Your Westmont

Scott Craig is manager of media relations at Westmont College

Musicians Compete for Scholarships

The eighth annual Westmont Instrumentalist Guild Competition features eight musicians vying for Westmont music scholarships on Saturday, February 29, at 7 pm in Deane Chapel on the lower Westmont campus. Prospective Westmont student instrumentalists Sean Tran (piano), Daniel Macy (violin), Katie Peel (French horn) Natasha Loh (bassoon), Emma Wu (piano), and Evan Zhou (violin) will perform. The event is free and open to the public. Ava Kimmel of Bellevue Christian School in Seattle took top honors in the Vocal Guild Competition on February 22, earning up to $10,000 in annual scholarship funds (up to $40,000 over four years). Vocal finalist Sarah Duff, a senior at Dublin Coffman High School in Dublin, Ohio, confirmed she will be attending Westmont in the fall. The soprano, who also plays cello, has sung in her high school choir, the Columbus International Children’s Choir, and her church’s Worship Academy.

The competition is funded by The Guild for Music at Westmont and judged by Grey Brothers, professor of music; Steve Butler, professor of music; Steve Hodson, professor of music; Han Soo Kim, assistant professor of music; and MichaelShasberger, Adams professor of music and worship.

Dr. Rick Pointer speaks about pacifist Native Americans

University before joining Westmont’s history department in 1994. His books include Encounters of the Spirit: Native Americans and European Colonial Religion and Protestant Pluralism and the New York Experience; A Study of Eighteenth-Century Religious Diversity. Pacifist Prophet: Papunhank and the Quest for Peace in Early America is expected to be published in fall 2020.

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Lecture Examines Peaceful Native Americans

Richard Pointer, Westmont professor of history, uncovers the peacemaking traditions of Native American communities in a lecture, “Peace-loving Indians? Recovering A Missing Piece of American History,” on Tuesday, March 3, at 7 pm in Hieronymus Lounge at Kerrwood Hall. The Paul C. Wilt Phi Kappa Phi Lecture is free and open to the public.

“Given what most of us know about the long and often painful history of native peoples in America, it is easy to imagine they were by nature or necessity warlike,” Pointer says. Drawing upon his forthcoming book, Pacifist Prophet, Pointer will tell the story of one such remarkable peacemaker, Papunhank, in war-torn 18 th

century Pennsylvania.

Pointer, who graduated from Houghton College, earned his master’s and doctorate at Johns Hopkins

• The Voice of the Village • MONTECITO JOURNAL 31 Proudly serving the Santa Barbara community for 24 years LYNDA J. BENEDETTO, DDS GREGORY M. SCARCELLO, DDS CRISTOPHER SHEPARD, DMD 11165 Coast Village Rd., Suite 1 Montecito, Ca. 93108 Ph: (805) 565 9837 Fax: (805) 565 9831 montecitodentalgroup.com The Westmont men’s and women’s golf teams hosted their first intercollegiate golf tournament, the Westmont Invitational, on February 23-24 at Sandpiper Golf Club in Goleta. Seniors Tanner Shean of Santa Ynez and Miles Witt of Mount Vernon, Washington, lead the men, and seniors Kat Bevill of Crystal Lake, Illinois, leads the all-first-year women’s team. The Warriors will also host La Piranha Challenge on March 30-31 in Lompoc at La Purisima Golf Course, known locally as “La Piranha.”

The Golden State Athletic Conference holds the Men’s and Women’s Golf Championships at Briarwood Country Club in Sun City West, Arizona, on April 27-29. Conference champions will receive automatic berths at the NAIA National Tournaments. The men will play May 19-22 at Las Sendas Golf Club in Mesa, Arizona, while the women play May 12-15 at Lincoln Park Golf Course in Oklahoma City. •MJ Westmont’s Suzie Taylor of Draper, Utah, lines up a putt

MONTECITO JOURNAL32 LETTERS (Continued from page 30) That assessment was made just on the basis of the odors and chemicals emitted by the cannabis itself.

Numerous environmental issues have become increasingly apparent but the BOS have yet to require Environmental Impact Reports for cannabis production or processing. Sitting Supervisor Das Williams was the architect and driving force behind our woeful Cannabis Ordinance, and has also stymied ANY meaningful remedies to the crisis that he and his Ordinance has created.

So in the county that banned plastic straws, chemicals are being pumped into the air 24 hours a day, seven days a week by the 50-gallon drum. These chemicals were previously used on land fill sites, far away from homes, schools, and businesses. Now their use is required on cannabis operations in Carpinteria. That is troubling for two reasons: 1) Carpinteria now smells so bad it requires industrial odor abatement previously reserved for garbage dumps, and 2) though these compounds are untested for long-term human exposure as vapors, the cannabis industry is deemed more important than human health in Carpinteria Valley.

These chemicals are permitted by our local Air Pollution Control Board – run by Willams’ allies and appointees – because they are not listed on the State of California list of Toxic Air Contaminants. If we have learned anything from the vaping crisis of recent months, it is that otherwise innocuous substances can be lethal when vaporized and inhaled. Mark Byers, the supplier of the most common vapor system in use in Carpinteria, called our Valley “Ground Zero” for use of these systems in a community setting. The only safety data he presented was of four-hour exposure tests of rats in a closed box. That’s like saying well, you smoked one cigarette and you didn’t die or get cancer, so cigarettes must be safe. Without consideration of the DAILY and CHRONIC exposure to the vaporized chemicals being used, and no studies of long-term safety, how can this be allowed? Since no such evaluations have been done, why are these being allowed and even promoted?

Non-toxic substances can be toxic if vaporized and inhaled. Personally, I don’t want to be “Ground Zero” for any new industrial exposure.

Even if the Environmental Impact exemption can be justified for an individual project, there is simply TOO MUCH CANNABIS in the First District.

Every time another pot grow commences operations, the air quality in my neighborhood deteriorates. Every municipal district in the County, including the City of Carpinteria, Goleta, and Solvang, has beseeched the Board of Supervisors to address this, but they have not – with Williams leading the opposition, stalwartly championing his patrons, the cannabis growers.

Judy Dean MD

Setting the Tone

If the ‘tone’ is set at the top, the ‘tone’ stinks. No, I am not referring to the ‘pot odor’ that permeates the air but to some of your supporters. Within this last week three ‘lawn signs’ in support of Laura Capps, which I personally put up disappeared into thin air. This morning we found the ‘lawn sign’ which was in front of our house, on our private property, missing from its very visible spot. Not to worry though, they have all been replaced and we now have two ‘lawn signs’ in support of Laura Capps in front of our house.

You need to set the tone for your supporters. You need to tell them that if they want to support you that they should transparently campaign on your behalf. Tell them that they do not need to be so small-minded and weasily that they feel that the only way you can prevail is if they swipe Laura Capps’ ‘lawn signs.’ How juvenile.

For weeks, I have looked at the three ‘lawn signs’ around the perimeter of the former Big Yellow House in Summerland (now occupied by Headwaters (https://goheadwaters. com/) – yes, another cannabis related business – and have managed to neither remove or deface them. It is possible to not support a candidate and leave their ‘lawn signs’ in place. So, how-about getting your head out of the ‘weeds’ of your campaign and setting a more positive tone for your supports.

A former supporter, Elaine Dietsch

Choose Excellence!

When you vote on Tuesday, I’d like you to think about demanding excellence.

Allow me to explain: A recent endorsement (sort-of) of our First District Supervisor lauded the fact that he “made sure that bottled water got passed out” following the most heartbreaking and deadly natural disaster in our history. I don’t question the compassion or the need but is this the best our $1.1B County, with 4,200 employees, can do? How about a climate safety conference where we bring to bear national thought leaders? Or, meaningful public funding initiatives for innovative and privately conceived projects? Or, a local office as people reinvest and have questions about insurance, permits, etc. – we can’t keep accepting mediocre and allowing our public servants to

Hide and Seek A woman, cranky because her husband was late coming home again, decided to leave a note, saying, “I’ve had enough and have left you... don’t bother coming after me.” Then she hid under the bed to see his reaction.

After a short while the husband comes home and she could hear him in the kitchen before he comes into the bedroom. She could see him walk towards the dresser and pick up the note...

After a few minutes he wrote something on it before picking up the phone and calling someone... “She’s finally gone... yeah I know, about bloody time, I’m coming to see you, put on that sexy French nightie. I love you... can’t wait to see you... we’ll do all the naughty things you like.”

He hung up, grabbed his keys and left. She heard the car drive off as she came out from under the bed. Seething with rage and with tears in her eyes she grabbed the note to see what he wrote... “I can see your feet. We’re outta bread: be back in five minutes.”

Send us your best joke, we’ll decide if it’s funny. We can only print what we can print, so don’t blame us. Please send “jokes” to letters@ montecitojournal.net

describe it as “excellent.”

Capps, on the other hand, has developed a detailed/thoughtful Plan, has vowed to be a “proactive partner” with the Partnership for Resilient Communities and to support Curtis Skene who privately (does anything in this district get done with public funding/innovation?) seeks to clean and maintain the debris basins.

Also impacting our district and, believe you me, it will only get worse, is cannabis. Remember, our Supervisor was one of two ad-hoc Committee Supervisors (three would have required public meetings at the drafting phase) that created the most lenient cannabis ordinance in the state. One that circumvented Prop 64’s large grow moratorium thereby allowing the “largest pot farms in the world.”

Our sweeping Ordinance – the crowning legislative achievement of this Supervisor—has become the posterchild for CA’s other 57 counties of what NOT to do. We have a nearly three square mile “cap,” anemic tax revenues, the potential destruction of our $2B wine/avo industries, lack of any Economic Impact and/or Health Studies (yes, VOC’s have health risks) and the failure to require odor eradication systems that effectively preserve health, values and quiet enjoyment. An ordinance that poses an existential threat to our entire County and that will likely degenerate into litigation is not “excellent.”

Finally, we have no transparency of process and public trust has been destroyed. SB has no Ethics Commission or recusal standards and allows political contributions to be paid close in time to a Board vote. We have rubberstamped and/or faux endorsements that occur before challengers ever officially enter the race – union money flows, special interest money flows, and the dominos fall. The incumbents retain power and all is right with the world. But really, it’s not!

Over the past few months, I have come to know Laura Capps and while I don’t agree with her on every issue, I can tell you that she is right for the District. She is willing to listen and, more importantly, she has integrity. She is a reformer who knows that we are ethically challenged. She understands that our $1.1B county can do much more as it relates to homelessness, climate safety and poverty and that we can learn from others with respect to cannabis. She doesn’t shoot from the hip and instead relies on a solid education and local knowledge to propose solutions. She has a moral compass we can trust.

This is a non-partisan local election so let’s not be distracted by national issues and catchphrases. Whomever you support and whatever your party, vote! Vote your individual conscience, vote for change, and know that we can do better than mediocre. Jeff Giordano SB County Resident

Our Apologies

In the 7th paragraph of Calla’s Corner (Jan. 20-Feb 6) it should read: “Many of Dr. Hrach’s patients were able to pay the $2,750 for individuals and $5,000 for couples for the 24/7 care.” •MJ