was about installing greywater systems in your home, and on Sunday I was driving dirt roads at Lake Nacimiento covering a new wildfire.

What has stood out to me most thus far is not only the department’s commitment to prepare our community for fire season, but the motivation of residents to join us in aggressive and effective prevention efforts.

Early on in my journalism career, I was compelled to learn as much as possible about the fire service, emergency management, the status of our state water supply, and how to prepare people for this dangerous reality of life in our beautiful Golden State.

Summer after summer, I found myself reporting on wildfires along the South Coast: Solimar, Sherpa, Whittier, and of course, the Thomas Fire. Those assignments were when I felt my role as a journalist mattered most. People’s lives were at stake. On live TV, I had the opportunity to talk to my hometown and relay the message of incident commanders and firefighters on the line.

Also, on the line at many of those fires was my now-husband, a Paso Robles City firefighter. We’ve been through five fire seasons together. A week into life as newlyweds, he was assigned to a fire up north for nearly a month. It’s a familiar routine for us. Yet, it doesn’t make it any easier not to miss him and worry.

I’ve been on the job with Montecito Fire for less than a month and I’m on a mission to learn as much as possible before our inevitable first fire of the season.

What has stood out to me most thus far is not only the department’s commitment to prepare our community for fire season, but the motivation of residents to join us in aggressive and effective prevention efforts.

Once a month, I’ll be sharing stories about your Montecito Fire Department and what we are doing to protect, prepare, and care for our community. On behalf of Montecito Fire, I want to thank the Montecito Journal for giving us this space to talk with our community. I welcome your ideas, questions, and suggestions to guide the content of this column and keep you informed.

I may have a new job title, but I will always have the heart of a journalist, storyteller, and community advocate. For me, it’s personal.

Christina Favuzzi is the public information officer for Montecito Fire

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• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

23

Perspectives

by Rinaldo S. Brutoco

Rinaldo S. Brutoco is the Founding President and CEO of the Santa Barbara-based World Business Academy and a co-founder of JUST Capital. He’s a serial entrepreneur, executive, author, radio host, and futurist who’s published on the role of business in relation to pressing moral, environmental, and social concerns for over 35 years

Earth Day: Backwards and Forwards

Looking at the ebbs and flows of environmental wins

W

ow! Hard to believe we’ve celebrated 51 Earth Days and the environmental battles we are fighting are worse than ever. Looking back, we delight in the history of Earth Day, in part catalyzed by the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969. Earth Day was officially launched in 1970 by Senator Gaylord Nelson and Congressman Pete McCloskey, supported by National Director Denis Hayes managing a national staff. McCloskey’s involvement was lucky for Santa Barbara, as that brought our own environmental pioneer Marc McGinnes to town. Thank you once again Marc for the seminal role you played in co-creating the National Environmental Policy Act, and for helping launch all things environmental here, from launching the first-ever environmental studies program right here at UCSB as your role in co-creating the national environmental agenda that led to the existence of Earth Day. Originally planned as a nationwide environmental “teach-in,” the idea proved unworkable at that time for a variety of good reasons. It was first dubbed as “Environmental Rights Day” in honor of the first anniversary of the Santa Barbara blowout, and set for a proclamation of the Declaration of Environmental Rights on January 28, 1970. Fortunately, Denis and his team regrouped, renamed the effort “Earth Day,” and went on to successfully organize 20 million people taking to the streets on April 22, 1970 – the largest single-day protest in American history.

The biosphere had found its champions, including the United Auto Workers (Denis said Earth Day would not have happened if not for their financial and organizational support), and all we needed to do was follow their lead. It was clear we needed to heal the environmental damage we had done and restore the biosphere to a balance healthy for plants, animals, and humans! What could go wrong with such an energetic, thoughtful, well-organized effort? The answer: everything.

Fossil fuel companies saw the threat and dramatically upped their financial support for politicians who could slow down the juggernaut they saw jeopardizing their profits. Sad to say, many in the general business community supported this environmental “push back,” working to impede government regulations that might also affect, in ways then unseen, the profits gained from raping the planet. With politicians and business thus arrayed against further environmental progress, we spiraled from a damaged biosphere to one so destabilized that it likely will not continue supporting human civilization as we know it by mid-century.

That’s a tragically wide miss of the lofty goals set in 1970, under Republican President Nixon. It wasn’t a partisan issue then, but it has become one today precisely because the politics of making Earth a safe place to live has become a “wedge” issue. Go figure. You might think only the most craven politicians would be willing to send humanity to sink in a sea of climate change destruction in pursuit of a “wedge issue” that would appeal to a shrinking base. And you’d be right. Sadly, that 35 percent of the political base has been enough, up until now, to arrest serious attempts at restoring the biosphere to health.

Fortunately, the general business community has seen where this insanity leads and has embraced biosphere restoration and relief from climate change as one of its very highest goals. So has the Pentagon. For several years now the U.S. Pentagon has listed climate change as the number one security threat facing our nation.

Looking back, according to ABC News, one billion people participated in Earth Day actions on the 40th anniversary in 2010. In April 2020, as the world grappled with the initial months of lockdowns, at least 100 million people in 192 countries took action to honor Earth Day’s 50th anniversary. As the Union of Concerned Scientists observed, this made it the largest online mass mobilization in history. Even President Biden has become a climate champion and is finally telling the truth. He observed at last week’s Leaders Summit on Climate, that the evidence is clear; the science is irrefutable; no nation on earth can avoid the consequences of a planet rapidly becoming unlivable for humans.

If you believe the largest collection of climate scientists in the world (the 2,000 folks of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or “IPCC”) as any rational person should, we have less than nine years to turn climate change around or suffer incalculable consequences. Just last week the massive reinsur-

24 MONTECITO JOURNAL

Collaborating for Conservation A coalition of conservationists purchase and protect Belize Maya Forest

A

large section of the tropical forest that spans Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala was previously owned by the Forestland Group, a U.S. logging company, but now, a coalition of conservation organizations have purchased the 236,000-acre area to save it from deforestation.

Organizations backing the purchase include the Nature Conservancy, Rainforest Trust, World Land Trust, University of Belize Environmental Research Institute, and Wildlife Conservation Society. Elma Kay, Science Director at the University of Belize Environmental Research Institute, told The Guardian that if it hadn’t gone to conservationists, this invaluable piece of rainforest would have likely been bought for “large-scale, industrial, mechanized, mono-crop agriculture,” but now, “the forest will… be protected in perpetuity.”

Dubbed the ‘Belize Maya Forest’ by its new owners, the area is a key biodiversity region that is home to five species of wild cat, as well as spider monkeys, howler monkeys, and hundreds of bird species. Julie Robinson, Belize program director for the Nature Conservancy, says that “Forests like these hold vast amounts of carbon,” so it is critical to protect them to try to reverse the unsettling climate trend the world is on.

However, the protection of the Belize Maya Forest conserves more than just the splendor of nature. It also allows for local communities to reconnect with the land while providing opportunities for generated income.

According to Kay, they’re “engaging all the different communities to participate in a conservation action plan. Most livelihoods are based on agriculture.

One objective will be making agricultural livelihoods more sustainable, so there will be more climate-smart agriculture, agroforestry systems, systems that are restorative for soils.” Other collaborative plans will likely include low-impact eco-tourism and scientific research.

Philanthropic buying of land for protection offers a solution for habitat loss and protects biodiversity. It’s a way for motivated individuals and organizations to take tangible action on conservation. That said, it is important for organizations that purchase land for conservation to collaborate with local communities. The coalition behind the Belize Maya Forest hopes to set an example for future nature conservationists to follow.

•MJ ance company, Swiss Re, warned up to approximately $25 trillion would be lost to the world economy by mid-century if major corrective action isn’t immediately taken. That’s something to think about.

Unfortunately, that number is too optimistic – the damage will be greater, and it is arriving already. Climate change destruction is all around us from the forest fires and droughts of California to the massive tornadoes hitting the Gulf States and the Southeast to the hurricanes afflicting Florida. Each year the average global temperature goes up, the billions lost in destruction goes up. The loss of life due to climate change also mounts each year. In fact, international observers believe there were over 6,000,000 climate refugees last year alone with heavy flows toward Europe continuing from Africa, and increased flows to the U.S. from Central America.

If you want to look forward to the future, look at Saudi Arabia! Yes, Saudi Arabia has formally announced that it must develop a new fuel commodity to replace all the oil they acknowledge will be less in demand. Looking forward, they know the future is in green hydrogen. The Saudi government has announced the creation of a new city in the desert, Neom, which is being constructed solely to build and manage a remarkable new green hydrogen production facility to produce 650 metric tonnes of liquid hydrogen a day from a massive solar power array being constructed as we write. The project is a joint venture of Air Products of Pennsylvania, the Saudi government, and a company funded by the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund (ACWA Power). The arrangement also provides for the green fuel produced there to be shipped to Hamburg, Germany for European distribution.

Stay tuned next week to read more about green hydrogen, all the plants being built or under active discussion around the world, and why other states in the Middle East also believe the time is NOW to convert power off fossil fuel and deliver the Hydrogen Economy. Amazing!

If you want to read more good news, go to Earthday.org.

•MJ

“I don’t like formal gardens. I like wild nature. It’s just the wilderness instinct in me, I guess.” – Walt Disney

29 April – 6 May 2021

Letters (Continued from page 8) talk – but you certainly ain’t walkin’ the walk.

Unless the Montecito Association can put forward clearly defined solutions to the problem, then there is no rhyme or reason to halt legislation that would open the door for an opportunity to obtain equitable housing for those who have chosen a different life path than their wealthier neighbors. Without presenting a solution, the Montecito Association and all who work against these bills, are part of the problem. The opposition to SB-9 and SB-10, by one of my heroes, Hannah-Beth Jackson, doesn’t make me angry, but it makes me very, very sad.

Gail Steinbeck

Polo in Paradise

It was informative to read the lead item of the Montecito Miscellany column (April 22-29) that reported on polo games resuming for members to attend this season. It mentions this year as the 110th official anniversary of the polo season. That date is from Santa Barbara Polo Club becoming affiliated with the U.S. Polo Association in 1911.

There is also another anniversary this year that specifically relates to the first polo game to be played at the Carpinteria club location. It was 95 years ago that Fleischmann Field was inaugurated with a game played in February 1926, when the visiting Midwick team from Alhambra roundly trounced the Santa Barbara team, 10-1.

Next door to Major Max Fleischmann’s field, two additional polo fields were being constructed.

After spending $200,000, the owner moved to Florida and Fleischmann purchased the incomplete fields (2 & 3) in 1929 on the adjoining 40-acre parcel and began planting “stollons” of Bermuda grass. That is how the club had three playing fields.

It was 85 years ago in 1936 that Major Fleischmann divided his great polo complex into 10 parcels, selling each for the sum of $10. A small group of people purchased the parcels and from among their ranks, John de Blois Wack (1900-1992), who had a strong desire

to perpetuate polo and safeguard the facility, assumed presidency of the club and hired Harry East, a 7-goal player from England, as manager.

Polo has a long tradition in Santa Barbara when men of Santa Barbara Country Club diligently prepared for their first game on May 19, 1899 at the Agricultural Park. Santa Barbara Polo Club is a member of the USPA Pacific Coast circuit that represents the state of California and is by far the largest circuit membership. Polo in Paradise continues!

Nigel Gallimore

Recycling Pays for Itself

I’m enjoying the continuing storyline about the search for Montecito’s wastewater solutions.

All-important systemic change only seems to “cost” more than the crappy and damaging status quo.

In the long term, recycling pays for itself and is a win for the environment and our water bills, and our souls.

I’d absolutely pay a few dollars more if I knew that I was healing the environment (and, of course, our nearby ocean-scape).

Costly-schmostly. That doesn’t fly.

We don’t live in a third-world neighborhood.

P.S. Lime creeping up the cemetery’s tombstones? Lime, schmime. Take a scraper and voilá, no lime. Menial therapy for the bereaved.

Just sayin’.

LeeAnn Morgan

neighborhood.

He came up with the ingenious idea to design and build a debris basin where the seven Randall Road homes were destroyed. I know this for a fact, because I was present when Curtis thought of the idea and showed it to me, more or less on the back of a napkin.

I then watched him hire a geomorphologist to prove it would work and tirelessly lobby community members, county officials, and FEMA to approve and fund the project. Curtis Skene’s idea and implementation will safeguard all the properties downstream of the new debris basin.

Curtis now heads a nonprofit, Partners in Community Renewal, that is studying how to develop a similar debris basin upstream of homes along Montecito Creek.

Steven A. Blum

No More Backseat Drivers

Gene Simmons from the rock band Kiss was asked what he thought the secret to a long marriage was.

One of his answers was one I’ve never heard before.

He said not driving in the same car together.

As this is not practical for most of us as we often go to the same place and

same time together.

I do however agree with his premise with one caveat.

Only one person should be driving at once.

Other than imminent danger, the passenger, be it the wife or the husband, should refrain from telling the other what to do while driving.

Driving for the most part is a freedom to move about as we please.

Being unnerved from other drivers is to be expected but being unnerved from the inside of the car might be just as bad or possibly worse.

Steve Marko Santa Barbara •MJ

Real Estate Appraiser Greg Brashears California Certified General Appraiser Serving Santa Barbara County and beyond for 30 years V 805-650-9340 EM gb@gregbrashears.com

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

I read your April 22-29 cover story about the Randall Road Debris Basin with interest, not just because I live very close to the site, but also because I was present when the idea to build it was born. So, I’d like to offer a correction for the record.

Curtis Skene, our neighbor on East Valley Lane who is depicted in the article, barely survived the debris flow, shielded by a 100-year-old olive tree as his house washed away.

In the aftermath, Curtis attended community meetings and resolved to do something constructive for his

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Virtual Events

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Yo-Yo Ma & Kathryn Stott Songs of Comfort and Hope

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In Passing

George E. Handtmann, III (1952 – 2021)

G

Penelope Ruth Williams

P

enelope Ruth Williams, daughter of Virginia Lee Mosher and Arthur Powell Williams, has passed away. A long-time resident of Montecito, Penelope owned and operated some of Santa Barbara’s most well-known and renowned restaurants, including Penelope’s which drew national acclaim and was voted one of California’s top fifty restaurants, The Harbor Restaurant located on Stearns Wharf, the bar-lounge Pepper’s, and the pub Gallagher’s, both on State Street. After many years in the business, Penelope transitioned to a career in real estate during which she oversaw the sale of several of Montecito’s premier estates.

Penelope is the granddaughter of oil pioneer Samuel Barlow Mosher, founder of Signal Oil Company and owner of Dos Pueblos Ranch, and later, the Dos Pueblos Orchid Company, which by the 1960s became known as the world’s largest orchid and carnation farm.

Penelope had a charitable nature and gave many efforts to support the Santa Barbara Zoo where she served on the Board of Directors and oversaw the planning of their annual Zoofari Ball.

Penelope has spent the last two decades living in Costa Rica, where she again embarked on a career in real estate while remaining closely tied to the restaurant community in the small enclave of her home base of Potrero/ Flamingo.

Penelope is survived by her three siblings, Samuel, Megan, and Barlow, and her three children, Capucine Hoybach, Chelsey Santry, and Courtney Matthews.

•MJ 29 April – 6 May 2021

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eorge E. Handtmann, III caring husband, beloved father, loving brother, uncle, friend, and philanthropist, passed away of natural causes at his home in Carpinteria, California on April 10, 2021. He is survived by wife, Viviana Handtmann; son, Hank Handtmann; daughter, Kendle Evans and son-in-law Trey Evans and their two children Carter and Anderson; and daughter, Hilary Miller and her son Kegan.

George Handtmann started his professional career at Trust Company of the West before joining Provident Investment Counsel in Pasadena, California. At Provident, he served in various leadership positions for over two decades, including terms as Chief Investment Officer and Executive Managing Director.

George was born in Chicago, Illinois where he grew up with loving sisters, Kyle Pinta and Carol Ziverts. George also treasured his close relationships with sisters Elizabeth Dvorak, Kathryn Schumacher and brothers Charles and Richard Schumacher (deceased) who are the children of his late beloved stepmother Patricia Handtmann.

George earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and an MBA degree from the University of Southern California (USC) in 1974 and 1976, respectively.

While at USC, George was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity and greatly admired his lifelong Trojan Family who showed him the beautiful Californian lifestyle he so dearly loved.

During his career and in retirement, George dedicated time to supporting his Alma Mater through charitable giving and serving as a Board of Directors of USC Associates and on the USC Undergraduate Admission and Financial Aid Committee, in addition to guest lecturing at the USC’s Marshall School of Business and Westmont College in Montecito, California. As a supporter of the fine arts, George and first wife Janet L. Handtmann and mother of his three children, established the Handtmann

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George was passionate about helping troubled youth through his leadership as the California Board Chairman of the Phoenix House from 2003-2007.

Throughout life, George was personally devoted to the game of golf as a member of the USC golf team, and later in life as a member of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews and one of the founding members of The Quarry at La Quinta.

He also enjoyed long time memberships at the Valley Club of Montecito and Los Angeles CC. George accredited the game of golf for bringing him to Southern California where he met cherished friends, raised his family, had a successful career, enjoyed the inspiring beach landscapes, and played the game he loved with dear friends and family until his passing.

A celebration of life will be held in George’s honor at a future date in Santa Barbara, California. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations in George Handtmann’s name be made to St. Jude Children’s Hospital.

•MJ

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29

On Entertainment

by Steven Libowitz

‘Gone and Mostly Forgotten’: Essays Keep Memories of LittleKnown Santa Barbara Authors Alive

S

hortly after moving to Santa Barbara more than four decades ago, Steven Gilbar found he spent a lot of his off hours from his day job as an attorney doing things that are all about authors and writers. An avid reader, Gilbar has also published more than 20 books over the course of his writing career, nearly all of them dealing with his favorite subject: books, authors, writers, and other literary matters.

Sample titles include Good Books: A Book Lover’s Companion, The Book Book: A Compendium of Lists, Steven Gilbar has penned a plethora of books on little-known authors, including his latest, Published & Perished: Some Forgotten Santa Barbara Quizzes, & Trivia About Writers Remembered Books, and The Open Door: When Writers First Learned to Read.

A few of his works revolved not only around writers, but also his second favorite subject: Santa Barbara’s literary world. Such was the case with Literary Santa Barbara: Between Great Mountains and a Great Sea, one of his first non-anthologies, which was co-written with Dean Stewart, a journalist with the News and Review, a precursor to the Independent. The 1998 book attempted to cover the waterfront of the local literary history, which turned out to be a lot richer than a lot of folks might have realized.

“It took many, many years, and it wasn’t until after it came out that we realized we had been sort of foolish to do a book with totally no commercial possibilities,” Gilbar recalled. “With that much time, we could have written it about L.A. or New York, and have a big audience. But at least we were named Local Heroes!”

Gilbar’s latest, Published & Perished: Some Forgotten Santa Barbara Writers Remembered, is a sort-of sequel to that book, a collection of new essays that fills in the spaces cracked open by the original research at the end of last century, and attempts to advocate for, or at least visit with, some of the lesser-known writers who either called Santa Barbara home at one point in their lives, or passed through in a significant way.

The advances in online searching made the work possible, said Gilbar, whose adoration of authors and words led him to create Speaking of Stories, the series where actors read short literary pieces aloud in front of audiences, back in the mid-1990s. The series just succumbed to dwindling audiences two years ago, and still lives on in the “Personal Stories” offshoot.

“I had retired and was getting a bit bored,” he explained. “I remembered the earlier book and some of the names that were intriguing, but we couldn’t find any more information about them. I thought, ‘Why don’t I look them up now, Google them and see what comes up.’”

Following additional research at local libraries, the result is a new collection of essays, arranged chronologically, with the earliest one dedicated to the poet Josephine Walcott, who is credited as Santa Barbara’s first published writer. Gilbar says that her writing was of secondary interest to her somewhat scandalous life that included an affair with Col. W. W. Hollister, as well as co-organizing the local Spiritual Association and working for women’s suffrage.

“These aren’t the Sue Graftons and Ross MacDonalds,” Gilbar explained. “It’s about the writers who were here whose names are only etched in water. They’re just gone and mostly forgotten. Now at least there’s one book that mentions them in a sort of ‘Kilroy was here’ way.”

Along the way, we meet such interesting characters as Ernest L. Thayer, the author of the immortal baseball poem Casey at the Bat. Thayer, who lived adjacent

30 MONTECITO JOURNAL

to the Miramar Hotel for almost 30 years, regarded the 13-verse poem “as mere doggerel,” writes Gilbar, also noting that one critic called Thayer “a prize specimen of the one-poem poet. He wrote nothing else of merit.”

Charles Stowe, son of and biographer of Uncle Tom’s Cabin author Harriet Beecher Stowe, retired here where he wrote a newspaper column and published a book of his poetry that includes one called A View Over Montecito that begins: “In softening light of closing day, I love to walk this dreamy way That crests the undulating hill, When all below is calm and still.

For then before my charmed eyes Sweet miracles of beauty rise, Steven Gilbar will discuss his new book, Published & Perished, As nature from her lavish store at Chaucer’s on May 3 at 7 pm Pours out the riches I adore.”

We also learn about Gavin Arthur, the grandson of President Chester Arthur, whose maternal grandfather was Joel Adams Fithian, who founded what later would become the Montecito Country Club. Gilbar said Arthur was “larger than life” in his day.

“He had an incredible life. In the early 1930s he organized a commune devoted to art and literature in the sand dunes in Oceano and later founded and edited a monthly magazine called Dune Forum that he envisioned as a ‘conversation in print about art, politics, and science.’ Then he went to write The Circle of Sex, a study of male and female sexuality, in the early 1960s. He’s one of the authors worth reading.”

Other Montecito connections include poet Kenneth Rexroth, magazine publisher and famed art collector Emily Tremaine, and Patrick Mahoney, a journalist, nonfiction author, playwright, and opera librettist whose only work of fiction, Breath of Scandal, took thinly veiled potshots at the upper crust society of “San Benito.” Mahoney called it “a city of the unburied dead in more ways than one. I learned later that for weeks on end the whole valley was wrapped in a high fog which meant that any casual visitor was forced to face two fogs: the physical and the mental!”

So, why should we care about a few of the writers whose work isn’t really worth reading?

“Oh, well, almost none of them are worth reading,” Gilbar said, “at least not by today’s contemporary standards.”

But, he said, they either led really interesting lives or actually wrote about Santa Barbara.

“Some of them wrote a book you’ve never heard of that is set here and have great descriptions. Nobody is ever going to read those books or probably even find them. But I like reading about what Santa Barbara was like in 1870 or 1920.

I like to collect this kind of information to put it together in a meaningful way.”

Gilbar also covers some of Santa Barbara’s historical publishers and iconic bookshops, including the late and still lamented Earthling, which closed soon after Borders Books came to town, which itself eventually succumbed to Amazon.

In an event sponsored by Chaucer’s, a bookstore that has survived, Gilbar will talk about Published & Perished with Montecito Journal columnist Leslie A. Westbrook over Zoom at 7 pm on May 3. Visit www.chaucersbooks.com/event.

Classical Corner Continued Collaborating During COVID UCSB Arts & Lectures’ virtual House Calls series reaches a Zoomified zenith with a program by the beloved master cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott, the acclaimed pianist and Ma’s musical partner for more than 35 years. The pair will perform selections from their new album, Songs of Comfort and Hope, that was conceived last April in contemplation of the new reality produced by the pandemic. The repertoire features fresh arrangements of traditional folk tunes, pop songs and jazz standards as well as mainstays from the western classical repertoire to encourage a sense of community, identity and purpose.

The video that premieres at 5 pm on May 5, will be followed by a chat-based Q&A session moderated by Yo-Yo Ma. Admission is $10. Visit https:// artsandlectures.ucsb.edu.

•MJ

“Gardening is how I relax. It’s another form of creating and playing with colors.” – Oscar de la Renta

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• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

31

Dear Montecito

Brilliant Thoughts

by Stella Haffner

Montecito Alumni Write Letters from Life’s Front

W

hen I was little, Pierre Lafond sold these long, perfumey marshmallows. And I think, if you were to ask my parents, they’d tell you what a truculent little human I’d become if there were no blue ones left in stock.

I remember running around on the water-worn bricks of the fountain, gumming at my lavender-flavored marshmallow and enjoying that perfect 3 pm tipping point of the afternoon. Of course, they stopped selling my favorite after-school snack when I was about five or six years old and, not long after, the fountain went dry.

Today, Dana Raymond Glass takes us back a little further, sharing her experience of Montecito past and what it feels like to see your hometown changed.

Dear Montecito,

I grew up in Montecito, attending 3rd grade at Cold Spring Elementary through Our Lady of Mount Carmel, then to Santa Barbara High School, and finally to UCSB. It was a great place to grow up, small and unknown, off the beaten path. I’d ride my bike as a teenager out to Isla Vista when there was one last stoplight on the U.S. Highway 101. And I went to the beach. All. The. Time.

I would’ve loved to move back home to raise my kids, but after just a few short years, Oprah and Ellen had moved in and every house became a multimillion-dollar gated compound. After the fires and the mudslide, I thought there would surely be some affordable real estate. Nope! All my friends from elementary school moved to Goleta to afford rent and then out of state to finally buy. The Meghans and Harrys moved up from Hollywood and Beverly Hills (and the UK) and fundamentally changed the small town I once loved. When I last visited, Santa Barbara was a shell of its former self, merely a weekend getaway for Los Angelenos. All my favorite places had disappeared except for Big Dogs. (Though even lower State Street and Milpas are relatively posh compared to when I was last in residence!) As the song goes, “paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”

But instead of a parking lot it’s a pretentious fill in the blank.

I would’ve loved to move back home to raise my kids, but after just a few short years, Oprah and Ellen had moved in and every house became a multimillion-dollar gated compound

I’ve been living in Austin, Texas since 2002. The motto is “Keep Austin Weird.” It’s the live music capital of the world, the Formula-1 racing, the state capital, craft distilleries, every outdoor sport, Dell, SXSW, Franklin’s BBQ, and the X-Games. We’re adding Tesla, Amazon, a professional soccer team, and more by the day... and guess who’s come to the party? That’s right. All my former statesmen! They’re coming by the droves, and it’s great to have more 49er fans!

When I moved to Austin, this town is what Santa Barbara used to be: small, full of culture and cultures, and unapologetically unique. But now, everyone has to have a nicer car than their neighbor, and the real estate is skyrocketing. The writing is on the wall.

Here’s a thought... maybe if Austin can draw enough folks from Montecito, I can finally move back home! I can always dream!

All the best, Dana Raymond Glass P.S. Parents of Montecito children, if you have recommendations on people to feature in “Dear Montecito” please contact me, stellajanepierce@ gmail.com •MJ

32 MONTECITO JOURNAL

by Ashleigh Brilliant Born London, 1933. Mother Canadian. Father a British civil servant. World War II childhood spent mostly in Toronto and Washington, D.C. Berkeley PhD. in American History, 1964. Living in Santa Barbara since 1973. No children.

Best-known for his illustrated epigrams, called “Pot-Shots”, now a series of 10,000. Email ashleigh@west.net or visit www.ashleighbrilliant.com

Weighty Matters

F

or some reason, our language associates heaviness with seriousness and importance. The very word “gravity” can convey both of those feelings. On the other hand, things that are relatively trivial are considered “light,” in the sense of having less weight. To make these matters even more convoluted, we now have the designation “lite,” – no doubt originally the brainchild of some advertising genius – usually connoting fewer calories.

And indeed, it’s in connection with personal avoirdupois that weightiness has, in our culture, come to have over-riding significance. Never mind atomic weights or outer-space weightlessness – the chief concern of many people is, how much do I weigh, compared with some ideal figure for those of my height, age, and lifestyle – (and any other factor you want to throw into the mix)?

And, speaking of figures, how much does my bodily shape reveal about my general health and fitness – to say nothing of my attractiveness?

How did this obsession with weight-watching come about?

Heaven knows, until quite recently in human history, the prevailing preoccupation was with getting enough to eat – just staving off the ravages of hunger – the same condition in which we still see most of our “wild” fellow creatures engulfed – from the birds to the ants, spending most of their time seeking the morsels on which their bodies (and their families) depend.

But, almost within living memory, the idea of being “overweight” has acquired almost sinful associations.

(No doubt you’ve heard the quote, attributed to Alexander Wolcott, that “All the things I really like to do are either illegal, immoral, or fattening.”) And I am not speaking here as a dispassionate observer of my fellow mortals and their follies.

For much of my own life I have been inordinately conscious of my poundage. I grew up in a Jewish household, in which, if there were any sin, it was in not eating enough.

(And there was the added guilt, in the era of World War II, of knowing that others were indeed starving).

It wasn’t until after I had left home and was in my early 20s, that a college doctor, to whom I had gone for (I thought) some totally unrelated

“Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.” – Rudyard Kipling

concern, told me that I needed to lose some weight, and gave me a sheet containing what turned out to be only the first of many “diets” to which I was subjected over the following decades.

And, for the first time, I had to face the fact that many of my favorite foods now had to be avoided, or at least drastically curtailed. In terms of proper eating, my eyes were being opened and my stomach closed. It had been standard practice in my family to have “sweets,” i.e. candy, at least twice a day after meals. The “supplementary” lunches my mother prepared for me to take to school (since the regular school meals weren’t considered sufficient) always contained half a bar of chocolate. (Need I say how much this contributed to my dental health – about which there were no lessons in those days?)

So, I had to become what was later a trademarked term: a weight-watcher. For years, I always carried with me a little “calorie counter,” and making those daily calculations was the nearest I ever came to being religiously observant. I had a target weight, which I think was 150 pounds, and, after achieving it, my obligation was not significantly to vary from it. Nobody supervised me.

It was an internal compulsion.

Being fanatical about all this, I naturally had to have a really accurate scale, so I bought one of the upright kind, which you most commonly see in doctor’s offices. (I don’t know if there’s any significance in the fact that getting up on one vaguely resembles ascending a Cross.)

My saddest sacrifice was giving up sugar. Various artificial sweeteners came on the market. But saccharin, which had been around for years, didn’t taste like sugar – and cyclamates, which for a time were quite popular, were linked with cancer, and eventually banned.

And it wasn’t only sugars, but also fats to which the weight-watching craze gave a bad name – despite a more positive tradition going back to the Old Testament promise that “Ye shall eat the fat of the land.”

Ironically, in my later years, there’s sometimes been a problem with losing too much weight – but, with a little change in diet, I have found it much easier to put weight back on than it had ever been to take it off.

•MJ 29 April – 6 May 2021

On Science

by Tom G Farr

Tom Farr joined NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1975 and has helped develop the first geologic applications of imaging radar using aircraft, satellites, and the Space Shuttle. He has taught a class on planetary exploration at Santa Barbara City College for more than 10 years. He currently resides in Montecito.

How Planetary Exploration is Helping Understand Earth a Bit Better “We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.”

— TS Eliot

A

fter surveying our solar system, as well as thousands of others beyond our own, we can now look back at our home planet with a new perspective, that of a planetary geologist. One of four rocky planets in the inner solar system, ours sits in the “Goldilocks Zone” — neither too hot nor too cold. Also known as “Terra,” it’s better described as the water planet as it’s the only known body with abundant surface water.

Viewing the Earth from the perspective of a planetary geologist allows us to compare geological processes that occur here with those we find on other planets and moons, a subject called comparative planetology. If we take a very broad view of the Earth, drain the oceans, and examine its topography, we see that the Earth is unique in that it has many lows (the ocean basins) and many highs (the continents), with not much elevation in between.

We now know that this unique “signature” is caused by plate tectonics, the discovery in the 1960s that Earth’s continents are fairly rigid plates floating and drifting on a semi-molten mantle. The crust beneath the oceans turns out to be denser volcanic rock formed at volcanoes along mid-ocean ridges. Iceland lies on the ridge of volcanoes running up the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

In my discipline of geomorphology, or the science of landscapes, scientists try to explain how the landforms around us came to be and continue to evolve as the product of competing geological processes such as earthquakes that build up mountain ranges and erosion that tears them down. The landscape we see is then a product of the tug of war between these opposing forces.

In the western U.S. for example, earthquakes are relatively common (anyone who’s lived here long enough has probably experienced one), but the climate, especially in the southwest, is dry and has been for the last 10,000 years or so. Thus, we have taller, more rugged mountains than the 29 April – 6 May 2021

eastern U.S., where earthquakes are few and the climate wetter. Of course, we also know that Earth’s climate has varied over tens of thousands of years as ice ages have come and gone, and we see evidence of that in remnant landforms that no longer “belong” in a particular area.

These kinds of processes also operate on other planets, so we can use our understanding of how they work here at home to explain the landforms we find there.

For example, ancient landforms on Mars indicate to us that water once flowed and formed landforms typically found on Earth in wet environments like ocean shorelines and deltas. We also found dust-covered glaciers that hearken back to ice ages Mars went through. On Saturn’s moon, Titan, we can find river channels that meander across an uplifted terrane, similar to what the Colorado River makes in the Grand Canyon. Sand dunes found on Venus, Mars, and Titan can all be compared to Earth dunes to learn more about the direction and strength of the local winds as well as the nature of the sand making up the dunes.

Earth’s dynamic atmosphere is one of its defining characteristics, and very important to us as well. And while I’m not an atmospheric scientist, I’m well aware that our understating of how our atmosphere circulates, how clouds and aerosols move around, and

its composition has helped us understand the atmospheres of other planets like Mars, Venus, Titan, and the gas giants of the outer solar system. It also points the way toward the highest priority observations to make of planets outside our solar system, especially if we can make a measurement that will tell us if a planet hosts life.

While comparative planetology has led to a much better understanding of the planets in our own solar system, as well as beyond, it has also given us new insights into our own planet.

When NASA’s Galileo spacecraft was working its way to Jupiter, a close Earth flyby was used to slingshot it out toward Jupiter. As a member of the science team, Carl Sagan took the opportunity to turn its instruments on Earth and perform an experiment: Could we detect signs of life with the limited array of instruments available? As reported in an article in the journal Nature, the team detected oxygen, methane, chlorophyll, and AM radio waves: all indicative of life, possibly intelligent life.

Observing from Above

Spacecraft monitoring Earth also notice the circulation of the atmosphere as clouds stream across its surface and, longer term, a green wave propagating north in the Northern Hemisphere summer, while moving south in the Southern Hemisphere summer.

More subtle is the circulation of the oceans which can be read in thermal

images and changes in wave patterns.

And while no known extraterrestrial body has such a large amount of surface water, new discoveries at the moons of Jupiter and Saturn indicate that some may have oceans below a thick ice crust. These discoveries came about at nearly the same time as polar scientists on Earth discovered lakes at the bases of some of the ice sheets in Antarctica. The Antarctic lakes are now being investigated both for their implications for life on Earth and as analogs of the ocean worlds now known to be out there.

Terrestrial analogs of extraterrestrial landforms and geological processes must always be taken with a grain of salt. It’s often difficult to take into account the environmental differences between Earth and another planet.

When I’ve led field trips to the Mojave Desert or Death Valley for planetary geologists and astronauts, I’ve always emphasized that fact.

For example, Mars has both less gravity and much lower atmospheric pressure than Earth, but we still find dunes. Experiments in low-pressure wind tunnels at Ames Research Center in the Bay Area showed that dunes can form in Mars’ current environment, but that the sizes of the grains must be smaller than on Earth.

On Titan, there’s enough atmosphere for sand to blow around, but we still haven’t figured out what the material is, only that it has to be sand sized to form dunes.

So, while comparative planetology has led to a much better understanding of the planets in our own solar system, as well as beyond, it has also given us new insights into our own planet, as we have begun to view the operation of our planet from a broader systems perspective.

These systems, like the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere, interact in complex ways we’re slowly beginning to appreciate.

•MJ

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On Art (Continued from page 18) recognize the familiar scenery.

Whispering Pines 10 (2018) is hosted in the Norton Gallery which sits to the side of the main floor in the MCASB. This video installation is a collaboration with composer Nick Hallett, who wrote an original musical score and libretto, and vocalists Daisy Press and Katie Eastburn. The piece explores themes of environmental activism and is inspired by Julia Butterfly Hill’s 738-day tree-sit that occurred between 1997 and 1999. Although elements of Pee Wee Herman’s Playhouse and other quirky cultural references add to the playful surrealism that is imbued in her work.

There is an episodic nature to Shana’s work and the videos will be updated throughout the run of the exhibit, inviting guests to return and see what she is up to next. Shana will also be giving a range of online performances for the exhibit. With the museum re-opening to the public, they plan to slowly and safely reintroduce their range of programming like the Poetry Slam and curated cocktail events to the community.

Paying it Forward

Over the years one of their key offerings have been the final works from participants in their Emerging

MCASB’s newest exhibit features the ongoing saga of Cynthia, an alter ego of artist Shana Moulton

Leader in the Arts (ELA) program.

Each year the ELA takes three college students and gives them hands-on experience and guidance in exhibit curation and leadership development.

The ELA was founded three years ago with a grant from the Diversifying Art Museum Leadership Initiative (DAMLI) organized by the Walton Family Foundation and Ford Foundation. The program was founded when a study by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation discovered that

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only 16 percent of art museum leadership positions were held by people of color. With 38 percent of Americans identifying as Asian, Black, Hispanic or multi-racial, this study showed that staff and leadership of art museums do not adequately reflect the socio-economic and racial demographics of the country. MCASB was one of only 20 museums selected to be awarded a grant for the initiative.

The director at the time, Miki Garcia, had participated in a similar program and knew how useful it was for her own career. The MCASB wanted to create a pipeline program for professional development training with students who identify as people of color. Together the staff crafted the ELA program that blends career mentorship with hands-on experience for three local undergraduate college and university students who identify as people of color.

The curriculum revolves around the academic year and culminates in a final public project. The grant was only for two years; however, the ELA had become part of their core programming and the staff did not hesitate to keep the program going. Now in its third year, the program is managed by Sarah Dildine and this is the first time the program will be funded by the museum itself.

When they first launched the ELA program it was open to those in high school, as well as undergraduate and graduate students. While it was nice to be able to have the older participants there to help guide the younger members, they found it was best for the ELA program to focus on college students where the participants are peers and can support one another.

At that age, they are also making critical choices about their career path and the ELA can help instruct them in their decisions. Since then, the MCASB has also been hosting the Teen Arts Collective (TAC) that focuses on bringing support and guid-

“It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees.” –George Eliot

ance to creatives between the ages 15 to 18. Each year TAC takes up to 10 students from Santa Barbara high schools and instructs them in visual literacy while providing a safe place to express themselves.

Prior to the pandemic, they even took field trips to museums and art events, introducing them directly to artists and organizers. The MCASB wanted to remove the barrier around these institutions, making the vast range of careers available to artists and creatives more approachable and accessible.

One of the key components of the programs is the mentorship and guidance portion. Alexandra says, “this program is really about teaching them that their voice is valid, important, and needed. And we’re here to help them formulate that in whatever way that works best for them. I think what’s so impactful is the mentorship aspect of it.”

During their mentorship, ELA participants are guided not just on the practical details of curating an exhibit, but also the personal side of taking on a big project like self-care and mental health. TLA mentors help students find their creative voice while also facing the teenage challenges of self-discovery and social pressures from school and home.

“One of the things I love most about both ELA and TAC, is that we express the importance of vulnerability and we are there to support them through that,” Alexandra explained.

“We can be there to share our own experiences, share our own struggles and our own vulnerabilities, and say look, we’re here. What do you need from us? That’s really what we want to do.”

While these programs may have a limited number of participants, they provide an exponential outcome as members often incorporate their peers into projects that bring art and important conversations to the community.

One ELA member organized an art fair in De la Guerra Plaza that supported 18 other artists, while also providing an interactive event with DJs and fun for the public. One of the current ELA participants will be hosting an online queer film festival that will feature films made by different queer filmmakers. This year’s ELA projects will likely be out this summer, but plans are uncertain due to COVID. You can look out for upcoming events on their website (mcasantabarbara.org). Applications for both the ELA and TAC programs are also available on their website. They plan to do a range of digital events over the summer, with an in-person performance

by Shana hopefully to happen for the closing of the exhibit.

Until then, one can now revisit the museum and keep an eye on the ongoing adventures of Cynthia.

•MJ 29 April – 6 May 2021

29 April – 6 May 2021

• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

35

The Giving List

by Steven Libowitz

A Resting Place: Sarah House Withstood COVID in Order to Provide Respite

asking the nurse, ‘What do you think is keeping her here?’” recalled Espino, whose care for the residents expands to whatever is necessary.

“Her daughter was really crying and asking God to please just take my mom.

It’s painful to see her like this.”

That’s when the staff figured out, she probably just needed her twin sister to hold her hand before she let go.

“COVID was telling us, don’t touch, don’t come near, but the twins had come into the world together and she probably didn’t want to depart until she was given permission by her twin… So, we put a gown and all of the PPE on her, moved her sister’s bed right next to the screen door that opens to the garden and she was able to hold her hand and tell her it was OK to go. An hour later, she was gone.”

“Every person here has a life that’s been lived, all of them had so many dreams and desires and maybe regrets. And really everyone here is me. It’s just me in a different way, in a different form and perhaps on a road that I didn’t take.”

— Paloma Espino, house manager

S

The staff of Sarah House works tirelessly to provide care to residents

arah House executive director Kate Grove didn’t want to talk much about the financial burdens the COVID pandemic has placed on the eight-bedroom home that mainly provides end-of-life care for the financially disadvantaged, as well as support services for HIV/AIDS sufferers and short-term stays to alleviate stay-at-home caregivers.

“Everyone’s told the COVID story. It’s super tired,” she said, while acknowledging that her organization’s revenues did fall by nearly 30 percent over the past 12 months.

“We all know that nonprofits are struggling, and it’s been a pain.”

Instead, like everyone at Sarah House, Grove has surprisingly upbeat attitude given that she deals daily with impending death. Instead, she wanted to put some attention on what the nonprofit has been able to do during the pandemic: Stay open as a family-friendly facility for those who need loving care.

“The story of Sarah House was one that’s been consistently having an opendoor, open-arms policy and throughout the pandemic, we kept our arms and doors open,” she said. “Of course, there were guidelines and protocols that we had to follow, but we did everything we could to come together and keep that focus on the residents, because Sarah House, for many of the people who stay with us, [is] a place where they really do not have another option. Closing our doors was something that we absolutely didn’t want to see happen.”

It was largely up to house manager Paloma Espino, who has worked at Sarah House for nearly 20 years — befriending the terminally ill residents, meeting their needs, helping them make their rooms into an extension of their family homes — to figure out the adjustments to meet the “new reality,” which, she said, took a lot of acceptance as well as ingenuity.

“It was really hard for the first couple of months, because Sarah House is all about gathering people in a community, which is everything that COVID was against,” Espino said. “We are all about inviting the family to the bedside and to be a part of the process, gathering everyone to our dinner table so we get to know the family which helps us get to know our residents better. But COVID was telling us to close your doors, protect your community, don’t let anyone in.

“So, for the first death we had during the pandemic, the best that I could offer them was to have the family sit outside of the room with the sliding door open as their sister took the final breath. That was really hard.”

Later, Sarah House found ways to make adjustments as needed, including a woman in a coma who the hospital discharged because there was nothing left to do. The twin sister and daughter came every day and stood vigil outside of her door, but the resident — who Espino said wasn’t eating or drinking, but also never woke up — kept hanging on to life.

“There was nothing left. Her body has so little, just skin and bones. And I kept

36 MONTECITO JOURNAL

While Sarah House is mostly known as a warm and welcoming final destination for terminally ill patients, the facility also accommodates some for much shorter stays. That includes HIV/AIDS patients who may have strayed from their medication protocols and need focused attention and good nutrition to get back on a path of health.

“They might just need to get their medication straightened up and their diet treatment so they can go back out prosper,” Grove explained.

And Sarah House also opens its doors to taking in patients simply to provide respite for family members who have chosen to be full-time caregivers at their own homes.

“The person who is ailing will come stay with us for five days, say, just so the family can have a moment to breathe,” Grove said. “It’s incredibly difficult for people to go from just being a loved one to having to be a caretaker, bathing and cleaning and feeding and caring for someone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

They just need a moment to breathe and recharge.”

Sometimes, though, the caregiver family members need some convincing even to spend five days away, Espino said. Such was the case a few years ago with a mother who didn’t want to leave her dying 25-year-old daughter in any else’s care even though she’d spent more than 18 months in around-the-clock care.

But her doctors told her she was headed for a nervous breakdown if she didn’t take a break. Espino sat for hours with the mother as she toured Sarah House, explained that she could visit 24 hours a day if she wanted to, even sleep there on the couch in her daughter’s room although that would defeat the purpose of the respite.

It turns out the mother did show up at 5 am the morning after the daughter arrived. Espino was already there.

“I opened the door and she saw me, and she asked, ‘What brought you here so early?’ I said, ‘The same thing as you: Your daughter. You trusted me with her and I wanted to make sure we take good care of her.’ I didn’t hear from her for another two days. She got her rest.”

Whatever the reason the residents come to Sarah House, Espino and the rest of the staff give each resident — and their loved ones — individual care and loving kindness. To the house manager, the exchanges aren’t merely one way.

“Every person teaches you something if you’re willing to pay attention,” Espino says. “Every person here has a life that’s been lived, all of them had so many dreams and desires and maybe regrets. And really everyone here is me.

It’s just me in a different way, in a different form and perhaps on a road that I didn’t take. It’s a beautiful thing to remember that the more we think we’re different, we’re actually way more alike.”

That extends to the ways in which people can support Sarah House: large financial donations, small monthly giving, or simply making donations in kind through Sarah House’s online registry at Walmart, where items range from a $317 dresser to glassware, salad forks and even $3.99 bottles of toilet bowl cleaner. Everything is needed and greatly appreciated.

“The way we look at it is that Sarah House holds a big responsibility to be there for the community,” Espino said. “But, by the same token, we would hope that the community would feel the same way about Sarah House, that they hold some responsibility for helping us remain so that when someone knocks on our door, whether it be themselves, their neighbor, their friend, or sister, that we’re still around so that we can help.”

•MJ

“A good garden may have some weeds.” – Thomas Fuller

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• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

37

On The Record (Continued from page 6) “The moment that we learned of the community efforts to save this important grassland open space, we knew we wanted to help,” said Ed Scott, Executive Director of the Allemall Foundation. “We can’t do it alone, but we can help the Santa Barbara community with additional resources, to help meet your incredibly tight timeline.”

Supervisor Gregg Hart also praised the efforts of Allemall Foundation, stating “this gives us an increased opportunity to meet the challenge for local residents to save this precious land.”

“Saving the San Marcos Foothills continues our community’s legacy of permanently saving threatened open space lands for the community’s use. The Douglas Family Preserve, Carpinteria Bluffs, Sperling Preserve at Ellwood, and many of the open spaces important to our community, all faced these fundraising challenges,” said Marc Chytilo, an attorney for the campaign.

With that in mind, the group is hoping that the public can help contribute to the last stages of the fundraising campaign.

“We now need angel donors to step up, as well as the wider community to continue to support the campaign,” explained Peter Schuyler, co-chair of the fundraising campaign. Over 3,500 individuals, businesses, and foundations have contributed more than $7.6 million in cash and pledges to date, plus a short-term loan from Montecito Bank & Trust, to meet the terms of the purchase agreement.

“An additional $12.4 million is needed before the June 1 deadline, to secure the legacy,” he added.

“Our task as we navigate this last and largest fundraising goal to buy and protect the San Marcos Foothills West Mesa is to remember that every one of us can benefit from this land as public open space, and every donation large and small helps us achieve that goal,” said Marianne Parra, a member of the campaign leadership team.

Parra noted that during the week of Earth Day, “It is important that we protect the land in perpetuity for every one of us, toddler to elder, winged, two legs, four legs, eight legs, and those who slither. These 101 acres feel like 20,000, with wide expansive views and incredible beauty for all to enjoy.”

Campaign volunteers are providing docent-led tours from 10-11:30 am every Saturday and Sunday through the Month of May. Tours may also be scheduled through FoothillsForever.org. To find out more about this once-in-a-lifetime effort, including information on how to donate through the Santa Barbara Foundation,

sign up for tours of the property, or register for an informational Zoom meeting, go to FoothillsForever.org.

First-Ever Artist in Residence Joins Santa Barbara Botanic Garden

From April 21 to June 27, 2021, the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden will welcome Canada-born artist Libby Holland as its first-ever Artist in Residence. For eight weeks, Holland will immerse herself in the garden’s native plantings for an exploration of “blooming where you’re planted and allowing yourself to be free” with her collection “Grow Wild.” She will be live painting in the Garden Thursday-Saturday, 10 am to 4 pm, where members and guests are encouraged to come and watch the paintings unfold and interact with the artist herself.

Holland’s recent work celebrates all that grows and blossoms, focusing on the allure and practicality of water-wise plants. “A painting of something seemingly quite common can amplify its beauty, giving a fresh perspective to the viewer,” she says. “My pieces share a passion — for promoting native, drought-resistant plants, vital to the local ecology — with the Botanic Garden.”

Beginning in 1925 as a shared vision of the Carnegie Institution and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History to establish a botanic garden “...reaching from the sea to the crest of the mountains, connected by a drive lined with trees, shrubs, and flowers from all parts of the earth,” the Garden now encompasses 78 acres of varied habitats with collections and features from Arroyo, Canyon, and Desert to Pollinator, Meadow and Manzanita. The Garden’s decision to focus on native plants made it the first of its kind.

“Native plants are the foundation of all life on earth, and their conservation is a critical first step in saving the countless animals (including ourselves) that depend on those plants for food, homes, and other resources,” says Executive Director Steve Windhager, Ph.D., “Through the Garden and our education programs, we foster a love of nature and greater understanding of our reliance on it for our own health and that of all life on earth.”

With a worldwide pandemic keeping us close to home, Holland recognizes the grounding nature of the past year. “We often grow tired of what we see every day, but by taking a moment to look more closely at what surrounds us, we can have a fresh perspective,” she says.

This inaugural Artist in Residence Program at the Garden offers an opportunity for visitors to engage meaningfully with the artist through a unique and intimate

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AmericanRivieraBank.com 805.965.5942 Santa Barbara • Montecito • Goleta San Luis Obispo • Paso Robles 29 April – 6 May 2021

Supporting you to aChieve your real eState goalS Care - CompetenCe - Credibility - Community Montecito | Santa Barbara | Goleta Hope Ranch | Beach Front Janet Caminite Associate Manager 805.896.7767 JanetCaminite@bhhscal.com www.SantaBarbaraLuxuryRealty.com www.BeachesofVentura.com DRE 01273668 Libby Holland, Inaugural Artist-in-Residence at Santa Barbara’s Botanic Gardens

experience in nature. The “Grow Wild” collection created by Holland during her residency, comprised entirely of acrylic-on-canvas paintings of native, water-wise plants, will be exhibited this fall.

Born in Toronto, Canada, Holland grew up enchanted by the joy and intimacy of local flora. Struck by the color, resiliency, and architecture of plants, she sees their varied contours as sculptures created by nature. Her recent move to Santa Barbara spurred the development of her personal artistic language: a bright and empowered celebration of the welcoming landscape that surrounds her.

Her artwork is available to view and purchase through her website: libby hollandart.com. You can meet Holland at the garden from April 21 to June 27, Thursday to Saturday, 10 am to 4 pm. The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden is located at 1212 Mission Canyon Road. For more information, visit sbbg.org.

•MJ

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Editorial (Continued from page 5) When I heard those words, I fully exhaled, and remember the feeling of warmth returning to my cheeks. To this day, I still feel guilty for feeling relieved — after all, someone had been sexually assaulted on my campus. Ten minutes after the officers confirmed the information that came through, they finally let me go. I was a first-year student in Law School, and it was only my second week.

Education is Key to Solving Ignorance

There were many victims that night; there was the victim of the actual crime, me who was falsely accused; and the officers, who were so steeped in ignorance that they could not fathom a law student with dark flesh and features, because I fit another box entirely within the confines of their implicit bias.

This episode was not my first nor last run-in with law enforcement. Due to the color of my flesh, I have, like so many others, become conditioned to accept the normalcy of “fitting the description” in the minds of officers tasked to protect and serve. I’ve come to accept that in order to survive an encounter with the police I must comply even when compliance validates a misperception of who I am. Even, as we’ve seen far too many times, that compliance doesn’t guarantee my survival.

Yet, the way law enforcement has behaved with me doesn’t make policing the source of the problem, rather these examples are symptoms of a greater ignorance in the form of implicit bias, prejudice, and outright racism that pervades our society and makes all of us culpable, unless we actively counteract the hate with knowledge.

In law, working primarily in legal clinics, I found I could make a difference case by case, but as a teacher I saw that I could more directly counteract that ignorance: I could do so class by class, year after year. Ignorance was the illseed that kept our culture spiraling through a never-ending cycle of bigotry.

Stereotypes were born, pre-judgements made, and fear gave way to violence over and over again. I knew that I was victimized by law enforcement my whole life because of the fear nurtured by ignorance spurred dangerous amygdalin responses in those charged to protect and serve. To root out that ignorance, I surmised, the solution lay in education.

As a public-school product I began there, in the classroom working with kids,

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setting up after-school interventions, trying to step away from the confines of state standards and STAR tests to do something meaningful with the kids assigned to my class. I was called to public charter schools soon thereafter and worked to build campuses and programs that were rich in multicultural coverage and appealed to the students most in need of attention. After a decade in the public-education trenches, battling a lack of funding and the ability to attract talent to the low pay, long hours, and endless bureaucratic headaches of teaching, I landed in the world of independent schools. These private schools were free of restrictive teaching standards and standardized testing, schools could offer financial aid to support the neediest students and had the means to compensate faculty fully.

Even all those advantages, though, weren’t enough to reach the goal of true inclusion.

I found that independent school programs at worst approached inclusion as an unattended third wheel to their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and at best as a special interest. DEI too often meant getting token representation in the door and then abandoning the kids who needed help navigating a world of affluence with only lint in their pockets. “Inclusion” focused on serving a special interest, leaving groups of students segregated and disconnected from each other.

“I shared that when schools compete in the idea of ‘who is more inclusive,’ they end up promoting exclusion — competition to appear more inclusive only equates to special interest-oriented programs whereby schools try to keep up with the Joneses, showcasing diversity to signify the virtue of inclusion, but in the end are just tokenizing students.”

— Kalyan Balaven, Head of School at Dunn School

I discovered that even the best practitioners of DEI were focused on preaching against the “isms” but did so in a manner that left the privileged students feeling bitter or guilty, and those less so, angry or ashamed. Calling out community members as a practice was in vogue, and a custom of inviting in, not so much. I was frustrated and at the end of my rope, but realized I had agency.

As a last-ditch salvo I applied to head the office of DEI at my progressive Bay Area school. I believed that I could steward a program that would build a truly inclusive community by facilitating the exchange of ideas, i.e., the knowledge we need about each other to stamp out the ignorance that is killing us. I got into education to work with both future police officers and the citizens they’d serve - but the methodologies I’d seen used thus far in the best DEI programs only polarized communities into the Black and White, as opposed to teaching students how to navigate the gradient of gray prevalent in the world in which we live.

I quickly realized that DEI was often a showpiece, to signify virtue rather than to get best outcomes. While admission numbers could measure “diversity” to some degree and equity could be defended by a budget line, inclusion relied on narratives that were hard to quantify and too easily dismissed by those who didn’t want to hear it.

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40 MONTECITO JOURNAL

Available to care for our neighbors and accepting new patients.

1483 E. Valley Road, Suite M | 805.969.6090

“God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.” – Francis Bacon

29 April – 6 May 2021

Though it seemed improbable, I sought out to quantify inclusion, capture the narratives in data, so that school leadership could respond strategically and programmatically, ensuring that all students could thrive. I created the inclusion dashboard and my efforts gained notoriety and led to the creation of the Inclusion Dashboard Consortium, a partnership of more than 100 schools nationwide seeking to quantify inclusion.

Still, even I helped countless schools create their own dashboards, I sadly came to realize that many had begun using the fact they had the tool as sufficient evidence that inclusion existed. Sadly, a veil of ignorance descended, and school leadership could once again engage in cognitive dissonance towards the exclusion within their institutions. The inclusion dashboard had become a singular narrative, a story of progress, but a way to hide inequities that were prevalent within schools.

Therefore, a dashboard alone was not sufficient, a true collaboration between schools and a robust community of educators dedicated to inclusion was needed to ensure that inclusion doesn’t become a special interest. I realized that I was in the same fight I’d always been in and in order to truly make holistic and lasting change I needed to confront ignorance from a position of authority in a community that understood the whole student and had institutional capacity for inclusion.

Why Santa Barbara County?

I began looking for that school and saw the posting for Head of School at Dunn from a recruiter in my inbox. I opened it, took a glance and dismissed it: in my mind, Santa Barbara County was not diverse enough to pique my interest, and I let the recruiter know this. Then, my phone rang.

It was Guy Walker, a BIPOC Alumni and Dunn trustee, who exchanged brief introductions with me before speaking nonstop for nearly an hour. I was a rapt audience. He spoke to the potential for the community in the county, the role a school like Dunn could play by bringing international and West Coast diversity into its boarding program, he spoke to his profound experiences building community with the Chumash, the power of the Black and LatinX communities in the county, and the schools like Dunn thirsty to do this work.

Here was Dunn, a school where inclusion could be a human right and not a special interest, a secret in a valley that was hidden in a county that got very

little attention compared to its neighbors in Northern and Southern California.

There was an unpretentious quality to the school and the area, and I wondered at the potential for a network and real educational partnership in Santa Barbara County centered on inclusion.

During my interview I spoke to this potential for schools naturally disposed to competition setting aside their fervor for the interests of inclusion. I shared that when schools compete in the idea of “who is more inclusive,” they end up promoting exclusion — competition to appear more inclusive only equates to special interest-oriented programs whereby schools try to keep up with the Joneses, showcasing diversity to signify the virtue of inclusion, but in the end are just tokenizing students.

What I saw was the potential for a true partnership between schools, public and private, in Santa Barbara County, one that could easily be a model for the whole country.

“Imagine an inclusion consortium,” I said, “one that facilitate schools gathering and sharing data, resources, and best practices, while building better systems across our schools to support our students.”

The potential for such a thing requires two things: 1) the acknowledgment that inclusion is a human right and requires our full attention and 2) the ignorance that prevails if we do nothing victimizes us all.

At the end, I was asked if there was anything else I’d want the board to know about me, and I shared that it was important for me to connect with local law enforcement as I moved. A trustee asked for clarification and I shared as the first BIPOC Head of School in the area that introducing myself would help local law enforcement see me for who I was in the community and also establish a partnership to help work to protect and serve the safety of the school community I would lead.

The group realized that I was saying we had work to do together, and that the role of education cannot be confined to one school or one community. It is a partnership best facilitated and pushed by leadership that combats ignorance by building a diverse sense of community for everyone where inclusion is not a special interest, but a fundamental human right. I showed them that they were not searching for a Head of School, but, rather, for a community builder.

They smiled. After all, I fit the description.

Kalyan Balaven is the Head of School at Dunn School

•MJ

FOOTHILLS FOREVER Together, we are making this happen…but we have a lot more to do!

With your help we reached an agreement to purchase the 101 acre West Mesa of the San Marcos Foothills! This will permanently preserve and protect the land for future generations. Our intent is to add it to the 200 acre San Marcos Foothills Preserve.

We need your help now!

We’re forging ahead full steam to our goal of raising the purchase price of $18 million by June 1st.

How to help: Make a tax-deductible contribution to the Foothills Forever Fund, a fiscal sponsorship fund at the Santa Barbara Foundation.

Please make checks payable to: Santa Barbara Foundation, with Foothills Forever Fund in the memo line.

Mail to: 1111 Chapala St. #200, Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Donate on-line: FoothillsForever.org To donate gifts of stock or other assets, please contact info@foothillsforever.org Visit the San Marcos Foothills West Mesa at the end of Via Gaitero Road.

Docent Led Tours of the property are offered every Saturday & Sunday at 10 a.m. or by special arrangement.

Email Julia Laraway at a1fyr516@gmail.com

29 April – 6 May 2021

• The Voice of the Village •

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Travel Buzz

The Revere Room features plenty of cocktails, including the Helical

by Leslie A. Westbrook

To get in the mood, the Montecito Journal is launching the Travel Buzz column which will chronicle Leslie’s “re-entry” into the world.

To be Revered: New Miramar Restaurant Perfectly Combines Great Food, Old Memories Paul Revere Williams, the namesake for The Revere Room at the Miramar, is well known for his design of the Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport

N

ow that I’m fully vaccinated, after “Our Year of Perpetual and Unusual Confinement,” I’m gearing up to hit the road again.

Living on travel memories has been OK, but there ain’t nothing like the real thing. I’m ready to fire up my jets and dust off my suitcase, beginning with some weekend escapes.

What’s a weekend, you may ask, after a year when all days of the week seemed to have merged into a blur.

I began to emerge, slowly, cautiously, and full of excitement to explore our own fine town. As Dorothy said, in The Wizard of Oz, “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.”

It’s no secret that we are a tourist town. There are times when I am sure many of you, like me, want to bolt when the crowds arrive. But if you can’t beat them, why not join them and revel in Santa Barbara and Montecito’s delights?

You’ve heard of staycations, right?

Many hotels and resorts, that lure with the idea of slipping between freshly made hotel high thread count sheets and swimming in sparkling pools, are also great foodie and wine destinations.

I often feel like I am on vacation when I visit some of Santa Barbara’s stellar hotels or resorts for a meal.

From cocktails and dinner or lunch on the terrace with breathtaking views at

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Belmond El Encanto (welcome back to town to General Manager Janis Clapoff!) to the cozy ambiance of the rústica elegante San Ysidro Ranch, or Cabrillo Boulevard oceanfront dining with a view at Convivo at the Santa Barbara Inn, we are lucky these fivestar venues are part of “our town.”

People drive and fly in from all over the globe to check-in, but we can relax over a meal, stroll the grounds (sadly, the Four Seasons Biltmore remains closed) and people-watch — and then drive or take an Uber home.

I recently ventured to the Rosewood Miramar Beach hotel and resort, where I enjoyed a fabulous dinner with a friend at the newly opened allday dining venue, The Revere Room.

Masks are required throughout the resort, and everyone, with the exception of those eating or a few guests I passed by while walking the hotel’s perimeters, complied.

While the jewel in developer Rick Caruso’s crown is like walking into a Hollywood Regency TCM movie, the hotel certainly ain’t what it used to be in yesteryear.

Let’s begin with the name.

The newly reimagined dining venue — originally launched as the Malibu Farm, which was mediocre, at best, in my estimation, when a ladies’ luncheon group of eight tried everything on the menu — is not named for the man who warned our early colonists that the British were coming. It’s a nod to the “revered” Los Angeles

The Longfin Yellowtail Crudo at The Revere Room

Black architect Paul Revere Williams (1894-1980), who, with the exception of designing a small house for a contest in Santa Barbara, had no other real connection that I could discover to our town. He did, however, design the stunning Theme Building at LAX, as well as many homes for Hollywood stars.

The dining room is quite lovely, with hand-painted bluebird wallpaper that makes one feel as though they are dining inside a fancy birdcage.

However, it bears no resemblance to the flying saucer-like, legendary airport design at LAX that Williams is known for.

While The Revere Room is named as a “subtle nod” to Paul Revere Williams, the architectural and design inspiration was built around the exquisite hand-painted wallpaper from Gracie (founded in 1898) that wraps the walls of the restaurant, rather than Williams’ iconic style. The design was handled in-house by the Caruso team.

My dear friend Lisa Blades — yes, she was married to the amazing Panamanian musician Rubén Blades in her former life — joined me for a stellar meal and to celebrate the month of her birth. We chose to dine outdoors not only due to lingering COVID concerns and for the fresh air, but also the straight shot view across the lawn, past the train tracks and to the Pacific in the distance.

There is much good news.

First, Mr. Caruso has wisely handed the dining room reins over to the talented Roman-born Chef Massimo

“You’re closer to God’s heart in a garden than any place else on earth.” – Dorothy Frances Gurney

The Miramar’s reborn Revere Room and patio offers a lovely respite for a meal or fancy cocktails with a view. And it is the pitch perfect place — with a jazz soundtrack in the background — to reminisce about the good ol’ days.

Falsini, who also oversees Caruso’s, the terrific waterfront dining room on property. (Massimo needs a restaurant with his name, in my humble opinion – but chefs can be peripatetic, so I get naming a place for a notable who cannot object.)

Massimo is “molto pazzo” for Santa Barbara’s farmers’ markets. He visits three times a week to gather ingredients from local growers and foragers that he showcases in his creative dishes and molto attractive plating arrangements. A plate is a chef’s canvas, they say.

Secondly, I was thrilled to hear good jazz on the sound system softly playing in the background, it’s essential to a relaxed, fine dining experience. I was equally enthralled that our waitperson, young left-handed Philip, had first-hand knowledge of the menu items and made excellent recommendations. He also graciously offered wine “tastes,” so we could choose 29 April – 6 May 2021

The Revere Room has limited seating due to COVID, with outdoor seating also available

wisely.

We began our leisurely meal with a half-dozen succulent Morro Bay oysters ($18) – accompanied by a mignonette sauce and a Fresno chile hot sauce in a glass dropper bottle that would blow the bargain bin socks off Prince Harry. There was much discussion about whether or not we should eat our California state bird – but the tiny, crispy fried quail breast ($20) sitting on a nest of greens with thinly sliced pickled green apples, were finger-licking good. (Apologies to our bird friends.)

We shared a generous little gem and kale Caesar salad ($22) topped with generous Parmigiano-Reggiano chunks and shavings, before exploring the ocean section of the menu. I settled on succulent lobster cooked on the spit atop a sweet cornbread pancake accompanied by small roasted bacon potatoes ($55), while Lisa chose oak-charred Vermillion with broccolini ($52).

Lovely French wines by the glass, a French Sancerre from the Loire Valley for me ($20) and a Côtes de Provence Rosé ($19) for the birthday girl paired nicely with our food choices. With no room for dessert, a slice of pretty lemon cheesecake, packed to go, was slowly devoured the next day. We strolled the grounds after our meal, enjoyed watching the guests – from a safe distance – while recalling the old Miramar of yesteryear.

The sign of a fantastic resort, restaurant, country, museum, or landscape visited is the urge to return. I would happily rebound to The Revere Room to savor the succulent deep fried breaded quail or to try the oak-charred pork chop (also recommended by our waitperson Philip), as much as for the atmosphere and fine service.

While my foray was not quite a staycation (I’ve yet to see the rooms at the Miramar) it certainly qualified as a refresh-acation. Should you or someone you know choose to check-in for the night, the resort has cut down the number of available guest rooms for COVID safety.

As we walked, Lisa and I remembered a really fun Mardi Gras party I threw in one of the cottages once upon a time in the 20th Century. On another stay a long time ago, while deeply slumbering in one of the oceanfront rooms, I was awoken by the train and yelled out: “Is the world coming to an end?”

Many old-world memories of the Miramar have gone the way of time and yes, the old Montecito has come to an end. Still, the Miramar’s reborn Revere Room and patio offers a lovely respite for a meal or fancy cocktails with a view. And it is the pitch perfect place — with a jazz soundtrack in the background — to reminisce about the good ol’ days.

Valerie Rice’s latest cookbook is a collection of her favorite seasonal recipes

Valerie Rice will be celebrating the release of Lush Life: Food & Drinks from the Garden at Field + Fort in Summerland on Saturday, May 1

Book Signing at Field + Fort

The recipes – tied to each season – in Santa Barbara-based lifestyle doyenne, cook and gardener Valerie Rice’s forthcoming cookbook Lush Life: Food & Drinks from the Garden are absolutely mouth-watering. Broken into seasons, don’t let that stop you from preparing leg of lamb stuffed

with feta and oregano, Hope Ranch mussels with chorizo and fennel, or Indian-spiced cauliflower steaks with turmeric cream, any time of the year.

Accompanied with cocktail recipes – cara cara (orange) margaritas anyone?

– and illustrated with gorgeous photos by Gemma and Andrew Ingalls, the Montecito resident launches her 150-page lushly illustrated manual with a signing in Summerland at Field + Fort on May Day (Saturday, May 1) from 3 to 5 pm. For those who are “kitchen-challenged,” pour yourself a cocktail and try the popcorn with Za’atar recipe.

•MJ

We’re Redefining Safe Senior Living in Carpinteria.

In trying times, overcome fear and uncertainty with the peace and security of a solid meditation practice.

At Carpinteria’s only assisted living and memory care community, you’ll meet people of similar interests and common goals. Express yourself in art class. Enjoy a friendly game of bocce. Sip your afternoon high tea with fellow neighbors on the outdoor patio.

Radhule Weininger, PhD, MD, is a local in Montecito offering individualized, and customized meditation teaching, using mindfulness, compassion and advanced awareness practices to help you cultivate inner calm, awakeness and freedom as well as emotional balance.

Dr. Weininger uses her training as psychologist as well as her 40 years of intensive Meditation training to help you upgrade your life, your relationships and your sense of meaning.

We’re pleased to announce that all staff and residents have been given the opportunity to receive both doses of vaccinations.

Everyone will continue to follow the guidance of the CDC and Santa Barbara County Health Department.

It’s a great life here at GranVida. For more information or to schedule your personal or virtual tour, please call 805.324.6529.

Books:

NOW ACCEPTING NEW RESIDENTS Apartments start at $4,500 per month.

“Heartwork: The Path of Self-compassion” (Shambala Publications) Her forthcoming book: “Heartmedicine: How to Stop Painful Patterns and Find Freedom and Peace-At Last” (Shambala)

“There is no healing without heartwork, intimately tending to the wounds we’ve been avoiding for so long. In this powerful and beautiful book, Radhule Weininger will help you find the courage, pathways, and clarity needed to embrace this life with love.”

— Ta R a B R a c h , P h D , author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge

heartwork The Path of SelfCompassion

9 Simple Practices for a Joyful, Wholehearted Life

Radhule WeiningeR, Foreword by Jack Kornfield

m d, P h d

Also see free daily meditations at: mindfulheartprograms.org mindfulheartprograms.org/elders radhuleweiningerphd.com radhule@gmail.com | 805-455-6205

Small town. Great life.

5464 Carpinteria Avenue, Carpinteria, CA 93013 | GranVidaSeniorLiving.com EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY

29 April – 6 May 2021

RCFE# 425802114

• The Voice of the Village •

SSL204-01-05el.01 042821

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NOTICE OF APPLICATION AND PENDING ACTION BY THE DIRECTOR OF THE PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT TO: (1) WAIVE THE PUBLIC HEARING ON A COASTAL DEVELOPMENT PERMIT THAT MAY BE APPEALED TO THE CALIFORNIA COASTAL COMMISSION AND (2) APPROVE, CONDITIONALLY APPROVE, OR DENY THE COASTAL DEVELOPMENT PERMIT 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 Coastal Development Permit by the Planning and Development Department.

The development requested by this application is subject to appeal to the California Coastal Commission following final action by Santa Barbara County 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 California Coastal Act Section 30624.9, the Director has determined that this project qualifies as minor development and therefore 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 Delaney Roney at Planning and Development, 123 E. Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara 93101-2058, by email at droney@co.santa-barbara.ca.us, 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 Coastal Development Permit to the Montecito Planning Commission or Board of Supervisors and ultimately the California Coastal Commission.

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 Coastal Development Permit. 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 Coastal Development Permit is approved, and/or to view the application and plans, or to provide comments on the project, please contact Delaney Roney at Planning and Development, 123 E. Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara 93101-2058, or by email at droney@co.santa-barbara.ca.us, or by phone at (805) 568-2033.

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: 4/28/2021 REQUEST FOR HEARING EXPIRATION DATE: 5/19/2021 PERMIT NUMBER: 20CDH-00000-00016 APPLICATION FILED: 6/30/2020 007-380-029 ZONING: 1-E-1 PROJECT AREA: 0.62 PROJECT DESCRIPTION: Applicant: Booth, Loren 2008 Trust 3/19/02 Proposed Project: The project is for a Coastal Development Permit (with waived hearing) to allow for demolition of the existing 623 SF sunroom, and construction of a 125 SF balcony on the second floor. The project also includes an interior remodel, new door and windows, new clay tile roof, and landscape and hardscape improvements. No grading is proposed and no trees are proposed for removal. The project includes 7,186 square feet of new or replaced impervious surface for a total of 9,613 square feet, and 744 square feet of new landscaping and 6,089 square feet of renovated landscaping for a total of 6,833 square feet. The parcel will be served by the Montecito Water District, the Montecito Sanitary District, and the Montecito Fire Protection District.

Access will continue to be provided off of Fernald Point Lane. The following structures currently exist on the parcel, a 6,022 net sf two-story residence (5,399 net sf as proposed), detached garage with a single-story 1,064 net SF guest house, and a detached 372 net SF cabana. The property is a 0.62-acre parcel zoned 1-E-1 and shown as Assessor's Parcel Number 007-380-029, located at 1787 Fernald Point Lane 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 Coastal Development Permit 20CDH-00000-00016 may be appealed to the Montecito Planning Commission by the applicant or an aggrieved person. The written appeal must be filed within the 10 calendar days following the date that the Director takes action on this Coastal Development Permit. 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.

Written appeals must be filed with the Planning and Development Department at either 123 East Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara, 93101, or 624 West Foster Road, Suite C, Santa Maria, 93455, 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.

This Coastal Development Permit may be appealed to the California Coastal Commission after an appellant has exhausted all local appeals, therefore a fee is not required to file an appeal.

For additional information regarding the appeal process, contact Delaney Roney. The application required to file an appeal may be viewed at or downloaded from: http://www.countyofsb.org/uploadedFiles/plndev/Content/Permitting/AppealSubReqAPP.pdf ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Information about this project review process may also be viewed at: http://www.countyofsb.org/plndev/permitting/planningprocess.sbc Board of Architectural Review agendas may be viewed online at:

http://www.countyofsb.org/plndev/home.sbc

44 MONTECITO JOURNAL

29 April – 6 May 2021

Seen (Continued from page 14 14))

Friendship Center staff “rabbits” Laurie Mason, Esther Kratz, and Ana Leon

activities via Zoom, making sure to assist caregivers to ensure accessibility to the technology needed.

Most recently they held a Friendship Center Spring Drive-In. Since Easter was in the air, we parked our cars in their driveway, greeted by staff decked out in rabbit ears and with Easter baskets in hand. There were games – bingo and Name That Tune – and a raffle.

Another April event was Dine & Donate, sponsored by the Santa Barbara Association of Realtors (SBAOR). You could go to Los Agaves Restaurant to pick up fajitas and margaritas with all the proceeds going to

Girls Inc. Women of Inspiration honorees Natalia Alarcon, April Nunez, and Nirasha Rodriguez

executive chef and owner of The Food Liaison; Natalia Alarcon, Carpinteria City Council member, the first Latina woman and the youngest to hold a seat on the council since 2012; and April Nunez, a longtime educator in the Carpinteria Unified School District. She also is the founder of Celebrating Adversity, Diversity, and Education Club (CADE).

Girls Inc. of Carpinteria currently serves 1,100 youth in Carpinteria Valley and Ventura County from Pre-K through 12th grade. To learn more, become a volunteer, or offer support, please visit www.girlsinc-carp.org.

Friendship Center

Friendship Center has been there for its seniors and their families for many years. There are two facilities, one in Montecito across the street from the Episcopal church (All Saints-by-theSea) and another in Goleta. They provide day care for elder and dependent adults. Before the pandemic, their centers were a home away from home.

Members came in person to join their friends and staff and participated in

Friendship Center.

As executive director Heidi Holly said, “COVID-19 required us to pivot our program to serve our vulnerable seniors and their family caregivers.”

She declared a win-win for supporting local nonprofits and local restaurants.

“We are so appreciative of SBAOR’s dedication and commitment to serve our community with their Dine and Donate fundraiser.”

Even though the Center is currently closed, their Community Connect Adult Program is available for a monthly subscription fee. Call 805969-0859 or www.friendshipcenetersb. org for information.

•MJ

Let’s discuss your real estate needs.

Friendship Center development director Sophia Davis

face-to-face activities in a safe environment to spark joy in their lives.

Since a year ago, the delivery model has changed but not their focus – maintaining connection with all of their members and caregivers. They are currently in the planning phase of the reopening of the Friendship Center.

They have been offering virtual

The Morehart Group Paige Marshall Mitch Morehart Beverly Palmer Susan Pate

805.452.7985 themorehartgroup.com themorehartgroup@compass.com DRE 02025980 | 00828316 01319565 | 01130349

Friendship Center executive director Heidi Holly at their Easter event

29 April – 6 May 2021

• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

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CITY OF SANTA BARBARA – GENERAL SERVICES DIVISION PO BOX 1990, SANTA BARBARA, CA 93102-1990

Notice Inviting Bids FY2021A Pavement Maintenance Project Bid No. 4034 1.

Bid Submission. The City of Santa Barbara (“City”) will accept electronic bids for its FY2021A Pavement Maintenance Project (“Project”), by or before May 20, 2021 at 3:00 PM through its PlanetBids portal. Bidders must be registered on the City of Santa Barbara’s PlanetBids portal in order to submit a Bid proposal and to receive addendum notifications. Each bidder is responsible for making certain that its Bid Proposal is actually submitted/uploaded with sufficient time to be received by PlanetBids prior to the bid opening date and time. Large files may take more time to be submitted/uploaded to PlanetBids, so plan accordingly. The receiving time on the PlanetBids server will be the governing time for acceptability of bids. Telegraphic, telephonic, hardcopy, and facsimile bids will not be accepted.

If any Addendum issued by the City is not acknowledged online by the Bidder, the PlanetBids System will prevent the Bidder from submitting a Bid Proposal. Bidders are responsible for obtaining all addenda from the City’s PlanetBids portal.

Bid Results and awards will be available on PlanetBids on May 20, 2021.

2.

Project Information.

2.1 Location and Description. The Project is located at various streets throughout the City, and is described as follows: Micro-mill, fog seal, temporary striping, crack seal, type 3 and type 2 slurry seal, pre and post sweeping, rubber tire rolling, temporary and permanent striping, perform traffic control, notifications, and postings, complete and in place.

2.2 Time for Completion. The Project must be completed within seventy (70) working days from the start date set forth in the Notice to Proceed. City anticipates that the Work will begin on or about June 2021, but the anticipated start date is provided solely for convenience and is neither certain nor binding.

2.3 Estimated Cost. The estimated construction cost is $1,600,000.

3.

License and Registration Requirements.

3.1 License. This Project requires a valid California contractor’s license for the following classification(s): A 3.2 DIR Registration. City may not accept a Bid Proposal from or enter into the Contract with a bidder, without proof that the bidder is registered with the California Department of Industrial Relations (“DIR”) to perform public work pursuant to Labor Code § 1725.5, subject to limited legal exceptions.

4.

Contract Documents. The plans, specifications, bid forms and contract documents for the Project, and any addenda thereto (“Contract Documents”) may be downloaded from City’s website at: http://www.planetbids.com/portal/portal.cfm?CompanyID=29959 A printed copy of the Contract Documents may be obtained from CyberCopy Shop, located at 504 N. Milpas Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93103, at (805) 884-6155.

5.

Bid Security. The Bid Proposal must be accompanied by bid security of ten percent of the maximum bid amount, in the form of a cashier’s or certified check made payable to City, or a bid bond executed by a surety licensed to do business in the State of California on the Bid Bond form included with the Contract Documents. The bid security must guarantee that within ten days after City issues the Notice of Award, the successful bidder will execute the Contract and submit the payment and performance bonds, insurance certificates and endorsements, and any other submittals required by the Contract Documents and as specified in the Notice of Award.

6.

Prevailing Wage Requirements.

6.1 General. Pursuant to California Labor Code § 1720 et seq., this Project is subject to the prevailing wage requirements applicable to the locality in which the Work is to be performed for each craft, classification or type of worker needed to perform the Work, including employer payments for health and welfare, pension, vacation, apprenticeship and similar purposes.

6.2 Rates. These prevailing rates are on file with the City and are available online at http://www.dir.ca.gov/DLSR. Each Contractor and Subcontractor must pay no less than the specified rates to all workers employed to work on the Project.

The schedule of per diem wages is based upon a working day of eight hours. The rate for holiday and overtime work must be at least time and one-half.

6.3 Compliance. The Contract will be subject to compliance monitoring and enforcement by the DIR, under Labor Code § 1771.4.

7.

Performance and Payment Bonds. The successful bidder will be required to provide performance and payment bonds, each for 100% of the Contract Price, as further specified in the Contract Documents.

8.

Substitution of Securities. Substitution of appropriate securities in lieu of retention amounts from progress payments is permitted under Public Contract Code § 22300.

9.

Subcontractor List. Each Subcontractor must be registered with the DIR to perform work on public projects. Each bidder must submit a completed Subcontractor List form with its Bid Proposal, including the name, location of the place of business, California contractor license number, DIR registration number, and percentage of the Work to be performed (based on the base bid price) for each Subcontractor that will perform Work or service or fabricate or install Work for the prime contractor in excess of one-half of 1% of the bid price, using the Subcontractor List form included with the Contract Documents.

10.

Instructions to Bidders. All bidders should carefully review the Instructions to Bidders for more detailed information before submitting a Bid Proposal. The definitions provided in Article 1 of the General Conditions apply to all of the Contract Documents, as defined therein, including this Notice Inviting Bids.

By: ___________________________________

Date: ________________

William Hornung, C.P.M, General Services Manager Publication Dates: 1) April 28, 2021 2) May 5, 2021 END OF NOTICE INVITING BIDS

46 MONTECITO JOURNAL

“My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.” – Claude Monet

INVITATION FOR BIDS NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that sealed bids will be received via electronic transmission on the City of Santa Barbara PlanetBids portal site until the date and time indicated below at which time they will be publicly opened and posted for: BID NO. 5896 DUE DATE & TIME: MAY 20, 2021 UNTIL 3:00 P.M. CREEKS CLEAN UP Scope of Work: Provide trash, debris, abandoned property, and feces removal from City creeks, beaches, and catch basin screens per specifications Section 5.0.

Bidders must be registered on the city of Santa Barbara’s PlanetBids portal in order to receive addendum notifications and to submit a bid. Go to PlanetBids for bid results and awards. It is the responsibility of the bidder to submit their bid with sufficient time to be received by PlanetBids prior to the bid opening date and time. The receiving deadline is absolute. Allow time for technical difficulties, uploading, and unexpected delays. Late or incomplete Bid will not be accepted.

A pre-bid meeting will not be held.

If further information is needed, contact Jennifer Disney Dixon, Buyer II at (805) 564-5356 or email: jdisney@santabarbaraca.gov FAIR EMPLOYMENT PRACTICE ACT Contractor agrees in accordance with Section 1735 and 1777.6 of California Labor Code, and the California Fair Employment Practice Act (Sections 1410-1433) that in the hiring of common or skilled labor for the performance of any work under this contract or any subcontract hereunder, no contractor, material supplier or vendor shall, by reason of age (over 40), ancestry, color, mental or physical disability, sex, gender identity and expression, marital status, medical condition (cancer or genetic characteristics), national origin, race, religious belief, or sexual orientation, discriminate against any person who is qualified and available to perform the work to which such employment relates. The Contractor further agrees to be in compliance with the City of Santa Barbara’s Nondiscriminatory Employment Provisions as set forth in Chapter 9 of the Santa Barbara Municipal Code.

LIVING WAGE Any service purchase order contract issued as a result of this request for bids or quotes may be subject to the City’s Living Wage Ordinance No 5384, SBMC 9.128 and its implementing regulations.

CERTIFICATE OF INSURANCE Contractor must submit to the contracted department within ten calendar days of an order, AND PRIOR TO START OF WORK, certificates of Insurance naming the City of Santa Barbara as Additional Insured in accordance with the attached Insurance Requirements. ___________________________ William Hornung, C.P.M. General Services Manager

STATEMENT OF WITHDRAWAL FROM PARTNERSHIP OPERATING UNDER A FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME: Fictitious Business Name of the Partnership: Harmony Interior Design, 528 San Blas Place, Santa Barbara, CA 93111. Name of Person Withdrawing: Anneli Helena Clavering, 11 San Marcos Trout Club, Santa Barbara, CA 93105. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on April 7, 2021. Original FBN No. 2019-0000805, filed April 2, 2019. I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in

Published April 28, 2021 Montecito Journal

my office. Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL). FBN No. 2021-0000995.

Published April 28, May 5, 12, 19, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: A Busy Woman, 2879 Exeter Pl., Santa Barbara, CA 93105. Judi Weisbart, 2879 Exeter Pl., Santa Barbara, CA 93105. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on April 21, 2021. 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 29 April – 6 May 2021

the original statement on file in my office. Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL). FBN No. 2021-0001128. Published April 28, May 5, 12, 19, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Currently Welding, 318 South H St, Lompoc, CA, 93436.

Dylan T Shelly, 20 Stanford Cir, Lompoc, CA, 93436. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on March 4, 2021. 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. 2021-0000602. Published April 28, May 5, 12, 19, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SBMIDMOD, 223 Anacapa Street #C, Santa Barbara, CA, 93101. Tracey Strobel, 1311 West Valerio Street, Santa Barbara, CA, 93101. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on April 16, 2021. 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. 2021-0001072. Published April 28, May 5, 12, 19, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Mission Scholars, 1330 State Street, Suite 201, Santa Barbara, CA, 93101. Santa Barbara Education Foundation, 1330 State Street, Suite 201, Santa Barbara, CA, 93101. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on April 12, 2021. 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. 2021-0001026. Published April 21, 28, May 5, 12, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Predictable Esthetics, 300 Garnet Way, Santa Maria, CA, 93454. Isaac Balderas, 29 April – 6 May 2021

300 Garnet Way, Santa Maria, CA, 93454. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on March 26, 2021. 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. 2021-0000876. Published April 21, 28, May 5, 12, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Simply Remembered, 4289 State Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93110. Wiefels & Son II, INC, 690 Vella Road, Palm Springs, CA 92264. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on April 8, 2021. 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. 2021-0001008. Published April 14, 21, 28, May 5, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: San Ysidro Pharmacy, 1498 East Valley Road, Montecito, CA 93108. Montecito RX, 1498 East Valley Road, Montecito, CA 93108. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on April 6, 2021. 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. 2021-0000974. Published April 14, 21, 28, May 5, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Motion Unlimited, PO Box 20275, Santa Barbara, CA 93110. Motion Unlimited, PO Box 20275, Santa Barbara, CA 93110. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on April 1, 2021.

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. 2021-0000926. Published April 7, 14, 21, 28, 2021

01-NOTICE TO CONTRACTORS CALLING FOR BIDS 1.

2.

3.

OWNER: Montecito Union School District PROJECT IDENTIFICATION NAME: 2021-1 Electrical Panel Relocation PROJECT LOCATION: 385 San Ysidro Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93108

PROJECT DESCRIPTION: • Provide infrastructure for Southern California Edison service upgrade • Provide new main service and concrete pad • Coordinate installation with photovoltaic project equipment (separate contract, concurrent) • Decommission old main service and pad • Provide electrical connection to south property • This project is anticipated to start on approximately June 8, 2021 and is anticipated to be completed by July 27, 2021 5.

BID DEADLINE: Bids are due on May 24, 2021 not later than 2:00 p.m.

6.

PLACE AND METHOD OF BID RECEIPT: All Bids must be sealed. Personal delivery, courier, or mailed via United States Postal Service and addressed to Montecito Union School District, 385 San Ysidro Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93108. ATTN: Virginia Alvarez 7.

PLACE PLANS ARE ON FILE: Montecito Union School District, Business Department, Second Floor, 385 San Ysidro Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93108, www.tricoblue.com 8.

ALTERNATES: If alternate bids are called for, the contract will be awarded to the lowest bid price on the base contract without consideration of the prices on the additive or deductive items.

9.

MANDATORY JOB WALK: Meet at Montecito Union School Front Office by the stairs, on May 10, 2021 at 10 a.m..

Attendance at the entire job walk is mandatory and failure to attend the entire job walk may result in your bid being rejected as nonresponsive. Contact OWNER for details on required job walks and related documentation.

10.

This is a prevailing wage project. OWNER has ascertained the general prevailing rate of per diem wages in the locality in which this work is to be performed for each craft or type of worker needed to execute this contract. These rates are on file at OWNER’s office, and a copy may be obtained upon request, or at www.dir.ca.gov. Contractor shall post a copy of these rates at the job site.

ALL PROJECTS OVER $1,000 ARE SUBJECT TO PREVAILING WAGE MONITORING AND ENFORCEMENT BY THE LABOR COMMISSIONER. It shall be mandatory upon the contractor to whom the contract is awarded (CONTRACTOR), and upon any SUBCONTRACTOR, to pay not less than the specified rates to all workers employed by them in the execution of the contract.

11.

A Payment Bond for contracts over $25,000 and a Performance Bond for all contracts will be required prior to commencement of work. These bonds shall be in the amounts and form called for in the Contract Documents.

12.

Pursuant to the provisions of Public Contract Code Section 22300, CONTRACTOR may substitute certain securities for any funds withheld by OWNER to ensure CONTRACTOR’s performance under the contract. At the request and expense of CONTRACTOR, securities equivalent to any amount withheld shall be deposited, at the discretion of OWNER, with either OWNER or a state or federally chartered bank as the escrow agent, who shall then pay any funds otherwise subject to retention to CONTRACTOR. Upon satisfactory completion of the contract, the securities shall be returned to CONTRACTOR. Securities eligible for investment shall include those listed in Government Code Section 16430, bank and savings and loan certificates of deposit, interest bearing demand deposit accounts, standby letters of credit, or any other security mutually agreed to by CONTRACTOR and OWNER. CONTRACTOR shall be the beneficial owner of any securities substituted for funds withheld and shall receive any interest on them. The escrow agreement shall be in the form indicated in the Contract Documents.

13.

To bid on or perform the work stated in this Notice, CONTRACTOR must possess a valid and active contractor's license of the following classification(s) B No CONTRACTOR or subcontractor shall be qualified to bid on, be listed in a bid proposal, subject to the requirements of § 4104 of the Public Contract Code, for a public works project (submitted on or after March 1, 2015) unless currently registered with the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) and qualified to perform public work pursuant to Labor Code § 1725.5. No CONTRACTOR or subcontractor may be awarded a contract for public work on a public works project (awarded after April 1, 2015) unless registered with the DIR. DIR’s web registration portal is: www.dir.ca.gov/Public-Works/Contractors.html 14.

CONTRACTOR and all subcontractors must furnish electronic certified payroll records (eCPR) to the Labor Commissioner monthly in PDF format. Registration at www.dir.ca.gov/Public-Works/Certified-Payroll-Reporting.html is required to use the eCPR system.

The following notice is given as required by Labor Code Section 1771.5(b)(1): CONTRACTOR and any subcontractors are required to review and comply with the provisions of the California Labor Code, Part 7, Chapter 1, beginning with Section 1720, as more fully discussed in the Contract Documents. These sections contain specific requirements concerning, for example, determination and payment of prevailing wages, retention, inspection, and auditing payroll records, use of apprentices, payment of overtime compensation, securing workers’ compensation insurance, and various criminal penalties or fines which may be imposed for violations of the requirements of the chapter. Submission of a bid constitutes CONTRACTOR’s representation that CONTRACTOR has thoroughly reviewed these requirements.

15. OWNER will retain 5% of the amount of any progress payments.

16. This Project does not require prequalification pursuant to AB 1565 of all general contractors and all mechanical, electrical and plumbing subcontractors 17. BID PACKET will be available at www.tricoblue.com and provided at the job walk to attendees.

Advertisement Dates: April 22 – May 8, 2021

• The Voice of the Village •

Virginia Alvarez 805-969-3249 x 420

MONTECITO JOURNAL

47

Real Estate Snapshot

by Kelly Mahan Herrick

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2021 First Quarter Recap

he real estate market in Santa Barbara and surrounding areas continues to be stronger than ever, with the first quarter statistics confirming that sellers currently have the advantage over buyers. With staggeringly low inventory, and an influx of out-of-town buyers adding to our already strong local buyer pool, home prices are at an all-time high.

Sales & Sales Prices Way Up

As of this writing, there are only 131 homes and PUDs currently for sale from Goleta to Carpinteria, which is only about 30% of our normal active inventory.

There are 159 additional properties currently in escrow. In a more balanced market, we would see more active listings than pending sales; it is uncommon to have more properties in escrow than available for sale.

The sweet spot in our market so far this year has been properties priced between $1M and $1.5M, with 39 condo, home, and PUD sales in this segment in March alone. We also saw a bump in mid-range properties, with 18 sales from $2M-$2.5M in March. Compare this with last year, when we saw just 3 in the same time period.

As I mentioned previously, the higher end market is extremely hot, with 27 properties selling in March over $5M, with an average of 76 days on the market.

In March 2020, that number was a mere three properties, with an average market time of 276 days!

Days on Market Down Considerably

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ne of the best indicators of a hot sellers’ market is the number of days a listing is on the market. Obviously, the fewer number of days, the more competitive the market is. Not surprisingly, we saw a staggering drop in the average number of days on market (DOM) from this year versus last year. The average number DOM in the first quarter was 43 days, compared to 72 in the first quarter of 2020! 71% of the sold properties so far this year went pending within the first 30 days, compared to 56% in 2020. This falls in line with what we are seeing right now: The majority of properties are being sold immediately upon hitting the market, with multiple offers.

Condos

A Nantucket style, ocean front home on Fernald Point is the highest sale of the year so far, closing at $45,000,000 (listed by Kathleen Winter of Berkshire Hathaway Home Services)

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n South Santa Barbara County (Carpinteria to Goleta), the number of properties sold in the first quarter of the year is up substantially over previous years; 333 sales of homes and PUDs (Planned Unit Developments) from January through March 2021, versus 232 in the same time period in 2020. (The norm in our area is about 230 sales in the first quarter of the year, which is variable based on inclement weather.)

Median sales price is also up significantly; we have now hit the $2,000,000 mark for median sales price. Compare this to last year’s first quarter median sales price, $1,334,750, and the numbers really do paint the picture of a red hot market. Another number to consider, median list price, which was $1,950,000; $50K below the median sales price. This reflects what most agents and their clients are experiencing daily: multiple offers on the majority of properties that come on the market, which inevitably pushes the price up over asking.

Keep in mind that this record new median sales price includes a whopping THIRTEEN sales over $10M, including a $45M sale on Fernald Point in Montecito, a $31M sale on Channel Drive near the Biltmore (that had been on the market for 211 days), another massive sale in Hope Ranch ($25M on Marina Drive, after being on the market 225 days), and two others in the low $20M range, in addition to 8 sales between $10M and $20M. This record number of high-end sales inevitably, and perhaps some would say artificially, drove the median sales price up. Last year in the first quarter we had ZERO sales over the $10M mark.

If we look at median sales price without activity in Montecito and Hope Ranch, our median sales price is $1,510,000, which is still a 30% increase over last year.

Record Low Inventory, For Now

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he bad news for buyers is that inventory continues to be the lowest it has ever been. The good news? We are seeing more homes come on the market in the last few weeks, as is normal during the spring selling season. The other interesting thing we are seeing, just in the last two weeks, are several homes being resold after closing. With California on the cusp of “opening back up,” some employers are reversing their stance on working from home, and employees who may have flocked to our area with the belief they could work remotely indefinitely, are now finding themselves putting the home they just purchased back on the market.

The first quarter of the year we saw 471 active listings in the local MLS in the South County from January through March. Compare this to 514 active listings in the first quarter of 2020. But new listings were actually up 3.5% this year: 384 new properties hit the market in the first quarter of 2021 compared to 371 in 2020.

48 MONTECITO JOURNAL

One of only two tri-level townhomes located behind the Honor Bar on Coast Village Road sold in March, after 744 cumulative days on the market (listed by Angie Guiberteau of Compass)

Condo sales are up 48% over last year! 122 sales in the first quarter of 2021 compared to 82 sales in the sale timeframe last year. Median sold price is also up: $767,500 versus $658,500.

Last summer we saw the highest number of sales of condos, ever. In August and September, 61 and 67 properties sold, respectively. This past March was just a touch behind that, with 59 sales. Right now there are 29 condos available for sale, with another 43 pending. Condos available range in price from $485K for a 1/1 in Encina Royale in Goleta, to $4,995,000 for a 2/3 at Montecito Shores.

Notable sales in the condo segment this past quarter include about 15 luxury condo sales. There were two sales in the rarely available Sevilla development in downtown Santa Barbara, as well as the sale of one of two tri-level condos in Plaza Montecito, behind my office near the Honor Bar. That condo had been on the market a cumulative 744 days, before selling in March for $100K under asking price; it closed for $2,650,000.

Santa Ynez Valley

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ith the greater Santa Barbara area selling like crazy, surrounding areas, including the Santa Ynez Valley, also felt the upward pressure on prices as well as a lack of inventory. 79 homes, condos, and PUDs sold in the Valley the first quarter of this year, compared to 69 last year.

There are currently 34 homes, condos, PUDs, or ranches on the market in the Santa Ynez Valley right now, including Buellton, Solvang, Santa Ynez proper, Ballard, and Los Olivos. Properties range in price for a 2/2 condo in Solvang for $379K to a 554-acre ranch property in Santa Ynez’s Happy Canyon for $29M. Inventory throughout the Valley is down more than 30% over a more balanced year, which has pushed the median sales price up 28%, to $1.2M.

“Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God.” – Thomas Jefferson

29 April – 6 May 2021

Montecito Market

What’s Next for Our Market

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expect that we will see a very welcome boost in inventory in the next few months, as we always do in the spring and summer months. I predict that the “frenzy” our buyers are feeling to get into the market will start to be felt by sellers as well, and we will start to see more homes for sale. The concern is that we still have a large, pent-up buyer pool for good product, which isn’t likely to go away anytime soon, but it may lessen due to variables related to the reopening of California.

We are seeing a plethora of all-cash buyers, so those needing to get a loan should be pre-qualified with a local mortgage company and have done the necessary preliminary paperwork, so they can potentially compete against all-cash offers. Sellers are looking for the best price and the best terms, so the shorter the contingency periods, the better. We are seeing properties sell without inspection and appraisal contingencies, which can be really scary for first-time home buyers.

For those contemplating selling in the next year, I would strongly encourage you to sell sooner rather than later, given the influx of buyers that are waiting to pounce on the right property. Home prices are not expected to dip anytime soon, but I do think we will get to a point where the rate at which they are rising starts to slow, for various reasons.

•MJ

Ichiban Japanese Restaurant/Sushi Bar

A top floor 1/1 at El Montecito Verde is currently the lowest priced offering in Montecito (listed by Thomas Schultheis of Berkshire Hathaway Home Services)

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ontecito had 92 sales in Q1, ranging in price from a 1/1 on Coyote Road for $669K to a $45M estate on Fernald Point. This is more than double the sales we saw Q1 of 2020. It’s a staggering increase from a normal year, when we’d have between 30 and 60 sales in the first quarter. Montecito drew buyers from near and far, as the pandemic prompted people to flee bigger cities, in a quest for more space.

The average sales price in Montecito year-to-date is $5,964,725. Last year’s average sales price for Q1 was $3,097,587. There are currently 49 homes for sale in Montecito, ranging from a 1/1 condo at El Montecito Verde, to a 28-acre estate on Sycamore Canyon, Mira Vista, for $72.5M.

Lunch: Monday through Saturday 11:30am - 2:30pm Dinner: Monday through Sunday: 5pm - 10pm 1812A Cliff Drive Santa Barbara CA 93109 (805)564-7653 Lunch Specials, Bendo boxes. Full Sushi bar, Tatami Seats. Fresh Fish Delivered all week.

VILL AGE PROPERTIES

CONGRATULATES PATRICIA GRIFFIN

For her outstanding representation and successful closing of: 533 L AS FUENTES DRIVE M O N T EC ITO, C A OFFERED AT $4,175,000

222 ORTEGA RIDGE ROAD SA N TA BA R BA R A , C A OFFERED AT $3, 595,000

805.705.5133 | patricia@villagesite.com DRE 00837659 | villagesite.com

29 April – 6 May 2021

• The Voice of the Village •

All information provided is deemed reliable, but has not been verified and we do not guarantee it. We recommend that buyers make their own inquiries.

MONTECITO JOURNAL

49

NOSH TOWN

by Claudia Schou

GARDENS INSPIRE CHEFS’ SPRING MENUS

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fter a long winter, spring is a welcome renewal. Chefs reinvigorate their menus with vibrant green peas, bright red tomatoes, wild herbs, and a variety of citrus. Inspired by local bounty and the natural beauty of our locale, restaurants are rolling out some of their best spring dishes yet. Some chefs utilize fresh herbs and vegetables from their personal gardens. Here are a few of our favorites.

BOSSIE’S KITCHEN

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Flower shaped fried baby artichokes have sprung at Ca’Dario

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hef Massimo Falsini uses bright, seasonal ingredients for his spring menu. A new risotto dish that uses Acquerello risotto, nettles, and morel mushrooms showcases a bouquet of wild herbs. “If you take an aerial photo of the farmers’ market, you will identify a color pattern; well these colors should be the same as your dishes in the menu,” Falsini says.

He prepares risotto the traditional way with butter, shallots, and dry white wine. He sautés morels and wild onion and then folds them into the rice. Falsini Chef Massimo Falsini is inspired by the farmers’ market color creates an emulsion with nettle leaf – an palette for his spring menu herbaceous perennial flowering plant – Eureka lemon juice, and crème fraiche from Cowgirl Creamery. The dish is finished with morels and pickled ramps. The risotto dish is featured as a primi on a tasting menu composed of four courses for $130.

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Bossie’s Halibut and Spring Vegetable Risotto

or Chef Matthew Johnson, the pandemic has presented an opportunity to introduce diners to new farm-to-table concepts. Johnson selects fresh herbs and lettuces from the Ranch’s Chef’s Garden to create a variety of new dishes for spring, including a basil marinated heirloom tomato and burrata salad.

The dish is assembled with confit teardrop tomatoes, Persian cucumbers, Ojai Stonehouse’s Chef Matthew Johnson perfects farm-to-table dishes with fresh Valley sunflower sprouts, picked herbs and vegetables from his chef’s garden ciabatta, and a charred Sungold tomato vinaigrette ($27).

To prepare the dish, Johnson flash roasts the tomatoes and then marinates them in olive oil. The sunflower sprouts and petite basil are tossed with extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, and Meyer lemons from his garden. He then assembles the salad with heirloom tomato confit on top of a vinaigrette made with Sungold tomatoes, golden balsamic vinegar, tarragon, fennel pollen, shallots, garlic, and Dijon mustard. He seasons the dish with espelette, a red pepper from the Basque region in France, before adding crispy ciabatta croutons and borage blossoms with hints of cucumber and citrus.

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a’Dario chef-owner Dario Furlati makes artichokes the centerpiece of his seasonal dishes. Baby chokes are marinated in lemon juice and then deep fried in olive oil. The flower shaped veggies are served with garlic aioli ($18).

CONVIVO

STONEHOUSE RESTAURANT AT SAN YSIDRO RANCH

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CARUSO’S Bossie’s Kitchen co-owners Lauren Herman and Christina Olufson

alibut takes center stage here. Chef Lauren Herman lightly brines and pan sears the fish to retain its mild and slightly sweet flavor, then serves it over spring vegetable risotto ($25). The risotto is prepared with seasonal spring vegetables locally sourced from the Santa Barbara Farmers’ Market: sugar snap peas, asparagus, and a variety of mushrooms that may include shiitake, oyster, or trumpet. As a finishing touch, the fish is garnished with gremolata butter made of lemon zest, garlic, and chopped parsley. This dish is served only on Thursday evenings from 5 to 8:30 pm.

CA’DARIO

onvio Chef Peter McNee is known for his unconventional and delicious approach to recipes that present a world of flavor in a single dish. He calls his cuisine nomadic – a melting pot of Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and Asian culinary styles. The spring asparagus is no exception. The smoky oakgrilled asparagus spears are dressed in chimichurri sauce, garnished with hazelnuts and blood orange slices and laid to rest on a delightful and refreshing lemon mascarpone ($16). You’ll savor the bold, Blood oranges and lemon mascarpone are wonderful additions rich flavors in this heavenly spring mix. to a spring asparagus dish at Convivo

TASTING NOTES

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pring has ushered in some unique wine selections and tasting opportunities from local wine experts. We checked in with a few for some fresh ideas on what to pour.

DANIEL FISH, ROSEWOOD MIRAMAR DIRECTOR OF WINE

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efore we dive headfirst into summer, and while many of us are at home preparing spring meals with family and close friends, I wanted to take the time to highlight the wines of Littorai – and more specifically the 2019 Littorai Pinot Noir “Les Larmes” Anderson Valley.

Ted Lemon crafts some of the most beautiful examples of California Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Ted was one of the first Americans allowed to make wine in Burgundy in the mid ’80s, when he made wine for one of Meursault’s most highly regarded producers, Domaine Roulot. It’s no wonder that Ted’s wines possess a lighter overall style and a purity of balance between all of the components of the wine.

“Do not spread the compost on the weeds.” - William Shakespeare

Nosh Page 524

Rosewood Miramar Wine Director Daniel Fish

29 April – 6 May 2021

Miscellany (Continued from page 16)

Milt, a longtime resident of Montecito and Santa Barbara with his wife, Arlene, has been honored with a star on Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk of Fame, along with his late brother Bill, with whom he founded the world-famous private club for magicians in 1963.

He has produced TV specials for all three major networks and was creator and consultant for the $50 million Caesars Magic Empire at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

A helluva guy...

David Copperfield, a fellow illusionist, was one of the many stars celebrating Milt Larsen’s 90th birthday party

Janet Adderley, Lisa and Kenny Loggins, Anne Towbes, James Corden, and Alan and Lisa Parsons (photo by Priscilla)

Actor Neil Patrick Harris joined the birthday bash remotely

Down for Earth

Earth Day, which started in Santa Barbara after a disastrous oil spill of more than four million gallons in 1969 which killed thousands of seabirds, dolphins, seals, and sea lions, has certainly been celebrated by Jennifer Smith, the publisher of Santa Barbara Magazine and C Magazine.

Jennifer, daughter of Anne Towbes, tells me they have partnered with Aspiration — America’s leading provider of sustainability financial services — to plant one million trees annually to offset those used to print each copy of the two glossies, and the energy consumed in editorial operations.

“C Publishing is proud to become the first publisher to be designated

Ryan Coaxum, hosts Terry and Kelley Pillow, and Beverly Dale (photo by Priscilla)

the Montecito Journal’s Christine Merrick, also made a most glamorous Cinderella.

Also, among the celebrity crowd watching the show were singer Kenny Loggins, Alan and Lisa Parsons, Anne Towbes, and Susan Tucker.

A glorious evening!

A Magical Evening A plethora of stars honored iconic illusionist Milt Larsen on his 90th birthday at Hollywood’s Magic Castle

It was who’s-who of magic lovers and masters of the mystifying when they gathered virtually from New York to Hawaii to celebrate the patriarch of illusion Milt Larsen’s 90th birthday.

The virtual event was followed by an intimate COVID-friendly gathering on the grounds of Hollywood’s Magic Castle, sister branch of the Montecito locale, where Milt was presented with a plaque to be placed on the lower level of the building renaming it The Milt Larsen Inner Circle.

The star-studded party was emceed by former game show host Wink Martindale, with a positive tsunami of celebrity guests including David Copperfield, Loni Anderson, Neil 29 April – 6 May 2021

Lance Burton, a magician mainstay in Las Vegas, was on hand to celebrate Milt Larsen’s 90th birthday

Patrick Harris, Stefanie Powers, Lance Burton, Michael Feinstein, Robert Hays, Leonard Maltin, Richard Sherman, Paul Reubens, Bruce Vilanch, and Anson Williams.

Mini Meta

Last Week’s Solution:

By Pete Muller & Andrew White For each of the first five mini crosswords, one of the entries also serves as part of a five-word meta clue. The answer to the meta is a word or phrase (five letters or longer) hidden within the sixth mini crossword. The hidden meta answer starts in one of the squares and snakes through the grid vertically and horizontally from there (no diagonals!) without revisiting any squares.

PUZZLE #1 1

Miscellany Page 524

2

3

4

1

P A S T

R A N T O

I M D R I M O O MM

S E E D Y

TOMMY

Q U A D

U N T I L

O Z O N E

T I N G E

A P E S

LEE

H O R A

J O N E S

A P S E S

N I E C E

JONES

E S T E S

T O N G S

A D O U T

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Across 1 Belgrade resident 5 Prepare for a drive 7 Pop up 8 Word before cap and gown 9 Home country for Lupita Nyong'o

Down 1 Reeked 2 Bone-chilling 3 Hold the throne 4 Like Eugene Levy's eyebrows, famously 6 Org. that promotes veganism and not wearing fur

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Across 1 Merry dances 5 Biblical figure who had a whale of a time?

6 Lyre-holding Muse 7 Second U.S. vice president to resign office 8 Scholarship consideration, often

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Across 1 D-Day beach code name 6 Sing about?

7 Latin phrase often confused with "exempli gratia" 8 Make a delivery 9 ___ neutrality (major news item in 2017)

Across 1 ___ Neutron (boy genius of cartoons) 6 Toughen (to) 7 Wire cutters?

8 Cow in classic ads 9 Parts of a trip ... or things that can trip

• The Voice of the Village •

E E N I E

D I T K A

I E C O E S E S

AGENTK

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Down 1 Former Yankees catcher Posada 2 Foolish 3 Like some upper-class communities 4 Place after place 5 Denim

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Down 1 Constellation next to Gemini 2 One honored on a día in mayo 3 Bothered terribly 4 Parasite's counterpart 5 Feed the kitty

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G A M Y

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B E T T E

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PUZZLE #5 5

A R I A L

ROLE

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Down 1 ___ cum laude (with highest honors) 2 Did a jeté, e.g.

3 Of practical value 4 One of four main characters in "The Wind in the Willows" 5 "I'm sold!"

P R A K D E A L

MOVIE

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Across 1 Urban area of substandard housing 5 Because of 6 Post online?

7 Enough 8 Like some bloomers

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Down 1 Be in sync 2 Counting everything 3 Handbag for him, in modern slang 4 Carrie's crush on "Sex and the City" 5 They're positive

Across 1 Location of Santa's workshop, often 5 TikTok upload 6 Enterprise alternative 7 Economize 8 Banks in the fashion industry

Down 1 Whitish 2 Firefighter Red 3 Intermediate theorem in a proof 4 Recurring program segment 5 Far-reaching

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51

Miscellany (Continued from page 51)

Beach clean-up crews heading to Butterfly Beach (photo by Priscilla)

pany that eschews plastic in favor of aluminum bottles, which are much better for the environment,” says Rick. “And instead of doing this annually we’d like to make it a more frequent exercise, maybe even monthly.”

Bravo!

An Exclusive Mind Meld

Rather than staying in England for his grandmother Queen Elizabeth’s 95th birthday after Prince Philip’s funeral at Windsor, Prince Harry chose to lunch in Los Angeles with mega philanthropist Wallis Annenberg, 81, the daughter of Walter Annenberg, former U.S. ambassador to London under President Richard Nixon.

The Duke of Sussex, who returned to his Riven Rock estate in Montecito two days after the solemn ceremony at historic St. George’s Chapel, was spotVolunteers with residential participants Sara Aldape and ted at the exclusive San Vicente Janis Janowski from Montecito and Carpinteria with bags Bungalows — a 750-member club in tow (photo by Priscilla) — having lunch with Annenberg, Aspiration Climate Champion,” whose late father owned a publishenthuses Jennifer. “We join inves- ing empire including TV Guide. tors Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert The Annenberg Foundation Downey Jr. and co-founder Joe pours billions into projects linked Sanberg and CEO Andrei Cherny in to climate change, animal welfare, supporting Aspiration and its refor- and social injustice in America — estation programs.” all areas that Harry, 36, is interestMeanwhile, in another Earth Day ed in. project at the Rosewood Miramar, “They sat outside far from other more than 30 employees, including people and Harry came in wearing manager Rick Fidel, with equip- a mask,” a fellow diner told the ment provided by Santa Barbara New York Post’s Page Six. Channelkeeper, set to work cleaning up the beach between Rick Caruso’s tony hostelry and Power of the Flower Butterfly Beach, across from Ty Santa Barbara’s Dream Warner’s currently closed Biltmore Foundation is launching the Hotel.

“Flower Empower Blooms: Floral “We have also teamed up with Arts Showcase” that is taking place Proud Service Water, an Idaho com- online in place of the charity’s

52 MONTECITO JOURNAL

11th annual Flower Empower lunch given the restrictions imposed under COVID. Youth, amateur, and professional contestants from across the country can compete in seven categories — table space, headpiece, hand-tied bouquet, orchid display, contemporary, garden photograph, and master garden still life painting.

Entries will be judged by an online “people’s vote” to decide which entries go forward for the star judges to pick final winners for each class in every category.

The grand prize winner will be selected from the 21 finalists and receives a two-night stay at the Belmond El Encanto with dinner for two and two spa treatments.

The people’s vote winner gets a twonight stay at the Hotel Californian, just a tiara’s toss from Stearns Wharf. Both prizes include a 48-hour rental from Tesla.

Judges include Montecito interior designer Penny Bianchi, fashion photographer Dewey Nicks, and Alicia Schwede of Flirty Fleurs, a flower blog.

If you want take part check out dreamfoundation.org/flower.

A blooming good idea...

Happy 102, Anne!

On a personal note, I wish a happy birthday to Anne Douglas, widow of the legendary actor Kirk Douglas, who has been celebrating her 102nd year.

Anne was married to Kirk, who used to shuttle between their homes in Montecito and Beverly Hills, for 65 years until his death last year at the age of 103 and had two sons, Peter and Eric.

She was a film publicist when they met while Kirk was filming Act of Love in 1953, which also featured Brigitte Bardot.

Together they established Harry’s Haven, an Alzheimer’s disease unit at the Motion Picture & Television Fund Home in Woodland Hills, named after Kirk’s father.

The tony twosome also lent their efforts to rebuild playgrounds in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Sightings

Prince Harry playing with his pet Labrador, Pula, a rescue dog, on Miramar Beach... Actress Laura Dern at Merci Montecito... Actor Ben Affleck strolling on State Street Pip! Pip! Be safe, wear a mask, and get vaccinated.

•MJ

Nosh (Continued from page 50) Upon a first swirl, the wine lifts from the glass with notes of fresh red cherry, wild alpine strawberries, rhubarb, and crushed violets. On the palate, the wine is supple, while simultaneously light. The purity of the fruit is perfectly complemented by the subtle earth tones and vibrant minerality.

The wines of Littorai are incredibly sought-after by both long-time fans, sommeliers, and the fortunate who are newly introduced. For the perfect pairing, enjoy these wines with wild king salmon or seared duck breast prepared at home, or enjoy a glass with Chef Massimo’s Pan Roasted Steelhead Trout accompanied by fresh spring peas, pickled fennel salad and wild mustard seeds while dining at Caruso’s restaurant on Miramar Beach. One great opportunity to get exposed to these wines, and others like them, is to join the Miramar Wine Collective, curated by yours truly!

TRISTAN PITRE, STONEHOUSE RESTAURANT SOMMELIER

T

rousseau is a grape brought to California on the backs of European immigrants traveling to California in hopes of striking gold. The grapevines were brought to keep the culture of their home alive in this far off destination, not to make wine for any commercial pursuit but simply for the family to drink.

Trousseau never caught on as a household name, but a new generation of open-minded and experimental winemakers have put a new focus on this old grape. The 2019 Arnot-Roberts Trousseau hailing from Sonoma County is a gorgeous pale ruby in the glass, lighter than even the lightest California Pinot Noir. The nose is lifted and full of fresh red fruit – pomegranate, strawberry and raspberry accented with floral aromatics; the perfect wine to enjoy with an old friend over a long meal. It is light, bright, and fun, with its effortless nature setting the stage for engaging conversations.

It is the perfect complement to the fresh spring produce on our Stonehouse menu. Our new duck entree Stonehouse Restaurant’s Tristan Pitre served with morels, asparagus and fava beans is an ideal pairing. Diners may arrange a private wine cellar tour and tasting pre- or post-dinner reservation. If serving this selection at home, pick up some fresh vegetables from the farmers’ market and sauté them lightly in butter with foraged spring mushrooms, and serve alongside a roasted chicken. With spring in full swing, enjoy this delicious meal outdoors with loved ones.

“Gardening is not a rational act.” – Margaret Atwood

29 April – 6 May 2021

DINE OUTSIDE |TAKE-OUT Montecito Journal wants to let readers know who’s offering a taste of spring with take-out and delivery service and outdoor dining.

We encourage you to support your local dining venues and wine boutiques!

CAFE SINCE 1928

GREAT FOOD STIFF DRINKS GOOD TIMES SUNDAY THRU THURSDAY 7:00 AM - 10:00 PM FRIDAY AND SATURDAY 7:00 AM -12:00AM

OLD TOWN SANTA BARBARA

Best breakfast in Santa Barbara

COME JOIN US BREAKFAST OR LUNCH OPEN EVERY DAY FRESHLY BAKED BREADS & PASTRIES

D’ANGELO BREAD

7am to 2pm

25 W. GUTIERREZ STREET (805) 962-5466

‘ LUCKY S STEAKS - CHOPS - SEAFOOD - COCKTAILS 1279 COAST VILLAGE ROAD (805) 565-7540

JORDAN DEVILLE, EL ENCANTO SOMMELIER

FROM OUR TABLE TO YOURS

A

t El Encanto we are extremely proud to partner with Margerum Wine Company to produce a unique and flavorful rosé. Most of us in Santa Barbara have heard of or even met Doug Margerum; he is a real presence in town. He’s also a good example of a selfmade success story.

Doug started in wine on my side of things running wine programs locally and transitioned into growing grapes and of course making his own wines. As a somm, I can really

El Encanto Sommelier Jordan DeVille

29 April – 6 May 2021

Sunday-Thursday 11:00-8:30 Friday and Saturday 11:00-9:00 1209 Coast Village Road Santa Barbara, CA (805) 565-0642 get behind what Doug has done, not only his commitment to our community but also to the wines he produces. He likes to harvest grapes just before they are fully ripe, which makes for a more Old World style of wine.

What is really special about this wine is its complex flavor. I was lucky enough to visit and tour the winery with Doug, followed by days just tasting different cuvées blended in different combinations until we both agreed on a perfect mix. I can’t take credit for grape

growing, that’s out of my wheelhouse, but it is a really special thing to be able to say that you helped design the blueprint for a wine. I feel like it gives you such a unique perspective into the wine, and a lot of fun aspects to talk about when I’m interacting with our guests on the floor.

Our rosé is a noticeably light style. If you are familiar with the style of wine made in Provence, France, I think you will find it emulates that very well. It’s crisp and refresh-

• The Voice of the Village •

ing, with notes of red berries and tropical fruit. Underripe raspberry and strawberry come through at first and are met with melon and guava, finished with ripe red and white rose petals. It’s also extremely versatile from a pairing perspective; anything from our Asian style glass noodles to California avocado toast. At home you can enjoy this wine selection with mild smoked meats and charcuterie and olive tapenade, or pita bread and pepper hummus.

•MJ MONTECITO JOURNAL

53

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Excellent references. www.BiographyDavidWilk.com ITEMS FOR SALE My Riviera Life CBD, a Santa Barbara Company since 2017, now available in Montecito Natural Foods and Tri County Produce

54 MONTECITO JOURNAL

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Beautiful cemetery by the beach.

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“I Do” your way. Short notice, weekends or holidays. Sandra Williams 805.636.3089 RENTAL AVAILABLE POLOFIELD CONDO Furnished one bedroom-sleeps 3. Watch polo from the privacy on your own deck. Available May-September $4,000/mo + deposit. or lease 1-year $3,000/mo (805)717-1787 WANTED TO BUY Private Sports card collector seeking cards, all kinds. 805 969-5343.

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Minimum is $8 per week/issue. Photo/logo/visual is an additional $20 per issue.

Email text to frontdesk@montecitojournal.net or call (805) 565-1860 and we will respond with a cost.

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We accept Visa/MasterCard/Amex “What’s a butterfly garden without butterflies?” – Roy Rogers

DONATIONS NEEDED Santa Barbara Bird Sanctuary Menagerie 2340 Lillie Avenue Summerland CA 93067 (805) 969-1944 Donate to the Parrot Pantry!

At SB Bird Sanctuary, backyard farmer’s bounty is our birds best bowl of food! The flock goes bananas for your apples, oranges & other homegrown fruits & veggies.

Volunteers Do you have a special talent or skill? Do you need community service hours? The flock at SB Bird Sanctuary could always use some extra love and socialization. Call us and let’s talk about how you can help. (805) 969-1944 VOLUNTEERS NEEDED K-9 PALS need volunteers to be foster parents for our dogs while they are waiting for their forever homes. For more information info@k-9pals.org or 805-570-0415.

29 April – 6 May 2021

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• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

55

Tri-color Gold Diamond Ring 1.02 Carat

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