What Will We Tell Our Children?

4 - 11 June 2020 Vol 26 Issue 23

SERVING MONTECITO AND SUMMERLAND

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WHAT WILL WE TELL

OUR CHILDREN?

d r a c t

s o P om fr

. n n i M (STORY BEGINS ON PAGE 5)

OFFICE SPACE, R.I.P. A eulogy for the brick and mortar workplace formerly known as The Office, may it rest in peace, p. 16

THE SHAPE OF WATER As the desalinated water vote nears, we take a look at the Wild West of California water politics, p. 10

POWER OF TED TEDxSantaBarbara organizer Mark Sylvester charts the process from chaos to order at a time the world needs it most, p. 32

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• THE VOICE OF THE VILLAGE •

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Inside This Issue 5 6

Editor’s Letter

We must help our kids process this moment in American history; it has everything to do with who they will become

Village Beat

Land Use looks at Randall Road Debris Basin and Montecito Sanitary District development; Laguna Blanca hosts virtual citizenship event; Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation cancels Gold Ribbon Luncheon

10 On the Record

Part 3 of MJ’s water series looks back on a century of searching for liquid gold

11 Letters to the Editor

A collection of communication from readers J. W. Burk, LeeAnn Morgan, Barry Gordon, Holly Sherwin, Katherine Emery, David Green, and Larry Bond

12 Music for Healing

Glen Phillips is helping. Doing his best to respond in song. But it ain’t easy.

16 Sheltering in Place

R.I.P the office, a reflection on its ignominious life

18 Seen Around Town

Support Small Businesses At

Updates from Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network

20 Fitness Front

Awesome local opportunities for dance that will heal and energize

23 Muller Monthly Music Meta Crossword Puzzle 26 Perspectives

Grads, here’s the graduation speech you should have heard

The Daily Optimist

Scientists create reusable oil-absorbing sponge; Project Vesta fights climate change in the Caribbean

27 Brilliant Thoughts

Ashleigh Brilliant contemplates speechcrime, hatespeech, and hatespeechcrime

In Passing

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28 Local News

Black Lives Matter SB orchestrates massive protest march downtown

30 The Montecito Pivot

Montecito stores will help you emerge from quarantine in style, or make your extended staycation even nicer

32 The Power of TED

Mark Sylvester developed TEDx for Santa Barbara and, in 10 minutes, here are all the ways he’s smarter than you

34 Our Town

Part 2 of Joanne Calitri’s series on 5G in Santa Barbara

People of Montecito

Chris Dabney recalls a favorite memory growing up in town

35 Far Flung Travel

Chuck Graham spends a day hiking to the Matilija Wilderness

41 Voices

Sharyn Main stresses the importance of a sustainable local food system

44 Culture Karma

The author, who was nurtured by Santa Barbara small businesses, says we must return the favor

46 Classified Advertising

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

47 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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“A riot is the language of the unheard.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Editor’s Letter

by Gwyn Lurie CEO and Executive Editor of the Montecito Journal Media Group

3 Dylans, 2 Zimmermans, 2 Coopers, and 2 Junes in Minnesota: What Are We Going to Tell our Kids?

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Miami, Dade Police showing solidarity (photo by Richard M. Clements @RClementsMBPD)

he George Floyd video is a Zapruder film of not just the final moments of a man’s life, but a snapshot of race relations in this country, at this particular inflection point. What each of us finds most disturbing about that video is as unique and diverse and distinct as we are. As bad as the entire 9 minute 43 second video is, the worst part for me may be different than the worst part for you.

Clearly, the officer doesn’t perceive the man he’s arresting to be a threat. We know this because the man on the ground isn’t resisting and Officer Chauvin’s body language tells us visually that he’s in complete control. Not just in control, but he can do all this, metaphorically, literally, and casually, with one hand in his pocket.

What’s most remarkable about the footage to me is the new levels of lack of remorse. For much of the video, Chauvin stares dispassionately at the cameras, and, though he knows he’s being recorded, he’s not the least bit ashamed; maybe even a little proud. Triumphant. Defiant.

The images that have emerged from this latest incident sent me back to lynching postcards I had inadvertently seen as a kid. They were oddly (and I suppose ironically) in a magazine called “Life.” Those images were seared into my memory. It was stunning to me that people were so “out” about lynchings that they actually made postcards of the events; and there was even a robust lynching souvenir trade.

Lynchings were social events, people got dressed up for them, smiled for photographs – not the least bit hesitant to be identified – and, like Officer Chauvin, showed no remorse. Like fishermen pose with their giant catch only the catch is human. And it isn’t just a few fishermen. Lynching postcards featured scores, sometimes hundreds of people, men, women, and children enjoying the event.

In Susan Sontag’s book Regarding the Pain of Others, Sontag writes about the intended impact of witnessing such ghoulish cruelty. “Narratives can make us understand. Photographs do something else: they haunt us,” Sontag writes.

My kids have seen the George Floyd video. Not just once, but over and over on their ever-present hand-held devices. And likely so have yours. What started in the 55401, thanks to modern technology, is witnessed here in the 93108, almost instantaneously. Now forever etched into our kids’ young memories, these haunting images will in some profound way inform who they are and who they will be. Which is why I believe that to not take a stance on it, to not

EDITORIAL Page 364 4 – 11 June 2020

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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.

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Bucket Brigade volunteers filled over 100 tote bags for seniors in our community, filled with personal care items and hand-sewn facemasks

O

n Tuesday, June 2, the Montecito Association Land Use Committee tackled two significant projects in the works for Montecito: the Randall Road Debris Basin and the development project proposed for the Montecito Sanitary District, both of which are in the comment period of their respective envi-

ronmental documents.

The Land Use Committee held a Q&A session with County reps for the Randall Road Debris Basin, which includes building a new off-channel debris basin on San Ysidro Creek at Randall Road and East Valley Road, an

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The local real estate market in Santa Barbara and Montecito is no exception, and we as agents are keeping tabs on the rapidly changing situation. While several listings have been withdrawn from the market, there are still buyers seeking to find their new home, thanks in part to record low interest rates. Working within the new mandates from the California Association of Realtors, we are still actively working for our clients, helping them reach their real estate goals.

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4 – 11 June 2020

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ON THE RECORD 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

There Will Be Water

The 1890s Citrus Pivot (photo courtesy Santa Barbara Historical Museum)

is about the Wild West of California water politics, there’s a wonderful, if misattributed (to Mark Twain, no less) witticism that’s worth mentioning.

“Whiskey is for drinking,” Twain’s supposed saying goes. “Water is for fighting over.”

Drill Until Dust

Montecito, circa 1880s (photo courtesy Santa Barbara Historical Museum)

O

n November 10, 2011, the Montecito Water District (MWD), which was created to provide residents with drinkable water, will celebrate its centennial anniversary. It’s an auspicious occasion, because Montecito doesn’t really have any water, at least none you can find under the soil. In fact, according to countless studies – okay, only 18 studies – our underground aquifer has always been leaky and unreliable.

And the 1,000 or more private wells (nobody really knows the exact number) that have so far been drilled into the earth hasn’t helped matters.

Yet several times throughout the past century, the MWD has miraculously managed to find new sources of water, in each case, just in time to solve this age-old dilemma. In recent decades, although Montecito’s population has stabilized, the town still ranks as one of the most lopsided water users in California, with 85 percent of our collective supply used for landscap-

ing as opposed to interior household needs. On June 25, Montecito’s water board plans to solve this never-ending water crisis yet again. After a public hearing on that date, the water board is expected to vote on whether to purchase a 50-year supply of desalinated water from Santa Barbara. The current debate over desalination has its roots in a recent extreme drought that produced a heated water board election season in 2016 which unseated the water board’s previous leadership.

However, that particular political battle was just the latest skirmish in a century-long war over how to deliver water to this reliably bone-dry burgh.

Previous articles in this series on Montecito’s complex water world have detailed the arguments both in favor and against MWD’s most recent plan to solve our ongoing water crisis.

But to truly understand this latest battle over our collective water future requires a closer historical examination. Of course, given that this story

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One hundred years ago, Montecito was prime cattle grazing territory, a gentle sloping expanse of wide open grasslands dotted with the occasional oak, sycamore or bay tree, a far cry from the lush paradise we know today.

A century earlier, trees were everywhere, but over the decades, early settlers had cut much of the natural forest down for firewood. “They had to get their fuel from somewhere,” said local historian and Montecito Journal contributor Hattie Beresford.

In the 1870s, a town ordinance prohibited the cutting down of coastal oaks. Still, by the 1890s, Montecito’s water-siphoning trees were all but decimated. After the native Chumash people, Montecito’s original inhabitants were Spanish soldiers attached to Santa Barbara’s Presidio and who were granted land in lieu of pay and a pension at the end of their service.

Because the shallow wells of the day failed to deliver much water, they built their small farms near the creeks that swelled with winter rains every year.

“There was enough water to support that small population,” said Beresford.

But as American farmers moved in the second half of the 1800s, both the creeks and the drinking wells went dry each summer. “When the wells dried up people closed their homes for the summer,” said Beresford. “Speculators began buying land to sell to Easterners looking for winter homes.”

Frustrated by the relative lack of water and the fact that there was no train to deliver their berries to market before they went bad, farmers morphed Montecito’s agrarian landscape into citrus groves during the 1880s.

When that succeeded, water became scarce yet again, and for the first time, it became obvious that wells alone wouldn’t solve the problem. The next

“Accomplishments have no color.” – Leontyne Price

Montecito’s pre-MWD Cold Spring Tunnel (photo

by Hattie Beresford)

solution: the construction of a series of horizontal water wells, essentially tunnels that were drilled at a slight downward angle from north to south which delivered water from the other side of the coastal mountain range to Santa Barbara and Montecito.

To pay for the construction of these concrete-lined tunnels, a dozen private water companies sold shares of the supply to local stakeholders, which was distributed via a network of redwood aqueducts. These aqueducts ran into a so-called division box that divvied up the water via a system of “miner’s inches,” which referred to the diameter of the hole that each customer had in the box, which, in turn, determined the volume of the water they received.

“That worked for a while,” Beresford continued. But as more people moved into the Santa Barbara area, the city purchased land in Montecito, and began diverting water from Cold Spring Canyon, which led to several lawsuits over water use, and ultimately, the creation of the MWD itself. By 1920 the time had come, as it so often would come again, for Montecito to find its own supply of new water.

Dam It All After its official formation in 1921, the Montecito Water District immediately began construction of its

ON THE RECORD Page 424 4 – 11 June 2020

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

Today’s Real Estate Strategy

There it Is. Take It.

I

n regard to Nick Schou’s article about securing a dependable water source for Montecito. I am reminded of Mulholland’s famous words as the water filled the L.A. aqueduct for the first time, “There it is. Take it.”

Only I am gazing out to the ocean. We have the most sensible and abundant supply of water only a stone’s throw away, and the City of Santa Barbara is facilitating the process. Yes, we have State Water but, we know that source can be unreliable especially in times of statewide drought – when we need it the most. The ocean is always full, we just need to get the salt out. The cost will look like a bargain in 10 years.

And yes, maybe a clause to extend the agreement for another long term would be prudent.

People have mentioned worries about private wells, ground water, and over-usage. That can always be an issue no matter the source of Montecito’s water. There could be a monitor system and a PR program to

continue educating people about over usage and conservation which should be a constant local theme. In addition, extra or unused water from the desal source could be used during wet years to help re-charge catch basins, local ponds and stream depressions, in cooperation with private landowners, which would help fill ground water aquifers. Extra water could also be allocated/sold to other communities, farmers or ranches to bank helping defray Montecito’s water costs.

It might not come directly from the eastern slope of the Sierra but, indirectly so, through the Pacific Ocean.

I’d say, “take it.”

J. W. Burk

Bridge Over Troubled Water This may be a dumb idea, but...

How about an attractive foot-

LETTERS Page 224

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• THE VOICE OF THE VILLAGE •

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Music for Healing

by Steven Libowitz

proudly congratulates

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Phillips Performs on Facebook to Cope with COVID and Racial Divides

I

t was exactly one week since George Floyd died in custody of the Minneapolis Police when Glen Phillips and I talked earlier this week over the phone. The issue of institutional racism and police brutality was weighing heavily on his mind, and would show up six hours later in that Monday night’s solo Zoom show, one of three per week that the native Santa Barbara singer-songwriter has been performing on the platform during our period of staying at home during the pandemic, when he designates a different nonprofit to receive direct donations.

But Phillips, who generally has no trouble drawing from a wide swath of musical influences to augment his own vast catalog from his 1990s pop band Toad the Wet Sprocket, a significant solo career and several other projects, was struggling to come to musical terms with the week’s news events.

What is the role of a self-professed privileged white musician singing to an audience that largely looks like him, he wondered, when one more senseless act of a black man dying at the hands of police has spilled out in pent up anger into the streets, as peaceful protests turn into violent riots across the nation?

“I was already in a fairly fallow period, trying to take in what’s happening in the world, waiting for songs to come out,” he said. “Now, I’ve been listening to the news, going for runs, and doing a lot of crying. The agony out there from everybody is so profound… There are so many reasons to be upset but like David Whyte says in his book Consolation, respect your anger, it shows us what we care about most, what we love and are willing to protect. So it’s a time to have anger, but also to examine it, and its roots and our perception. And to listen to those who aren’t as privileged as we are.

“I need to marshal my own strength to find the center in me because a part of me wants to lash out. And I’m not that smart or helpful when I lash out. So I

MUSIC Page 444

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AN ISLAND PARADISE RESORT

4678 VIA ROBLADA AN ISLAND PARADISE RESORT feeling, yet no oceans to cross! Although, after passing through the wrought iron gates, you will cross a gently arched brick bridge, alongside the waterfall leading to the natural-spring-created pond. Built by the owner for his family, with meticulous details throughout, this gated Mediterranean estate and guesthouse, with towering palm trees, two water wells, infinity pool, spa, and so much more is gracefully arranged over two level acres in Hope Ranch near a trail to More Mesa. Five-car garage, RV parking with full hookups next to the guesthouse, upstairs A/C, backup generator, family room wet bar, and basement sauna are just the beginning of the numerous amenities waiting for you to come discover and experience. MLS #19-2194

Offered for $6,277,000.

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Keith C. Berry REALTOR

®

Global Luxury Specialist Architectural Properties Division Specialist Cellular (805) 689-4240 | CalRE #363833| Keith@KeithBerryRealEstate.com | www.KeithBerryRealEstate.com 1482 E Valley Road Ste 17 | Santa Barbara, CA 93108 Mail: PO Box 5545 SB, CA 93150 ©2020 Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage. All Rights Reserved. Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Owned by a subsidiary of NRT LLC. Coldwell Banker, the Coldwell Banker Logo, Coldwell Banker Global Luxury and the Coldwell Banker Global Luxury logo service marks are registered or pending registrations owned by Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. Broker does not guarantee the accuracy of square footage, lot size or other information concerning the condition or features of property provided by seller or obtained from public records or other sources, and the buyer is advised to independently verify the accuracy of that information through personal inspection and with appropriate professionals.

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4 – 11 June 2020

PALLADIAN-INFLUENCED, PACIFIC-INSPIRED PRICE REDUCED!

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mbrace the elegant yet warm feeling of this Barry Berkus-designed Hope Ranch estate, combining the classical strength of Palladian architecture with contemporary touches. Reflecting the historic beauty and grandeur of Jefferson’s Monticello and our country’s beloved 1600 Pennsylvania Ave White House, with stately round portico entrance columns and dome-ceiling rooms, with historical authenticity applied to the details in the wainscoting, crown work, casings and cabinetry throughout. The home is fittingly sited on the 2.46-acre lot for almost every room to enjoy panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean. Display cabinets grace the hallways and feature in the two-story mahogany-shelved library for detailed presentation of the owners’ lifetime collections. Outdoor living is enjoyed with a sparkling pool, two spas, and a tennis court; guests can experience the serenity of strolling the stone-lined pathways and appreciating the rose garden and meticulously kept grounds. Indoor amenities include a spacious main-floor master suite, guest quarters, a game room and spa/yoga room in finished basement floor, along with a wine cellar. Three ensuite bedrooms, also with ocean views, complete the second floor. Two 2-car garages with decorative cupolas flow seamlessly with the home design; an ocean view home office with full bath is conveniently located for residents or visitor access. MLS #20-31

Now Offered for $9,000,000 Represented exclusively by

Keith C. Berry REALTOR

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Global Luxury Specialist Architectural Properties Division Specialist Cellular (805) 689-4240 | CalRE #363833| Keith@KeithBerryRealEstate.com | www.KeithBerryRealEstate.com 1482 E Valley Road Ste 17 | Santa Barbara, CA 93108 Mail: PO Box 5545 SB, CA 93150 ©2020 Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage. All Rights Reserved. Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Owned by a subsidiary of NRT LLC. Coldwell Banker, the Coldwell Banker Logo, Coldwell Banker Global Luxury and the Coldwell Banker Global Luxury logo service marks are registered or pending registrations owned by Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. Broker does not guarantee the accuracy of square footage, lot size or other information concerning the condition or features of property provided by seller or obtained from public records or other sources, and the buyer is advised to independently verify the accuracy of that information through personal inspection and with appropriate professionals.

4 – 11 June 2020

• THE VOICE OF THE VILLAGE •

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15

Sheltering in Place

with Les Firestein

Les Firestein is a writer who has written for some really good TV shows and some bad ones. Les has also built some great houses and no bad ones. Les writes about architecture and design for the Montecito Journal. Thirty years ago, at The National Lampoon, Les predicted that Donald Trump would conquer North America. You can look it up.

An Obituary for the Office: Late 19th Century till the Coronavirus Pandemic, 2020 “Welcome to the working week/I know it don’t thrill you, I hope it don’t kill you.

Welcome to your working week/You’ve gotta do it till you’re through so you’d better get to it.” – Elvis Costello

J

ust before he got involved in his current pissing war with the President, Jack Dorsey, the CEO and co-founder of Twitter, told most of his employees that they never need to return to the physical workplace ever again. Setting off the decline and ultimate demise of that cryogenic chamber for human souls we all knew as… the office.

Did that place we spent a full third of our lives literally just… disappear into the ether? Personally I find it unsettling when these major tentpoles of Life suddenly just… vanish. What will be next to go? Clothes? Water? Shoes?

Brushing our teeth?

Edifice Wrecks

As the domino effect kicked in, leaders of like-minded companies (Microsoft, Facebook, and even Citigroup) have been more than happy to follow Dorsey and divest themselves the expense of your cubicle and the Aeron chair your union and OSHA demanded. In fact, whomever your boss is, he/she/gender unspecified is in fact thrilled to lose the liability of you and your whole messy life, your claims of carpal tunnel, and the hostile workplace lawsuits you both bring and sometimes create. Think where Miramax could be today if Harvey Weinstein conducted his business in a brightened Zoom instead of a darkened room? We’d all be enjoying Amelie 2 and My Right Foot.

As we all know, with your workplace gone, work has gone back to its roots – in your home, a place that was likely overcrowded to begin with. Still it’s interesting to look back at where that whole Kafkaesque, Dilbert-meetsEscher idea of the office that’s not under your roof ever came from. We know why we stopped working at the office. But why did we ever start?

The purpose-built office was always about two things: (1) maximizing worker productivity. (2) The other

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4 – 11 June 2020

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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.

4 – 11 June 2020

• THE VOICE OF THE VILLAGE •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

17

10 West Gallery presents a benefit for The Unity Shoppe

Seen Around Town

by Lynda Millner

A Walk on the Wild Side

Providing meals, groceries and essentials to our locals in need

Some of the 55 mallard ducks being cared for at WCN (photo

by Gretchen Lieff)

Purchase online at 10westgallery.com or visit the gallery Fridays - Sundays 11am to 4pm For updates on our charity exhibitions subscribe online at 10westgallery.com For more information or a personal appointment in the gallery contact Jan at 805-770-7711 director@10westgallery.com “Henri Matisse” by Tom Peck, oils and newspaper on canvas “Tacking”, by Patrick McGinnis, bronze on granite base

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T

he Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network (WCN) is a wild and amazing place located at 1460 North Fairview in Goleta. The Spring babies are here! Wildlife doesn’t know about the pandemic. They just need to be fed and cared for. Because of the virus the Wildlife volunteer force is absent and the small staff has to do it all. For instance a baby hummingbird was found cold and alone on the ground in a park. She was hand fed nectar every thirty minutes from dawn to dusk. Once she learned to fly, Wildlife released her in a field of flowers.

Elton the baby raccoon was rescued after he fell off a cliff near Goleta Beach at only three weeks old. According to director of communications Claire Garvais, they bottle-fed him around the clock. A few weeks later, four orphaned raccoon siblings joined Elton in care. They were all released together 134 days later.

Tree trimming destroyed a baby woodpecker’s nest when he was only hours old. He quickly grew from a quiet, pink baby into a loud red-headed woodpecker. He stayed with Wildlife for 118 days and was released back into Goleta.

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.

If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it must be a duck. Just ask Gretchen Lieff who they now call the “Duck Lady.” She is helping to care for 20 ducklings. She told me, “They are so cute, but they never stop pooping!”

Wildlife helps skunks too. They recently had a newborn that needed to be warmed and hydrated, then fed every three hours around the clock. There were solid foods to keep him strong. He learned to find food and hunt prey to ensure he can survive in the wild. After receiving the required rounds of vaccinations, he was released into the wild.

Executive director Ariana Katovich says, “For the first time in our 32-year history we have a full time veterinari-

SEEN Page 244 One of the baby skunks (photo by Claire Garvais)

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Real estate agents affiliated with Coldwell Banker Realty are independent contractor sales associates, not employees. ©2020 Coldwell Banker. All Rights Reserved. Coldwell Banker and the Coldwell Banker logos are trademarks of Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. The Coldwell Banker® System is comprised of company owned offices which are owned by a subsidiary of Realogy Brokerage Group LLC and franchised offices which are independently owned and operated. The Coldwell Banker System fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act.

18 MONTECITO JOURNAL

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” – Mahatma Gandhi

4 – 11 June 2020

Job Well Done, Montecito 93108Fund is going back into hibernation 1,199 Cash Grants Paid Out April 3 - June 1, 2020

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4 – 11 June 2020

• THE VOICE OF THE VILLAGE •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

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Fitness Front

Josette Tkacik offers three free classes/week online and a workshop called “Heal; Becoming Extraordinary”

by Michelle Ebbin Michelle Ebbin is a renowned wellness/massage expert, and the author of four books. She appears regularly in the media to discuss the benefits of natural therapies and healthy living. She lives in Montecito with her husband, Luke, and three boys. Instagram @MichelleEbbin

We Can Dance

I

love to dance but I know that dancing does not come naturally to everyone. However, as the world is reeling from all the terrible news and people are suffering from cabin fever (and Wildcat remains closed!), dance of any kind, from ballet to break dancing to drunk dancing, is something that everyone can do in the privacy of their own home to help reduce stress, both physical and mental. Whether you were born to dance, like to dance, or have two left feet, dancing right now could do you some good.

Why? Dancing helps your body and brain. In fact, according to the Harvard Medical School Mahoney Neuroscience Institute, dance has such beneficial effects on the brain that it’s now being used to treat people with Parkinson’s disease. Other studies show that dance increases levels of the feel-good hormone serotonin and helps develop new neural connections, especially in regions of the

brain involved in executive function, long-term memory, and spatial recognition. Most importantly, I believe, dancing feels good and can lift your spirit instantly.

Since the pandemic started, dance challenges have become a ‘thing’ on social media and options for online dance-based workout classes have exploded. On the video sharing app TikTok alone the #DanceChallenge has drawn more than eight billion views and kids everywhere are TikTok dancing with multiple generations in sync. As a former dancer, I’m loving all the online, on-demand and live dance classes to help me burn off some steam and calories. Here are a few of my favorites, including two amazing Santa Barbara instructors: Whitney Hoover – Whitney is a former ballet, jazz, contemporary, tap, and hip hop dancer who moved to Santa Barbara after working at fitness

Gardens Are for Living

With an extensive background in dance, Whitney Hoover is opening a new studio in Paseo Nuevo

studios in Los Angeles, including Tracy Anderson Method and Body by Simone. She combines her extensive knowledge of physiology and exercise science, Pilates, ACSM and Functional Range Conditioning certifications, and dance background into a workout that is both challenging and super inspiring. I love her online workouts as the exercises are geared to developing long, lean ‘dancer’ muscles. Whitney is opening a new studio in Paseo Nuevo that I can’t wait to visit. Until then, she has a wonderful digital studio available online with new classes weekly.

More info: WhitneyHoover.com Josette Tkacik – Josette is a graduate of the Juilliard School, a former dancer at the Joffrey New York, Alvin Ailey, and other ballet companies, and one of the most successful Zumba fitness instructors in the world. Josette is passionate about empowering people through positive energy and health, incorporating music, dance, and community, and her signature and globally known class is always packed in Santa Barbara. Featured on NPR, Forbes, and other news outlets, she’s been declared a “Medical Miracle” as she completely healed herself of rheumatoid arthritis with no pharmaceutical treatment whatsoever.

Josette is offering three free livestream classes/week, videos on demand, and a seven-day course called “Heal; Becoming Extraordinary.” More info: JosetteTKacik.com

20 MONTECITO JOURNAL Montecito Journal newspaper.indd 8

Taryn Toomey – Taryn is the creator and CEO of The Class, a fitness meth6/8/17 when 2:12I PM “I destroy my enemies make them my friends.” – Abraham Lincoln

od and “practice of self study” with a huge celebrity following that incorporates cardio, meditation, and therapeutic yelling. I love this class because it combines great music, challenging exercises, and dance-like movements that encourage a strong, lean, resilient body, with heart-clearing, emotional releasing sound therapy (i.e., screaming). You have to try it! More info: TheClass.com Ryan Heffington – Ryan is a two-time Grammy-nominated choreographer, dancer and owner of The Sweat Spot in Los Angeles.

His daily Instagram Live dance classes are FAB-U-LOUS and have been helping me sweat and smile throughout this whole pandemic.

No dance experience is required and you’re guaranteed to have fun!

More info: @Ryan.Heffington on Instagram If you’re not into online dance classes, all you have to do is turn on some great music and start dancing! In the great words of Men Without Hats, I leave you with this…

“We can dance if we want to, we can leave your friends behind ‘Cause your friends don’t dance and if they don’t dance Well they’re no friends of mine I say, We can go where we want to, a place where they will never find And we can act like we come from out of this world Leave the real one far behind, And we can dance” •MJ 4 – 11 June 2020

Two Classic Old Montecito Properties (This is a trust sale, offer deadline is June 11th) 247 Olive Mill Road, Parcel 18 Offered for $2,635,000 Tucked away in the Lower Village on two parcels that total 2.5 acres, this classic Montecito property plays host to a pair of historic homes. Passing beneath the property’s ivy arch is like stepping back in time, revealing a turnof-the-century charmer sprinkled with period details from a bygone era. Constructed in 1890 and equipped with good bones, the 2,882-square foot main house is ripe for a restoration. Architecturally sound and wellmaintained through the decades, the coastal cottage offers a flexible floorplan and endless natural light.

247 Olive Mill Road, Parcel 19 Offered for $2,850,000 Beyond the main house’s sprawling 1-acre plot lies a second residence – a charming, 922-square foot barn structure that was built in 1982 and converted into a separate home. Situated on an adjacent 1.5-acre parcel, the idyllic pied-à-terre has been reimagined as a lightfilled space with soaring ceilings, downstairs kitchen and bath, and upstairs loft bedroom. Encircled with fragrant roses and foxgloves, the barn house includes a stunning garden with raised planter beds and citrus trees.

Suding / Murphy Group Paul Suding, Bridget Murphy & Sean McIver 805.455.8055 info@sudingmurphy.com DRE 00678264 | 01233441 | 02017526

Compass is a real estate broker licensed by the State of California and abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. License Number 01991628. All material presented herein is intended for informational purposes only and is compiled from sources deemed reliable but has not been verified. Changes in price, condition, sale or withdrawal may be made without notice. No statement is made as to accuracy of any description. All measurements and square footage are approximate. If your property is currently listed for sale this is not a solicitation.

4 – 11 June 2020

• THE VOICE OF THE VILLAGE •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

21

LETTERS (Continued from page 11) bridge over 101 joining North & South Jameson Lanes... for pedestrians wanting to traverse 101 to and from the beach?

LeeAnn Morgan

Good Perspective Thank you very much for the series of incisive articles on the social/economic history of the United States

by Rinaldo Brutoco. As he clearly stated, our country’s original sin, slavery, and the Civil War it brought us as well as the Native Americans “trail of tears” still today haunt the nation’s conscience and ongoing economic inequities. The current Republican national leadership in the country, in word and deed, pour salt on these wounds on a regular basis. We have what I would call a “cold civil war” that continues fostered by lies, deceit, and real “fake news,” both online and in some parts of our radio and TV media, in service to the national leadership. As Mr. Brutoco noted, the nation must face, in his words, this moral stain and work to heal it before it consumes us in an ugly and violent upheaval. My hope is that the November national elections will bring a major political re-alignment that will put the country on to a path to social justice and an economically productive green future that all Americans can be proud of and share in.

Sincerely, Barry Gordon

Desalination Makes Sense Thank you to Nicholas Schou for starting a series of articles that will help us to navigate the complicated and sometimes contentious debate on how to move forward with securing adequate water for Montecito. I totally agree with past board members of the MWD that conservation should be a big part of our equation and goal, but with more drought years surely in our future, we need to look at sus-

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22 MONTECITO JOURNAL

tainable, reliable, and hopefully local solutions.

Although I realize that desalination has its drawbacks (and I am looking forward to Nicholas addressing this in more detail) it makes more sense than allowing wealthy individuals to dig private wells or to pay dearly for State Water Project resources when there just is not any water to be allocated. We all need to educate ourselves on the source of our water, the possibility of innovative as well as environmentally sound solutions, and how to best work together as a community to solve a problem that affects us all.

Holly Sherwin Montecito

For the Birds Santa Barbara Audubon Society (SBAS) thanks Joanne Calitri for her March 19th “Three Billion Birds Lost” article highlighting the dynamic new partnership between SBAS, UCSB Arts & Lectures, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History that made it possible for us to bring Dr. Ken Rosenberg, renowned scientist, to Santa Barbara.

Thank you for sharing with your readers the alarming scientific news of the unprecedented decline in numbers and diversity of birds. It is critical to inform the greater public about these science data. With such information, people are then empowered to make active decisions in their lives each day to protect birds and their habitat.

Now, more than ever, birds are in the news, and nature lovers, scientists, and journalists alike are showing us how to appreciate and enjoy the wonders of birds during these stay-at-home/social distancing times. As aptly entitled in David Sibley’s recent New York Times article, “7 Tips for Watching Birds During the Spring Lockdown,” each of us can study nature from home by noticing birds, listening to their songs, looking at a bird’s bill, thinking about what a bird is doing, watching for activity patterns, being curious, and drawing and writing notes.

SBAS protects area birdlife and habitat and connects people with birds through education, conservation, and science. Together, we are stronger. By uniting our three local stellar nonprofit organizations to host Dr. Rosenberg, and by Ms. Calitri sharing Dr. Rosenberg’s exciting talk to a wider audience, we elevate much-needed outreach and education to protect birds.

Generous local SBAS chapter members bolster SBAS’s ability to survive and thrive. We just received one of our largest donations ever;

the donors welcome others to also enthusiastically dive in and support SBAS. Montecito Journal readers, we invite you to please join us at SantaBarbaraAudubon.org, and if you have any questions about large donations and how they would be used to support education, conservation and science, please feel free to contact me direct.

Katherine Emery, PhD Executive Director Santa Barbara Audubon Society

Ralph’s Corner Green With the sad passing of my friend Ralph Riskin I want to share the story of his contribution to The Corner Green we all enjoy today.

As Dana Newquist noted in his recent MJ remembrance, Ralph was a car-guy and shortly after moving to Montecito in 1989 stopped in the Union 76 station that occupied the corner, befriended everyone there and got permission to use their lift on weekends. Ralph lost one of his favorite hangouts in 1991 when Union Oil removed the gas station and left a vacant, contaminated site that others then tried unsuccessfully to acquire for a park. Hearing that they had dealt with Union’s real estate department, Ralph had the brilliant idea to instead approach their insurance department for whom the site was a headache. At first, like the others before him, he tried unsuccessfully to get them to sell or donate it. But when that failed, he took a different tack and, after much persistent backand-forth, convinced the department head to verbally agree to simply let the community use the site as long as they maintained it.

Over the next year Ralph arranged for a local landscape contractor to donate a lawn and irrigation, asked friends to donate wrought iron benches, Pierre LaFond to provide water and trash removal and, since East Valley Road is state highway 192, obtained required CHP approval. In a wonderful testament to his efforts the Union Oil executive with whom he so persistently negotiated surprised Ralph at the opening to offer his congratulations. Thus, what eventually became The Corner Green was born.

In 1993 the Montecito Community Foundation was able to purchase the site from Unocal and redeveloped the site, now The Corner Green, with the beautiful improvements and rebuilt it again following the 1/9 debris flow adding the memorial plaque to those lost.

The next time you visit The Corner Green give a thought of thanks to Ralph.

David Green Montecito

“Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.” – Eugene Ionesco

Mixed Signals This is in response to Thomas Parker’s letter in MJ 21-28 May 2020.

Seeing as Thomas has an entirely different take on what is going on in the Michael Flynn case than what I’ve been reading, I’m wondering if he has myopia or is simply trying to throw us off the trail as to what is really going on, or I’ve been reading more fake news, which is so prevalent in the MSM today. This following is an excerpt of one of the recent articles I just read, I’ll walk you through it real quick: “Richard Grenell had just declassified an email from former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, an electronic message sent to her about an Oval Office meeting with former President Barack Obama. That email had all the fixings of nefarious activity and plotting to entrap Trump National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn, in their efforts to undermine President Trump. Obama administration officials including Rice and then-FBI Director James Comey et al. are implicated in the now-public corruption.” It seems incongruous to me to believe that Thomas, being that close to the goings on for so long, would not have an inkling as to what the agenda was. Richard Grenell concluded his article with the promise that there was going to be a lot more to come out. If that’s the case you can just visualize the CYA that’s going on; hopefully Thomas is not involved.

I could nitpick with a lot of what Thomas wrote, but for brevity’s sake I’ll take issue with just his last paragraph. (1)”Previous to this current administration, the Rule of Law was the guiding principle of our democracy...” WHAT!? WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP!!! He comes across as one of those Obama “yes men” who have massive motes in their eyes caused by CDS, Trump Derangement syndrome I presume.

(2) ...”and our system of justice.

Our beloved country was founded upon.” WRONG, WRONG ,WRONG Thomas. When asked by a citizen after the Constitution was ratified what kind of government they had given the people, Benjamin Franklin responded a “Republic if you can keep it.” Based on a thorough understanding of Democracies throughout history All of the Founders abhorred democracies. In case Thomas hasn’t noticed, we “Pledge allegiance to the Flag and to The Republic for which it stands.” Perhaps it’s been so long since Thomas recited the “Pledge” that he’d forgotten it.

I too took an oath to defend the country against all enemies, “foreign and domestic,” and it appears to me, as of late, that the FBI has an awful lot of dirty laundry that needs to be looked into.

Larry Bond •MJ 4 – 11 June 2020

Muller Monthly Music Meta – June 2020 Our new monthly music-themed crossword puzzle is created and brought to you by Montecito resident Pete Muller and runs in the Washington Post and the Montecito Journal.

Thank you, Pete, for playing with your home team!

What is a Meta Crossword Puzzle?

A

meta crossword puzzle provides the ultimate “aha” moment, challenging the solver to come up with a single answer somehow hidden in the puzzle. Hints to the answer can come from the title, the theme entries, the clues, or the grid.

If I’ve done my job as a constructor, once you get the meta, you’ll know it. If you’re thinking, “Hmmm…maybe this is it,” you probably haven’t found the meta yet!

Metas are well-suited to contests, since it’s hard to cheat on a meta. An obscure crossword clue like [Nickname for President Van Buren, from his birthplace] can be answered in a second using Google (“OLD KINDERHOOK”), but you can’t do the same for a meta. While googling is considered cheating (to some) in solving a crossword, googling is encouraged in solving metas.

The meta answer will usually be reasonably well-known to most solvers. If it’s not, it will definitely be accessible via a web search.

For more information or to submit an answer, please go to https://pmxwords.com. Those submitting correct solutions before the contest deadline (8pm PT, Sunday June 7) will be eligible to win a free MMMM mug.

Triple Feature Triple Feature

by Pete Muller ACROSS 1 "The Work Song" singers in "Cinderella" 5 "___ Peach" (Allman Brothers album) 9 Slightest bit 13 38-Down in India 14 Whence Bocelli, Ramazzotti, and Pavarotti: Abbr.

15 "Blurred ___" (2013 hit with a racy music video) 17 "Now He Sings, Now He ___" (Grammy Hall of Fame Award-winning single by Chick Corea) 18 Cartoonist Steinberg who drew "A New Yorker's View of the World" 19 First name in TV talk shows, once 20 "The Kneeling Drunkard's ___" (Louvin Brothers song covered by Johnny Cash) 22 The Muffin Man's lane 24 Word with tent or trailer 25 Movie night veto phrase 27 Wrath 28 Oregon beverage company sold to Starbucks in 1999 29 Id follower?

30 Like seniors on graduation day 32 QED center 33 Surname of the person considered to be the first computer programmer 35 Crème de ___ 37 ___ ex machina 38 Root for Hawaii?

39 "God Will" singer Lyle 42 Drug of forgetfulness mentioned in both the "Odyssey" and "The Raven" 46 Comparable (to) 47 Regulars' orders 49 Word with candy or worm 50 Tourette's syndrome symptoms 51 NYSE or NASDAQ, e.g.

52 Latin phrase for those left out 54 Sean Lennon's middle name 55 Far from fitting 57 "Back in the ___" (song released in the sixth year after the Cuban Missile

4 – 11 June 2020

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"___ Peach" (Allman Brothers album) Crisis) 1 2 3 4 58 "Catch my drift, bro?"

60 Encircled, as with a belt 13 62 Grand Prix feature, once 64 Leaving agog 17 65 Shred the ___ (snowboard, surf, or skateboard, slangily) 66 Shipping option (Grammy Hall Famedolls) Award-winning 67 Raggedy ___of(some 25 68 Adjective on a Spanish wine bottle Cartoonist Steinberg who drew "A New 69 Air France hub 29

DOWN 69 Air France hub 33 "The Kneeling Drunkard's ___" (Louvin DOWN 1 DJs, sometimes 2 Wishful words 3 Proverbial 39 40 41 "cord" cut by some homeowners 4 Sports journalist Rich 46 5 Rocks out in a German bar?

50 6 The slightest bit 7 Ingredient in Rockstar and Monster 54 Energy 8 Competitor of Vogue and Elle 58 9 "___ McBeal" (hit TV series featuring singer Vonda Shepard) 64 10 7-7 in the 7th, say 11 Cocktail recipe phrase 12 Object placed on a doorpost in some Jewish homes 16 Marmalade tree 21 Ornamental metal tip on a bodice 23 Rhode Island state tree 25 Pommes frites seasoning

26 Keats ode that begins "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" 28 Mortise mate

31 Places to go in Liverpool

34 Shangri-las 36 Mocedades hit written during the group's "6 históricos" phase 38 28-Across product

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Pete Muller has enjoyed solving crosswords since he was a teenager. He started creating them in 2005 and published his first NY Times puzzle in 2006. While Pete is known for his innovative and tricky puzzles, he places primary importance on creating a fun experience for the solver. For difficult puzzles, of course, this might involve an appropriate amount of torture! In addition to creating crosswords, Pete is a musician and runs a quantitative investment firm. He is happily married with two children.

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The meta for this puzzle is a song from the '60s. group's "6 históricos" phase 38 28-Across product 39 Jackson with a self-titled R&B album 40 Major U.S. military base of operations in Asia 41 Drug Robin Thicke claimed to be abusing when he co-wrote 15-Across 42 Tree with seeds used to make pesto 43 Instrumental by the Tornados named for a communications satellite 44 Pomade choice 45 Word with Baroque or Romantic

• THE VOICE OF THE VILLAGE •

44 Pomade choice 45 Word with Baroque or Romantic 48 Bluegrass legend Ricky 53 Member of a ball club caught stealing signs during the 2017 and '18 seasons 55 Boots from Australia 56 Piece of a razor handle?

59 B&B 61 Legal injunction preventing action before a court date, briefly 63 Toilet paper packaging word

© 2020 Pete Muller MONTECITO JOURNAL

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SEEN (Continued from page 18) Cecilia Fund co-presidents Susan Johnson and Marian Schoneberger with Alexander Stull. Cecilia Fund bought two expensive communication tools to help with Alexander’s blindness.

Baby Western Pond turtle the size of a 50 cent piece when found (photo by Claire Garvais)

an as the Director of animal care. This new veterinary program will save more wild lives and is a huge step forward in our ability to care for wildlife. I couldn’t think of a better partner in the effort to forward our ability to save and serve wildlife than veterinarian Avery Berkowitz.”

In 2019 WCN took in 4,028 animals. Over two thirds of those were admitted between April and August which is baby season. WCN currently has 257 animals in their care among 180 different species, like mallards, opossums, crows, rabbits and many more. WCN is open every day from 8 am to 8 pm all year-round. There are thousands of patients who need to be hand fed. With a vet now on staff WCN can now perform surgeries, take x-rays, and administer advanced pain control.

Any gift you give will be doubled by matching funds donated by a generous friend up to $25,000. Here’s to a second chance at a wild life! Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network, PO Box 6594, Santa Barbara, CA 93160. $25 will buy formula for five baby rabbits, $100 will feed a pelican for ten days, $5,000 all worms for baby season songbirds, or $10,000 for an x-ray machine and many supplies in between. For questions or to volunteer call 805.681.1019. For Director of Communications Claire Garvais call 805.681.1452 Monday through Friday from 9:30 am to 5:30 pm.

The Cecilia Fund The Cecilia Fund is Santa Barbara’s oldest philanthropic charity founded in 1892. It was due to host “Earl Two baby long-tailed weasels found alone in Lompoc (photo by Ariana Katovich)

Gray & Chardonnay” at the Santa Barbara Club for its annual tea and membership drive until the pandemic. It’s named after St. Cecilia but was never affiliated with any church. Its founding members all played musical instruments and had an orchestra. They would hold recitals to raise funds for their projects to help folks.

The group helps low-income residents of Santa Barbara County pay for critical medical or dental bills. The Cecilia Fund is able to receive significant discounts. They have always been an all-volunteer club with a working board, no paid staff and low overhead.

Referrals come from a variety of sources: social workers, healthcare providers and medical and dental providers.

Just a few of them are: Visiting Nurse

& Hospice Care, Catholic Charities, Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics, CenCal Health, and more. It might involve a full range of critical needs including emergency care, medications, and medical equipment. Being helped are the working poor and seniors living on social security.

Co-president Marion Schoneberger stated, “Our goal this year is to provide the same level of support as we did in 2019. It is an ambitious goal given we will have no income from our annual fundraiser, but this year the Cecilia Fund’s work is going to be more important than ever.”

One of their recipients, Maria, received the devastating news that her daughter had been killed by a drunk driver. Maria was taken to Cottage Hospital with chest pains. Luckily she didn’t have a heart attack, but was left with a $1,000 medical bill she couldn’t afford to pay. She is also now the sole caregiver for her two-year-old granddaughter. Maria works on a cleaning crew. Cecilia Fund negotiated a discount and paid her bill in full.

Those members serving on the board are: Co-presidents Marion Schoneberger and Susan Johnson, Barbara Anderson, Sallie Coughlin, Rayna Davis, Barbara Howell, LaShon Kelley, Sharon Kennedy, Nikki Rickard, Sigrid Toye, and Evie Vesper. For information visit www. ceciliafund.org. The Cecilia Fund ladies are truly earth angels.

Remember, “Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they just have the Heart.”

•MJ

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“If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room.” – Anita Roddick

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4 – 11 June 2020

Save the Date!

The Village 4th Road Show is ON! Saturday July 4th 11:30 AM

A motorcade parade through the community!

Call for artists – kids and adult: YOUR artwork could be our logo for this year’s Village 4th Road Show!

Send in your artwork to: execdirector@montecitoassociation.org Winner announced June 15th.

4 – 11 June 2020

• THE VOICE OF THE VILLAGE •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

25

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

Restoring Our Planet, One Beach at a Time This reusable sponge can help clean up oil spills over and over again.

M

“Plastics, Benjamin”: A Letter to the Class of 2020

M

ike Nichols’ 1967 iconic and classic film, for which he received the Best Director Award among four other Academy Awards, was The Graduate. The film is a masterful exploration of the malaise of college graduation at a time of great social turmoil. A promotional poster captured the tension brilliantly: “This is Benjamin. He’s a little worried about his future.” How incredibly appropriate for the times our recent graduates are experiencing. “What are you going to do now?” Benjamin is asked, to which he replies, “Well, that’s a little hard to say.”

In the film, 21-year-old Benjamin Braddock (played by Dustin Hoffman), has just returned from his college graduation to his parents’ home in Pasadena. He has no clue about what could possibly come next, even as the psychedelic ‘60s were ramping up and a crack in our collective American culture created such a wide divide that nothing the prior generation ever envisioned was relevant anymore. Graduating seniors’ expectations that year were “up in the air.” At the opening of the film, a friend of Benjamin’s father assures him that it is ok to not know for sure.

Just get into a growth opportunity for your career, he says, by exhorting that “there is a great future in plastics.”

Plastics!

The reference to plastics was a way of saying “industry of the future” in code. And, despite the destruction that industry has unleashed upon the biosphere and all sentient beings, it was the industry of the future for about four decades, until we collectively realized the destruction caused by a product that won’t biodegrade for centuries.

Like Benjamin, unfortunately, today’s college graduates have no idea what to do, and see their job prospects as close to non-existent. Even the temporary job has disappeared, where one could become a waiter over the summer while figuring out one’s future in terms of graduate school, or a permanent job, or whatever. This year’s graduation literally occurred in the middle of a war zone with a pandemic raging, a Great Depression in full swing with upwards of 25 percent unemployment (over 40 million unemployed not including recent graduates

26 MONTECITO JOURNAL

as I write this), and the climate crisis bearing down on us all with maybe ten years before massive, irreversible, catastrophic consequences become unavoidable. Dear Graduates of 2020, things couldn’t get much worse than this in the worst possible dystopian science fiction novel ever conceived. You have my profound sympathy. And, you carry with you our most profound hopes.

“We stepped into the world as it was starting to fall apart,” observed Simone Williams, a Florida A&M University 2020 graduate. You were in daycare or kindergarten for 9/11.

Your childhood has been punctuated by mass school shootings. Your freshman year began with Donald Trump’s election and only 8 percent of you between the ages of 18 and 29 believe that the government is functioning appropriately. Your graduation shares the “stage” of public opinion with the statistic that over 100,000 Americans have died and there is no end in sight for the pandemic or for the downward spiraling economy.

You already know the bad news: there are no jobs, the one you thought you had was an offer that has now been rescinded; you are mired in student debt; the Greatest Depression is getting worse daily; there is no way you can afford to rent an apartment, let alone try to start a family; you are literally staring into the abyss of unknowing. You have my profound sympathy. This is the worst year to graduate since Harvard opened its doors in 1636. That’s quite a statement, and it’s absolutely accurate.

Historically, we know that massive societal breakthroughs occur in times of greatest crisis for a very simple reason: if you have zero investment in the current system, you have 100 percent incentive to create a new system. You literally have nothing to lose. This is a great gift. Having nothing to lose means you can co-create a 100 percent positive future. But where to start?

Start with using all your free time to turn the political system upside down.

Vote! Vote in massive numbers. Use your spare time to organize that vote so that up and down the ballot you co-create a more just, more compassionate, and more caring society that is sustainable. Organize and vote as if your life depends upon it, because it does! You and everyone alive on the

ost of the materials used for cleaning up oil spills are used only once, after which they are bound to end up in landfills. Now, however, scientists have created an oil-absorbing sponge that can be used over and over again.

Developed by a team led by Northwestern University, the actual sponge itself is much like any other. What makes it special, however, is the thin coating that’s applied to it, made up of magnetic nanostructures, on a carbon-based substrate.

That substrate is both oleophilic and hydrophobic, meaning that it attracts oil and repels water. As a result, the sponge can soak up over 30 times its weight in oil, without also filling up on water.

Additionally, the magnetic aspect of the coating allows it to be moved around the water’s surface with the help of a large ship-mounted electromagnet, similar to those seen at auto wrecking yards.

Down the road, the technology could conceivably be adapted to selectively soak up and release other waterborne pollutants, such as dissolved nutrients from agricultural runoff or sewage.

Geohacking: Could “green sand” beaches help us fight climate change?

In the Caribbean, a nonprofit called Project Vesta will soon begin testing a radical new way to fight climate change that involves spreading ground-up olivine – a cheap green mineral – over the sand, where ocean waves will break down the mineral, pulling CO2 from the air.

“Our vision is to help reverse climate change by turning a trillion tons of carbon dioxide into rock,” says Tom Green, executive director of Project Vesta. The idea is to speed up a natural process that normally takes place very slowly. “When rain falls on volcanic rocks, those rocks dissolve a little bit, and it triggers a chemical reaction that pulls carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and into the water as a molecule called bicarbonate,” Green says.

Grinding up olivine, and then spreading it on beaches where ocean waves can further break it down, triggers the same chemical reaction that pulls CO2 out of the air. In the water, marine organisms use the bicarbonate to build shells, and it will eventually end up as limestone on the floor of the ocean.

Some critics raise the possibility that the olivine could release heavy metals, although Green says that shouldn’t impact marine species. The initial pilot will closely monitor metal concentrations in the water, sand, and tissues of local organisms, as it seeks to fully understand all of the impacts of the intervention.

•MJ planet at this time needs your energy and your focus to co-create the world that should have been waiting for you at graduation but wasn’t. Vote so that Senator Elizabeth Warren can get her bill passed that would provide $2,000 per month to everyone over 18 in this country until these twin pandemic and economic crises are past. Demand at the voting booth that we restore the balance in our biosphere. Demand we finally heal the original sins of Native American genocide and slavery as a pre-condition for creating the more just society we collectively long for, need, and deserve. Demand that we actively close the gap between the top one to two percent and the bottom 90 percent. Demand infrastructure repair and transportation systems deserving of a first world country rather than the decaying mess you have inherited. Demand that every person who wants a job can find one. Demand student debt be cancelled and all tuition from now on be free at state schools.

Demand a 35-hour work week so we

“If you want peace, work for justice.” – Pope Paul VI

can immediately begin to re-employ the tens of millions who have no work but could “share” the jobs being recreated. Demand that no person is allowed to be homeless in this once great Nation that could be great again.

Vote to ensure that everyone has medical insurance coverage. Demand that we re-purpose the tens of thousands of vacant hotel rooms that are unlikely to soon re-fill, and the shopping centers that will never exit bankruptcy are used creatively. Yes, you have nothing to lose, but you have everything to gain. So, go vote and co-create the society we should have given you this Graduation Day. Make that humanely glowing, shining society be your graduation gift to yourself. Vote and co-create your sustainable future.

If Mr. Maguire was advising Benjamin in 2020, he would have said that the future opportunity was to get into sustainability. It will last longer than plastics and give you great joy every day on your journey.

Congratulations Graduates!

•MJ 4 – 11 June 2020

In Passing

Brilliant Thoughts

by Ashleigh Brilliant

Donald Lee Margerum

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

Thought Crime and Hate Crime

I

n 1949, the British writer, George Orwell, published a novel titled 1984 – the name of a year which was then as far in the future as it is now in the past. The society he depicted has been characterized as a “dystopia,” meaning the opposite of a Utopia.

The name “Utopia,” the title of a book by the English statesman, Sir Thomas More, (whom you may know, from representations in various media, as the “Man For All Seasons”) is actually a pun, meaning either “No Place” or “Good Place” – depending on how you spelled it in Greek. But the rulers of society in Orwell’s 1984 went so far as to create their own language, called Newspeak. And one of the words in its extensive vocabulary was “Thoughtcrime,” meaning to harbor thoughts not in accord with the doctrine of the regime.

In a kind of anachronistic irony, Thomas More himself, some four centuries earlier, was guilty of that very crime. Although he had maintained a good personal relationship with his sovereign, King Henry VIII, and had risen to the position of Lord High Chancellor of England, he was in strong disagreement with Henry’s breaking away from the Church of Rome, and with his divorcing one wife in order to acquire another. Thomas More generally kept these thoughts to himself – but, despite very strong pressure, including imprisonment, and the pleadings of his own family, he refused to sign certain papers signifying his approval of the King’s actions. This was ruled to be tantamount to treason – for which, in 1535, he suffered the penalty of death by beheading.

In the years since then, Thomas More has been canonized as a Saint by the Catholic Church – and even the Soviets included his name publicly on an obelisk celebrating revolutionary thinkers (presumably for his “communistic” attitude towards property rights, as expressed in “Utopia”). But the thinking of “politically incorrect” thoughts remains a hot issue into our own time. When brute force is at the disposal of those in power, open dissent becomes, to say the least, a risky business. In Nazi Germany, there were millions who survived only by not revealing their true feelings. Martin Heidegger, the great German philosopher, however, managed to stay on good terms with the Hitler regime, 4 – 11 June 2020

lived in Germany throughout the war, and continued to philosophize when it was over, with an academic reputation more or less intact.

There is a song I have always liked, called “The Vicar of Bray,” which covers a period of English History, from about 1660 to 1720 – i.e. a single lifetime – in which there was a change of regime no less than five times, involving, each time, both religious and political changes. In each verse of the song, The Vicar of Bray retains his church position only by ostensibly changing his religious and political views. To give you a taste of this biting piece of wit, I will quote just the last stanza, in which King George I, a Protestant from Hanover, is now the reigning monarch: The illustrious House of Hanover, and Protestant Succession, To these I do allegiance swear – while they may keep possession – And in my faith and loyalty I never more shall falter, And George my lawful King shall be – until the times do alter.

We, in this country today, are encouraged to believe that thoughtcrime was just a figment of Orwell’s imagination. You can think whatever you like, we are told. But when it comes to expressing unpopular thoughts, we run into speechcrime.

Yes, I know, freedom of speech is a cherished American ideal. But a new concept has emerged – that of hatespeech – which gives us hatespeechcrime. Even in 1984, hate, per se, was not criminal. In fact, there was a daily period of Two Minutes of Hate, for expressing antipathy towards the ruling party’s enemies.

The kind of hatespeech which many countries – even democracies – now ban, although they define it in different ways, usually concerns broad dislike of certain ethnic, religious, or cultural groups. Antisemitism is the classic example. But hatespeech can even apply to individuals, in such forms as online bullying.

Our thoughts cannot yet be mechanically read – although that time is surely coming. But even today, in our Sweet Land of Liberty, not all hatred is illegal. In fact, a recent President (George H.W. Bush) publicly expressed his hatred of broccoli – and was not impeached. (But what if it had been a hatred of peaches?) •MJ

D

onald Lee Margerum passed peacefully at home in Montecito, California on May 24, 2020. He lived a long and beautiful life, and was ready to leave this life as his health declined.

Don was born on March 29, 1926 in Ferguson, Missouri to parents Donald Cameron Margerum and Ida Lee Nunley.

His early years were spent in Ferguson with his younger twin brothers, Dave and Dale. Don was interested in science and aviation from a young age, flying model airplanes and building toys for himself and his neighborhood friends. His interests led him into a degree in electrical engineering, initially from University of Missouri, and then to Northwestern for his Master’s Degree. After serving in the Navy, Don married the love of his life, Barbara Barden, and they moved to California to start a family and a new life in Los Angeles.

Don had an illustrious career, making many bold moves that got him noticed by various aerospace engineering firms and held several microwave patents. His chapter in the book Microwave Scanning Antennas was a professional accomplishment of which he was very proud.

He eventually founded his own company, Raven Electronics, in Burbank, California where he and his team worked to develop proposals for government defense contracts.

Don and his wife Barbara moved to Santa Barbara in 1978 when Don was approached by Raytheon, where he worked until retirement. Not long after moving to Santa Barbara the family purchased a small wine shop called the Wine Cask and over the next 30 years his initial investment grew into a revered restaurant and food and wine destination.

Don was an avid tennis player and sailor, enjoyed chartering boats for family vacations and sailing competitively with his son, Doug. He loved fly fishing and pursued the outdoors every summer at their cabin in Colorado. He loved his involvement with the Aspen Institute, his passion for undergrounding electrical utilities in Montecito, his book club, his Men’s group, the Unitarian Society discussion groups and VISTAS lifelong learning. Don loved all sweets, especially coconut ice cream, and always had a full cookie jar.

Don is survived by his wife, Barbara, children Hugh (and wife Carol), Doug (and wife Marni), and Amy (and husband Gilchrist), his four grandsons Lyle, Slater, Remy, and Evan.

The Visiting Nurse and Hospice providers at VNA Health in Santa Barbara provided exceptional care in Don’s final days, and in lieu of gifts, donations can be made to VNA Health or to the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara. •MJ

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Local News

Mayor Cathy Murillo approaches Simone Ruskamp and Krystle Farmer from the officers’ side of the barrier.

“Why are you on the other side?”

Farmer asked Murillo. “Where have you been?”

by Jun Starkey, Lucy Marx, and Valerie van den Broek photos by Valerie van den Broek

Thousands March Down State Street in Protest

Thousands of people gathered at the Courthouse lawn to listen to Black Lives Matters activists on May 31, 2020

N

early 3,000 protesters marched through downtown Santa Barbara to face the Police Department Sunday, culminating in a blowout between protesters, police, and Mayor Cathy Murillo.

“We are going to occupy State Street,” said Krystle Farmer-Sieghart, one of the organizers of the event.

The protest was orchestrated by the Black Lives Matter SB group, headed by community organizers Simone Ruskamp and Farmer-Sieghart, and was part of a string of nationwide protests following the death last week

of George Floyd in Minnesota.

Floyd died after being pinned to the ground by police officer Derek Chauvin, who knelt on his neck despite Floyd repeating the phrase “I can’t breathe.”

“He is still breathing in us,” said Ruskamp.

The event began at the Santa Barbara Courthouse, where thousands of attendees blanketed the lawn while listening to speakers, before spilling out of the Courthouse and onto Anacapa Street to begin marching.

Although the protest was peaceful, the event shined a spotlight on the tension between our local black community and Santa Barbara City Hall.

The protesters made a list of demands, which included the City passing a resolution condemning police brutality and calling on city officials to declare racism a public health emergency.

The procession was led by the Santa Barbara Danzantes, a collective of indigenous students and activists who offered four traditional danzas, or dances, while playing music and burning sage.

Many protesters chanted “I can’t breathe,” as they marched up State Street. People dining on the newly installed outdoor restaurant tables whipped out their cellphones, took pictures, and cheered protesters on.

As the group marched down Figueroa Street towards the police station, they were met with over 20 police officers, some with riot shields, standing behind a long barrier of yellow caution tape.

“Police Chief, where art thou?”

Farmer-Sieghart asked. “Why are you meeting us geared up? We could’ve had conversations. Were you busy putting up barriers?”

Farmer-Sieghart and Ruskamp then questioned the officers’ loyalty to the community as protesters in the crowd began shouting at the officers to take a knee.

Throughout the entire encounter, the police did not interact with the demonstrators, only looking on silently as they stood their ground.

The organizers then called for any black protesters present at the march to lay motionless in front of the police for eight minutes, the same amount of time that Officer Chauvin kept his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck.

The early volume and intensity of the march faded to complete silence as the protesters lay in the street in front of the police.

Farmer-Sieghart encouraged white and non-black people of color to take a knee in solidarity as well.

After the demonstration, Mayor Cathy Murillo emerged from the officers’ side of the street, and attempted to speak with Farmer-Sieghart and Ruskamp, but was quickly shut down.

“Why are you on the other side?”

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“If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.” – Moshe Dayan

Farmer-Sieghart asked Murillo.

“Where have you been?”

Ruskamp and Farmer-Sieghart expressed their disappointment at Murillo for not reaching out sooner, and for waiting until the demonstration was in process to begin a conversation.

As the exchange became more heated, many of the protesters rallying behind Farmer-Sieghart and Ruskamp demanded Murillo stop arguing and began chanting that she “take a knee.”

Murillo retreated back behind the line of officers soon after.

An Instagram post with nearly 500 likes calling to vote Murillo out of office has begun circulating following the incident.

Murillo did not acknowledge the interaction in her weekly State of the City address on Monday, but she did commend Police Chief Lori Luhnow for “her courageous leadership to ensure simultaneous dialogue and action to address race in policing.”

During the first few hours of the protest, multiple speakers shared their experiences with the Black Lives Matter movement and the many forms of discrimination people of color face.

“I’m sad that I’m not more sad because I’ve grown numb,” said Dominic King, a local marriage and family therapist who spoke at the event. “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

King and other speakers urged white and non-black people of color demonstrators to commit to the movement and dedicate themselves to protecting black lives.

“It is great to have allies,” said King.

“But what we really need are accomplices.”

As protests move into the second week following Floyd’s death, both protesters and police have reported injuries nationwide in this massive show of civil unrest.

Sunday’s march did not escalate into riots like many other protests across the country, concluding with the protesters peacefully dispersing after organizers notified the Santa Barbara Police of their demands.

“Remember what SB folks of color stand for,” said Farmer-Sieghart. •MJ 4 – 11 June 2020

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4 – 11 June 2020

• THE VOICE OF THE VILLAGE •

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29

The Montecito Pivot Malia Mills

by Megan Waldrep

“W

e are so damn lucky to have a store in the little bit of paradise that is Santa Barbara and Montecito,” designer Malia Mills said. She compares her store’s intimate, welcoming feel to the vibe of SB and Montecito.

“Plus, we’ve got one of a kind pieces that are hard to find anywhere else, like the ocean-meets-mountains beauty that surrounds the Montecito Country Mart.” She launched her first collection in 1993, and her classic cuts have withstood the time. For example, the mini-corset cut in shimmery mica tones has been a fan favorite since they first launched decades ago. What stands out about Malia Mills is her

Browse the Malia Mills online shop for separates or link up with the e-store’s personal shopper to help find your perfect fit

side,” and the French crinkly striped cotton wide-legged pants, which clients pair with full-piece swimwear to act as bodysuits. Pop online to shop for bathing suits for lounging socially distanced on Butterfly Beach this summer and enjoy the free gift with purchase – it’s Good Chi. Malia Mills 1026 Coast Village Rd, Suite C, Montecito Country Mart (805) 845-2137 www.maliamills.com

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Bathing suit shopping that is all-inclusive: Malia Mills specializes in swimwear and separates that celebrate all ages and body shapes.

drive to meet the need of every shape, age, and size. Her website features models that are – gasp! – full-figured to boy-like body shapes and sexy silver vixens in between. Basically, if Malia sat at the popular lunch table in high school, she’d invite everyone to sit. Currently based out of NYC, she’s presently hunkering down with the rest of the city while staying hopeful for bright days ahead. “Christine, our fit specialist, has been helping our mavens online. We call her our ‘bikini whisperer,’ Malia said. “She is so incredibly knowledgeable and exudes good Chi.” A nonjudgmental personal shopper is just what every woman needs when searching for a suit post-winter, post-quarantine. Current hot items include the limited edition Dionne Maillot cut from Liberty of London cotton, “made extra special thanks to the smocking on the back-

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Permission to indulge: William Laman knows this 18th Century French Louis XVI gilt wood mirror is not what you need but what you want

You may not know this, or maybe you do, but we have a Hall of Fame interior designer in our midst.

Internationally renowned designer Bruce Gregga and partner William Laman teamed up in 1995 to open William Laman Furniture, Garden + Antiques, combining their talents for infusing antiques with modern and handmade decor. Their unique mix of curated merchandise from around the world has enticed top interior

Treat your laundry pile to a Bali handwoven hamper with lid and natural cotton liner found at William Laman

designers, Hollywood celebs, and clever locals and visitors to peruse, and their online shop is no exception. Click on an Eighteenth Century French Louis XVI Gilt Wood Mirror to a large tule stool handwoven from natural palm fiber made in Mexico.

Or, gifts like a Mother of Pearl footed shell to use as a soap tray or to display favorite novelties, and a glass tube flower holder encased in a bamboo frame. The New Englandesque building is the setting for a layout which rotates furnishings and accessories, “as they would be used in one’s own home and garden.”

Though we’re in a time where grocery essentials are flying off shelves, home indulgences seem to be a close second. As the shop’s tagline states, “What you will find here is not what you need, but what you want.” Which, after an over-two-months-long stayat-home order, could be considered the same thing.

WIlliam Laman Furniture. Garden.

Antiques 1496 East Valley Road, Upper Village (805) 969-2840 info@williamlaman.com www.williamlaman.com •MJ

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tos Get Phoized n Orga

“Ignorance is stubborn and prejudice is hard.” – Adlai E. Stevenson

d New iPa o! setup to 4 – 11 June 2020

VILLAGE BEAT (Continued from page 6) area that was heavily impacted during the 1/9 debris flow. The basin would be approximately eight acres on eight parcels, seven of which are owned by private property owners; the County has already acquired one of the parcels. The County also seeks to provide trail access, parking, and add native plantings as part of the project.

The $21 million dollar project is heavily reliant on FEMA funding, which Flood Control manager Tom Fayram said is putting a fast track on approvals. Land Use Committee members brought up concerns including hazardous materials, air quality during construction, removal of fill and associated truck trips, and closures on East Valley Road/Highway 192. With 87,000 cubic yards of material being removed from the site, it will take more than 6,000 truck trips to haul material away, which could have significant impacts on local traffic. The project site will be screened on the East Valley Road side, and the project is expected to take eight months to complete, with working hours of 7 am to 4:30 pm Monday through Friday. The Land Use Committee will draft a letter with their concerns to be presented to the full Montecito Association Board of Directors next Tuesday, June 9.

Representatives from the Montecito Sanitary District were also on the call to answer questions about the Mitigated Negative Declaration for their project, which includes a new essential services building and associated improvements, a recycled water facility, and solar panels to power the facility. In April, the District applied for an emergency permit to build a portion of the essential services building in response to the COVID-19 crisis, to provide better sanitation facilities for their essential workers; that permit was denied and now the District is going through the approval process for the entire project.

General Manager Diane Gabriel reported that the Mitigated Negative Declaration will be voted on by the MSD Board next week, with hopes the project will be in front of the Montecito Planning Commission in the coming months. The new building will be built on a different portion of the five-acre campus, in order to abandon the access on Monte Cristo Lane and allow access on Channel Drive, and two water storage tanks will need to be built on land belonging to the Santa Barbara Cemetery, near the train tracks.

These two projects, in addition to upcoming County Road repairs – 28 lane miles of road and the construction of a temporary bridge at Cold Spring Trailhead is beginning next week, paid for by settlement funds from California Edison in response to the Thomas Fire and debris flow – join other major projects slated for Montecito in the coming months and years, including 4 – 11 June 2020

Ablitt’s Fine Cleaners has partnered with the Bucket Brigade to wash and sort all donated masks; the Bucket Brigade volunteers have sewn over 16,000 masks since April

the Sheffield Drive interchange project and the roundabouts slated for Olive Mill Road and San Ysidro Road. “They are all hitting the queue at once,” said MA Executive Director Sharon Byrne, while clarifying that actual construction will likely be at different times.

Fayram said preliminary site preparation on the Randall Road debris basin site could take place as early as this fall, with actual construction starting in April 2021. The roundabouts are slated for 2023-2027, with the Sheffield Drive interchange taking place in a similar timeframe.

“These are six meaty, important projects that will affect Montecito infrastructure for years to come,” Byrne said. For more information, visit www.montecitoassociation.org.

Bucket Brigade Updates On Tuesday, June 2, fourth graders at Laguna Blanca Lower School held their Citizenship Event via Zoom.

Usually held as a special breakfast on campus, the event is a culmination of curriculum taught in the fourth grade, focusing on good citizenship and leadership.

Each year, students choose members of the community who exhibit the Six Pillars of Character, which include responsibility, respect, caring, fairness, trustworthiness, and citizenship. They then research the community member through interviews, and write a speech about them. On Tuesday, a special video was shown with the fourth graders talking about their chosen Citizens, which included Nick Riley, wildland firefighter; Dr. Brian Baumgartner, ENT specialist; Lynn Ahlberg, nurse; Lori Luhnow, Santa Barbara’s Chief of Police; Emma Gotwald-Wright, nurse; Tim Tunget, manager at Costco; and Dr. Jason Prystowsky, ER doctor.

Keynote speaker at the heartwarming event was Abe Powell, founder of the Santa Barbara Bucket Brigade.

Powell gave a brief presentation to the fourth graders on the Bucket Brigade, and how it came to be in 2018, following the 1/9 Debris Flow. “Our goal was to dig out one house. Just one. But then over one hundred more

neighbors started asking for help,” Powell said. “So then our goal was to help as long as we could,” he added.

The organization, which is funded in part by private donation, continued its community involvement and work beyond the mudslide, in alignment with its mission statement. “We decided to keep helping, because the Bucket Brigade was created to prepare for and respond to natural disasters and community crises through volunteer training, coordination, and deployment,” he said, adding that the group of volunteers has grown to hundreds of people.

During the pandemic, the Bucket Brigade has assembled a team of over 400 people who have sewed over 16,000 face masks; the Bucket Brigade’s goal is 30,000. Just last week, 15 volunteers showed up at 10 am at the Montecito Library parking lot to fill more than 100 big gift totes with food and personal-care items for the Friendship Center Adult Day Services. At noon, another dozen volunteers showed up in their vehicles to pick up the totes and deliver them to seniors who have been sheltering in place throughout the pandemic. The volunteer day was a partnership event between the Santa Barbara Bucket Brigade and the Friendship Center.

After his address to the students, Powell answered several questions about the Bucket Brigade, and encouraged the fourth graders to become involved in volunteerism in their community. To learn more about the Bucket Brigade, visit www.sbbuck etbrigade.org. For more information about Laguna Blanca, visit www.lagu nablanca.org.

Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation Cancels Luncheon Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation is the only nonprofit organization in our community that provides financial, educational, and emotional support to local families who have a child with cancer. The organization also has a reputation for its signature events, as a way to raise much-needed funding.

Their flagship event, the Gold Ribbon Luncheon held at Four Seasons, the Biltmore Resort Santa Barbara, historically gathers over 400 individuals to raise critical funds for families in the tri-counties battling pediatric cancer, and the event raises almost a third of their annual operating expenses. This year, however, TBCF had decided to forego the event entirely.

“Our families are in dire situations right now, and we’ve made the decision to focus on serving them to our best ability right now,” said Eryn Shugart, Interim Executive Director.

“Some of our families have lost their entire income, and many are in danger

• THE VOICE OF THE VILLAGE •

of going hungry… all while they’re caring for a very ill child. We just really need to focus on them right now, and not on planning our luncheon. Also, out of concern for the health of our supporters, we don’t believe that holding a large luncheon event would be appropriate, even if the orders are lifted.” This decision will inevitably result in an enormous budget shortfall, and TBCF is relying on support from their donor base now more than ever before.

Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation will, however, continue their annual Gold Ribbon Campaign through the month of September in recognition of Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month.

Gold is the official ribbon color for pediatric cancer and TBCF will be distributing gold ribbons in September to help spread awareness for their campaign. Fundraising for the campaign will focus on a USPS direct mail appeal, sponsorships, a raffle, and an online silent auction. Campaign sponsorships offer robust benefits including upgraded marketing and promotional opportunities ideal for businesses, and smaller sponsorship levels and gifts to encourage more participation from individuals and youth.

Every sponsorship level will include a gift certificate to a local small business or restaurant as TBCF’s attempt to support the small businesses that have supported them over their 18-year history. “I feel really good about offering local restaurant gift cards to our campaign sponsors. We are also providing our sponsors with the option to donate the gift card directly to a TBCF family, should they prefer,” said Kirsten Stuart, Development & Communications Director. “TBCF is stable today because of the past participation of our small business community and it feels wonderful to be able to give back to them after so many years of support, especially now.”

The campaign co-chairs are Eileen Dill and Brigitte Welty, who have previously served as luncheon co-chairs.

Eileen and Brigitte will help oversee an online silent auction, raffle, and marketing of the campaign, and help to spread TBCF’s mission and message of hope.

Last year, Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation provided critical financial aid to 55 local families and served a total of 851 individuals through their three core programs. Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation’s mission advocates for families living in the Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties who have a child battling cancer by providing financial, emotional, and educational support. TBCF is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and has been serving the tri-counties since 2002.

For information about TBCF’s mission or for sponsorship information, please contact Eryn Shugart at Eryn@ TeddyBearCancerFoundation.org. •MJ MONTECITO JOURNAL

31

The Power Of Ted

by Mitchell Kriegman

Mark Sylvester draws on everything (photo by DavidKafer.com)

T

his is a story about moving from Chaos to Order. We need that right?

It’s also about the Adventures of Mark and TED. Who is TED? The question is rather what? TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design and at this point it’s an American media institution, a publicly sourced think tank, that holds conferences all around the world and posts talks online for free under the slogan “ideas worth spreading.” Ok, well then, who is Mark? Mark Sylvester is a local Santa Barbara genius, a man who helped develop the computer 3D animation software called Maya that revolutionized the way the world is entertained, that includes Pixar, DreamWorks, LucasFilm and all the special effects in between. He’s also the host and executive producer of TEDxSantaBarbara, and the podcast series Hacking the Red Circle, the creator of PodClass with California Lutheran University’s School of Management, a storyteller, a fanatical lover of cats, a chef, and an improv comedian. Phew. He’s a very busy person even for a once in a lifetime shutdown in a pandemic quarantine.

A New TEDx Forum: Making Waves Most importantly Mark knows how to unlock the Power of TED – great minds who don’t think alike and create new and useful innovation. Starting this Wednesday at 4 pm Pacific Time, he’s launching “Making Waves: Conversations with Innovators and Disruptors,” a series of short virtual talks, highlighting discussions of hope and optimism while showcasing actionable solutions with local and national experts and activists that include Sigrid Wright CEO of the Community Environmental Council, Katie Hershfelt of Cultivate Events, and best-selling author, scholar and theologian Noah benShea, and many others.

Some of the topics will include; our Food Supply, BioTech, Psychology, Resiliency, Impact on Gatherings, Retail, The Environment, Energy, the Ocean, Social Justice, Civil Discourse, Education, Creativity, and Animal Activism, to name a few minor subjects of pressing, urgent interest.

We need ideas, right? This guy’s got them. Even better he knows where to find more.

The Need for Bright Minds and Pathways of Recovery Sara Miller McCune, businesswoman and one of Santa Barbara’s leading philanthropists, remarked early in the COVID crisis, that “the issues of looking for ways to react to the pandemic, both during its unknown length and during its undoubtedly very long period of recovery, are huge. The sooner bright minds start discussing and developing pathways to recovery, the better off we will all be.”

Whether we like it or not we’re all in fact participating in a worldwide thought experiment with real world consequences, looking for the solutions to this extraordinary moment. TED is the definition of bright minds discussing and developing pathways.

The much-parodied classic TED talk with its Mensa Society allure and by now predictable emotional arc and occasionally smug visionary-speak, has, in truth,

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“From Chaos to Order in Four Circles” – The green outer circle represents the Chaos of any situation.

Pay attention to the bubbles, as they represent the ideas and information you may be dealing with.

The pink ring of Complexity offers the first level of beginning to cluster the chaos into boxes. The yellow ring, Complicated, shows the way the bubbles are interrelated. By breaking each one Order, the orange circle, is achieved.

transformed the level of public discourse for the better. It has made the idea of ideas cool, even sexy, and improved the level of data presentation, created a new demand for world changing ideas and reintroduced personal passion into what used to be sober dry proceedings, upping the ante on authenticity.

Perhaps its most important contribution is re-introducing the idea of a journey and storytelling as crucial to public speaking.

Whether we like it or not we’re all in fact participating in a worldwide thought experiment with real world consequences, looking for the solutions to this extraordinary moment. TED is the definition of bright minds discussing and developing pathways.

TED can often seem nerdy, in its own quarantine universe, but it is home to some of the most brilliant minds in the world, hosted all over the world. And they’re constantly searching for ways to innovate and expand in unique multidisciplinary ways. TED is also a process, a concept, and a principle of intellectual endeavor even when it’s about other nonintellectual endeavors. It’s a society of thinkers, a place to discover new ideas, and a place to belong if you’re a thinker, important now in this chaos more than ever.

Founded in 1984 (why does that year ring a bell?), TED is the main organization based in New York City. TEDx is a branch of the larger TED family. The X stands for independently organized event, anybody can apply to do a TEDx in their town if there isn’t already one there. A major change happened to the TED world when it transferred ownership in 2003 from Richard Saul Wurman to Chris Anderson. Some might say that this was the point in which TED became a bit more eccentric, while others criticized the transition.

The local Santa Barbara chapter of TED was launched by Mark Sylvester, its playful pan-like interlocutor. He launched TEDx Santa Barbara in 2010 and

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

4 – 11 June 2020

is now executive producer. Mark has a passion for connecting people and ideas. He talks in a constant flow of concepts and structures, mottos, mantras, and catch phrases. His favorite during this interview was, “If I was to wear a tee shirt right now with three words on, it would say ‘every moment matters.’” The phrase comes up again and again as any good mantra should.

Adaptation to COVID The TED community sprang into action immediately adapting to the virus crisis – if you can say that about a bunch of intellectuals. But Big TED as Mark sometimes calls the New York office made a number of moves as the pandemic took hold. Chris Anderson, the British-American businessman who is the head of TED, created TEDConnects, which is a curated conference every morning during the week at 9 am for free. Remarkably anybody in the world can join. The first TEDConnects was hosted by Susan David on March 23, a Harvard medical psychologist who spoke on the psychology of being your best self during this time of crisis and the importance of emotional agility. Over 10,000 people signed in for the first TEDConnects, and more continued to join as figures like Bill Gates, formerly of Microsoft, The Ubiquitous TED Red Circle (photo by DavidKafer.com) and Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the best seller Eat, Pray, Love, followed suit. does the world need to know and why do they need to know it now?”

TED Circles was another innovation. The idea for TED Circles originated That turns out to be a very useful question especially in these troubled times. pre-virus but has since become a major source of community gathering and innovation online. Anybody can sign up to become a host of a circle, and there is typically a talk of the week that the group watches and then discusses. The organizer can invite 11 friends and they actually show up in a circle on the Apply the freedom vs form dynamic of improv comedy to any creative form screen. Ted even created a workbook to help organizers guide conversations in or thought endeavor and it’s easy to see how the civilized world has shifted into their own circles, all over the world. All of this has led to an even more massive a literally life and death struggle between Chaos and Form. adaption of TED’s methodology across the world becoming part of many peoIt speaks volumes that it is easy to describe the state of the world right now ple’s daily lives in quarantine. as chaos. Forms old and new are swirling around in our lives. Some are antiquated, some are useful and are worth reviving, some need to be retired or will just naturally die off.

In the process of discussion Mark instantly and restlessly pulls out his sketch“We might be physically distancing but socially we’re actually closer,” Mark book and begins drawing. It’s odd at first. The spontaneous drawing reminds remarked and this rings true for the 4,000 or so TEDx organizers who meet one of the archetype of a professor at a chalkboard, but also a child drawing daily on Zoom to discuss what needs to be done in the world. When Mark with colored pencils or even the symptoms of OCD, after all, every good thinkdecided to start a working group to consider writing a playbook for virtual er has to have a little obsessive behavior to stay on focus. Soon color markers event production, he had so many responses that he “blew up the internet.” appear and the entire sketch of what he is trying to say as he speaks comes to These innovators are leaning in to Zoom and other video meeting apps in order life, taking shape in words, forms, figures, and arrows. He is practiced in this to find out what they can do. They have ‘open mike’ hangouts where the orga- process and the drawing drives more fully formed concepts to come to the fore. nizers from around the world can have thirty seconds to share a hack that was “Every coach has a coach,” Mark says. “My coach is Scott Mann, he’s a retired helping, or give voice to any other interesting ideas that are arising.

Lieutenant Colonel Green Beret. He’s taking me to school on all the lessons he As dependent as all this virtual organization is on planning and predictabili- learned in the military, how we go from chaos to order.” ty, Mark’s mercurial inclinations began to innovate the staid, ubiquitous forum Sure enough, as the conversation unfolds, a chart, a kind of infographic of Zoom. Rather than having a serious, sterile meeting, he began to play with appears, depicting the process of channeling chaos to order which is in fact the the idea of virtual dance parties and games. graphic that accompanies this article produced in real time.

This is consistent with his love of storytelling and improv comedy.

Improvisational comedy is in many ways its own logical system with its own rules and dynamics.

“Improv has replaced jazz as America’s most popular art,” according to Sam This process is a glimpse into the mind of Mark Sylvester. He is constantly Wasson in his book Improv Nation. Improv is a rapid-fire art of unscripted per- drawing and diagramming the world of thought around him. He mentally formance that despite being utilized to create “comedy” could truly be applied floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee, improvising and drawing his way to to any creative endeavor. As Wasson remarks, it’s all about “the driving tension light and understanding. For every ounce of Mark that is intellectual, there is between freedom and form.” another ounce that is equally an artist. By drawing out a vicious problem such Mark sees improv as an important “mental exercise and mental calisthenics.” as the chaos the virus has caused, he puts words and thoughts into each ring in It’s a space where the organizers can freely share with unselfconscious and even order to visualize a path to a solution. unconscious freedom. It’s a higher structural understanding of improv, that elicThe true power of TED lies with people like Mark, always willing to restlessly its a schoolteacher’s desire to add an “e” at the end. What attracted Mark to TED gnaw on a problem, and gather and curate other restless minds and bring them from the very beginning, “was that sense of seeing something from a different together in the famous Red Circle that lies empty at the beginning of every talk point of view, understanding it differently and always asking the question, what until someone walks on stage and fills it.

•MJ

Moving from Chaos to Order

Physically Distant – Socially Near

The Mind of Mark

4 – 11 June 2020

• THE VOICE OF THE VILLAGE •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

33

Our Town

by Joanne A. Calitri Joanne is a professional international photographer and journalist.

Contact her at: artraks@yahoo.com

Part 2: 5G Impact Interview with Santa Barbara City Attorneys

People of Montecito

by Megan Waldrep

What’s your favorite memory of growing up here?

O

n Friday, May 22, I held a Zoom meeting with SB City Attorney Ariel Calonne and Assistant City Attorney John Doimas regarding 5G in our town. The focus of this information is where we are at in the process, what the remainder of the process is going to look like, and a few of the legal highlights like human health.

Our Zoom meeting salient points, transcribed and approved by Attorneys Calonne and Doimas prior to publication: Background: In 2014, Calonne identified fairly early the need for an improved wireless ordinance. The wireless technology landscape has changed with the accompanying laws regulating it. In 2016, they took a run at developing an ordinance on regulations dealing with macro or traditional cell tower antennas to the greatest extent as allowed by State and Federal Law. It got as far as the Planning Commission and the process stopped. They had an order from the FCC late 2018 to get in their aesthetic guidelines for wireless by mid-March 2019. A very significant portion of that was completed in time for the deadline to post public right of way aesthetic regulations. It received approval from the SB City Development Dept and that’s where things stand. They realized a need for an ordinance that specifically dealt with small wireless facilities currently used for 4G, and can be adapted to 5G for cell reception and driverless vehicles.

The base case presumption by staff has been that protecting human health to the maximum extent by law is the direction assumed, subject to policy guidance by the City Council. A majority of the City Council has not told the City Attorney’s Office to do this one way or another yet. They are not empowered to speak for the City Council. They are giving them a range of options. The City Attorneys are operating under the assumption that there are massive Federal and State pre-emptions that limit the City’s power to exclude it. The process for excluding even one antenna is rigorous as far as the courts go. The FCC says for city, that in terms of RF emissions, as long as it’s what the FCC limits are, the cities cannot regulate it. As City attorneys they navigate through Federal and State regulations, and identify ways to provide maximum control at the city level. The new draft ordinance allows avenues of appeal, i.e., safety aspect, however appeals have to show that it does not meet the FCC standards.

The City Attorney’s Analytical structure of the options: 1. If the City Council says we want to stop 5G all together, that requires litigation, which the City Attorney will deal with.

2. If the City Council says we recognize we can’t stop 5G, an ordinance to control the placement of wireless facilities on public property, can be written by the City Attorneys.

3. The protection principle is to minimize an unknown harm. To minimize harm, the ordinance can: a. Establish preferred locations, e.g., in industrial areas by the highway, versus near a school or hospital. b. Limit the number installed: Not more antennas than necessary for adequate service, not numerous locations throughout the city c. Establish shared facilities by all the telecom companies.

4. Create an aesthetic standard to meet our community standards.

5. The ordinance will require and define what a completed application is in order not to run afoul from the federal shot clock imposed on local agencies.

Depending on the type of facility the federal shot clocks are either 150 days, 90, or 60. It gives the city a legitimate basis for objecting for it via permit process, and not being unduly unfair to the wireless industry.

6. Public notice of installations.

Due Process of Writing the Ordinance: 1. The City Attorneys’ internal draft of this ordinance was completed May 15, and currently is circulating to all city departments for review and comment over the next few weeks, especially Public Works, Public Safety and Information, the Historical Landmarks Commission, Architectural Review Board, Waterfront and Airport.

2. The City Attorneys are conducting our their comment period, first with the City departments. Once they have all the policy points and revisions finalized, it will go out to the public late June for review and comment. There will be

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“O

ne of my favorite memories of growing up in Montecito is walking with friends to the Upper Village from Montecito Union School and getting a sandwich from the Village Cheese & Wine Shop. It was just the most incredible sandwich you ever had. Just cheese and meat but a lot of cheese and meat. We’d usually sit out front somewhere to eat or maybe walk towards school and go through Upper Manning Park. It was so safe and quaint. John, the guy who made the sandwiches, he was from New Zealand so he had a New Zealand accent. He had all these great surf posters in the shop. His son was a big surfer. He always had surfboards in the front window, like one or two used boards for sale. When I started surfing, I would go in there and fantasize about buying one of the boards. Later in life, I ended up buying a used surfboard from him. I think it was my first short board.”

Chris Dabney •MJ a news release with links to where the documents are on the City Attorney’s webpage left sidebar menu.

3. All public comment is best served in writing to the City Attorney’s office, who will take the written comments and respond to them in a report to the city ordinance committee.

4. Minimally three City Government bodies that need to pass the Ordinance after public review are: The Planning Commission, The Ordinance Committee and The City Council.

On the May 7, 2020, Easton, CT Selectmen unanimously approved a Resolution to cease and desist its 5G wireless technology rollout until research and testing show that it is safe for humans and the environment.

Calonne and Doimas commented: “The resolution states that Easton calls upon all Telecommunications Companies and Public Utilities operating in Easton to cease and desist in the build-out of SO-enabled small cell antennas until December 31, 2020. Calls upon appears to be carefully drafted to avoid being an actual order that bans 5G. I do not believe this establishes, nor was it intended to establish, a 5G moratorium. The resolution is not binding or legally persuasive, thus, we can point to it to support any local regulation here in Santa Barbara.” [www.eastonct.gov] In closing, Calonne emphasized that anyone can comment in writing and attend these meetings, “they are open and we want as much public participation as we can get.”

•MJ

“It is never too late to give up your prejudices.” – Henry David Thoreau

4 – 11 June 2020

Far Flung Travel

by Chuck Graham

Through and Through: One day through-hike from the coast to the Matilija Wilderness

S

traddling the coastal spine of the Transverse Ranges, I hiked (and sometimes ran) the sandstone sea serpent that rises and falls east to west all the way from the idyllic Gaviota Coast to the stunningly breathtaking Matilija Wilderness, a stone’s throw away from Carpinteria.

The chaparral-choked Santa Ynez Mountains are one of the main gateways with several front-country trails leading to the backcountry wilds of the Los Padres National Forest, and the Cenozoic range is one of just a few in the U.S. trending east-west. One of the most unique aspects of living close to the national forest is standing on its prominent coastal spine, gazing out across the Santa Barbara Channel to the Channel Islands National Park, the isles also part of the Transverse Ranges.

With the 7.9-mile Franklin Trail reestablished following fires and mudslides in 2018, the winding trail is

the newest route into the National Forest. Ascending and weaving from the Carpinteria Valley to the narrow ridge of the Santa Ynez Mountains, it’s only natural to connect the dots, run the spine of the range and descend alongside all the soothing, gurgling tributaries that feed the Matilija Wilderness.

Darkness Calms There’s something said for hiking on a cool winter’s night. There are no bugs to speak of. It’s refreshing.

T-shirt, shorts, beanie, trail shoes, the head is warm, but the cool air feels just right and enhanced my pace up the Franklin Trail.

With my headlamp burning bright, it’s one foot in front of the other, and for a few hours the distance was forgotten. Lost was how far it was or how steep the route got in The Franklin’s upper reaches. Visibility carried only

as far as the brightest beam from my headlamp. Drifting off into a meditative state was easily accomplished and settling in for the first several miles before sunup was simple. Of course, all that went out the window once the initial, significant rustle of coastal sage scrub occurred, thus heightening my senses. Megafauna or just another spotted towhee sounding larger than it really was?

Timed on a setting full moon and greeted by a new dawn, I stopped and gazed in 360 degrees. Heaven would have to wait. As orange and pinkish hues swept across the horizon, it had to be one of the best panoramas on the entire West Coast. A light frost crusted over the dense chaparral and a wisp of northeast wind wafted down the steep, narrow canyons to the Carpinteria Valley below. The shimmering Santa Barbara Channel was flawless, and those ever-present isles continue to beckon.

Once on top of the ridgeline though, there’s a magnetic pull toward rugged backcountry bliss. As the spine continued to gradually veer eastward, the ocean became a little more distant, but with the sun rising over the channel, a clear day can mean striking visuals of land and sea. It’s not every day, even from 4,000 feet above, that one can see San Nicholas and Santa Barbara Islands, the canyons of the Northern Channel Islands, Point Mugu, Sandstone Peak, the high summit of the Santa Monica Mountains, the daunting Topatopa Mountains and even the Santa Ynez Valley smothered in Tule fog. Those were the possibilities revealed while standing atop the rambling spine of the Santa Ynez Mountains.

Backcountry Transition My map is old. It’s over 20 years old.

It’s not tear-proof. It’s not tatter-proof and some things have changed out here in the backcountry or remain unmaintained over the last two plus decades.

4 – 11 June 2020

• THE VOICE OF THE VILLAGE •

Having said that, I couldn’t locate the Monte Arido Trail, the connector between the Santa Ynez Mountains and the Murietta Divide. At 4,707 feet, Divide Peak is four miles west of the Franklin Trail connector resembling a ragged rib rolling toward the coast. Once at Divide Peak the OHV route bends to the northeast, then east climbing and rolling toward the Matilija Wilderness.

Certain features came into play walking eastward. The vein of the upper Santa Ynez River snaked west from shimmering Jameson Lake. East of the lake, Juncal Canyon converged with Murietta Divide, Rincon Creek and east of the boulder-strewn creeks and above was Old Man Mountain.

No Monte Arido, no problem.

Locating what appeared to be an old bulldozed track down a steep, rolling ridge that maybe lead to Jameson Lake, I took it. A steep descent into a loose, rocky gully leading to the bulldozed route quickly led to the sounds of a gurgling creek. Veering off the bulldozed route onto a narrow ridge, I thrashed through remnants of burned out Thomas Fire snags and low-lying new growth, slipping and sliding in thick, soggy earth by recent rains and snow.

Converging with the Murietta Divide was a maze of oak tree groves, willows, boulders and creeks before reaching the road leading up Murietta Canyon. Every now and then fallen trees covered the road. Recent rains left soft, compacted mud revealing a myriad of defined wildlife spoor; black bears, bobcats, mule deer, gray foxes and striped skunks, heaps of activity relying on a nearby water source.

The Good Luck Bug However, while enjoying a burrito break, one of the smallest yet most popular residents of the forest quickly cluttered my map. A few dozen ladybugs soon led me to a busy colony of thousands along Murietta Canyon.

They were enjoying the soggy earth, clustered on all leaves and branches within the near vicinity. Their black spots stood out against their bright red wings.

In many cultures they’re considered good luck. There are about 5,000 species of ladybug in the world. The most common, the most notable is the seven-spotted ladybug. They use their black spots and a secretion oozing from their joints as deterrents against potential predators. Plenty of those lurking in the dense chaparral.

Beyond the ladybugs, I rounded the last bend in the muddy road and the Matilija Wilderness eventually opened before me. Fall colors still clung to the North Fork and the rhythm of the creeks led me to my shuttle back to Carpinteria.

•MJ MONTECITO JOURNAL

35

EDITORIAL (Continued from page 5) discuss it, to not help them process it, is simply not an option. At least not a good one.

Minnesota is only 8% black (Minneapolis 16.8%) and they still wound up with a race problem of a national caliber. Because it doesn’t take a lot of people of a different color to expose dangerous, dormant, and sometimes probably subconscious racial attitudes in a community.

Typically, it only takes one. And we all know too many of their names: Trayvon Martin. Freddie Gray. Emmett Till. Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery.

Eric Garner. And now George Floyd.

As remote as Montecito may be from Minneapolis... and Baltimore... and Atlanta, how do we explain this story... to our kids? To ourselves? To each other? Because to not take a position “Leading scientists, sociologists and psychoanaon it is tantamount to taking the same lysts have come to realize that one generation’s position as Chauvin’s colleague and traumatic experiences are often transmitted to the next generation, and even generations after lookout, Officer Tou Thou. that.” – Leslie Gilbert-Lurie, book’s author I’ve heard a lot of news outlets say the George Floyd incident was a new sort of occurrence for otherwise pastoral Minnesota, but I did a little digging and actually, it’s not. Two hours from Minneapolis by car, a young boy was living in Duluth. That boy, Abram, wound up in Duluth because his relatives, Anna and Zig Zimmerman, had fled anti-Jewish pogroms in Odessa, Russia.

As the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, I can attest that traumas get passed down from one generation to the next.

Abram wound up living two blocks from a very notable Minnesota lynching.

(Where three posthumously innocent victims were hung from a lamp pole in a melee witnessed by thousands.) Indeed, proximity to Duluth’s lynchings of Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie had a huge impact on young Abram.

As the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, I can attest that traumas get passed down from one generation to the next. In fact my sister, along with my mother, wrote a book about this very phenomenon called Bending Towards the Sun about my mom’s years hiding from the Nazis in an attic – as well as the trauma our Mom passed down to us, “the gift that keeps on giving.”

In a similar manner, the lynching witnessed by Abram in Duluth was so seared into his memory that, years later, when Abram had a son, Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham, Shabtai, emerging from the University of Minnesota, wrote a song about the incident called “Desolation Row.” At this point he officially went not by Shabtai, the name under which he was Bar-mitzvad, but Robert Allen Zimmerman.

A beautiful shrine that shouldn’t have had to exist (photo by @munshots)

appropriately enough, Postcards of the Hanging. There’s also a memorial to the 1920 Minnesota lynchings at 1st Street and 2nd Avenue in Duluth.

We all know memorials and statues can be controversial. Because they say a lot about our history and which history will be told. Which history will be literally memorial-ized. Personally, I think memorials such as the one at Duluth Plaza are important even when they make us uncomfortable, maybe especially when they do, because they can start important conversations. Between friends.

Between races. Between parents and their kids. (The kind I feel so strongly must be had now with our children.) Because here’s what happens when those tough conversations don’t happen, like the one between Bob Dylan and his dad, or the tough Holocaust conversations between my mother and myself: 95 years after the historical event that sparked Dylan to write “Desolation Row,” also in June but this time in 2015, another Dylann, this one in South Carolina, named Dylann Roof with 2 “Ns,” watches news coverage of another Zimmerman, but this Zimmerman, named George, is the shooter of Trayvon Martin not at Twin Cities, but at the Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford, Florida.

Roof is impacted by the Trayvon Martin incident and also impacted by footage of the police killing of Freddie Gray (in Baltimore). But no one processes the information with Roof. He kind of fits the “loner” profile and is not close with any parent, stepparent, or any other sort of influential relative, or any sort of responsible adult. According to the FBI, Dylann Roof “self-radicalizes” as he processes the same sort of information my kids and your kids just saw emanate from Minneapolis, but with no guidance, no discussion, and no mentorship.

We all have to deal with these incidents and images that are becoming a common ingredient in our kids’ internet feeds, even if they come from 2,011 miles away.

Because to witness the video of a death in progress embalms it in our hearts and minds for all time. As the saying goes, once you see it, you can’t “unsee” it.

“Desolation Row” begins like this: They’re selling postcards of the hanging, they’re painting the passports brown The beauty parlor is filled with sailors, the circus is in town Here comes the blind commissioner, they’ve got him in a trance One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker, the other is in his pants And the riot squad they’re restless, they need somewhere to go As Lady and I look out tonight, from Desolation Row Shabtai, now Robert Zimmerman, subsequently changed his name, this time to Bob Dylan, reportedly after the Welsh rock star poet, Dylan Thomas.

Interestingly, “Desolation Row” (1965) wasn’t Dylan’s first song about a lynching. That came in 1962 with his song “The Death of Emmett Till.”

The incident that sparked “Desolation Row” occurred almost 100 years ago to this very day in Minnesota, in June of 1920. There have been at least two books about it. And one famous song by Dylan (later recorded again by My Chemical Romance) and previously covered by the Grateful Dead on their album called,

36 MONTECITO JOURNAL

Left to his own devices, and those devices include a Glock .45 caliber Gen4 pistol as well as, Dylann hopes, a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle which he tries to procure, Mr. Roof’s take-away from watching the George Zimmerman case and the Freddie Gray case is he would “like to start a race war in the U.S.A.” And he does his best to achieve precisely that by shooting up a bible study group in a church in Charleston, South Carolina – killing nine parishioners.

Going back to the Duluth lynchings that occurred almost 100 years ago to this day, seven African American circus workers had been rounded up on spurious charges of rape, later proven false, in an incident incredibly similar to Amy Cooper vs. Christian Cooper a few days ago in New York’s Central Park. But without the incontrovertible alibi of a cell phone recorded video.

2,011 miles away from Minneapolis, Santa Barbara does not have a clean slate when it comes to racial justice. One not-so-well-known example happened in 1983 when the Harlem Globetrotters were visiting for a perfor-

“Justice is truth in action.” – Benjamin Disraeli

4 – 11 June 2020

mance. After a show, three players (Sweet Lou Dunbar, Ovie Dotson, and Jimmy Blacklock) went downtown to walk around and get some ice cream.

Eventually they flagged down a taxi to head back to their hotel. While on the way to their hotel, their taxi was surrounded by police cars, guns drawn.

Before the incident was over the Santa Barbara Police had three members of the world-famous Globetrotters lying face down in the street. Handcuffed.

Why? Because next door in Montecito three black men “of average height” had robbed a jewelry store. Luckily, because one reporter had seen the Globetrotters in the ice cream shop and followed them, this was all caught on tape. Which was good not just because there was a record, but because the reporter was able to tell the cops that the Globetrotters were clearly not the “average height” guys who had robbed the Montecito jewelry store. In case they couldn’t see that for themselves.

Sadly, in 1920 in Duluth there were no cameras to record incontrovertible alibis. And because of the race hysteria at the time and because the traveling circus workers lacked recordings or other resources with which to defend themselves, three of them were lynched by a Duluth mob estimated at 1,500. The rest were all eventually exonerated, but one of them only under the condition that he “never return to Minnesota.”

Until quite recently, Minnesota’s complicated racial past had been quite literally whitewashed, much like Tulsa, Oklahoma’s 1921 Race War that killed at least 40 – completely scrubbed from newspaper coverage and news archives and histories both at the time and in perpetuity.

Minnesota’s problem isn’t NOT our problem. Nor is Los Angeles’s. Nor Staten Island’s. Nor Baltimore’s. Nor Atlanta’s… We all have to deal with these incidents and images that are becoming a common ingredient in our kids’ daily internet feeds, even if they come from 2,011 miles away. Because to witness the video of a death in progress embalms it in our hearts and minds for all time. As the saying goes, once you see it, you can’t “unsee” it. Those images become seeds in our kids that are going to grow into something. How we respond to Minnesota, or don’t, will determine if those seeds will become Bob Dylan/Robert Zimmerman. Or Dylan Thomas. Or will they become George Zimmerman? Or will they become Dylann Roof?

The answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind.

The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

MONTECITO JOURNAL’S THOM STEINBECK CREATIVE WRITING CONTEST #4

HAIKU… GESUNDHEIT!

T

his week’s contest will be a Haiku…. [bless you] on the subject: A Safe Reopening. The first line should only have 5 syllables, then 7 for the second, and 5 for the last. These add up to 17 syllables. Once you have achieved the syllable rule, you have a Haiku… bless you.

Send your image by Sunday, June 7 to: letters@montecitojournal.net.

We will publish the winning image and award the winning artist with a $125 gift certificate to a local restaurant of our choice for take-out food.

•MJ

CONDOR EXPRESS IS BACK IN BUSINESS!

We just got the green light from both the state and the county to start up our daily trips just in time for summer… it’s the best time to go whale watching. Enjoy friendly Humpback whales, Fin whales, Minke whales and the giant Blue whales all feeding in the Santa Barbara Channel, along with several species of dolphin and seals. We’ll see you aboard the Condor Express!

Be on board starting this Monday June 1, with great weather and whales abound Adults $65, kids under 12 $45

Trips depart every day at 9 AM and noon from the Santa Barbara Harbor; for reservations and information go to condorexpress.com or call Sea Landing @ 805-963-3564 For your safety and comfort, we will be limiting our passenger load. We are requiring face masks to be worn, and will monitor social distancing. We will also have sanitizing stations on board.

4 – 11 June 2020

• THE VOICE OF THE VILLAGE •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

37

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

ORDINANCE NO. 5944

AN UNCODIFIED EMERGENCY ORDINANCE OF THE COUNCIL

OF

THE

CITY

OF

SANTA

BARBARA

PERTAINING TO COVID-19 ECONOMIC RECOVERY The above captioned ordinance was adopted at a regular meeting of the Santa Barbara City Council held on May 27,

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. 5846

2020.

DUE DATE & TIME: JUNE 17, 2020 UNTIL 3:00 P.M.

The publication of this ordinance is made pursuant to the

DOWNTOWN PARKING FACILITIES AND DOWNTOWN PLAZA JANITORIAL SERVICES

provisions of Section 512 of the Santa Barbara City Charter as amended, and the original ordinance in its entirety may be obtained at the City Clerk's Office, City Hall, Santa Barbara, California.

(Seal) /s/ Sarah Gorman, CMC City Clerk Services Manager ORDINANCE NO. 5944 STATE OF CALIFORNIA

) ) COUNTY OF SANTA BARBARA ) ss. ) CITY OF SANTA BARBARA ) I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing ordinance was introduced and adopted by the Council of the City of Santa Barbara at a meeting held on May 27, 2020, by the following roll call vote: AYES:

Councilmembers Alejandra Gutierrez, Oscar Gutierrez, Meagan Harmon, Mike Jordan, Kristen W. Sneddon; Mayor Cathy Murillo

NOES:

None

ABSENT:

Councilmember Eric Friedman

ABSTENTIONS:

None

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereto set my hand and affixed the official seal of the City of Santa Barbara on May 28, 2020.

/s/ Sarah P. Gorman, CMC City Clerk Services Manager I HEREBY APPROVE the foregoing ordinance

Scope of Work: Daily janitorial services in Downtown Parking facilities and along the sidewalks of State Street from Cabrillo Boulevard to Victoria Street.

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.

If further information is needed, contact Jennifer Disney Dixon, Buyer II, at (805) 564-5356or email: JDisney@SantaBarbaraCA.gov.

A pre-bid meeting will not be held.

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 (10) 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

Published 6/3/20 Montecito Journal

CITY OF SANTA BARBARA - GENERAL SERVICES DIVISION PO BOX 1990, SANTA BARBARA, CA 93102-1990 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. 5826 DUE DATE & TIME: JUNE 22, 2020 UNTIL 3:00 P.M. BEACH CONCESSION RENTAL SITES Scope of Work: The City has authorized the following beach concession rental sites to the rental of kayaks, stand-up paddleboards, lifejackets, surfboards, boogie boards, and other beach sundries, including rental of beach umbrellas, beach chairs, towels and sunscreen, Stand Up Paddle boarding and Surf lessons.

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.

If further information is needed, contact Caroline Ortega, Buyer at (805) 564-5351or email: COrtega@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.

CERTIFICATE OF INSURANCE Contractor must submit to the contracted department within ten (10) 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. _______________________________ Published: 6/03/2020 William Hornung, C.P.M. Montecito Journal General Services Manager

on May 28, 2020.

/s/ Cathy Murillo Mayor Published June 3, 2020 Montecito Journal

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAE FERMOSA, 421 E Cook, Santa Maria, CA 93454. Esther Hernandez, 421 E Cook, Santa Maria, CA 93454. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on May 12, 2020. 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. 2020-0001176. Published May 27, June 3, 10, 17, 2020.

Live Scan Corporate Services; Portuguese Translation USA, 1482 E Valley Road #24, Santa Barbara, CA 93108. Marcia Ribeiro, 1482 E Valley Road #24, Santa Barbara, CA 93108. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on May 19, 2020.

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. 2020-0001246. Published May 27, June 3, 10, 17, 2020.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Santa Barbara Corporate Services; SB Corporate Services;

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Sound Waves SB, 2062 Alameda Padre Serra, Santa Barbara, CA

38 MONTECITO JOURNAL

93103. Dennis S. Sands, 1243 Mesa Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93108. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on April 28, 2020.

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), by Jon Beck. FBN No. 2020-0001058. Published May 20, 27, June 3, 10, 2020.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Nexem Staffing; Nexem Allied, 3820 State Street Suite B, Santa Barbara, CA 93105. Partners Personnel-Management Services LLC, 3820 State Street Suite B, Santa Barbara, CA 93105. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on May 8, 2020. 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. 2020-0001148. Published May 20, 27, June 3, 10, 2020.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Bob’s Central Vacuum, 1308 San Rafael Ave., Santa Barbara, CA 93109. Michael E. Purdy, 1308 San Rafael Ave., Santa Barbara, CA 93109. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on April 29, 2020. 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), filed by John Beck.

FBN No. 2020-0001070. Published May 13, 20, 27, June 3, 2020.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GW Wallcoverings, 346 Hot Springs Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93108. Glenn Walter, 346 Hot Springs Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93108. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on April 29, 2020.

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

“Life’s most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

office. Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL), filed by Brenda Aguilera. FBN No. 2020-0001086. Published May 13, 20, 27, June 3, 2020.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Rothdeutsch & Associates Professional Fiduciary Services; SBGoats.com, 782 Acacia Walk Apt. G, Goleta, CA 93117.

Khristine Sharon Rothdeutsch, 782 Acacia Walk Apt. G, Goleta, CA 93117. Scott Andrew Rothdeutsch, 782 Acacia Walk Apt. G, Goleta, CA 93117. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on April 29, 2020. 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), filed by John Beck.

FBN No. 2020-0001072. Published May 13, 20, 27, June 3, 2020.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Niche Enterprises, 4040 Primavera Rd. #5, Santa Barbara, CA 93110. Jason Erwin, 5068

San Lorenzo Dr., Santa Barbara, CA 93111. Brian Langlo, 410 W. Canon Perdido St. Santa Barbara, CA 93101. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on April 24, 2020.

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), filed by John Beck.

FBN No. 2020-0001042. Published May 13, 20, 27, June 3, 2020.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Eudaimon Wealth Management, 144 San Rafael Ave., Santa Barbara, CA 93109. Steve Daniels, 144 San Rafael Ave., Santa Barbara, CA 93109. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on April 23, 2020. 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), filed by John Beck.

FBN No. 2020-0001030. Published May 13, 20, 27, June 3, 2020.

4 – 11 June 2020

MONTECITO WATER DISTRICT NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING ON PROPOSED WATER RATE INCREASE THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2020, 9:30 A.M. VIA TELECONFERENCE* NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Board of Directors of the Montecito Water District (District) will conduct a public hearing (“Public Hearing”) on Thursday, June 25, 2020 at 9:30 a.m. at 583 San Ysidro Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93108* to consider adopting increases to the District’s water rates and charges. The proposed increases are the result of detailed budget analysis and the findings of the District’s Water Cost of Service and Rate Study (“Rate Study”) prepared by Raftelis, an independent financial consulting firm specializing in cost of services analyses and rate setting, to determine appropriateness of the amounts and a fair and equitable cost allocation among water customer categories. The net impact of the proposed changes in the rates for water customers will vary based upon customer class, actual water consumption and meter size.

Pursuant to Government Code Section 66016(a), at least ten (10) days prior to the Public Hearing, the District will make all data required under Section 66016(a) available to the public.

The data supporting the fee is available at the District website: https://www.montecitowater.com/rates2020.

Notice Inviting Bids BID NO. 5850 PROVIDE & INSTALL SECURITY CAMERA SYSTEM FOR HARBOR COMMERCIAL AREA 1.

The City of Santa Barbara (“City”) will accept electronic bids for its Provide & Install Security Camera System for Harbor Commercial Area (“Project”), by or before TUESDAY JUNE 23, 2020, at 3:00p.m. 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 their 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 at on PlanetBids’ server will be the governing time for acceptability of bids. Telegraphic, telephonic, electronic, 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.

2.

At the Public Hearing on June 25, 2020, oral and written presentations may be made concerning the Rate Study and proposed fees, but only written protests will be counted. All written protests by the customer of record (or landlord) must be received prior to the conclusion of the public comment portion of the Public Hearing. Any protest submitted via email, facsimile, or other electronic means will not be accepted as a formal written protest.

2.2 Time for Completion. The Project must be completed within 120 calendar days from the start date set forth in the Notice to Proceed. City anticipates that the Work will begin on or about July 15, 2020but the anticipated start date is provided solely for convenience and is neither certain nor binding.

2.3 Estimate. The estimate for this Project is $138,000.00 2.4 Bidders’ Conference. A pre-bid meeting will not be held. Bidders may contact Karl Treiberg (805) 564-5527 to arrange site visit. All questions asked to City that are not already answered within this document and attachments, shall be posted with answers on Planet Bids.

3.

Run, MJ Public/legal notices section, June 3 & 17, 2020

MONTECITO GROUNDWATER BASIN GROUNDWATER SUSTAINABILITY AGENCY NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING ON PROPOSED GROUNDWATER SUSTAINABILITY AGENCY (GSA) PARCEL FEE WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 2020, 9:30 A.M. VIA TELECONFERENCE* NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Board of Directors of the Montecito Groundwater Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency (“Agency” or “Montecito GSA”) will conduct a public hearing (“Public Hearing”) on Wednesday, June 24, 2020 at 9:30 a.m. at 583 San Ysidro Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93108* to consider the adoption of a parcel fee based on acreage. The proposed charges are the result of a detailed financial analysis and a GSA Fee Study prepared

by Raftelis, an independent financial consulting firm, to determine the charge amounts. The proposed fee affects parcel owners overlying the Montecito Groundwater Basin.

The impact of the proposed fee on parcel owners will vary based upon the size (total acreage) of the parcel(s). If approved, the charges will commence July 1, 2020 and be recovered on a parcel’s property tax statement from the County of Santa Barbara Treasurer-Tax Collector.

Pursuant to Government Code Section 66016(a), at least ten (10) days prior to the Public Hearing, the District will make all data required by Section 66016(a) available to the public.

The data supporting the fee is available at the Montecito GSA website: https://www.montecitogsa.com/funding. For information on your specific parcel’s acreage and proposed fee, contact Montecito GSA by phone at 805.324.4207 or email info@montecitogsa.com.

At the Public Hearing on June 24, 2020 oral and written presentations may be made concerning the GSA Fee Study and proposed fees. In order to be counted, all written protests must be presented to the Agency on or before the close of the Public Hearing. * Due to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Executive Orders issued in response to COVID-19, in person public participation at meetings is suspended and instead meetings are held telephonically and/or electronically. Remote participation information can be found on the meeting agenda and will be posted at the above location, on the website www.montecitogsa.com, and available by calling 805-324-4207. ### Run, MJ Public/legal notices section, June 3 & 17, 2020

4 – 11 June 2020

Project Information.

2.1 Location and Description. The Project is located at 132A Harbor Way, Santa Barbara, CA and is described as follows: The purpose of this project is to provide all labor and materials to install a complete security camera system for the Commercial area of the Santa Barbara Harbor using the Waterfronts existing fiber network and runs.

* Due to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Executive Orders issued in response to COVID-19, in person public participation at meetings is suspended and instead meetings are held telephonically and/or electronically. Remote participation information can be found on the meeting agenda and will be posted at the above location, on the website www.montecitowater.com, and available by calling 805-969-2271. ###

Bid Submission.

License and Registration Requirements.

3.1 License. This Project requires a valid California contractor’s license for the following classification(s): C7 LOW VOLTAGE SYSTEMS LICENSE 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: https://www.planetbids.com/portal/portal.cfm?CompanyID=29959

5.

Bid Security. The Bid Proposal must be accompanied by bid security of (10) 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. The prevailing rates are on file with City and 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 separate performance and payment bonds for 100% of the Contract Price regardless of contract dollar amount, 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 complete Subcontractor List WITH ITS Bid Proposal through the PlanetBids portal. Failure to do will result in rejection of your bid. The Subcontractors List shall include the name, location of the place of business, California contractor license number, and percentage of the Work to be performed (based on the Base Bid) 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.

10.

Instructions to Bidders. All bidders should carefully review the Instructions to Bidders before submitting a Bid Proposal.

11.

Retention Percentage. Retention will not be withheld from progress payments for this contract.

By: _______________________________________ William Hornung, C.P.M. General Services Manager

Date: ________________

Publication Date: 6/03/2020 Montecito Journal

• THE VOICE OF THE VILLAGE •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

39

SHELTERING (Continued from page 16)

Only this man could be that peaceful working at home

major task of the workplace is to deal with the underlying quandary that with extremely rare exceptions, you just don’t want to fricking be there.

Early American office buildings followed the tenets of Frederick Winslow Taylor (1890s) whose “Principles of Scientific Management” is considered the most influential management tome, like, ever. But Taylor’s attitude towards workers was not great.

Despite the name, “Taylor made” was not all about you. Taylor workplaces were basically labor camps, substituting management for guards.

Taylor office layout was like those long communal tables from Martha Stewart weddings now popular at Le Pain Quotidien. But instead of baguettes and oat milk lattes and fun people, these long tables featured carpal tunnel, cramped quarters, and coworkers who’d use your eye socket as a toe hold to move one inch above you on the corporate ladder. As a bonus you were also under the watchful eye of a manager.

As work became more crushing, the concept of workers deserving some rights began to sprout. This was thanks to people like Eugene Debs, Karl Marx, and Upton Sinclair – but especially the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York – a far worse tragedy than it had to be because the workers had been actually locked inside by management when the fire broke out.

Thankfully, it became a liability issue for management to physically imprison people. So in response, some manager had the brilliant idea it’d be easier and safer to keep workers contained at work by simply locking them inside the workplace psychologically.

Thus came into being the idea of

“The work area at the Johnson Wax Building was so Frank Lloyd Wrong. What would you rather look at all day?

Your coworkers or those giant lily pads? Well guess what. All day you have to look at both.” (photo courtesy Library of Congress)

credit and credit unions. With the carrot of easy purchases on credit, managers found that people would stay late of their own volition, with no need to lock them in. And it totally worked. Today Americans have the longest work week and work year in the industrialized world; we work 137 more hours per year than even our counterparts in Japan (according to the ILO).

Did that place we spent a full third of our lives literally just... disappear into the ether? I find it unsettling when these major tent poles of Life just... vanish. And what will be next to go? Clothes? Water? Shoes?

Why We Hate Work

I

f you’re wondering why we dislike work, you have to go back to genesis. Not the genesis of the workplace, but actual Genesis.

What was the consequence of Adam and Eve defying God and eating the apple? The first consequence was there would be painful childbirth, sayeth the Bible. And the other consequence?

There would be Work. Since that story has been ingrained in us for 5,780 years, it’s easy to understand why the human predisposition is against work. I’m doing work right now. Trust me, it sucks.

Brushing our teeth?

Exceptional Architectural Finish (805) 450-2049 | JAMES@JJCSB.NET

40 MONTECITO JOURNAL

The purpose built office was fruitful and multiplied in the early 1900s, turbo charged by the advent of the computer, then known as Herman Hollerith’s “punched card machine,” and later known as IBM. The computer changed the shape of the office because it generated reams of paper (punched cards were analog manifestations of bytes), it needed scores of data processors to feed it and clean up its waste (that’s why ticker tape parades were largely punched cards), and it needed a massive system to keep the whole thing cooled.

Sorry, humans, air “conditioning” was developed to cool machines, not you.

In the 1930s Frank Lloyd Wright was a humanist and respected architect, and Wright felt the workplace could be improved instead of merely the orthogonal layout of people and devices.

It is said that Wright also wanted to imbue the office with a progressive attitude toward labor. Wright wanted to “flatten hierarchy” and soften the harshness of the office, the same way your kids’ dentist puts up Babar illustrations – to distract inhabitants from the pain.

“Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.” – Albert Camus

Wright’s approach was called the “open plan” and featured giant lily pads and other “softening elements” in his famous Johnson Administration Building in Racine, Wisconsin. It looks like kind of an early Teletubby landscape. The only real problem was it looks cool but didn’t really work. It was remarkably unprivate and therefore distracting with everyone inside sort of a giant “work pit” with very few windows.

In a quirk of human nature, turns out that people are much more productive not only NOT seeing each other, but instead when we see our incentives like the corner office, executive washroom, or that incredible technological marvel for creating privacy, the door. Sadly, we’re also more productive when we’re being watched over. If you don’t believe me, go to any classroom when the teacher leaves. Remember classrooms? They came before Zoom.

It is this need to be watched over, and for semi-privacy, that gave birth to the dreaded Cubicle – which was actually designed not by Satan but by the famous Herman Miller design firm – and the intention was to make workers feel good. The felt walls deadened noise, accepted thumbtacks, 4 – 11 June 2020

What I WILL miss about the workplace:

Voices

by Sharyn Main

• Food from Staples: Twizzlers in bulk, milk cartons of Whoppers w/out my wife lecturing me • My petty larceny of office supplies • No need to obsess over design flaws at the office – who cares, not my problem • Working at home: I have the worst boss in the world (me) • Also that jerk at the office… is me

and provided a skosh of solitude but not too much. In 1998, at the cubicle’s peak, 40 million Americans worked in cubicle “farms.” You could customize your work cubby to the tune of two bobbleheads, three ironic Pez dispensers, one stapler, two cartoons, and one inspirational poster. Unfortunately the felt walls deadened not just noise but souls.

Combined with the ubiquity of the buzzing, flickering fluorescent bulb overhead (which allowed plant managers to eliminate even more windows) I think the only reason more people didn’t hang themselves on the spot is the rickety dropped ceilings above would never hold.

In the ‘90s when America went digital, tech firms started to compete for the best minds so the old cubicle “veal farm for humans” needed to up its game. Tech office space was designed by child billionaires and it shows.

Your baby boss wanted to make it comfortable for you to put in endless days and nights, so they provided perks like endless gummies, free bike share, and a chair that looked like a beach ball. This “NSA meets REI” fun workplace model reached its apotheosis with Google’s “Googleplex” in Silicon Valley. Which, like the dinosaur, put on its best show right before extinction.

The Googleplex in Mountain View is/was 20 million square feet of “worktivity” space (four World Trade Towers) festooned with bright colors and climbing nets so it feels less like the information gathering arm of the Fourth Reich and more like the oligarchy meets the bouncy house. Work at Google was supposed to feel fun and energizing, like burying yourself in the ball pit at IKEA, pre-coronavirus. With vegetative walls, fun office props, and lots of “hot desking” which sounds vaguely sexual, but not in a good way.

Sadly, today, with corporations like Google faced with sneeze-guarding 4 – 11 June 2020

What I WON’T miss about the workplace: • Cannot show up at meetings in underwear • The office fridge – possible actual birthplace of coronavirus • “Food” from Staples • Petty larceny • Wood grain on any material other than wood 20 million square feet, the price tag of creating a city-sized salad bar but without salad is a non-starter.

So Google, like every other non-manufacturing corporation, said it doesn’t expect or even want to see its workers in corporeal form any time before 2021, at the earliest.

Thus at least for the time being, the office as we knew it is toast. Which pretty much returns work to where it was 200 years ago, back in our homes.

Perhaps the biggest thing I already miss about the dedicated workplace is the same thing managers designed offices for in the first place: so we could focus on work and be more productive. I feel like I need to wear a uniform so my kids can clearly identify when I’m “at work” and when I’m not.

These little rascals who are trying to suck the life out of me need to understand that me staring off into space doesn’t mean I’m in crisis/ rethinking my life, or, alternatively, available to pump up their bicycle tires. Staring off into space just happens to be 91% of the writer’s job.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go pump up some bicycle tires.

•MJ

Sharyn Main has 35 years of experience in philanthropy and the nonprofit sector, currently as the Director of Climate Resilience at the Community Environmental Council. She grew up in Santa Barbara and is a fourth generation County resident.

Local Lessons About Local Food: A Call to Invest in Local Food Infrastructure

F

ood is such a basic human need, but as the COVID-19 pandemic has so sharply illustrated, despite our region’s bounty, our ever more complex food supply chain is not something we can take for granted.

In 2016, Santa Barbara County stakeholders (including the CEC) completed a comprehensive, community-driven strategic plan that provided recommendations for how we grow, distribute, consume, and dispose of food. The pandemic and its impact on our food system has put that groundwork to the test, spotlighting lessons we can learn from failing to adequately prepare for the current crisis.

One of the best ways to support and strengthen our local food supply chain is to purchase regionally-produced food. Look for independently sold, responsibly sourced, fresh and seasonal food. As a result of COVID-19, the market is in flux, but our local farmers markets and some individual farmers, ranchers, and fishers are still operating with social distance guidelines in place.

While buying regionally is critical to maintaining a local food supply, that is only part of the puzzle. Like other short-term disaster response efforts, it’s only a Band-Aid to a longer-term problem. To have a truly sustainable and robust local food system that is less vulnerable to outside forces, we need to promote investment in and a regulatory structure that encourages smaller scale, local and/or regional food processing. Local food needs to stay local. Under the “old normal” circumstances, growing food here and then transporting food for processing is highly fossil fuel intensive and wasteful. When cracks in that system start to surface, as they have recently, it becomes even less efficient and even more illogical.

It will take effort and time to begin to regionalize our food processing, but it can be done.

For example, the Thomas Fire and the subsequent debris flow delayed White Buffalo Land Trust in harvesting their persimmons and getting them to market.

Rather than let the fruit go bad, they created a persimmon vinegar product with a local distillery and solidified a new business venture. We’re seeing similar examples today: distillers and other small manufacturers are transitioning their equipment to create emergency products like hand sanitizer and personal protection equipment.

The resilience, ingenuity, and grit it’s taken for these businesses to pivot is impressive, but time was lost and perhaps other product lines sacrificed to make this happen. If our region had a grainery, seafood or meat processor, or other food processing systems needed to keep the locally produced food local, we could lighten our carbon footprint, keep more money in the county, have access to the products, and food growers could avoid the price fixing that ensures corporate processors make a profit while local farmers and ranchers barely get by.

As cattle rancher and Oklahoma Farmers Union president Scott Blubaugh told CNN, the problem lies in how the corporate food processors treat their workers and farmers, squeezing the growers to increase their profits. He suggests we, “start enforcing antitrust laws that we used to have on the books... We need to get away from this huge corporate control and international corporations controlling our food system.”

We agree wholeheartedly. This is yet another example of the policy work we need to do, and continue doing once we’re “back to normal.”

This is an excellent opportunity for local impact investors to provide the capital to build regional food processing capacity. This would have huge community benefits: helping to secure the local food system by investing in business, creating jobs, and supporting resiliency. Putting this in place will take political will and a clear community vision for greater self sufficiency and resilience.

We were just starting to recover economically from the Thomas Fire when COVID-19 hit. It’s clear that we can no longer send 95% of our products out and import the same products back processed and packaged up. That adds costs – both financially and environmentally – and is a very weak link in our food system.

The CEC has long been active in taking the steps needed to pursue a sustainable food system that balances the carbon equation to mitigate climate change. As the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrate so clearly, working together to secure our local food supply (while making sure that our workers are treated fairly) is one of the most important ways we can help to ensure a more resilient community.

•MJ

• THE VOICE OF THE VILLAGE •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

41

ON THE RECORD (Continued from page 10)

Construction begins on the Juncal Dam, circa 1920s (photo courtesy Montecito Water District)

first major series of water projects, a series of reservoirs and tunnels carved into the terrain, including the Juncal Dam project which featured a 60-million-gallon reservoir, an 11,376foot long tunnel, 35.64 miles of castiron pipe and no less than 340 fire hydrants. The reservoir and dam took nine years to build and cost taxpayers a grand total of $2.6 million ($39 million in today’s dollars), according to an October 1930 article that ran in Western Construction News. The story referred to Montecito as a “high-class residential section” lying immediately east of Santa Barbara where in recent years “the struggle for water” had become “acute.”

Just on schedule, Montecito began to run out of water again about 30 years later (is that why mortgages are 30 years?), and in 1958, MWD responded with the opening of the Bradbury Dam, which created a second reservoir, Lake Cachuma, which remains MWD’s largest local reservoir. Everything worked great until California experienced a different epic drought that lasted for two decades.

In 1973, Montecito declared a water emergency, and the next year refused to issue any new water permits for the next 20 years, a period of water scarcity that led to a rush on the drilling of private wells and the gradual depletion of its aquifer.

A March 1980 report on Montecito’s underground water basin found that the volume of water pumped from private wells each year had plummeted from 1929 to 1979, from a high of around 1,700 acre feet to less than 750 acre feet per year, with over-pumping of wells too close to the beach having resulted in the intrusion of salt water. To fix that problem, the report recommended a limit on local well pumping as well as “an aggressive program of monitoring existing coastal wells.”

Historically speaking, the first half of the1980s were relatively kind to Montecito’s water supply, with the groundwater basin reaching its historic height in 1983. But by the

42 MONTECITO JOURNAL

Drilling the Juncal Dam’s Doulton tunnel (photo courtesy Montecito Water District)

mid-1980s, the ground was drying up again. An August 5, 1987 report warned MWD against constructing a line of municipal wells along the coastline, arguing that the only way to find water would be to drill much deeper wells. A subsequent hydrological assessment commissioned

by MWD in the early 1990s recommended that the district look to other, more remote sources of water.

“It is recommended that MWD not increase pumping duration,” the report stated. “The current five days on and two days off schedule,” the report concluded, “does not allow full recovery in two days.”

Voters Weigh In By 1991, both Montecito and Santa Barbara were locked in yet another epic, drought-related water shortage.

For the second time since county voters were first asked about state water in 1979, Montecito residents were given the opportunity to approve either a desalination plant in Santa Barbara or an agreement to purchase state water from California’s State Water Project (SWP), a series of pipelines constructed in 1968 which brings water hundreds of miles from north to south through the Sacramento River Delta.

Originally, a so-called “poison pill” in the language of the voter’s desal initiative existed that would have allowed whichever plan that received the most votes to proceed while blocking the runner-up. However, the crucial verbiage was missing from the final draft of the desal initiative’s signature petition. More than 80 percent of voters approved the desalination plan, which was backed by the Environmental Defense Center (EDC), while about 60 percent of voters approved the proposed deal to purchase state water. “A grand compromise was reached,” said Carolee Krieger, who campaigned on behalf of desal for EDC and now represents California’s Water Impact Network (CWIN), which still supports desalina-

A Mack truck in action (photo courtesy Montecito Water District)

The nearly completed dam (photo courtesy Montecito Water District)

tion. “The mix-up,” she said, “enabled both plans to go forward.”

According to Krieger, the main proponent of the SWP within the Central Coast Water Authority (CCWA) was the Santa Maria Water District, which

“No future without forgiveness.” – Bishop Desmond Tutu

needed as much water as possible for agriculture yet lacked the financial leverage to negotiate with the SWP by itself. Santa Maria controls more than 50 percent of the vote on the CCWA board. From 1991 to 1995, 4 – 11 June 2020

Jameson Lake begins to form (photo courtesy Montecito Water District)

The completed project (photo courtesy Montecito Water District)

Lining the Doulton tunnel (photo courtesy Montecito Water District)

by which time CCWA’s headquarters had moved from Santa Barbara to Buellton, Krieger attended the agency’s board meetings. What she learned during those years soured her on both the SWP and regional water politics.

“The CCWA has been trying to get the contract for state water away from the county of Santa Barbara,” Krieger said. “This would mean not only that South County would lose control to Santa Maria, but that we would have to pay any debt through our property taxes if there was a default on the agreement by any water agency.

Nobody has any idea this has been happening.”

Tom Mosby served as MWD’s general manager from 1990 until 2016. He remembers sitting in an early 1990s board meeting where Santa Barbara water officials asked counterparts in Montecito and Goleta to commit to a long-term desal deal. “You guys told us to build the desal plant,” the officials said. “Here’s the contract: Sign it.” According to Mosby, an uncomfortable silence followed. “The board,” he recalled, “was like, ‘Are 4 – 11 June 2020

you kidding?’” Ultimately, Mosby said, Montecito and Goleta agreed to pay about $1 million per year for a period of five years simply to have a backup supply of desalinated water.

Because of substantial rains during those years, however, none of that water was ever needed. Instead, Montecito and other local water districts that make up the Central Coast Water Authority (CCWA) agreed to purchase $6 million worth of state water per year, a deal that continues to this day.

To Desal or Not to Desal Because the much-vaunted State Water Project was a relatively late arrival to the list of projects with claims on California’s water, Montecito’s claim to state water is far down the list of preferred customers. In any case, Montecito didn’t begin to receive its annual allocation of state water until 1998. “At first, we didn’t really need the water, because we had an El

Niño season and one of the highest rainfall years on record,” Mosby recalled. As usual, everything went well until California hit another epic drought in 2014. “What happened that year surpassed anything we had ever seen on record,” he said.

“The previous biggest drought was from 1947 to 1952, but this was far worse, and we had 1,000 more service connections since then because the community had grown.”

All of a sudden, Montecito found itself in a position where there was no rain, the century-old local reservoirs were bone dry, and state water wasn’t capable of making up the difference in demand because California could only allocate five percent of the contract amount to each of the 29 contractors, including Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. “We set records of demand in the middle of the drought, and then we had no winter weather,” Mosby said.

“All of a sudden we had a significant number of more people being served and no conservation measures in place, and that’s why the tiered water system was finally put in.” For several months, MWD held up to three board meetings per week to discuss different plans to both put in place conservation measures and obtain more water. “That’s why the tiered water system was finally put in place to encourage conservation,” he said. In March 2014, MWD warned customers, especially heavy consumers of water, that they would have to cut back. That

• THE VOICE OF THE VILLAGE •

month, no fines were issued, but in April, although 80 percent of water users were told they could continue to use the same amount of water, MWD began to institute penalties for anyone within the remaining 20 percent of customers who went over their allocated monthly allowance of water.

“It worked,” Mosby said. “The change in water usage over the next two months was a decrease of 50 percent. It was incredible. It wasn’t the Water District that did this, but the community itself, which listened to where we were and got the message to use water in accordance with the new rules. I was very impressed: They stood up and stopped using water and allowed us to get through the drought. Montecito is in a much better stance today than in 1990,” Mosby concluded. “This has nothing to do with desalination or a dwindling water supply, but with the ability of the public to realize over time just how important it is to conserve water.”

But not everybody agrees that the water rationing which MWD instituted under Mosby’s tenure was the correct solution. And as previously reported in this series, the subsequent controversy over water rationing led directly to Montecito’s contentious 2016 elections over the future of the water board. It also led to the end of Mosby’s career.

Next week in MJ’s ongoing series on Montecito’s Complex Water World: A deep dive into desalination.

•MJ MONTECITO JOURNAL

43

MUSIC (Continued from page 12)

Culture Karma

by Kyle Slavin A local since 1996, Kyle has been a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines for over 15 years. Previously the Lead Story Writer for The American Gentleman Magazine and a Sportswriter for the News-Press, Kyle resides on Toro Canyon with his wife, three children, two parents, and four dogs. You can reach him at kyle.slavin@gmail.com.

Nature Versus Nurture

W

hich came first, a town’s culture, or the people who inspired it?

Two-and-a-half lifetimes ago, in 2012, my newly-minted fiancée and I were wedged in a one-bedroom apartment on the Mesa, utterly broke and enthusiastically optimistic. Those fresh-faced, naïve versions of ourselves would eat trail mix and drink wine on our utter lack of living room furniture, gaze out at the open ocean before us, and talk about the family and life we were going to build.

That, and whether or not that haphazard Jeep of ours was going to start the next day... darned thing still gives me the shakes.

As we both were working double-duty on our ultimately unimportant and emotionally devastating jobs, we looked to the Santa Barbara community to provide some much-needed cultural immersion and social escape.

The Funk Zone was just a baby at that time as well, and Lord, did we nurture that child!

We would take the mile-and-a-half walk down Shoreline, past the Harbor and West Beach, and there, in the haze of Pinot Noir and nonsense, we finally found our people.

We began to lean on the wineries, and from there Pierre Lafond’s State Street Bistro and Blush (both now defunct), and we began to understand the peacock-tailed beauty of small business in this town – something that I didn’t quite grasp when I grew up here.

We began to lean on the wineries… and began to understand the peacock-tailed beauty of small business in this town – something that I didn’t quite grasp when I grew up here.

It was just that they all had great authenticity and an appreciation for their work, which they were happy to share if you showed an interest. Joey Somerville at Blush turned us on to their jackpot steak sauce that you could douse over anything. Nick Morello at Corks and Crowns poured us his private label. Don Hull at the Montecito Wine Bistro would ask us to taste possible menu additions and actually listened to feedback. Suzanne Fitzgerald at the SB Winery clued us in to cooking classes and pairings – she is the person I have to thank for my knowledge of how to properly juice a citrus... with a fork!

Those I mentioned nourished us and helped us bloom, back when we had nothing. Now, as a 38-year-old father of three, living in Toro Canyon with that same smoke-show wife, four dogs, three rabbits, a koi pond, and a guest house with two cranky elderly folks (who happened to conceive me) I think fondly upon those days of growth in the culture nursery of Santa Barbara County.

And particularly at this time, in this circumstance, I feel a moral responsibility to return the favor.

It is bizarre – it seems that we all have weathered a bull market on tragedy and disaster these last couple of years.

And as we dive beneath the waves of yet another swell, I hope we remain prepared for the local issues that existed – perhaps fermenting – since before our most recent hiatus underwater.

The frailty of our small businesses, especially in this market, is an issue that must remain at the forefront of our minds and actions, lest we wish to lose one of the most appealing aspects of being a “Santa Barbarian.”

There is no doubt that this most recent calamity will claim many of the local establishments that were left standing. It just breaks my heart. But the reason businesses will survive will be because of this connection to their community.

Classic venues like Los Arroyos, Cava, Tre Lune, Shoreline Cafe, Joe’s Cafe, Jeannine’s Bakery, and Via Maestra have us as family, and family supports each other.

So as we cocoon, self-distance and self-sanitize, perhaps we should include self-observation in our code of ethics for our eventual rebirth. These businesses

44 MONTECITO JOURNAL

have to re-center, have heart, and ask, ‘What can I add? What can I do?’”

What Glen can do, of course, is sing, to offer his deeply resonant tenor on songs that matter just as he has since first forming Toad as a teenager at San Marcos High, when such early songs as the mystical “Walk on the Ocean” transcended the typical angst of the era. It’s a tradition that leads straight through his solo singer-songwriter career and now, during the coronavirus crisis, to his three-nights-a-week Zoom shows (plus one on Sundays on StageIt) in which he gets to interact more directly with fans than perhaps he might even on the road. But even that, in the days after Floyd’s death, was offering more dilemmas.

“The image from the Malcolm X movie that keeps coming into my head is when the white girl stops him on the steps and says ‘I’m on your side. I believe in what you’re doing. What can I do to help.’ And Malcolm X says, ‘Get out of my way.’ I don’t want to appropriate other people’s storytelling, but I do want to bring attention to those voices because they will help us understand why this is so important. This week there is debate in my head that I should just shut up and let voices that are heard less get heard more.

But people have also come to count on these nights.”

So the second song on Monday night – for which Glen already announced donations will go to the NAACP – is a stirring, passion-filled version of Marvin Gaye’s unfortunately still timely “What’s Going On”: “Mother, mother there’s too many of you crying / brother, brother, brother, there’s far too many of you dying / You know we’ve got to find a way to bring some lovin’ here today / Father, father, we don’t need to escalate / You see, war is not the answer for only love can conquer hate… Picket lines and picket signs, don’t punish me with brutality / Talk to me, so you can see, oh, what’s going on, what’s going on...”

The chat box fills so fast it’s a challenge to read the messages as they scroll alongside a steady stream of hearts and thumbs-up icons.

“This is so lovely, I’m dancing in my kitchen and crying,” reads one, sharing a sentiment seconded as another adds “(The songs) have extra weight tonight, and I can’t help but cry.”

“A Change Is Gonna Come” follows, Phillips sharing his take on Sam Cooke’s anthem written after the legendary soul singer and his entourage were reportedly turned away from a whites-only motel in Louisiana in 1964.

More than 55 years later, the words still ring as an urgent plea via the plaintive sounds of Phillips’ voice and gently strummed guitar.

Antara Hunter, fellow Santa Barbara singer-songwriter who years ago moved back East, chimes in “Great song choices, Glen! Does my soul good.

Thank you!”

“When I started doing the show, people started making all these requests,” Phillips told me earlier in the day. “It’s forced me to relearn songs that I might not have played in ten years, and some that I never played live since recording them. I’ve also been digging deep, learning lots of covers.”

Back on Facebook Live, Phillips – who lived in Montecito for the better part of 25 years before recent relocations that have him now staying (and streaming) in Mission Canyon – is offering up “Gather,” from his 2005 solo album Winter Pays For Summer, and the verses pierce: “Let us be humbled tonight / In these depths show us the light / Give us peace, lay down the mighty / In these depths, show us the light, please / Oh God, I pray to thee / Don’t want to die before we’re free / Dive down inside this sea / And maybe at the bottom I’ll find some key… Oh God, will you hear me cry / Don’t want to see another innocent die / Dive down inside these depths / Keep my faith and hold my breath / The more we fight, the less it bends / Lay down your arms, gather your friends / Strengthen your heart and this will end / Lay down your arms, gather your friends.” that we hold close are part of us. They contribute heavily to our environment, and through their efforts to further the cultural ingenuity of Santa Barbara, they in turn supply us with a portion of our identity.

I know so many folks that consider their weekly date nights a romantic threesome: them, their partner, and their favorite eatery. Simply scandalous!

Looking broadly at our current conditions, difficult though they may seem, I still find myself encouraged.

To go back and talk to the 2012 versions of ourselves, looking out over that same ocean in that same makeshift living room, wine and trail mix, I would offer that we are already armed with everything we need.

No, not to simply survive, but to bond our connection more soundly with this community, this culture, and these people who work hard to make Santa Barbara so unique.

Because, really, what is our culture worth if we are not doing our part to experience it? In truth, it is the only part of family that we get to pick out ourselves.

Or... did it pick us?

•MJ

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.” – John Donne

4 – 11 June 2020

Meanwhile, the donation total keeps soaring as Phillips sings, passing $3,000 and still climbing quickly. (By the end of the night, the total reaches more than $6,200 from small donations from more than 220 people, the most yet for one of his Zoom events.

Donations are also accepted during the playbacks available on Phillips’ Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ GlenPhillipsMusic. The total had just hit $7,000 even as this article went to press.)

“Why can’t musicians run the country?” asks a fan in the chat, then another admits “My soul needs this tonight.”

Other comments quickly follow, taking note of a subtle change in Phillips’ typically upbeat demeanor: “I appreciate that you are somber tonight” and “(You’re) a calm, beautiful voice in a sea of insanity.”

Phillips pauses to offer an intro to the next song: “Don’t Need Anything” also from Winter Pays for Summer. “It’s funny, because it’s supposed to be how I don’t have much but I don’t need much,” he tells the viewers watching on Facebook Live. “And I realized as I was looking through the lyrics how privileged the things are that I take for granted. In times like this, it’s good to remind those of us who are privileged just how privileged we are.”

I’m reminded of our talk six hours earlier when Phillips told me he has yet to write a song in response to the pandemic, let alone one about the current “Black Lives Matter” protests all across America, and he’s aching.

This era of bullying and intolerance at the highest level, normalizing cruelty and insulting others, I don’t know how to respond to that in a song. I’m having to remind myself to respond in ways that are less political, and more universal, and then still ask myself the question if that’s too privileged a stance.

“I’m still digesting. I go fallow for long periods of time where I just need to be with me and figure out what’s not reactive. There is so much to think about right now, and write about, and it keeps changing. The pandemic is such a huge impact. And this era of bullying and intolerance at the highest level, giving us cues of how we are supposed to be acting in the world, normalizing cruelty and insulting others. I don’t know how to respond to that in a song. Throw on institutionalized racism and it’s a big sandwich. I’m having to remind myself to respond in ways that are less political, and more universal, and then still ask myself the question if that’s too privileged a stance.”

The song starts, the notes on his acoustic guitar quieter than ever, the words coming out almost as a prayer: “I’ve got gardens growing, got quiet days / Clothes on my back, food on my plate / Got friends to help me if I call for them / I don’t need anything that I don’t have … / I’ve got eyes to see this beautiful land / And feet to take me where I want to stand / If there’s work to be done there’s these two strong hands / I don’t need anything that I don’t have.”

The comments start flowing in the chat box almost immediately again. “This is my go-to attitude-check song,” one listener offers, seeming to affirm Phillips’ choice. Another notes, “Glen, you look so sad,” which someone else follows with perhaps some healing advice: “Glen, feel proud of this great community that you’ve created.”

Next up is “Come Come Whoever You Are,” which was adapted from a poem by the Sufi mystic Rumi, which Phillips learned from a fellow song leader of a community choir – another of the non-commercial endeavors that has been soothing his soul. It’s the song that brought such a lump to my throat the first time I heard it that I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth without choking.

“Come come whoever you are, wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving,” Phillips sings, his eyes gently shut. “Come come whoever you are, this isn’t a caravan of despair.”

The chat buzzes immediately.

4 – 11 June 2020

Glen Phillips trying to heal us and him through song

“I’m thankful for you, Glen,” writes Leslie Conner. “You are a light.”

“Thank you for singing to us in isolation,” adds Lisa Bartels.

“I just want to keep hitting the heart button,” a third fan gushes.

Phillips smiles and switches gears.

“I should probably play something fun now. And maybe keep playing until we get to $5K for the NAACP?” “Make it $10,000,” a chatter suggests.

Phillips plays “Rare Bird” from the 2013 Toad album New Constellations, and follows that with a version of Talk Talk’s “Life’s What You Make It,” ending with a wry smile. “It felt a little better when I was playing it earlier,” he admits, looking at the chat, then brightens when he sees that the donation total had topped $5,000.

“Thank you for your kindness, your goodness,” he says, looking directly into the camera. “We need lots of that right now, lots of understanding, and stretching your boundaries.”

He seems to get a jolt of energy when he arrives on the next song to share, “Love Is Stronger Than Death” by The The. “In our lives we hunger for those we cannot touch / All the thoughts unuttered & all the feelings unexpressed / Play upon our hearts like the mist upon our breath / But, awoken by grief, our spirits speak… / Here come the blue skies, here comes springtime / When the rivers run high & the tears run dry / When everything that dies shall rise… / Love Love Love is stronger than death.”

Phillips then sees a request, in all caps, for the Toad song “Windmills.” But, he says, “All caps remind me of someone I don’t like to think of right now.”

He chuckles. A Cat Stevens request also goes unanswered. “Yeah, there are so many songs I need to learn.” Quickly though, he arrives at a fave by the female duo MaMuse that seems to sum up the sense of sadness, hope, and community.

“We shall be known by the company we keep / By the ones who circle round to tend these fires / We shall be known by the ones who sow and reap / The seeds of change, alive from deep within the earth / It is time now, it is time now that we thrive / It is time we lead ourselves into the well / It is time now, and what a time to be alive / In this Great Turning we shall learn to lead in love.”

Phillips sings the tune a cappella, harmonizing to his own tracked vocal using a looper the second time through – a digital tool he’s also been employing in the online version of his community choir – and it’s so evocative that shivers are sent down my spine.

The concert has come to a close, and, it turns out, it’s the last one for this week, as Phillips announced at the beginning that he’s going dark on Wednesday (which is usually dedicated to having a single guest share the Zoom space, which Phillips calls “Song Pong,” or has visits from his now backat-home daughter, Freya). The chat has been filled all hour long with messages of understanding but also admissions that they’ll miss the music and Phillips’ presence in their homes as people continue to shelter in place.

“It’s been a lot of fun to sing so much, and to feel like it’s doing something for people, to have some purpose,” he told me. “It’s been incredibly hard on the country and a lot of people, and my experience has been much easier. So I’m grateful that this idea is both doing good for other people and - because people are so generous with the separate donation area for me on Venmo -- that I’m miraculously able to pay my rent too.”

Back on Facebook, the comments are also coming to a close.

“Thank you for the peace amid the chaos tonight”, ““Hearing your voice always makes me feel better”, and “Thank you, Glen. You are a gift.”

•MJ

• THE VOICE OF THE VILLAGE •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

45

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46 MONTECITO JOURNAL

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4 – 11 June 2020

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Ciao! Stay safe and healthy!

1 2 1 8 St at e St re e t | 8 0 5 - 7 7 0 - 8 3 0 0 | 8 0 5 - 4 5 2 - 2 6 9 2 | w w w. t m o l l i e . c o m 4 – 11 June 2020

• THE VOICE OF THE VILLAGE •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

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TA K E A V I R T U A L T O U R T O D AY

©2020 Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties (BHHSCP) is a member of the franchise system of BHH Affiliates LLC. BHH Affiliates LLC and BHHSCP do not guarantee accuracy of all data including measurements, conditions, and features of property. Info is obtained from various sources and will not be verified by broker or MLS. Sellers will entertain and respond to all offers within this range. Buyer is advised to independently verify the accuracy of that information.

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