The System Worked

THE SYSTEM WORKED

On the five-year anniversary of the 1/9 Debris Flow, Montecito faces another powerful storm. The community assesses what went right after the recent deluge and what can be improved as another storm looms on the horizon (Gwyn Lurie’s editorial on page 5; stats, input, and analysis on page 6; and Sharon Byrne’s ride along with Montecito Fire on page 10)

New Year, New You

5 Editorial – Gwyn Lurie reflects with other local leaders on the outcome of the storm and the community efforts P.6 Village Beat – Details of the recent storm that hit on the anniversary of the 1/9 Debris Flow P.8

Montecito Miscellany – Restoration Hardware is on the way, local residents find help from the air, plus more P.10 Local News – A personal look at the storm’s effect on Montecito after Sharon Byrne’s ride along with Montecito Fire Tide Guide P.11

Montecito Reads – Hollis and the FBI agents make some chilly discoveries as events unfold in Montecito P.12 Our Town – The results of the 123rd Annual Christmas Bird Count and the people who helped keep count P.14

The Optimist Daily – A record number of monarchs are counted in San Luis Obispo County and how to help them increase

P.18

Your Westmont – A professor speaks at the Vatican and meets Pope Francis and the museum features two artists whose work responds to climate change P.20

The Giving List – Through hardship and emergencies, C.A.R.E.4Paws helps people and their pets

Brilliant Thoughts – The places that explorers have sought and what they’ve lost along the way Robert’s Big Questions – How do we define Utopia and set goals to strive towards? P.

Real Estate – A recap of the 2022 real estate market plus four homes under five million dollars

In Passing – The lives of Barbara Levenson and Clift Seybert Kinsell are remembered

Mind-Body Matters – How to set New Year’s resolutions that are obtainable and a directory of local businesses that can help

On Entertainment – Jimmy and Jaime Cuéllar of Mariachi Garibaldi, Launch Pad lifts off, the SB Dance Theater, and more

Flung Travel – There’s some close encounters with close communities while hugging the cliffs of Cuyler Harbor

Fun – Catch The Fabelmans in theaters while non-blockbusters are still playing there

Calendar of Events – John Tesh is in town, the Los Angeles Reed Quintet, MLK Jr. celebration, and other events

Daryl Takehara Restaurant Manager Eyewear by Masunaga

Photo by Todd Rosenberg Photography

Editorial Janu-Scary

by Gwyn Lurie

In my end-of-year letter, I wrote about my habitual January dread. Or as I sometimes like to call it, Janu-scary. And then January 9th reared its ugly head. Again. The coincidence of Mother Nature’s repeat performance was, to say the least, eerie. Let’s just say this is one time I didn’t enjoy being prescient.

As I, along with my family and our two doodles, went to sleep Monday night at Hotel Californian (our ersatz home away from home for evacuations), in our room that smelled of wet dog, I was flooded with memories of five years ago, when we and the rest of Montecito camped out as privileged refugees, hoping and praying that our friends, our neighbors, and our homes would be okay. Little by little, as we learned that too many were not, we began to understand that our little village had been badly, if not irrevocably, damaged.

Tragic as that moment was, there were silver linings. The community came together in a beautiful way. Organizations were created (The Project for Resilient Communities [TPRC], the Bucket Brigade, One805), strong leaders emerged, friendships were formed, and a new respect for mother nature and her powers was engendered.

This time around, things look a whole lot better; in part, I believe, due to lessons learned.

According to Montecito Fire Chief Kevin Taylor, we had an almost identical set of circumstances to the storm in 1969 (exactly five years after the Coyote Fire), when we lost five community members and had 100 properties destroyed. “This time we received more rain than in 1969. And to the best of our knowledge there were no casualties. And while we’re not yet clear on the extent of the damage, we know it was far less [than in 1969]. There’s a lot to feel good about,” said Chief Taylor.

I asked Chief Taylor to what he attributes some of the good news. “We have infrastructure improvements. We have a very flood-aware community. And we had good community evacuations,” said Montecito’s Fire Chief.

In other words, the system worked. With more than 500,000 cubic yards of debris captured in the basins, almost 300,000 in the Santa Monica basin alone, we could not have hoped for a better outcome for our community.

“It’s remarkable how little damage was caused by 10 inches of rain in a 12-hour period!” said longtime resident Wayne Siemens. “The eastern press has us all lying in mud breathing through straws. Half of my dozens of calls have a sense of panic in their voices and ask me if we’re all right. Personally, I think we’re doing better than just all right.”

I could not agree more with Siemens. Having been part of TPRC, the team that worked to put nets on the mountains post-January 2018 debris flow, I wanted to talk with TPRC’s Executive Director, former Santa Barbara Fire Chief Pat McElroy, to get his take on how

ce of

The storm was a scary start to January, however, the systems worked on over the last five years helped mitigate damage (photo by Sharon Byrne)

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

Village Beat An Anniversary to Remember

by Kelly Mahan Herrick

It’s been a wet and wild week in Montecito and much of Santa Barbara County, as unrelenting rainstorms came through the region, prompting two mandatory evacuations since January 4. The storm earlier this week, coming on the heels of over 20 inches of rain in the last 30 days, caused significant flooding and mudflow, but perhaps more palpable, triggered memories of the 1/9 Debris Flow, which occurred exactly five years to the day of the most recent flooding events.

Over the last five years, County officials, the Montecito Fire Protection District, and nonprofit groups such as the Bucket Brigade have been preparing for an exceptional rain event; the fruits of their labor came to fruition on Monday, January 9, when the decision was made to evacuate the entire community of Montecito. Just four days earlier, 355 homes identified as at-risk for flooding in Montecito were evacuated for a less significant storm, which didn’t pack the punch that was expected. The mass evacuation on Monday was an unprecedented move related to potential flood waters; the community was similarly evacuated multiple times in 2017 during the Thomas Fire. Montecito Fire Chief Kevin Taylor did not mince words when reporting the evacuation orders to the community. The following is what Chief Taylor said during a media press conference on the morning of January 9, 2023:

“In September 1964, the Coyote Fire burned just under 80,000 acres behind Montecito. On November 9 of that same year, a high-intensity, short-duration rainfall event triggered a debris flow. That debris flow occurred in every drainage in Montecito. Community eyewitnesses described a 20-foot tall layer of mud traveling at 15 miles an hour. In 2017, the Thomas Fire burned nearly 250,000 acres, including almost the entire watershed behind Montecito. On January 9, 2018, a short-duration high-intensity rainfall event triggered the catastrophic 1/9 Debris Flow. We lost 23 community members that day and more than 500 structures were damaged or destroyed. In January 1969, the Coyote Fire produced a second debris flow, this one caused by saturation. Between January 1 and January 25, more than 20 inches had fallen, and on the 26th, 6.6 inches of rain fell in just 24 hours. That second debris flow claimed five lives and damaged or destroyed more than 100 properties in our community.

“Today… is January 9, 2023. We are exactly five years removed from the 1/9 Debris Flow, and our watershed is saturated. In the last 30 days we’ve received more than 20 inches of rain, and five inches of rain since 3 am this morning. The community is at risk for a second debris flow from the Thomas Fire burn scar. We’re taking this risk so seriously that we have more than 200 responders and rescuers prepositioned in our community, ready for that event,” Chief Taylor warned.

Romero Canyon at East Valley Road was laden with debris and mud on Monday morning (photo courtesy of MFPD)

A road is damaged on East Mountain Drive above the Cold Spring Debris Basin (photo courtesy of MFPD)

Due to the inclement weather we’re extending the Clearance.

We need to make room for new arrivals on the way!

Shop 10,000 square feet of beautiful MichaelKate contemporary furniture on sale now!

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Montecito Miscellany Restoration Hardware Happening

by Richard Mineards

The chain, founded in Eureka in 1979 with 100 stores in 31 states and 6,500 employees, now rebranded RH, is taking over the old Lucca Antiques space in the Old Fire House building on East Valley Road.

Its former longtime store on State Street, near Paseo Nuevo, is being demolished as part of a 30,000-square-foot hotel development.

In the 12 months to October, 2022, sales were $3.721 billion.

Company CEO Gary Friedman, who formerly worked for Williams-Sonoma and lives in our rarefied enclave, did not respond to repeated e-mails.

Stay tuned...

Local Air Support

Larry Feinberg, president of Santa Barbara Museum of Art, must be thanking his lucky stars he lives in our Eden by the Beach.

Late last year, his wife Starr Siegele

fell off a ladder at their Manhattan apartment breaking her pelvis in two places, shattering her left elbow, and breaking two arm bones.

“She lay there, unable to move, for ten hours calling for help until fortunately a downstairs neighbor, [former Balanchine prime ballerina] Antonia Franceschi, who had just returned from choreograph-

ing an opera in Pittsburgh, heard her yelling and came to the rescue.

“Starr was rushed to an emergency room and operated on two days later at Mount Sinai Hospital followed by three weeks of rehab at the Mary Manning Walsh Center.

“In her fragile state it would have been impossible to bring Starr back to Santa Barbara on a commercial flight. Fortunately, some dear friends here who travel to New York for theatre had access to a private plane and offered to bring us back to town with them.”

A special ambulance service was arranged with the aviation company to transport Starr on and off the plane at each end of the trip and the couple went to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey to catch the private flight back here. But all did not go as planned.

“The ambulance crew came to the gate looking disturbed,” recounts Larry. “It seemed their equipment was too large for the ramp and the door of the plane we were supposed to board. For liability reasons the pilot wouldn’t let me and my friend carry Starr on to the plane.

“We were in a major conundrum with no place to go. Just then I got another e-mail from another dear Santa Barbara friend who happened to be in Manhattan. They needed to return here a couple of days early and said they were on their way to Teterboro to board a private Gulfstream plane.

“I asked if they might have room for us. It turned out their plane was parked

just 200 yards from the other jet and was scheduled to leave a half hour later. Once the ambulance crew received permission, they loaded Starr into the larger plane and we were able to return home.”

It’s not often friends have private planes leaving just 30 minutes apart from the East Coast to the Left Coast. Only in Montecito...

A Ranch Setting

Rather than filming at his $14 million nine-acre home in Riven Rock, Prince

Gary Friedman, CEO of Restoration Hardware, which is opening a Montecito branch (photo by James D. DeCamp/ZUMA Wire/Alamy Live News)

Starr Siegele and Larry Feinberg with Julia LouisDreyfus and Brad Hall (photo by Priscilla)

Montecito Community Emerges Strong from Major Test of 5th Anniversary Storm

The following was written after having to evacuate rapidly, with no warning, at 1 pm on January 9, 2023, from the lower Mission Creek area, where I live. Sunday night, it was a bucolic stream. It turned torrential a few hours later and turned my street into a swift river.

For the past five years, I’ve worked with the Montecito community on storm safety, never dreaming I’d have to drop everything and evacuate. I want to thank Montecito Fire and Montecito Journal for knowing my situation, and offering to give me a ride-along to see the aftermath of the storm so as to document it here.

Aaron Briner, my terrific Montecito Fire Protection District (MFPD) guide, came to get me, since my car would not make it out of our mud-covered street. Thankfully, he had a tall vehicle. The city did not evacuate my street. Many of my neighbors lost their cars as the water flowed up over them.

Like many of us, I will never forget January 9, 2018. After a December spent choking on the apocalyptic ash of the Thomas Fire, rain was coming. What seemed like a panacea to California’s first giga-fire instead unleashed the deadly Debris Flow disaster for the Montecito Community.

As the winter storm season cranked up on this 5th year anniversary of the Debris Flow, many of us were sweating on the inside. Montecito had a saying: “If we can just make it through the 5th year…” The 1969 Debris Flow happened five years after the massive Coyote Fire. We all just wanted to skate safely past that marker.

Mother Nature had other plans. Rain steadily deluged the Central Coast since New Year’s Day. California is too much and too little, all at once. Too little rain means drought, dry creeks, stressed trees. Too much rain saturates the earth, dislodging boulders that apparently yearn

to get to the beach. Around New Year’s, a few boulders fell off hillsides onto cars at popular trailheads.

We were already saturated heading into that five-year mark. We evacuated on January 4. Communities get evacuation fatigue, though the intent is of course to save lives. As January 9 dawned, an intense storm loomed. We can all be forgiven for wanting to scream at Mother Nature, “Seriously?!? NOW?!?”

Aaron, who can go anywhere, got me out of the mud on my street, and onto the empty 101. It was surreal, like the pandemic again. Eerily quiet and strange. We saw miles of the cars and trucks forced off at Milpas Street, only to be turned back around. Drivers slept in their trucks and cars overnight, on the side roads. So many people got caught in this storm.

January 9 unfolded less smoothly than public safety officials probably would have liked, keenly aware of the heavy emotional import of the day. A flash flood warning was issued by the National Weather Service, and at 11 am we were told to shelter in place. During that press conference, calls erupted for flooding on East Mountain, Romero, and a water rescue in Toro Canyon. Officials had to issue a call to evacuate at noon, but

lower roads were quickly flooding. Many got out in time. Some turned around and went back home. Others, not near any waterways or mountains, stayed put.

Aaron kindly showed me the historical trouble spots for Montecito: mud on Olive Mill, closure at Coast Village, trucks stacked from the freeway closure, and flooding at La Vuelta and Hixon, where some cars went underwater. The Romero Canyon debris basin overflowed, rendering that road impassable in the storm. A section of East Mountain Drive collapsed, and there was small debris on Ashley. A large tree branch was caught in the storm gate in the creek at Casa Dorinda. The Cold Spring Debris Basin had a lot of boulders, and a clean-out crew from the county were at hand.

In the sunshine, good news was evident everywhere in Montecito! The debris basins did their job, newly packed with 500,000 cubic yards of material. No major mud or debris hit the community, and most thankfully, no loss of life. No boulders were straining the ring nets. Utility and County crews were out all over Montecito, fixing any problems. Neighbors were out walking dogs in the sunshine.

This was a mega storm, dumping 12 inches on Montecito alone. It also had vast reach. Ventura’s river flooded and shut the freeway. The Santa Ynez River swelled to its full height. The 154 and 101 at Gaviota experienced major slides, forcing closure.

Montecito was in great shape. It felt like all that work we’ve all done to harden the community was successful. The watershed HELD. Psychologically, we held. We might be annoyed by evacuations and road closures, but we can be relieved at how it turned out.

We’ve lived through far worse, after all. We’ve become far stronger than we ever knew we could be.

Our public safety agencies have ramped up significantly since 2018. They held timely press conferences. They made hard calls. Montecito Fire staged all over the community, Aaron shared with me, heading into this storm, as they had done 1/9/2018, and it worked. They were everywhere they needed to be when things broke open. The calls were high, beginning that morning. Most of the rain was supposed to come in from 1 to 6 pm. MFPD crews got cut off on Mountain Drive when the road collapsed, and then the

MONTECITO TIDE GUIDE

Day

Thurs, Jan 12

other direction quickly became impassable. But they handled the calls. All of them. The 101 fully reopened by 5 pm Tuesday night. Remember when clearing the freeway took weeks in 2018? This time it took mere hours because Caltrans staged our area in advance.

By contrast, the city of Santa Barbara experienced major flooding, didn’t warn anyone to evacuate, and cleared no mud from its deluged streets on the East and West sides of town the next day. When Aaron dropped me off, we both realized my neighborhood was in far worse shape than Montecito.

More storms are headed this way. We will face them together, prepared and strong. That’s the Montecito Way.

Low Hgt High Hgt Low Hgt High Hgt Low Hgt

1:27 AM 3.7 6:24 AM 2.7 11:59 AM 4.1 07:00 PM 0.7

Fri, Jan 13 2:06 AM 3.9 7:45 AM 2.6 12:54 PM 3.5 07:33 PM 1.1

Sat, Jan 14

2:48 AM 4.2 9:24 AM 2.2 02:22 PM 2.9 08:11 PM 1.6

Sun, Jan 15 3:33 AM 4.5 10:56 AM 1.6 04:30 PM 2.6 09:02 PM 2.1

Mon, Jan 16 4:22 AM 4.9 12:01 PM 0.7 06:22 PM 2.7 10:09 PM 2.4

Tues, Jan 17 5:12 AM 5.4 12:52 PM -0.1 07:32 PM 3.0 11:19 PM 2.5

Weds, Jan 18 6:03 AM 5.9 01:38 PM -0.9 08:20 PM 3.3

Thurs, Jan 19 12:21 AM 2.5 6:53 AM 6.4 02:22 PM -1.6 09:01 PM 3.6

Fri, Jan 20 1:17 AM 2.3 7:42 AM 6.8 03:05 PM -2.0 09:40 PM 3.8

“What is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right.” – Albert Einstein

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

President/COO | Timothy Lennon Buckley tim@montecitojournal.net

VP, Sales & Marketing | Leanne Wood leanne@montecitojournal.net

Managing Editor | Zach Rosen zach@montecitojournal.net

Art/Production Director | Trent Watanabe

Office Manager | Jessikah Fechner

Graphic Design/Layout | Stevie Acuña

Account Managers | Sue Brooks, Tanis Nelson, Elizabeth Nadel, Bryce Eller

Contributing Editor | Kelly Mahan Herrick Copy Editor | Lily Buckley Harbin Proofreading | Helen Buckley Arts and Entertainment | Steven Libowitz

Contributors | Scott Craig, Ashleigh Brilliant, Kim Crail, Tom Farr, Chuck Graham, Stella Haffner, Mark Ashton Hunt, Dalina Michaels, Sharon Byrne, Robert Bernstein, Christina Favuzzi, Leslie Zemeckis, Sigrid Toye

Gossip | Richard Mineards History | Hattie Beresford

Humor | Ernie Witham

Our Town/Society | Joanne A Calitri Travel | Jerry Dunn, Leslie Westbrook Food & Wine | Claudia Schou, Gabe Saglie

Published by: Montecito Journal Media Group, LLC Montecito Journal is compiled, compounded, calibrated, cogitated over, and coughed up every Wednesday by an exacting agglomeration of excitable (and often exemplary) expert edifiers at 1206 Coast Village Circle, Suite G, Montecito, CA 93108.

How to reach us: (805) 565-1860; FAX: (805) 969-6654; Montecito Journal, 1206 Coast Village Circle, Suite G, Montecito, CA 93108; EMAIL: tim@montecitojournal.net

story and photos by Sharon Byrne

Sharon Byrne is the Executive Director of the Montecito Association

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Montecito Reads Unknown Agents

by MJ Staff

Take a sneak peek of Montecito by Michael Cox in this ongoing serialization of his yet-to-be-published book. This fictional story is inspired by “tales of true crime THAT HAPPENED HERE.” After a shocking revelation from Agent Randall, the FBI continues to question Hollis. Chapter 46 is available online at montecitojournal.net and the QR code below.

Scan here for Chapter 46

Montecito

by Michael Cox

Chapter 47

As I stared back at Agent Randall, her words – there is no Daniel Andrews – ricocheted around my cranium. I decided that I needed clarification. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Agent Randall said, slowly, as if she were talking to a child,

Montecito Reads Page 264

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Dan has ranked within the Top 10 Berkshire Hathaway Agents in the world for 17 of the past eighteen years!

Want results? Call Dan Encell at 565-4896.

Remember, it doesn’t cost any more to work with the best. (But it can cost you plenty if you don’t.)

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to Whole Estates Consignments & Auctions

Our Town

The 123rd Annual Christmas Bird Count

by Joanne A Calitri

The best time to join the Santa Barbara Audubon Society is at its annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC), where anyone from hobbyist to serious ornithologist can contribute data locally that is then forwarded nationally to track the various bird species, their migratory paths, and population findings. Birds have long been regarded as a barometer for the health of the planet, and although the founding of the “Christmas Bird Count” was not in that frame, it provides profiles of bird population numbers, avian movements, and associated trends, such as climate pressures and the impact of land use policies on birds and other wildlife.

December 31, 2022 marked the 123rd Annual Audubon’s CBC, and locally with volunteer counters spread across the demarcated 15-mile diameter that defines the Santa Barbara County Count. In detail that is a 15-mile diameter count circle, centered at Hwy 154 and Foothill Road, Santa Barbara. Approximate count circle boundaries are: San Ysidro Road on the east, Paradise Road on the north, Coronado Road on the west, and five miles offshore on the south by boat. The count includes sea birding onboard a boat, as well as night birding with volunteers trained in each type of area.

The volunteers, manned with the eBird app, were 140 counting on land and mountain areas, six counting night birds, and 10 counting sea birds, with 25 volunteers from out of town as part of this group. They were led by seasoned veterans of the CBC, namely, Rebecca Coulter, CBC Head Compiler; Liz Muraoka, North Goleta team leader and compiler; Joan Murdoch, Montecito team leader and compiler; Libby Patten, North SB team leader and compiler; Conor McMahon and Linus Blomqvist, South Goleta team

Price, Postel & Parma is proud to announce that associate Cameron Goodman is now a Partner with the firm.

Mr. Goodman’s practice focuses on all aspects of business, real estate, land use and environmental matters, representing individuals, families, businesses, nonprofits and public agencies. He counsels his clients in forming and operating legal entities, negotiating and structuring real estate transactions, and navigating complex land use entitlement and environmental compliance matters. Mr. Goodman lives in Santa Barbara with his wife and two young children.

Master and Zoom Wrangler.

The count day had its share of the rain we’ve been receiving since November with two to four inches, and the team reported that it influenced the number of birds noted, as well as photographs of the birds. Their preliminary count shows 196 species. The past five years data is 203 for 2017, 198 for 2018, 204 for 2019, 206 for 2020, and 194 for 2021.

SBC is always in the top five to 10 count areas nationally, with leaders being Matagorda, Freeport, and Guadalupe River Delta in Texas, and San Diego and Morro Bay, California. Matagorda/ Mad Island Marsh, Texas has unofficially reported 214 at this time.

Locally unique birds noted via the 123rd count include:

Sea Birds: Pacific, Common, and Red-throated Loons; Surf, Black, and Whitewinged Scoters; Northern Fulmar, Parasitic Jaeger, Common Murre, and Sooty/Shorttailed Shearwater; Pacific Golden-Plovers

leaders and compilers; Wim van Dam, Mountain team leader; and Captain Ben Pitterle, ChannelKeeper boat donation; along with Katherine Emery, Executive Director of the SB Audubon Society, and Janice Levasheff, SB Audubon Society Board President. Team master compilers were Glenn Kincaid as the Rarity Mapping Coordinator and eBird compiler, with Chris Coulter as the Tech

A Burrowing Owl (photo courtesy of Sophie C)

A Pacific Golden-Plover (photo courtesy of Brad H)

White-headed Woodpecker (photo courtesy of Emily C)

With mentions to species that were missed on count day but present during count week: the Short-eared Owl, Winter Wren, American Bittern, Virginia Rail, Tropical Kingbird, Osprey, Black-throated Gray Warbler, Common Raven, Williamson’s Sapsucker, and White-throated Swift.

To support birds, Coulter instructs, “Maintaining clean feeders and birdbaths is a great way to start learning about birds in our area. Get to know the birds in your yard and neighborhood. It will help you understand their habits, learn when they are here or not (their migratory cycle), and provide hours of enjoyment. Use native plants in your gardens, enjoy your dog walks on-leash, and help maintain our area’s richly diverse habitats that support birds.”

It is of note that, “Historical data and observations of longtime birders have seen the abundance and diversity of birds decline significantly over the years.”

Science data shows that nearly three billion North American birds have disappeared since 1970. [K. V. Rosenberg et al. (2019). Science, 366(6461), 120-124.]

On the bright side, there are immediate ways to protect local birds right now. Christmas Bird Count leaders and the Santa Barbara Audubon Society raise awareness about and appreciation for local birds and habitat.

How to help? You can join Santa Barbara Audubon Society as a chapter member (https://santabarbaraaudubon.org/join-sbas), attend their free Evening Programs, and participate in their fun and educational bird walks and field trips, among other activities. Through outreach and continued strong conservation and science work, we can make a difference in our local community and protect Santa Barbara area birdlife.”

Check out the 411 links where you can Adopt a Bird, learn about Conservation, subscribe to the monthly Audubon magazine, learn the history of the CBC, and find statistical data of the over 2,500 Christmas Bird Count Circles around the world.

California County Sees Greatest Number of Monarch Butterflies in 20 Years

According to preliminary statistics shared by local volunteer coordinator Jessica Griffiths, Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation employees and volunteers counted more than 129,000 western monarch butterflies in our neighboring San Luis Obispo County in November.

According to Xerces Society data, this is the most counted in the county in more than 20 years; in 1998, there were roughly 182,000 counted. The figures give some researchers hope that the western monarch butterfly population is on the mend after dropping to dangerously low levels a few years ago, leading some to believe the creature was on the edge of extinction. “It’s really encouraging,” Griffiths said of the most recent numbers.

The county’s high numbers of overwintering monarch butterflies reflect a statewide trend. The Xerces Society reported that more than 300,000 of the insects were counted during its annual Thanksgiving count, which took place this year from November 12 to December 4. This is a significant increase over data acquired in 2020 when counters discovered only 2,000 of the butterflies overwintering across the entire state.

Griffiths said it’s difficult to say why there are more monarch butterflies. Part of this is due to the fact that there are more groves being counted: According to her, 55 locations were assessed in San Luis Obispo County this year, up from 51 the previous year. This figure has been steadily climbing as residents keep a lookout for the insects and report them to the Xerces Society.

The Xerces Society and other conservation groups are planting milkweed and nectar plants and safeguarding overwintering and summer habitats from destruction. Griffiths suggested that individuals living in inland regions at least five miles from the shore plant milkweed plants to feed the insects to help these beautiful insects bounce back. Woolypod, California, heartleaf, narrow-leaf, and showy milkweed are examples of native milkweeds in California.

Those who live along the coast or near overwintering places should grow nectar plants that bloom in the autumn, winter, and spring to help feed the butterflies while they overwinter and fly away to reproduce. According to the Xerces Society, native nectar plants that monarchs enjoy include goldenrod, sunflowers, blue dicks, seaside fleabane, coyote brush, mules-fat, desert-broom, rabbitbrush, goldenbush, mimic heather, manzanita, and willow.

Counting birds at Tucker’s Grove are Katherine Emery and Wendy K

Linus Blomqvist in his seawatch blind at Goleta Beach south

Wim Van Dam, Mountain Team Leader

Pollock Team at Tucker’s Grove

Conor and Julie Scotland with Jon Dunn manning the Santa Barbara Waterfront/Harbor

Glenn Kincaid, eBird and Rarity Mapping Lead

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

BY

The evacuation orders did not go off without a few glitches: minutes before the community-wide evacuation was announced, residents received a Flash Flood Warning directing residents to shelter in place and not drive. Shortly after, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown announced the impending evacuation of only the properties identified in the Storm Impact Consideration Map. About an hour later it was decided that ALL of Montecito would be evacuated given the instability of the waterways and the relentless rain. By 2 pm, an order was issued to also include residents of Toro Canyon, Padaro Lane, Santa Claus Lane, Serena Park in Carpinteria, all residents of Sycamore Canyon in the City of Santa Barbara, and all campgrounds from Rincon to Gaviota. “It was a rapidly changing, disastrous event,” Sheriff Brown said on Tuesday. “We did not make the decision to evacuate lightly.”

A briefing on Tuesday reported that there were 265 firefighters assigned to the storm event, and there were 400 storm related calls, hundreds of vehicles damaged in flood waters, “countless” rescues, and six helicopter rescues with a hoist (in Northern Santa Barbara County).

In Montecito, we saw debris-laden flooding on multiple roads, creek swells on most creeks, trees and powerlines down, rocks and debris-laden flooding of varying degrees, and road closures including on Highway 101. There were also reports of minor flooding in homes. Highway 154 was closed in both directions due to rock slides, and the Santa Barbara Airport was closed due to flooding on the runways. All debris basins in Montecito were reported as full or partially full, with Santa Barbara County Public Works mobilizing mid-week to begin clearing the basins, in anticipation of more rain this weekend. Public Works Director Julie Hagan said Tuesday that crews are working to clear 500,000 cubic yards of material from the debris basins in a matter of weeks, in anticipation of future storms. Material caught in the basins will be transported to local beaches. Steel nets installed above the creeks following the 1/9 Debris Flow were reported empty as of Tuesday.

First District Supervisor Das Williams thanked the community for their cooperation and resiliency, and thanked first responders. “With the unimaginable amount of water coming down, the fact that we came through it without major injury, is impressive,” he said. He also reported that in preliminary talks with the Insurance Commissioner, it’s possible that any flooding damage or claims could be considered related to the Thomas Fire.

“The bottom line is that our storm drain system did what it was supposed to do,” said Santa Barbara Mayor Randy Rowse. “I’m so impressed with both the community and our interagency cooperation. We were prepared, and we did our jobs well.”

Reps from Montecito Water District report that Jameson Lake spilled over Juncal Dam at approximately noon on Monday, January 9. With this top reservoir filled, rainfall flowing down the watershed is reaching Cachuma, which rose more than 30 feet in the recent storms. Since January 3, Cachuma’s storage capacity has increased from 30% to above 70% and is still rising. Jameson Lake’s receipt of more than 20 inches of rain in the last seven days is a welcome development in the midst of a multi-year drought, however this is still shy of the lake’s 28-inch “historical average annual rainfall.”

“While the ground may seem soggy today, cyclical drought in California is here to stay,” said MWD public information officer Laura Camp

“Recent rain certainly provides some relief with regards to water supply,” said General Manager Nick Turner, “although it doesn’t change the District’s main message to customers: ‘reduce irrigation.’” With soils saturated, all residents should refrain from exterior watering. It will be weeks, perhaps months, before irrigation is needed and updates will be provided by the District’s Water Conservation Coordinator.

Rainfall conditions can change quickly, but it takes years to recover from prolonged drought that seriously depletes water supplies and groundwater levels. This is an ongoing challenge. Turner says customer usage has been too high for the last two years in the face of extreme drought conditions, while in just the past two months rains combined with customer efforts have steered water use back on budget. “Now is the perfect time to keep use at a minimum,” he said.

The District’s facilities weathered the recent storms well with no reported water outages. Water main breaks and water outages can be reported anytime by calling (805) 969-2271.

For up-to-date info about evacuations and storm events, visit www.readysbc.org.

Visit page 42 to see more images from the community of Montecito and its surroundings4

Sylvia Khoury

DIRECTED BY Nike Doukas

Kelly Mahan Herrick, also a licensed realtor with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, has been editor at large for the Journal since 2007, reporting on news in Montecito and beyond.

Your Westmont

Professor Speaks at Vatican, Meets Pope

‘Entangled’ Exhibit Explores Environment

by Scott Craig, photos by Brad Elliott

Westmont professor’s work about media, digital technology, and the church resulted in an invitation to speak at the Vatican and meet with Pope Francis on November 11. Sociologist Felicia Wu Song lectured about “The Good News in a Digital Age: A Call to the Contemplative” at a plenary assembly of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication. Later, she was invited to join members of the dicastery to hear Pope Francis speak about the importance of inclusive and truthful communication to a small group in the Apostolic Palace’s Clementine Hall. Following the talk, she greeted the Pope with a handshake and personal introduction.

“My talk at the plenary assembly was well-received and generated many stimulating conversations among lay media professionals, archbishops, bishops, and sisters about what types of digital engagements the Catholic Church ought to have in order to reach its parishioners around the world, young and old,” Song says.

As a participant, she toured the Vatican Gardens and Vatican News, the news portal of the Holy See, including Vatican Radio, the daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano and Vatican Media, which has large followings on several social media platforms. “I even got to see the master control room where all the visual media gets green-lit before broadcast,” she says. “It was all pretty incredible, similar to getting a tour of The New York Times or CNN offices and meeting people who make the magic happen, but knowing they’re transmitting content globally in 30-40 different languages. It was just amazing.”

The Dicastery of Communications, which oversees the entirety of the Catholic Church’s communications, and its global members only gather together every few years. Song, author of the book Restless Devices: Recovering Personhood, Presence, and Place in the Digital Age, was asked to speak at the gathering after a member of the dicastery heard her lecturing at the University of Notre Dame in the summer.

Song, who earned a doctorate in sociology from the University of Virginia, graduated from Yale and earned a master’s degree in communication studies from Northwestern. She taught at Louisiana State University for seven years before joining the Westmont faculty in 2013.

The Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art

two

whose work responds to climate change and our planet

the brink of perilous danger. The exhibition, Entangled: Responding to Environmental Crisis, runs from January 12 to March 25, 2023, and highlights the artwork of Madeleine Tonzi, a New Mexico painter, muralist and printmaker, and GATS (Graffiti Against the System), a well-known Bay Area artist who draws on the urban environment as a source of inspiration. An opening reception on January 12 from 4-6 pm at the museum is free and open to the public.

“Madeleine addresses the landscape in ways that stimulate the viewer to think more seriously about what is at peril in nature today,” says Judy L. Larson, R. Anthony Askew professor of art history and museum director, who has followed Tonzi’s career since she was a student at Santa Barbara City College.

“Street art and graffiti are non-traditional media for many urban artists, who respond with directness and vigor to the world around us,” says collections manager Chris Rupp. “I believe that’s the greatest strength of street art – its unmediated directness. GATS is a master of communicating to the masses without written word.

“The current environmental crisis is something that affects all of us. Street art, like murals and graffiti, offer everyone access to the art world. Art becomes part of our everyday lives. We’re lucky to have Madeleine Tonzi and GATS come together to create pieces that will start conversations about how we can take on this challenge of protecting our fragile environment.”

Hashimoto Contemporary and Harman Projects sponsor the exhibition.

The museum is open Monday through Friday from 10 am to 4 pm and 11 am to 5 pm on Saturdays. It’s closed on Sundays and college holidays. For more information, please visit westmont.edu/museum or contact the museum at (805) 565-6162.

Scott Craig is manager of media relations at Westmont College

features

artists

on

Westmont sociologist Felicia Wu Song greets Pope Francis at the Vatican

Street artist GATS is known for his icon mask

GATS’ Pleasure Point

Madeleine Tonzi’s Just in Time for Sunrise

THE SYMPHONY PRESENTS Plains, Trains & Violins

Saturday, January 21, 2023 | 7:30 PM Sunday, January 22, 2023 | 3 PM

Welcome to a celebration of the influences of music of the Americas — with local ties to Santa Barbara. The performance includes Uruguayan born, Grammy©-nominated, American composer Miguel del Águila’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, The Journey of a Lifetime (El viaje de una vida), with violin soloist Guillermo Figueroa, and the concert world premiere of the late, Academy©-award winning, American composer and former Santa Barbara resident, Elmer Bernstein’s Toccata for Toy Trains — his score for an animated film by Ray Charles Eames, arranged into a concert piece especially for the Santa Barbara Symphony by the composer’s son, Peter. Antonín Dvorak’s magnificent Symphony No. 9, From the New World, will round out the program.

Elmer Bernstein, arr. Peter Bernstein | Toccata For Toy Trains concert suite

Miguel Del Águila | Concerto for Violin El viaje de una vida Antonín Dvorak | Symphony No. 9 “from the New World”

The Giving List

by Steven Libowitz

Back in 2009 when Isabelle Gullö co-founded C.A.R.E.4Paws, she knew there was a desperate need locally for programs that reduce pet overpopulation and intervene before animals suffer and/or end up homeless among the low-income, senior, disabled, and unhoused pet family population in town. As a volunteer at the Santa Barbara County Animal Services shelter, she’d seen firsthand the issues that happen when their owners aren’t able to properly take care of their beloved pets. The concept of C.A.R.E.4Paws was to offer an array of free or low-cost pet services and provide resources that keep pets healthy and with their families for life.

Among the nonprofit’s offerings are programs that include free spaying or neutering, assistance with veterinary care including vaccines, distribution of pet food and supplies, extra support for pet families exposed to domestic violence, and a youth education program called Paws Up For Pets. More than 7,000 families per year were receiving the services by 2019 as the organization closed the gap, largely through its well-equipped pair of mobile veterinary clinics.

But what Gullö didn’t realize was just how extensive the problem would become when the pandemic hit.

When COVID closed things down and made life even more challenging for those already living in poverty or otherwise challenged to take care of their pets, the 7,000 families C.A.R.E.4Paws was already helping ballooned to more than 20,000 by the end of 2022.

“We’re growing every year because there is such a huge need in the community,” Gullö said. “A lot of people just cannot

afford going to their vets. We ended up having to run both of our mobile clinics much more often to meet the demand and it’s just so important.”

The mobile clinic units travel to regular locations where the staff is able to provide a record number of free and low-cost spay/ neuter surgeries, vaccines, and other veterinary care that would likely otherwise be inaccessible to the pet owners. Indeed, the two mobile clinics altered 2,300 dogs and cats last year, an increase of 300 surgeries from 2021 and 1,000 from the pre-pandemic year 2019. There’s been a huge increase in providing low-cost veterinary care, as well, which Gullö said could include anything from dental cleanings to mass removals to basic wellness exams, flea treatments, deworming, implanting microchips, and help with skin, ear, and eye issues.

“It’s a great outreach tool that really benefits the community,” Gullö said.

Spaying and neutering doesn’t just help to prevent overpopulation through unwanted litters of puppies and kittens that often end up in shelters, it’s also beneficial for the pets themselves, Gullö said. “It helps keep them healthier because you reduce the risk of cancers and infections and there are also behavioral benefits to the pet and the family because the dogs and cats tend to calm down when they are altered. That also helps keep them in the home because they’re easier to take care of.”

To meet the ever-increasing demand that shows no signs of abating, C.A.R.E.4Paws is investing in a third mobile clinic, a brand-new, 37-foot veterinary vehicle that will vastly increase kennel capacity and the ability to carry more types of vital equipment where they’re most needed. This will allow the organization to more efficiently help additional animals over a larger geographical footprint, including San Luis Obispo County, where the nonprofit recently added service. C.A.R.E.4Paws is currently about $65,000 shy of the $350,000 price tag for the vehicle, and donations are gladly accepted.

But the organization is also expanding its services in other ways, including its innovative Safe Haven program, which collaborates with Domestic Violence Solutions and other social welfare agencies to aid pet families exposed to domestic violence.

“There was no safety net for pet owners who were stuck in abusive situations because they couldn’t bring their pets to the human shelter to seek safety for themselves,” Gullö explained. “Pets are often used as pawns in abusive situations to control someone from speaking up or from leaving. So they would stay an average of two years longer in an abusive relationship or eventually have to leave their pets behind. Now we are able to kind of bridge that gap with this free, anonymous program so that the human family members can go seek shelter while

we take care of their pets until they’re ready to be reunited.”

The program is largely funded by the organizations’ new annual Walk Against Abuse event at Elings Park that debuted last fall to great success as it featured a dog walk through the beautiful park grounds as well as fun activities for both pets and their owners, music, food, and more.

Earlier on the calendar is C.A.R.E.4Paws’ Happy Tails Celebration & Fundraiser, which moves from the virtual world to the Music Academy on Sunday, May 21. The event highlights its work in the community and features heartfelt Happy Tails from some of the many pet owners whose animals have been kept healthy and in their homes. Sponsorships and tickets will be available soon.

Those who want to help other than financially can also give of their time and talents as a volunteer by visiting the C.A.R.E.4Paws. Either way, the nonprofit offers a big bow-wow of gratitude.

C.A.R.E.4Paws

Isabelle Gullö, Executive Director www.care4paws.org

Tel: 805.968.CARE (2273) Mobile: (805) 637-1892

’m the longtime MJ arts editor and Giving List columnist. After 17 years in my rental cottage downtown I now need to relocate. Ugh! I’m looking for a solo space (cottage, apartment, guest quarters, etc.), locally, with rent in the low $2Ks, available by the end of February-ish. Nonsmoker, no pets, great references. Might you know of something?” Call Steven at (805) 837-7262 or email sml.givinglist@gmail.com .

Rebecca Buratto and Lisa Bolton helping a dog in the mobile clinic

C.A.R.E.4Paws’ mobile clinics offer free and lowcost spay and neuter surgeries

“I

Brilliant Thoughts Finders Losers

by Ashleigh Brilliant

Getting lost is nowadays becoming increasingly harder to do – even if you want to – because we now have electronic devices of all kinds to guide and direct us, and make it easier for other people to find us.

Not surprisingly, the people who were most likely to get lost in times past were explorers, attempting to penetrate parts unknown. But by no means did all or most of them manage to bring themselves back alive. A classic example was the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who, in 1519, sailed from Europe, intending to circumnavigate the entire world. Unfortunately, in 1521, when only about halfway around, he got killed by natives, on an island in what we now call the Philippines. But, amazingly, one of his ships, with a few of his men, actually made the entire circuit.

Another great explorer and navigator, the British Captain James Cook, was also killed by natives on a Pacific island, this time in Hawaii (in 1779).

In the next century, the famous Scottish explorer and missionary David Livingstone was “found” deep in Africa, where he had already led several expeditions. His “finder” was Henry Morton Stanley, an American Journalist, working for the sensationalist New York Herald . Livingstone was already a celebrity. Communications in those days, and in that part of the world, were very poor. He did not consider himself “lost,” but after he had not been heard from for six years, the question of his fate and whereabouts became a public “mystery.” James Gordon Bennett, the publisher of the Herald , commissioned Stanley to go to Africa and “find Livingstone.” Stanley’s long search, through one of the least known parts of the Earth, was ultimately successful, and culminated in his reported first words upon their meeting: “Dr. Livingstone, I presume.”

Another eminent explorer, lost, but, in this case, never yet found, was the British Col. Percy Fawcett, whose activities centered on the Amazon region of South America (the Mato Grosso province of Brazil), where he believed a whole civilization had existed, which he called “The City of Z.” His last of many expeditions, whose personnel, this time, included his own 21-year-old son Jack, and Jack’s best friend Raleigh Rimell, disappeared totally in 1925. It has been the object of many unsuccessful searches, right up to the present era, which, however, have found some evidence of the kind of previously unknown cultures which Fawcett himself was looking for.

A very different part of the world – the Canadian Arctic – is the setting for our next lost explorer – Sir John Franklin, another very experienced leader of expeditions, who in 1845 set sail from England with two specially constructed ships named Erebus and Terror, which were fully equipped, with three years of supplies. Their mission was to survey a certain stretch of the Arctic coastline which had not yet been navigated. This would bring closer to realization the almost legendary “North-West Passage” between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The ships carried a total crew of 129 officers and men – none of whom were ever again seen alive.

From evidence later pieced together, we now know that both ships became icebound, and had to be abandoned. The crews tried to reach safety on foot, but were simply overwhelmed by the arctic conditions, combined with their own unpreparedness.

It took several years for the British naval authorities to acknowledge that the entire expedition must be lost, and to begin sending out search parties. One of those who never gave up hope was the leader’s wife, Lady Franklin, who spent the rest of her life organizing her own searches.

Another Arctic disaster occurred some 80 years later, and involved Umberto Nobile, an Italian designer of airships. In 1928, one of his ships, named the Italia, with Nobile aboard, and a crew of 16, managed to fly to the North Pole, but, coming back, crashed onto the ice. An international rescue effort was able to save most of the men, and Nobile returned, a hero, to what was then Fascist Italy.

Finally, we must acknowledge a lost American female explorer, engaged in pioneering new pathways through the air. Her name was Amelia Earhart. She disappeared on July 2, 1937, over the South Pacific, in an attempt to be first to fly all the way around the world. Despite various theories, her fate remains a mystery.

But, as I myself once wrote:

“There’s no way of knowing what too far is, if nobody ever goes there.”

Robert’s Big Questions Utopia?

by Robert Bernstein

Men Like Gods is a 1923 Utopian novel by H. G. Wells, which I was delighted to come across by accident in the library as a teen. An ordinary Englishman is swept up by scientific accident, along with a cleric and other countrymen, to a parallel world where all of our Earthly problems have been eliminated.

The cleric is horrified that people in Utopia are OK with nudity and have long since abandoned religion. In Wells’ Utopia, the greatest joy comes from scientific learning, exploration, and education. I had never heard of this concept of Utopia before and was filled with wonder at the possibility of creating such an ideal world. I was sorry that this novel never received the fame of Wells’ more dystopian writings. But my joy was revived later upon discovering the positive vision of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek.

It saddens me when people claim that the pursuit of Utopia inevitably leads to hellish consequences. Those on the political right point to Communism as proof that such idealism leads to poverty, gulags, and loss of freedom. Religious fanatics make a similar claim: Heaven can only be created by their sky god. They say that human attempts to create heaven on Earth will end in disaster. It is hubris to think that humans can compete with their god.

Really? If their god exists, then “he” created a world filled with violence and disease. It is only through the work of caring and scientific-minded humans that there has been progress. And many of the ideals of Communism have been working very well in the form of socialized medicine in France and social security in the U.S.

Yes, we must acknowledge that the wrong kinds of regulations can lead to hell. Iran is in revolution now to escape their religious “morality police.” But who wants to give up “socialist” national parks, fire departments, schools, or libraries?

things that give pleasure and avoid things that cause pain. Evolution has provided us with a sensory and reward system that makes this all work, most of the time. Once the reward is given, it necessarily must fade or else we would never seek the next reward of food, shelter, or sex. But this does not imply we need pain to feel pleasure. As my MIT biology mentor Jerry Lettvin explained, most senses are actually absolute, not relative. For good reason. Put your hand in an ice bucket or above a fire and you will continue to receive a pain signal until this harm is removed.

Humans also have the ability consciously to be grateful for the good things in our lives. This can elevate unnoticed background positives to conscious pleasures.

The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an enumeration of internationally agreed upon harms to avoid and ideals to achieve for all humans, everywhere. This includes rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution such as freedom of expression, freedom of belief, freedom from torture, participatory democracy, and legal due process. It also includes rights not yet guaranteed in the U.S.: Health care, education, employment, vacation time, food, clothing, and housing.

See? It is not that difficult to come up with a list of universally agreed upon improvements.

Are there limits to Utopia? Probably. Individual tastes vary. Some people are masochists and get pleasure from pain. Hard work and overcoming challenges can be fulfilling. But a proper Utopia can accommodate this.

For most of human history, little changed over many generations. But technology offers ways to make a future that is more enjoyable, rewarding, and meaningful. I plan to write more about a variety of technology and society issues.

Ashleigh

2016.

Best-known for his illustrated epigrams, called “Pot-Shots,” now a series of 10,000. email: ashleigh@west. net. web: www.ash leighbrilliant.com.

Some claim that “one man’s heaven is another man’s hell.” True. But this does not mean that there is no overall agreement on what makes life better. Neuroscientist Sam Harris has proposed that there is even a scientific approach to making life better. He starts with the extreme proposal: Imagine a world of “the worst possible misery for everyone.” He notes that any deviation from this state is objectively an improvement.

Some claim that our perception of pleasure is always relative to some pain or discomfort. This is a misunderstanding of the evolutionary function of pain and pleasure. We survive because we seek

Utopia is about providing an infrastructure and opportunities for each person to have the widest range of choices to find their personal fulfillment. Even if we cannot get to perfection, we can aim for it and get ever closer.

Robert Bernstein holds degrees from Physics departments of MIT and UCSB. Passion to understand the Big Questions of life, the universe and to be a good citizen of the planet. Visit facebook.com/ questionbig

“The only source of knowledge is experience.” – Albert Einstein

Brilliant born England 1933, came to California in 1955, to Santa Barbara in 1973, to the Montecito Journal in

we did as a community this time around. And what role, if any, the debris nets played?

“It’s too dangerous to go up there right now, but the first look we’re seeing, from a drone in Cold Spring, they look clean,” said McElroy. “What they’re doing is they’re slowing everything down because we have that free board for mammals and fish, like four feet or so under the nets, but none of the big stuff.”

McElroy later contacted me with an update saying that new reports they’ve received are showing that the upper net in San Ysidro Canyon, just below the waterfall, is filled to the top with water cascading over the top of it. Access was still difficult and they were working on confirming.

Under the auspices of TPRC, Geologist Dr. Larry Gurrola, along with Geological Engineering professor David Rogers (Missouri University of Science & Technology), has been working to produce a study of the landslides and flooding and debris flows in the last 200 years.

According to McElroy, Gurrola and Rogers have found that instead of being a once in five centuries or once in a thousand years event, there’ve been over 50 events in the last 200 years in Santa Barbara County. Some in the same canyons repeatedly. And so, McElroy explains, what Chief Taylor focused on this time around was the 1969 floods, because those were exactly five years after the Coyote Fire, just as this event was exactly five years after the Thomas Fire.

“The other thing this had in common with 1969, and why they looked at that to guide their decision-making, was that the 30 days before the ‘69 floods were like these past 30 days where we’ve gotten 20 inches of rain. The ground was saturated. It wasn’t going to accept any more water. So the high probability of runoff was big. That helped them go, ‘Well we can look at where that happened and how that happened. And it’s kind of a guidebook,’” said McElroy.

I reached out to Dr. Larry Gurrola, to get his take on what just happened.

“The recent atmospheric river storms generated debris-laden floods that discharged an estimated 500,000 cubic yards of debris that was captured in debris basins in Montecito and Carpinteria. Debris-laden floods are more dangerous than floods due to very rapid, surging flows of turbid water, which transport large volumes of debris as bedload. That is, turbid flows cause vast amounts of boulders to bounce along the creek channel bottom and discharge out of the canyon mouths. Debris-laden floods erode channel bottoms along the creek courses; this process caused channel bottoms to be lowered at some of the debris net locations. Although the boulder debris discharged from canyon mouths in the recent storms was not as large as the 2018 debris flows, the debris can overwhelm the capacity of creek channels in the community of Montecito and form new flow paths through residential areas, which can severely damage homes,” said Gurrola.

According to Gurrola, debris flows that can freight massive boulders considerable distances were not reported. Although historic atmospheric river storms in 186162, 1914, and 1969 produced widespread debris flows, it is currently unknown whether landslides or debris flows occurred on the steep slopes and tributaries in the watersheds.

The important lesson here, according to McElroy, is that while we can’t stop these things, we can be better prepared, and we can take better steps to survive them. In other words, we can’t stop Mother Nature’s big punch, but we can find better ways to receive it. For example, a big criticism of the handling of the 2018 debris flow involved the evacuation plan, which targeted homes in the red zone. According to McElroy, when they saw what was happening yesterday, a decision was made to adjust the plan and not to phase evacuation by zones.

“They just said, everybody goes,” said McElroy. “There are no confusing instructions. There’s no, am I zone one or zone two or zone 14? It’s everybody go.

“I just couldn’t be prouder of all of the people involved here,” said McElroy. “The whole team, the law enforcement people, the public works, everybody just really pulled together for the benefit of the community… We’ve learned that this isn’t as rare as we thought it was; it’s going to happen again. We’re never going to stop it from happening. But boy, if we learn more about how they happen, where they’re likely to happen and what we can do about it, we’re going to have a lot better chance.

“And so, what did we do about it? They expanded the debris basins, and they built a new one (Randall Road). We tried to do something that would supplement and act as a break in the hills (debris nets). The study that got funded through TPRC was very helpful, but it should be followed up on because they’ve only done a portion of all the drainages – Montecito Creek, Cold Spring, and Hot Springs canyons… Nobody wants to go through what happened in 2018, and working together to get smarter and to trust each other and refine our evacuations really played out well this year,” said McElroy.

So, I still dread Januarys. But the reality is, as I write this, Lake Cachuma has risen 34 feet since the storm began, almost doubling its stored water, which is expected to spill over, which will then recharge the aquafers in the Valley. Something that hasn’t happened since 2011. That’s not so Janu-scary after all.

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Die Stadt ohne Juden ( The City Without Jews ) Matthias Pintscher, Music Director/Conductor

Sat, Jan 28 / 7 PM / Lobero Theatre (note new venue)

The world’s greatest contemporary ensemble performs a new score to a 1924 silent movie that predicted the horrors of antisemitism.

Pink Martini featuring China Forbes

Fri, Feb 3 / 8 PM / Granada Theatre Tickets going fast! “A

– Thomas Lauderdale, bandleader/pianist Elegant, fun and blessed with flawless musicianship, the globetrotting Pink Martini is a perennial Santa Barbara favorite that guarantees an evening of enchanting international entertainment.

Monterey Jazz Festival on Tour

Christian Sands, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Kurt Elling, Lakecia Benjamin, Yasushi Nakamura, Clarence Penn

Sun, Jan 29 / 7 PM / UCSB Campbell Hall

Celebrating 65 years, the illustrious Monterey Jazz Festival sends six of its finest jazz ambassadors – including Grammy-winning vocalists Dee Dee Bridgewater and Kurt Elling – to Santa Barbara as part of its popular touring program.

Cirque FLIP Fabrique

Muse

Sun, Feb 5 / 7 PM

Granada Theatre Canada’s thrilling FLIP Fabrique explores what it means to be your true self in Muse, a refreshing view of contemporary circus that combines breathtaking artistry and athleticism and challenges gender roles.

Kurt Elling

Dee Dee Bridgewater

Co-presented with Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara

That was indeed clearer, I thought. “Then who was I talking with?” I asked the two agents.

Agent Randall shook her head pityingly.

“Your guess is as good as ours at this point,” Agent Quinton said. “What did this Daniel Andrews want to speak with you about?”

I stared into my lap, trying to recall the shattered mirror of that meeting. “He was… ,” I looked up, “he wanted to talk about Cyrus Wimby. He said he was doing field work; filling out the file.”

“Filling out the file?” Agent Randall repeated dubiously.

“That’s what he said,” I pleaded. “He had a partner with him. Two, or maybe it was three guys,” I said. “Agent Smith was even bigger than Agent Andrews. He sat in on our meeting, but he never spoke. And then there was another one Andrews called Agent Green. He also looked like he was capable of squashing me. He never spoke either. Andrews sent him to the car. And I think…,” I remember the outline of someone else in the front passenger seat, “I think there was another guy waiting for them in the car.”

“What kind of car?” Agent Randall asked.

“It was one of those Sprinter vans.”

“A Mercedes?” Agent Randall asked, shaking her head. “That was your first clue, Mr. Crawford.”

I dropped my head, feeling myself shrink under the growing realization that I had made a colossal mistake.

“What did this Agent Andrews want to know about Cyrus Wimby?”

Agent Quinton asked.

“He…,” my voice cracked, “he was asking me about the work Cyrus was doing. About ExOh Holdings. And I mean…,” I swallowed hard, praying that I already knew the answer to my next question, “Cyrus Wimby is why you are here, right?”

Agent Randall stood again and returned to rummaging my things.

“No,” Agent Quinton said. “We’re here because of Vladimir Petronovski. He is a—”

“He is a very bad guy,” Agent Randall interrupted.

“Indeed. We have been following up on various leads to re-create Petronovski’s movements over the last six months.”

“We only know of you,” Agent Randall added over her shoulder, “and the man you call Cyrus Wimby, through our reconnaissance efforts on Petronovski. You two are simply persons of interest.”

I had to be misunderstanding them, I thought. Ask again, the densest part of my brain requested, maybe they will answer differently this time, as if the FBI agents were Magic 8 Balls that just needed a good shake. “But … but you are here to arrest Cyrus Wimby, right?”

“Not yet,” Agent Quinton said. “Should we?”

I buried my forehead in the palms of my hands. What had I done? Were Daniel Andrews and his pals – if any of those names were real – good guys or bad guys? I had revealed all my double-crossing work to them. Work that minutes ago had been the crowning achievement of my life and now seemed like the kind of information that could put a bullseye on my back. Was Cyrus working for Petronovski or was it the other way around? I was confused, terrified, flabbergasted, and several other large, scary words.

“What did you share with this fake FBI agent?” Agent Quinton asked.

“I shared… everything,” I admitted.

Agent Randall guffawed. “You shared everything, did you Mr. Crawford? Let me guess, did your boss create a hostile work environment? Does he tell off-color jokes within earshot of the ladies? Does he refuse to recycle?” She picked up my garden hoe. “Does he eat genetically modified vegetables?”

“Sarah,” Agent Quinton said, “cut him some slack.”

“Sure, no problem,” Agent Randall said, setting the hoe back down. “I

mean Mr. Crawford here claims he had no idea that he is riding around town with a fugitive on Interpol’s Red Notice list, but I’m sure he’s got the goods on Cyrus Wimby.” She turned her folding chair backwards, then sat, crisscrossing her arms across the chair’s back. “So, tell us, Mr. Crawford. Tell us all about your big, bad boss, Cyrus Wimby. Tell us everything.”

The good news was my initial intuition that Agent Randall and her piercing blue eyes would not be the most understanding of interrogators had proven correct. From my vantage in the fog, that was a notably accurate observation. Unfortunately, she was still sitting three feet away from me and seething like a recently branded bull. My hands shook as I turned back from her glare to my computer and sent my dossier on Cyrus to the printer. “Cyrus Wimby is a con man,” I began, forcing my voice to rise from shell-shocked whisper to something approaching confidence. “He is the mastermind of a global fraud that has bilked U.S. investors of more than forty-five-million dollars. Through a network of thieving partners, he has paid out tens of millions and stockpiled more than one-hundred-seventeen-million dollars in a bank account in Switzerland. I have tracked it all down and documented every counterparty, every transaction, and every account. That document,” I pointed to my wheezing printer, “spells out all the gory details.”

Agent Quinton cocked his head. “Don’t know about you, Sarah, but that’s a pretty good everything if you ask me.”

Agent Randall grunted her approval.

“You can prove this?” Agent Quinton asked.

“Yes,” I said, turning back to my computer and launching CryptoWallet. My hands still shook but seeing the FBI agents perk up at the story gave me some measure of hope that I was not quite the idiot Agent Randall described. “Once I infiltrated Cyrus Wimby’s bank accounts,” I began, pointing at my screen like a weatherman, “I linked them via this application so that they could be tracked more easily.” With a few more keystrokes, my CryptoWallet began to repopulate. “There are eight bank accounts in total. He uses seven of the eight to distribute money, but this one,” I pointed to the Zurich account, “is where he keeps…”

My voice trailed to silence as I stared at the screen.

“What are we looking at here, Mr. Crawford?” Agent Quinton asked. “There’s a boatload of numbers on the screen,” Agent Randall added, “but I don’t see the honey pot.”

I clicked refresh hoping against hope that something would change. Again, the numbers filled the screen. The conclusion was the same. “Speak, Mr. Crawford,” Agent Randall said.

I tapped the screen, highlighting the Zurich account. “This account. As of last Friday, it had more than one-hundred-seventeen-million dollars in it.”

“And as of today?” Agent Quinton asked.

“It’s…,” I shook my head. “It’s empty.” The blood drained from my face as I slumped in my chair. How could this be?

Agents Quinton and Randall stood from their stooped positions. “That’s a tad anticlimactic, don’t you think,” Agent Randall said. Now it was Agent Quinton’s turn to grunt in reply.

As I sat staring at my unchanging screen, I wondered how this situation could get any worse. I had enthusiastically linked up with a con man, I had burned through my retirement savings, I had naively turned over a trove of evidence to fake FBI agents, and I had turned my back on the treasure chest long enough for the bad guys to steal it out from under me. It seemed like I had done all the damage I could do; the old trope it is always darkest before the dawn ran through my head just in time to give me a brief smile before I heard the crunch of gravel underfoot. The other FBI agent – the one that had been guarding the Chevrolet Suburban – was sprinting down my driveway, looking frantic.

“Agent Quinton,” the new guy said. “The stakeout on Riven Rock.”

Riven Rock? I thought. Cyrus’s house?

“What about it?” Agent Quinton asked, still staring at my computer screen.

“I just received a message that four Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s department cruisers pulled through the gates, siren’s blaring.”

SANTA

That is the thing about the old always darkest before the dawn nonsense. It is misleading on two fronts. First, it is incorrect, at least as it pertains to the colloquial meaning of the word dawn. Setting aside the effects of moonlight, the moment in a given night when a particular point on planet Earth is at its darkest is when the sun is aligned one-hundred-eighty degrees from that point; the point’s antemeridian. As the Earth rotates and sunrise approaches, the sky gets lighter, not darker, even if imperceptibly so. Second, while the saying was coined to provide a ray of hope to those in despair, it naively suggests that humans can accurately distinguish degrees of darkness. For the most part, we cannot. Therefore, while present conditions may appear very dark, that observation is meaningless. It can always get much, much darker.

“Hells bells,” Agent Randall said, shaking her head. “Mr. Crawford? You’re coming with us.”

Chapter 48

Agents Quinton and Randall loaded me into the back of their Chevy Suburban, and we began our ascent up Olive Mill Road to the mansions of Riven Rock and a scene I was scared to imagine. How different from the first time I approached Cyrus Wimby’s gates. Back then, my imagination was unfettered, free to fantasize about how much better life might be on the other side of those gates. Better cars, better homes, better putting greens, better pools, better pizza ovens, and far better Key Lime pie. Perhaps it was a world I could join; though, only if I could become a better me.

So, I evolved. I did what I was told. I resisted the urge to object. I delivered on every deadline. And most importantly, I enabled Cyrus Wimby’s executive vision to flourish. In the lexicon of corporations, this was the definition of success. And in the end, I was indeed a changed me.

But not a better me.

The Suburban powered up Olive Mill at an achingly quiet thirty-five miles per hour. I sensed that the agents had some idea what awaited us, but, if so, they did not clue me in. Having proven myself to be easily suckered, maybe they just did not trust me.

Riven Rock Road snaked northwest from Olive Mill, and in a few minutes, we were out front of the Wimby estate. A Sherriff’s cruiser blocked the driveway, so we parked on the edge of the street where a sidewalk would have been if Montecito had sidewalks.

I was told to wait in the car while Agents Quinton and Randall approached the officer on guard. The other Agent – still nameless – sat beside me watching for signals.

“Are we—” I began, stopping when he raised a hand to silence me.

Through the windshield I watched the FBI agents debate their case with the Santa Barbara County officer. At one point, the local cop made a call on his walkie-talkie and suddenly, I was being waved to the front lines. If my heart was beating fast before, now it was sledgehammering the inside of my ribcage.

I joined the FBI Agents, received an approving head nod from the local cop, and we walked through the Wimbys’ gates. The house looked magnificent as always. The reflecting pool’s frogs and Koi went about their business, unfazed by the squadron of officers zigzagging the property like kids on an Easter Egg hunt. Agents Randall and Quinton escorted me silently, their expressions grim. Agent Quinton handed me a pair of latex gloves just like the ones he was donning himself.

“I won’t touch anything. I promise,” I said.

“Just put them on,” Agent Quinton insisted.

I wanted to ask what they learned from the cop at the end of the driveway, but I was too scared to talk. And I was scared – literally frightened – of what might be inside that house. It was a curious emotion given that I was surrounded by officers of the law equipped with guns. There was no reason for me to be afraid, but if someone had given me the chance to leave, I would have turned on a dime and sprinted.

We made it to the front door just as another local officer stepped out to meet and stop us. “What do the Feds want with this?” he asked.

Agent Quinton looked around the local officer into the home’s rambling foyer. He stepped back and shook his head. “Want isn’t really the word,” he said. “We have reason to believe that this incident is tied to a case we are working. I’m not really looking to have a pissing match at the moment, but I think, if you’ll let us through, we might be able to help.”

The officer jutted his chin at me. “Who is this?”

It was an obvious question. I was wearing an old pair of khakis, Sperry topsiders, and an untucked button down oxford; obscenely casual by the standards of my escorts.

“Hollis Crawford,” Agent Quinton said. “He’s a local; you don’t know him?”

The officer shook his head, no.

For reasons that make no sense in retrospect, I felt ashamed that the

sheriff’s office and I were not on a first name basis. I was about to defend myself when the officer thought better of his answer. “Wait. Crawford? Are you related to Cricket Crawford?”

“She’s my wife,” I said.

He nodded. “You’re good,” he said to the Agents and stood aside.

Saved once again by my better half’s tireless ability to make friends and ingratiate herself. Absent her, I was as connected to this town as a transient in a tent.

Whatever perverse thrill I had at passing the front door entrance exam evaporated once I crossed the threshold. I recognized the Wimbys’ foyer in the way one recognizes classmates at a reunion: in pieces and then all at once.

The foyer was the Wimby home’s hub. The left spoke led to the sunken library where Cyrus and I had our meetings. To the right was a formal living room. Straight ahead was a wide wooden staircase leading to the second story’s bedrooms and offices. Behind the staircase, was a wall of ten-foot-tall, glass-filled sliding pocket doors that led to the patio, pool, and beyond. To the left of the staircase was a hallway that led diagonally to the kitchen, dining room, informal family room, and garage. Diagonally to the right was a two-bedroom, two-bath guest suite.

The foyer itself was normally outfitted like a luxurious waiting room. But this day, the couch, chairs, coffee table, grandfather clock, and lowslung antique bureau had been pushed back against the walls to make more room in the center for what can only be described as an arena. In the arena, under the massive Empire Chandelier, sat a single chair on bare wood floor.

I recognized the chair instantly though I had never sat in it. It was from the Wimbys’ formal dining room; a captain’s chair with six-inch-wide armrests. Two other dining chairs were positioned on the side, directly in front of the grandfather clock, and facing the center of the arena. Something was missing from the room, but I could not immediately identify it.

As I moved from the abstract to the specific, my vision played tricks on me. I took one step forward to regain my focus. Dots and squiggles danced in front of me. Was this what they called eye floaters? I took another step forward. The dots and squiggles stopped moving but did not disappear. I began to take another step forward when Agent Randall’s arm caught me in the chest.

“Stay out of the blood,” she said.

Blood? Following her eyes, I looked down. There, below my hovering right foot, was a half-circle of maroon, the flat side of the circle indirectly illuminating what was missing: the foyer’s rug.

I stepped back, planting my once hovering foot safely on dry wood, and saw the dots and squiggles for what they were: sprays of blood. The room looked as if someone had placed a spin art machine in the center, set it to high, and unleashed a torrent onto the turntable. The missing oriental rug revealed clean wood floor, but beyond its former borders, the couch was soaked, the clock was showered, the walls were peppered.

“Step over,” Agent Randall advised, calling me to approach the chair at the center of the arena.

I followed her instructions in the exaggerated fashion of someone afraid of nicking a tripwire. The chair loomed, seeming larger now that I had crossed the rug’s imaginary boundary. Below it sat a tangle of bloodsmeared rope and wads of grey duct tape. On the chair’s wide, flat armrest were three bloody tubes, each roughly two inches long. One of the tubes had a ridge around it that winked in the light from the chandelier.

“What are those?” I said, my voice a hair above a whisper.

Agent Randall pulled a pencil from the breast pocket of her jacket and rearranged the tubes until I saw clearly what they were: a finger.

I swallowed. “That’s Cyrus Wimby’s finger,” I said.

“How can you be sure?” Agent Randall asked.

“Cyrus had really long fingers,” I said softly.

Agent Randall chuckled, morosely. “Indeed, he did. Some men would call that six inches.” She continued to pick at the segmented finger, until a dried crust of blood flaked off, revealing what I mistakenly thought was a ridge on a tube. “Do you recognize that ring?” she asked.

I nodded, squeezing my eyes shut. “It’s Cyrus’s wedding ring.”

All around us, men and women scurried, looking for ports of entry, gathering suspicious objects, marking all areas where a drop of blood appeared beyond the devastating spray pattern in the foyer. The two other chairs –positioned as a macabre audience – had slashed lengths of rope and duct tape below them as well, but far fewer splashes of blood.

“Why do you think these chairs are cleaner?” I asked.

Agent Randall looked up from a squat position by the center chair and answered with the confidence of someone who had seen it all before. “Because people were sitting there,” she said. “The blood landed on the witnesses instead of the chairs.”

Real Estate

New Year’s Rains and Last Year’s Market

by Mark Ashton Hunt

It’s 2023 and it already feels like a different world. So much steady rain filling reservoirs, cleaning streets (into the ocean sadly), giving us something to really celebrate in the new year.

They say that when it is raining is actually a great time to see a home you are considering buying. Watching how the water moves around the property, are there any leaks at windows or doors etc…? Water is not the friend of interior wood and insulation, or flooring.

As for the Montecito Real Estate market, there is no “leaky roof” there, it seems. I will just put the hits on replay and phone this one in… same story for probably five months now: Inventory is down, way down. Sales volume is down, and prices are up. The Median in Montecito is now over $5M when just a couple of years ago it was $2.9 or so.

Also of note (and proving the low inventory factor), is that in the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), there are as of this writing, only 24 homes and condos on the market in all of Montecito’s 93108, the lowest number of homes and condos on the market at one time in the 20 years I’ve seen it, if ever.

2022 Home and Condo Sales in Montecito in 2022

There were 183 reported closed escrows in Montecito’s 93108 in the MLS in 2022, not counting six partial ownership shares that were sold and reported in the MLS. There were also many off-market sales, perhaps a few each month, with some completely unreported sales as well. So all considered, we might have hit a normal (pre2020 year) for sales numbers (around 200-230 per year in 93018 would be average for years like 2007-2019).

Of those 183 closed sales in the MLS in 2022, there were… 27 sales over $10,000,000 when more like seven sales a year over $10M has been more common.

Is this just a reflection of our market being undervalued a few years back? (Which it was.) Or do more people have more money to be able to compete in this new, hot, high-end market?

Not to be forgotten, the under $10M market was strong also, as is evidenced by the incredibly high median price paid for a home in Montecito during 2022. There were…

16 sales between $8 and $10M

46 sales between $5 and $8M

60 sales between $3 and $5M

24 sales between $2 and $3M

10 sales between $1 and $2M

There were no sales under a million in Montecito’s 93108 in 2022, not even fractional ownerships… those were also well over a million.

Just for perspective, in 2019, 50% of all sales in the 93108 were under $3,000,000. Now, for 2022, just three years later, not even 20% of home sales are under $3M. Here are a few properties on the market for you to consider if you are still on the fence about procuring a slice of Montecito. This grouping represents about 16% of all homes on the market now, and I’ve focused on the under $5M market, as that is where you have the fewest choices for the most part.

118 Coronada Circle – $2,495,000

In the Eucalyptus Hill area, this two-bedroom, two-bathroom, single-level home is located in the desirable enclave of Coronada Circle, a community of homes close to all that Montecito and Santa Barbara have to offer. The home has been recently updated with high-end finishes, flooring, and appliances. Within the 1,875+/- square feet of

MARK ASHTON HUNT

Representing Buyers and Sellers in Montecito Specializing in property valuation

If you would like me to make an appointment for you to view any home for sale in Montecito, or for a current market analysis of your home, please contact me directly.

Call/Text Mark @ 805-698-2174 Mark@Villagesite.com www.MontecitoBestBuys.com

living space, there are two bedrooms with a third bonus room that can be used as an office and/or guest bedroom. The open kitchen has a large dining area, high-end appliances, and storage.

There are outdoor spaces for entertaining, gardens with mature landscaping, a tranquil patio area offering options, and a spacious two-car garage with storage. The common area amenities and grounds include a pool and spa and wide streets with sidewalks.

260 Cloydon Circle – $2,695,000

Ideally located on a lower traffic street, this three-bedroom, two-and-one-halfbathroom Montecito home is sited on just under one quarter-acre with a deep backyard running north/south+/-. The floor plan offers a formal dining room, living room, second story main suite and two additional bedrooms in 1,765+/- square feet of living space.

Features include wide plank flooring, air conditioning, and solar panels. Located in the West Montecito foothills, just two short blocks from Cold Spring School and on a hidden cul-de-sac, this home is not far from Montecito’s Upper and Lower villages, the beaches, and all of Santa Barbara. Professionally landscaped grounds feature an entertainment deck, mature hedges, and a shared water well… as well.

67 Olive Mill Road – $2,875,000

Located on the ocean side of the 101 freeway, and just a short block from Butterfly Beach or Coast Village Road, this spacious, three-bedroom, three-bathroom town home is well maintained and within the Montecito Union School District. Live in as a main home, use as a rental property, weekend getaway, or blank slate to transform into your ultimate coastal vision.

The townhome has many of the appointments of a single-family home, offering spacious living areas, high ceilings, two fireplaces, and a generous amount of storage throughout. The two-story plan features a living room with fireplace, kitchen, attached two-car garage, upstairs laundry area, primary bedroom with fireplace, and a large walk-in closet. There are two additional bedrooms.

48 Alston Place – $4,495,000

Explosive south-facing ocean views are yours from this special property resting on over 1.6 acres at the end of a quiet lane on Montecito’s Eucalyptus Hill. Available for the first time in over 50 years, this single-level, 2,600+ square foot, traditional residence is reminiscent of a bygone, mid-century era. Designed with spacious rooms, high ceilings, and sprawling outdoor spaces, the residence is surrounded by mature gardens, privacy, and offers views of the ocean and mountains from nearly every room.

The property reaches beyond the open lawns to a terraced hillside orchard of avocado, orange, cherimoya, sapote, and persimmon trees beckoning to a next generation of conscientious caretakers. A timeless home with undeniable charm ready for the next chapter, located again as other properties in this feature, in the area of West Montecito, where you are close to the beach, the Upper and Lower villages, and all of Santa Barbara as well.

Mark and his wife, Sheela Hunt, are real estate agents. His family goes back nearly 100 years in Santa Barbara. Mark’s grandparents – Bill and Elsie Hunt – were Santa Barbara real estate brokers for 25 years.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” – Albert Einstein

Montecito

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS

NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HWY 1 RV, 332 Oak Street, Santa Maria, CA 93454. HWY 1 RV LLC, 1110 Myles Lane, Nipomo, 93444. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on December 16, 2022. 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. 20220003043. Published December 21, 28, 2022 and January 4, 11, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS

NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Real True Publishing, 1341

Skyline Way, Santa Barbara, CA 93109. Randall Rademaker, 1341 Skyline Way, Santa Barbara, CA 93109. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on December 15, 2022. 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. 20220003036. Published December 21, 28, 2022 and January 4, 11, 2023

NOTICE TO CREDITORS

Case No. 22PR00606

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN to the creditors and contingent creditors of BERNADINE J. WITTAK, that all persons having claims against the decedent are required to file them

with the Superior Court, at 1100 Anacapa Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101 Attn: Probate Department and deliver pursuant to Section 1215 of the California Probate Code a copy to Christian Wittak, as trustee of the trust dated November 17, 2007, wherein decedent was the settlor, at 5539 San Patricio Drive, Santa Barbara, CA 93111, within the later of four months after December 21, 2022, or, if notice is mailed or personally delivered to you, 60 days after the date this notice is mailed or personally delivered to you, or you must petition to file a late claim as provided in Section 19103 of the Probate Code. A claim form may be obtained from the court clerk. For your protection, you are encouraged to file your claim by certified mail, with return receipt requested.

Steven F. Bliss, Esq., Attorney for

Electronically

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME: CASE No. 22CV04931. To all interested parties: Petitioner Francis Andrew Aguilar filed a petition with Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara, for a decree changing name to Frank Andrew Aguilar The Court orders that all persons interested in this matter appear before this court at the hearing in-

dicated below to show cause, if any, why the petition for change of name should not be granted. Any person objecting to the name changes described above must file a written objection that includes the reasons for the objection at least two court days before the matter is scheduled to be heard and must appear at the hearing to show cause why the petition should not be granted. If no written objection is timely filed, the court may grant the petition without a hearing. Filed December 16, 2022 by Sharon Leyden. Hearing date: February 21, 2023 at 8:30 am in Dept. SM 2, 1100 Anacapa Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. Published January 4, 11, 18, 25, 2023

ORDER FOR PUBLICATION

OF SUMMONS OR CITATION: CASE No. 22CV03792. Notice to

February 14, 2023 at 9 am in Department 4 of the Superior Court of California, Santa Barbara, 1100 Anacapa Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. If you do not go to court, you may lose the case. If you lose, the court can order that your wages, money, or property be taken to pay this claim. Bring witnesses, receipts, and any evidence you need to prove your case. Name and address of the court: Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara, 1100 Anacapa Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93121-1107. Filed December 21, 2022, by Johnny Aviles, Deputy Clerk. Published January 4, 11, 18, 25, 2023

Christian James Wittak, Successor Trustee of the Wittak Family Trust, dated February 26, 1997. Dated: December 8, 2022

Filed at the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara by Darrel E. Parker, Executive Officer, 12/12/2022 by April Garcia, Deputy. Published December 21, 28, 2022 and January 4, 11, 2023

Defendant: David Gerrity : You are being sued by Plaintiff: Aiden Hespos Goodman et al. You and the plaintiff must go to court on

Barbara Levenson: January 31, 1942 – December 29, 2022

Barbara Levenson, 80, of Santa Barbara, sadly left us on December 29, 2022.

Barbara was born on January 31, 1942, to Harry and Ruth Eisenberg in Los Angeles. She was raised in West Los Angeles and built a community of friends she cherished from her days at Fairfax and Beverly Hills High School. Always one to follow her heart, Barbara spent many years teaching special education in the Los Angeles Unified Public School System. She loved deeply, traveled, enjoyed food and art, made lifelong friends and laughed her way through 80 beautiful years. She had resided in Montecito, California for the past 33 years.

From the beginning all the way to the end, Barbara was a force of nature and lived life to its fullest. We will all miss Barbara very much.

Barbara was predeceased by her husband of 42 years, Arthur, and stepsons Mark and Steven. She is survived by her sister, Judith; three sons, Matthew, Eric, and Alexander; eight grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.

A funeral service was held in her honor at 10 am on Friday, January 6, 2023, at Santa Barbara Cemetery, 901 Channel Drive, Santa Barbara, CA 93108.

In lieu of flowers, we invite you to make a donation in Barbara’s honor to the Santa Barbara City College Foundation sbccfoundation.org to support the school for extended learning.

In Bloom Orchids

Clift Seybert

Kinsell: July 25, 1923 – December 31, 2022

Clift Seybert Kinsell was born in Oakland, California and moved to Santa Barbara at age three. With this move, commenced a long and fruitful life full of travel. His main love was for his family and service to others.

Sey loved “all things Santa Barbara.” He first attended Roosevelt School, then La Cumbre Jr. High School, Santa Barbara High School, and eventually Stanford University. After Stanford he began the practice of medicine.

Sey graduated Stanford Medical School in 1947 and trained first at San Francisco Children’s Hospital, and later at Los Angeles Children’s Hospital. He practiced medicine for 37 years at the Santa Barbara Children’s Medical Clinic and was well known to all as “Doctor Sey.” Dr. Kinsell had a special place in his heart for chronically ill and disabled children. He took care of all patients regardless of their status in life. His practice filled many weekend days and nights, and he would often make house calls after hours. He was president of the Alpha Resource Center for six years and received a lifetime achievement award for his service.

He enjoyed a lifelong membership in the Episcopal Church, first attending Trinity Episcopal Church where he was a member of the vestry and he taught Sunday school. Later he was a member of All Saints-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church, where he was active every Tuesday morning at communion.

He was active in the Santa Barbara community serving on the Police and Fire Commission for six years and on the Santa Barbara County Parole Board for three years. He was president and a Paul Harris Fellowship recipient of the Santa Barbara Rotary Club, which he joined in 1954. He also enjoyed the Chamber of Commerce Governmental Review Committee meeting for many years.

He had many deep interests over the years, which included world travel, bird watching, camping with family and friends, collecting Santa Barbara memorabilia and postcards, and learning of the rich history

of Santa Barbara and California.

Retirement changed his emphasis from caring for children to caring for the elderly. He delivered Meals on Wheels and was a longtime bedside volunteer for Hospice/VNA helping people who stayed at home in their last days.

All his life, Sey was enthralled by learning, friendships, and sharing life with others. He would say, “Every life has value.” Sey found great pleasure in helping others and he liked almost everything except asparagus, string beans, and snakes. His commonplace books are full of favorite quotes, sayings, and observations. His favorite quote was, “The time to take a piece of cake is when it is passed – it may never be passed your way again.” He loved writing letters to his children several times a month, which have become treasures for each of them. Sey was also partial to the custom of the French peasant giving the dying a sip of champagne to speed them on their way.

Sey is survived by his wife Tamara Kinsell; his children Suzanne (Kinsell) Padrick (Steve), Jeff Kinsell (Marie) and Kirk Kinsell (Carrie); his grandchildren Scott Padrick, Natalie (Padrick) Rodrigue, and Ryan Padrick, Amy Kinsell and Pam (Kinsell) Phan, and Kyle Kinsell and Catelyn (Kinsell) Potter; and fourteen great-grandchildren.

Sey was preceded in death by former spouses Shirlee Kinsell, Lilabeth Kinsell, and siblings Beverly (Kinsell) Danielson and Henry Kinsell

A celebration of life will be held in the spring. In lieu of flowers, charitable contributions may be made to:

Santa Barbara High School Scholarship Fund P.O. Box 6121 Santa Barbara, CA 93160-6121

Or to your favorite charity.

Barbara Levenson

Clift Seybert Kinsell

A Surfer’s Sushi Chef

Mind-Body Matters

New Year’s Resolutions Resolved

by Rebecca Capps

Every New Year, people create resolutions: Lose weight, eat healthier, drink less, etcetera. However, research indicates that a whopping 80% of New Year’s resolutions fizzle by February. I just learned there’s even a term for it: “The February Fail.” But what if you reframed how you talked about failure (as not the opposite of success but a necessary prerequisite instead)? Also, what if you learned how to create resolutions you could actually accomplish? Thankfully, you can! The key to moving beyond your perceived failures and following through on your goals involves mastering the art of behavior change.

The difficulty of a behavior change is determined based on the type of habit you’re trying to break, how you view the challenge involved, the perceived benefits, and the environmental factors associated with establishing the change. Whenever setting goals, it’s essential to tap into your motivation and big life visions. That said, vague, unrealistic goals invite disappointment. Whatever change you want to make should be realistic and achievable within the time frame you’ve set out for yourself. For example, if your goal is to run a marathon, it would be unrealistic and likely end in disappointment (even injury!) to sign up for a marathon two weeks from now, especially if you still need to start training. This means to pace yourself because if you try to go too fast, you will run out of gas; you must keep some energy, patience, and motivation to traverse the journey ahead.

Be SMART

As a psychotherapist, I like teaching my clients the importance of setting SMART Goals, which stand for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Although it’s lovely in theory to set big New Year’s resolutions, when you declare things like: “I’m going to work out daily” or “I’m going to manage my drinking,” such goals are not SMART because they’re vague and not actionable. A study published by the American Psychological Association (APA) revealed that people who set SMART goals and consistently monitor their progress are more likely to succeed. So, if you want to learn how to play the guitar, build a SMART goal to track your practice. Or, keep a journal of your meals if you want to develop more balanced eating habits. It is worth mentioning, however, there’s a balance to strike between measuring your goals and immersing yourself in the process. Sometimes, the very act of goal setting can undermine its utility if it feels burdensome or like it’s homework. Thus, center your goals around the feeling state and impact you wish to invoke. Measure goals based on what you want to do instead of measuring them just for measurement’s sake. Remember: Life is a journey, not a destination!

Shifting Habits

Another helpful consideration when mapping out your goals is understanding the type of habit you want to shift. Think of something you do all the time and notice how it’s become a habit (likely without much conscious realization). The truth is that everything you practice daily, starting with your morning habits, eating preferences, and thought patterns to exercise routines… are all habits. And some habits are more challenging to break than others. The first type of habit is what I just described, where you practice it virtually on autopilot (e.g., driving your car, brushing your teeth, etc.). The other type of habit (the kind that’s more challenging to break) is pleasure or reward-based (e.g., binge eating or drinking). Pleasure-based habits are harder to change because the reward center part of the brain gets activated, and dopamine (the feel-good hormone) gets released. As a result, the brain will continue to follow this pleasure-seeking neural pathway and seek more and more rewards, causing the habit to become deeply ingrained and tough to break.

Even though it can be tough to break pleasure-based habits, it is feasible. One step to consider is replacing the unwanted habit with a different reward. For example, let’s say the behavior you’re trying to change is your daily McDonald’s habit. To shift this dopamine-seeking behavior, you can reinforce the new habit of cooking more nutrient-dense meals at home by rewarding yourself after each milestone (e.g., getting a

new pair of sneakers after a week of meal prep or workouts). Giving yourself new rewards for a behavior stimulates dopamine, so your brain will associate the positive outcome with it and help to solidify the new habit. Focus on building routines that take you off autopilot and help you make informed decisions that align with your long-term goals. Ultimately, your goals should be an expression of your values and the type of life you want to live.

Setting Goals and the Environment of Success

Successfully executing your goals involves knowing who you are and what motivates you intrinsically. Intrinsic motivation means feeling rewarded by the challenge and pleasure of the goal in addition to the satisfaction of seeing it materialize. It is doing a task for its inherent fulfillment rather than being motivated by external pressures or rewards. Tapping into your intrinsic motivation looks like: participating in a sport because it’s enjoyable rather than doing it to win a title; tidying up your home because you love practicing the art of feng shui as opposed to cleaning up to avoid making your partner upset; or, working out because you enjoy the physical challenge instead of doing it to lose weight. You get the picture.

To succeed in your goals, the final aspect to consider is your environment. If you’ve participated in a particular habit for an extended time, environmental cues can trigger the behavior – with or without you even noticing it. Your surroundings, from social pressures to visual cues, can significantly impact your choices. A 2013 study in the journal Appetite examining the effects of environmental cues on dietary decisions found that “participants were more likely to eat chocolates in the presence of an environmental cue that others [and] participants were more likely to choose a snack that was consistent with the choice of others.” The level of accountability in your immediate environment is a vital factor in creating successful behavior change. The likelihood that you’ll reduce

your alcohol consumption or lose weight, for example, increases whenever you share your goals with others who will hold you accountable and encourage your success. Whenever examining factors that will lead to success, psychologists often research the effects of genes versus environment. Even though your genetic makeup is undoubtedly an important consideration, it is not something you can change; however, you can focus on changing or curating your environment to help you succeed in your goals. One of my favorite expressions (attributed to Dr. Judith Stern) is: “Genetics loads the gun, but the environment pulls the trigger.” This quote is worth reflecting on because even though you may have predisposing genetic factors, they are not always necessary determinants of your success. Your environment “pulls the trigger” and plays a crucial role in how your many potentials get expressed… or suppressed. So, be sure to examine the people, places, and situations that may thwart your efforts. Knowing your environmental triggers can help you predict and navigate potentially challenging situations that derail your goals. Having people in your corner who are there to encourage and support your efforts to change, such as a therapist or an accountability partner, is helpful.

All in the Process

Ultimately, a big reason why New Year’s resolutions fail is that they tend to involve making drastic changes without a repeatable, systematic process involved. It is rare to succeed in lasting behavior change if your goals are a vast departure from your current lifestyle. As a psychotherapist specializing in eating disorders, I hear many people talking about setting extreme weight loss-related goals around this time of year. However, as research indicates, roughly 95% of all dieters regain their pre-diet weight (and often end up wreaking further havoc on their bodies and will to change). So, if you already feel like you’re failing with your New Year’s resolutions – whether your goal is to lose weight, quit drinking, or something else – this does not mean you should just give up. Failing to hit your resolutions or goals just points to the need to iterate your process and how you view behavior change. Failure is not the opposite of success; it is a necessary prerequisite. If you work with the intention to succeed and fail with the goal of learning, you will, without a doubt, become unstoppable. So, this is your cue not to allow the fear of failure to stop you from pursuing your goals. As the late Zig Ziglar declared: “If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.”

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Rebecca Capps, LMFT is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Wellness Coach who specializes in the treatment of Eating Disorders and Addictions. mindbodythrive.com; rebecca@mind bodythrive.com

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On Entertainment

Mariachi in His Veins

by Steven Libowitz

Born and raised in Bakersfield, Jimmy Cuéllar has never lived a day of his life in Mexico, but it’s safe to say that mariachi music is in his blood. Both of his parents migrated to the United States with their parents when they were kids, his father brought here in his pre-teens to work the fields in the San Joaquin Valley agricultural community.

Jaime Cuéllar also brought his love for mariachi music with him and formed his own band with his brother when Jimmy was still a kid.

“It was a family band that played just for fun, more of a backyard kind of scene where people wanted music for their parties,” Jimmy recalled. “There’s no set list – they’re the band where you walk up and ask for a song and they’ll play it because they know every song in the genre.”

Jimmy, who’d been studying classical violin from age five, wanted in on the fun, and told his pop he too wanted to play mariachi when he was 12. So he joined up with his family band, but within less than a year, Jaime had the idea that playing with kids his age might be better.

“I was learning a lot, but my father saw that there were no people my age for me to hang out with or talk to about mariachi, and no way to learn how to do show music,” he said. “So in the summer of ‘94, he decided to start a youth mariachi group, and asked all his friends if they had grandkids, sons, daughters, nephews, nieces, or whoever wanted to come, even if they didn’t know how to play. He said, ‘We’ll figure it out’ because the whole point was to get it going in the community.”

Twenty kids showed up to the first rehearsal and Cuéllar recalled they learned one song that first day. Eventually that turned into a core group – named Mariachi Garibaldi after the famous plaza in Mexico City where mariachi musicians gather day and night – who could play a one-hour set of performance music, and were even skilled enough to become the on-call band that backed up mariachi artists visiting Bakersfield.

Fast-forward a decade and Cuéllar had become ambitious and proficient enough on the mariachi instruments violin, guitarron, vihuela, guitar, and guitarra de golpe to earn a coveted invite – membership in Mariachi los Camperos de Nati Cano

“I’d dreamed about being in that group since I was a kid, and while it was hard to leave, that was a step I could not pass up because you have to keep push-

ing yourself forward,” he said of his time in the group that brought him a handful of Grammy Awards. “Nati is the one who pushed mariachi to the forefront in the U.S. and his insight was just amazing. That’s where I really learned about doing mariachi as a concert, where you can go sit down and get entertained from beginning to end.”

A decade later, that’s the format Cuéllar brought back to Bakersfield and Mariachi Garibaldi, which had largely laid dormant but roared back to life when Jimmy re-joined, now fully in charge of the group. He moved the group to Los Angeles, where it flourished, and the ensemble Mariachi Garibaldi now regularly shares the stage and records with some of Mexico’s most beloved performers. They’ve also appeared twice as part of ¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara!, the free community arts program that celebrates the music and dance of Latin America with a series of three performances, educational programs, and meet-and-greets across the county every month.

This weekend, January 13-15, Mariachi Garibaldi kicks off ¡Viva el Arte!’s return to the stage after three years due to the pandemic, and Cuéllar said he can’t wait to get back to town to educate kids and entertain everyone again.

“It’s just so great because everyone is into it from the moment you start playing, letting loose with a grito (the famous near-yodel shout) whenever they feel it,” he said. “I grew up playing classical music, and I still love it. But mariachi is in my blood.”

The rest of the ¡Viva el Arte! sea-

Mariachi Garibaldi is set to kick off the ¡Viva el Arte! season

Far Flung Travel Lots of Hugging

by Chuck Graham

We hugged the crumbly west cliff face of Cuyler Harbor on San Miguel Island with no expectations from the seat of our kayaks.

From afar, we couldn’t see any wildlife, but we could clearly hear first-year northern elephant seals snorting and bellowing on distant pocket beaches concealed along the rocky shoreline.

I was paddling with four guides I work with at Scorpion Anchorage on Santa Cruz Island. However, while kayaking San Miguel Island, Santa Cruz felt faraway –although it was only two days’ worth of paddling to that easterly location.

You Have to Go to Know

The morning sun warmed our backs as we paddled west inside idyllic Cuyler Harbor, those sheer cliffs seemingly bar-

ren, yet golden at sunrise. As we drew closer, the first signs of life came into view through my Canon 300mm lens. It was a mating pair of migrating surf scoters.

Migrating down from the frigid waters of Alaska, they are a challenge to detect from a kayak while sitting low on the water especially in choppy seas, but the males have some bright orange on their bills. It stands out amongst their black feathers and those dark cobalt blue open ocean waters. The females on the other hand are rather dull to look at.

fusion, especially massive squadrons of California brown pelicans on the east end of Prince Island. It was the greatest congregation of brown pelicans that I could remember. Most of them were mature birds, their brilliant coloring in stark contrast to the arid, cactus-covered eastern fringe of Prince Island.

Challenge Point

The steep berm of a beach at Challenge Point protrudes eastward toward the San Miguel Passage and three miles across to Sandy Point on the northwest tip of Santa Rosa Island. Between Cuyler Harbor and Challenge Point are daunting, Mordor-like cliffs known as Eagle Cliffs. Curious harbor seals, raucous sea lions, and wallowing elephant seals all haul out here, basking in the warm sand as surf thunders away in the backdrop.

huddled on the volcanic crags, shifting their positions as breaking waves crashed around them. However, from the seat of my blue kayak I noticed a couple that were different from the jet black, yearround shorebirds. Every now and then, American oystercatchers mingle with the black ones. The American oystercatcher has a white breast and underbelly, and every so often, the two species will mate and create a hybrid.

Gradually paddling in closer to that busy, hidden beach that was maybe 10 feet wide, I found a small group of black turnstones adjacent from the oystercatchers. They barely budged in the volcanic crags, as they soaked in the mid-morning sun. The black and white shorebirds are migratory, and enjoy the rocky enclaves protected from the surf and northwest winds.

Coastal Hideaways

There’s a row of craggy nooks and crannies beneath that east-facing cliff, and each one was mostly occupied with those bulbous, teary-eyed, year-old northern elephant seals. They were not alone though. A super playful California sea lion pup porpoised alongside my kayak, while a lone harbor seal pup ignored its rambunctious advances and appeared sleepy at the surface. Also weaving in between the pinnipeds were a pair of western grebes. The only noise came from the wave-battered rocks where a small cluster of black oystercatchers stood watch over Cuyler Harbor.

Breaking away from Cuyler Harbor, the five of us paddled eastward to Prince Island, only a half-mile offshore. Prince Island is an important seabird site where 14 pelagic species breed and nest to rear their young.

It wasn’t nesting season in October, but several species were roosting in pro-

Paddling east of there, we dodged small breaking waves where narrow slivers of beaches were tucked away. A couple were accessible with the incoming tide. That allowed for an approach to one of the best wildlife microcosms I’ve ever experienced on San Miguel Island.

A small flock of black oystercatchers

And then along the shoreline, periscope-like Brandt’s cormorants huddled closely in the shallows. Just behind them was the most entertainment. First-year northern elephants seals jostled playfully in king-of-the-mountain mode. Sparring amongst themselves, they reared up out of the water and hammered away at each other. They were several years away from becoming dominant bulls on these distant isles, but they thoroughly disrupted the pelagic birds patrolling the pocket cove. Scattering them in all directions, some of those snake-like seabirds darted beneath my kayak.

We took that as our cue to paddle on. Challenge Point beckoned to the east, its pearly white, wind-groomed sands exposed to wind and swell out of the northwest and southeast. Those forces of nature have created an incredible beach where more pinnipeds and shorebirds abound. It was all we needed to keep our curiosity heightened, naturals wonders awaiting around every craggy corner of San Miguel Island.

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

Brown Pelicans hosting a local Neighborhood Watch meeting

Members of the Cuyler Harbor Choir practicing

An American oystercatcher not living up to its name

Along with being great huggers, harbor seals are known to practice transcendental meditation

Maria Ressa How to Stand Up to a Dictator

Thu, Jan 19 / 7:30 PM

UCSB Campbell Hall

An Evening with Amor Towles

Thu, Feb 2 / 7:30 PM

UCSB Campbell Hall

I closed my eyes again. Was this where Genevieve and Priscilla sat? Were they tied up here? Were they sprayed with his blood? Were they forced to watch as Cyrus was tortured to death?

Agent Quinton appeared from one of the back hallways, “Sarah,” he hollered. “This way.”

I followed as well, afraid to be left alone with the now empty chairs.

“The drag pattern is through here,” Agent Quinton said, pointing to the kitchen tile. I could not see what he saw until I was at the far end of the room with the sunlight striking the tile from the opposite direction. Even on clean floors, the smudge of something heavy being dragged across the floor was evident.

“Through the garage,” I heard Agent Quinton say from farther way. This drag pattern was easier to spot; the garage had a layer of light brown dirt with a swept path through it.

“Through the drive,” Agent Quinton continued, walking further ahead on the driveway gravel, now trenched under the weight of the dragged object. “To a car waiting here,” he said, stopping at the end of the trench.

“No blood trail though,” Agent Randall said. “Mr. Crawford? Did there used to be a rug back there at the foot of the stairs?”

The missing rug. I nodded, yes.

“So, this is definitely a murder scene,” Agent Randall said. “You don’t roll a living man into a rug and drag him through the house.”

Agent Quinton nodded in agreement. “So, the working theory is that they rolled the victim’s body into the rug, dragged it to here, loaded it into their escape vehicle, then departed.” He tapped his chin with an index finger.

“What about Genevieve and Priscilla?” I interjected.

“Wimby’s family?” Agent Randall asked.

“Yes,” I said. “His wife and daughter. Do you …,” I did not want to finish the question, but I had to. “Do you think they were the ones sitting in those other chairs?”

She nodded, yes. “Stands to reason. Those chairs were positioned to force someone to watch what was happening.”

Even though I had feared this, hearing Agent Randall voice it made me shudder.

“No evidence of them thus far,” Agent Quinton said. “Perhaps they were taken separately.”

My eyes gravitated toward the gravel trench, imagining the oriental run holding Cyrus’s lifeless, bloody body, dragged then heaved into the back of some windowless van. I thought of Genevieve and Priscilla: were they bound and gagged? Were they watching? Were they loaded into the van as well, forced to sit alongside their dead husband and father? The surrounding gravel glinted a rainbow of sparkles back at me but something larger caught my eye. I bent to examine it. “Agent Quinton,” I called. “I ugh … I think this is your evidence.”

Agent Randall joined me, using her pencil to lift what I had found: A baby blue and red Rainbow Loom friendship bracelet with white Perler beads. “You recognize this?” she asked.

“It was Priscilla’s,” I said. “She made one just like it for my son.”

Agent Randall nodded – noting my ashen color – and patted my shoulder.

“Ok,” Agent Quinton said. “So, it looks like our escape vehicle likely contained the entire Wimby family. The father – presumed dead – and the mother and daughter – likely kidnapping victims.”

Agent Randall turned to me: “Do you know if Mr. Wimby had security cameras?”

I nodded. “He put them in a few months ago, right after Vlad showed up the first time.” I ran down the driveway to the gate with its entry keypad and hidden camera. “It’s right… here.” I pointed to what was once a security camera and was now a scattering of broken plastic and wires on the ground.

“Any more cameras?” Agent Randall asked.

I led them to the camera in Cyrus’s office; it too was in pieces.

“I assume he kept his computer here, right?” Agent Randall said, pointing to the empty desk.

I nodded, yes.

“We’ll get the techies involved and see if we can track down any online footage,” Agent Randall said before heading back downstairs.

I stayed behind. The last time I had been in this office was the day I discovered the RemoteToken fobs. Had they been returned to their original resting place when Cyrus returned from Fiji? Against any reasonable logic, I wanted to believe that the scene one floor below was a random act of horrific violence, unrelated to my divulgences to fake FBI agent, Daniel Andrews. I slid my latex-covered pinky under the drawer handle, praying it would be locked, its RemoteTokens safely inside. For an instant, I felt the drawer resist, sending my selfish hopes soaring. Then the resistance gave way and the door

glided open revealing its vast emptiness. The fobs were gone.

I exited Cyrus’s office just as two other officers exited the Wimbys’ master bedroom. For whatever reason – perhaps the latex gloves – they breezed by me without acknowledgment. In their wake, I could smell Genevieve’s star jasmine perfume, a scent cloud stirred by the passage of bodies. Across the stairway landing lay Priscilla’s room, an explosion of pink paint and a large, framed photo of her horse, Rosaland.

A fresh burst of nausea blossomed in my stomach. Maybe Cyrus had earned some degree of retribution through his treachery, but not this. And maybe Genevieve had turned a blind eye when she should not have, but I did not see her as complicit. But Priscilla? She deserved none of this. And who did the Wimbys have to thank for the turning tide that brought this fresh hell to their doorstep? It was hard for me to feel anything other than directly responsible.

I made my way back down the wide stairs on gimpy knees. Not thirty minutes earlier, I was gut punched at the thought that my tipping off the fake FBI agent had led to yet another theft. If only it had just been money. Now, standing in the home of my former boss, it was impossible not to see a direct line between my mistake, the torture and death of Cyrus Wimby, and abduction of his wife and child. Even when I tried to do the right thing, I screwed it up.

Agents Quinton and Randall called me into an initial Q&A with the Santa Barbara County Sherriff’s office. The Sheriffs were stumped. They suspected robbery but found no evidence of missing property.

“The cars, the jewelry, the artwork; it’s all here. I found five hundred dollars at the top of a sock drawer,” one of the Sherriff’s deputies quipped. “If this is a robbery, it’s the sloppiest robbery I’ve ever seen.”

“It is a robbery,” Agent Quinton said, “but not the kind you were expecting.”

“Mr. Crawford?” Agent Randall said, “can you fill these guys in on the one-hundred-seventeen million reasons why someone would want to torture and kill Cyrus Wimby?”

So, for the second time that day I presented the abridged story of Cyrus Wimby’s con operation to a panel of law enforcement officials.

“Why did they need to kill him?” One of the officers asked, looking pained. There were not many murders in Santa Barbara County and certainly not gruesome scenes like this one.

“Well, um …,” I cleared my throat, “they needed Cyrus’s cooperation to get the money out of the Zurich account.” Yes, I said cooperation. I cannot recall a less accurate euphemism.

“Given what we know, it is also likely that there was some double-crossing and misleading between Mr. Wimby and his assailants,” Agent Randall added. “These people do not let that sort of behavior slide.”

When I finished, the officer from the Sherriff’s department who had greeted our crew at the front door and challenged our right to be on premises turned to Agent Quinton and said, “We look forward to handing this case over to the Feds as soon as you guys are ready.”

I passed around my contact information to the Sherriff’s crew in case they had follow up questions, and the FBI Agents agreed to take me home.

Agent Quinton sat with me in the back seat; him on the phone and me in silence. When we pulled up in front of my house, he put away his phone and turned to me. “Tomorrow morning, my best forensic accountant will be here from D.C.,” he said. “We are going to take that report of yours apart, paragraph by paragraph, and begin the hunt.”

This was my moment to exit the Suburban, but instead I sat, burying my head in my hands. I wanted to get as far away from this day as possible, yet I did not want to enter my house and face my family.

“Hey,” Agent Randall said from the front seat. “That was messed up back there, but it was not your fault.”

I lifted my head and nodded reluctantly.

“Agent Randall is correct,” Agent Quinton said. “It is foolish to blame the spark for the explosion.”

I nodded again. “Thank you,” I whispered.

“Bright and early tomorrow, Mr. Crawford,” Agent Randall said, just before I shut the Suburban’s door. “Try to get some sleep.”

Tune in next week for more Montecito

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein

Michael Cox is a 2005 graduate of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Wall Street refugee. Including Montecito, Michael has written three novels, each in various stages of the path to publication. He can be reached at mcox@alumni.gsb.stanford.edu.

son includes Grandeza Mexicana (March 17-19), Tres Souls (April 14-16), and Las Cafeteras (May 19-21). For more information, venues and event times, visit https://artsandlectures.ucsb.edu/learn/ viva-el-arte-de-santa-barbara.

Launch Pad’s Amplify Activates the Audience

UCSB Launch Pad’s BIPOC Reading Series Festival has a new name for 2023, its first season to be held live in person as the pandemic put the kibosh on the first two years after the burgeoning Black Lives Matter movement sparked its formation. Now called Amplify, the festival’s new name not only clarifies its focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion in spotlighting writers of color, it also reflects the ambitious undertaking as the festival features four new plays – each receiving 20-hour workshops culminating in a single free reading presented to the public on January 13-14.

Produced in collaboration with affiliated artists and member theaters of the National New Play Network (NNPN) and UCSB’s own AMPLIFY Initiative, the 2023 fest will encompass Wife of Headless Man Investigates Her Own Disappearance by Yussef El Guindi; Freedom Hill by Jacqueline E. Lawton; Dalia is Dead and her Dad Keeps Making Dumplings by Stephanie Kyung Sun Walters; and Replaced by Eric Reyes Loo

Themes include a journalist wondering whether strange things happening to her are a payback for her takedown articles about an individual and his company to metatheatrical homage to Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, set in a small Southern town during the Reconstruction Era, a 13-year-old girl trying to fight off her sorrow about her mother’s death as well as her frenemies, and an irreverent comedy about a mixed-race novelist who comes to L.A. with big dreams of having her debut novel adapted into a TV show but ends up having to deal with someone making her story without her because they didn’t like her attitude.

The festival brings together professional playwrights, directors, dramaturgs, and guest actors with a number of student actors and other theater majors who shadow each of the professionals over the weeklong process. Each reading will be followed by talk-back conversations with the cast, crew, playwright, and director to both let the audiences learn more about the works, and allow the plays’ creative team to discover how their pieces connect in a live setting.

“I always love the mix of professionals and students – it’s a real core of what makes Launch Pad such an exciting learning opportunity, both for the student and for the professional,” said Risa Brainin, Launch Pad’s founder and artistic director who will also be helming Wife of Headless Man. “It’s exciting for

the audience because you are there at the very beginning, as the play is being birthed. No matter how much we think we know what we’ve got, the thing doesn’t come alive until it’s in front of an audience. People are actually playing a really important part because your reaction, whether it is laughing, crying, silence, or whatever is going to help the playwright know where the play needs to go next. You make an impact.”

Launch Pad Amplify festival performances will also be livestreamed to Facebook. For details, timing, and free tickets to the live events, visit https:// launchpad.theaterdance.ucsb.edu.

Dance Dimensions: SBDT Debuts

Santa Barbara Dance Theater, which in its association with the UCSB Department of Theater/Dance is the only professional dance company that is in residence in the entire UC system, presents its 2023 season, Intimacy & Autonomy, next week at the Hatlen Theater on campus. The second season under new artistic director Brandon Whited, who is UCSB Associate Professor of Dance and Director of Dance Performance, reflects a shifting creative direction for the company in its 46th year toward a project-based framework and innovative contemporary dance.

The January 18-22 performances feature the premiere of a work by Whited plus new dancework from guest choreographers Helen Simoneau and David Maurice that were fashioned last summer during an intensive creative residency in collaboration with UCSB Dance summer students. Simoneau’s DARLING explores vulnerability and intimacy through the presence and absence of touch with an intent to expose the audiences’ own biases towards the perceived power and strength of the people onstage. This iteration of the work is a 30-minute redux of the original evening-length version.

Maurice’s Partial Adaptation also interacts with the observers, as it comes from the realm of absurdist theater in

challenging autonomy and the “fourth wall” to explore the roles and autonomy of performers and audience. Whited’s Her (abridged), an ensemble work for five women, abstractly resonates on the ongoing injustice endured by women by contrasting gestural explorations of strength and assertiveness with durational group partnering reflecting community and mutual support among women. Visit https://theaterdance.ucsb.edu for details and tickets.

Sounds at SOhO

Two local singer-songwriters whose stars continue to rise are heading back to SOhO in an early-year best bet on January 12. Mendeleyev , whose folks named him after the Russian chemist best known for creating a version of the periodic table of elements, continues his own creative ways with a diverse catalog that ranges from fervent finger picking over mellow to manic melodies, shares the stage with Sio Tepper , whose intensive piano study has led to appearances at the Lobero and Granada, as well as music directing for such theater companies as Out of the Box Santa Barbara, and composing original scores for movies screened at the Santa Barbara Film Festival… KCSB’s presentation of locally-spawned indie pop band Plastic Harpoons, whose debut CD is due for release soon, with Alexandra Riorden & the Warm Glow and Neil Erickson & Friends also on the January 13 bill.

Also on tap at the upstairs downtown restaurant/music club: popular Santa Barbara-based Grateful Dead tribute group No Simple Highway on January 14, surf/reggae/ska band Tunnel Vision on January 15, and Nashville-viaPortland DIY musicians and indie tour booker Tommy Alexander with Jack Symes on January 19.

Focus on Film: Film Fest Fervor Mounting

The Banshees of Inisherin stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson – who reteamed for Martin McDonagh ’s award-season darling dark comedy after having first appeared together in the director’s brilliant 2008 film In Bruges – have been tapped to together receive SBIFF’s Cinema Vanguard Award on February 16. The announcement rounds out this year’s acting awards at the 38th annual Santa Barbara Film Festival, which launches on February 8, four weeks after this issue comes off the printing press… Iris Yamashita , whose Clint Eastwood-commissioned version of the Japanese side of the story of the Battle of Iwo Jima earned her an Academy Award screenwriting nomination for Letters from Iwo Jima, has published her debut novel. City Under One Roof, which finds a stranded detective trying to solve a murder in a tiny Alaskan town where everyone lives in a single high-rise building, has been called “a distinctively original perspective [that] heralds the arrival of a major new talent” by Publishers Weekly. Yamashita will talk about the writing and its roots in a virtual conversation for Chaucer’s Books on Monday, January 16.

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

Santa Barbara Dance Theater debuts its season of Intimacy & Autonomy (photo by Jeff Liang)

Iris Yamashita will speak at Chaucer’s Books on Monday, January 16 (photo by Anthony Mongiello)

by Christopher Matteo Connor

Has the movie-going public gone crazy? It’s a question I’ve been asking myself, and a question that – in some way or another – has been making the rounds in public discourse for years. If you aren’t familiar with the Scorsese vs. Marvel fiasco that continues to plague the poor man many years later, I envy you. Maybe I’m online too much. Maybe there’s a stack of Criterion Blu-Rays I can put my head under. Or a movie theater that blocks all Wi-Fi signals for a ten-block radius.

What am I rambling on about? Good question.

Okay, so admittedly, The Fabelmans wouldn’t normally be a movie I’d consider writing about. It’s not that I dislike Steven Spielberg – I really love some of his movies. But the man has made his cinematic mark, and there are many smaller movies, repertory fare, and foreign flicks that far too often fall by the wayside and deserve some attention.

So what’s the big idea? Well, even considering the power of Big Steve, his latest movie flopped. The critics dug it, evidenced by the positive reviews and last night’s Golden Globes wins. The Fabelmans won Best Motion Picture in the Drama category, and Spielberg also snagged Best Director. But the audience just hasn’t shown up. Could these wins change that? If the dwindling viewership of award shows over the years is any indication, I wouldn’t count on it.

The lack of audience interest up until now begs the sad question, has Spielberg’s star waned in the public eye? Do newer and younger generations simply not have the connection to Spielberg’s movies that previous generations had? Has the movie industry changed so much that the name that was once synonymous with “box office hit” doesn’t have the pull it once had? That seems to be the recent trend, if we consider that his remake of West Side Story didn’t do so hot, either.

I’m not sure I’m ready to accept that the man who invented the blockbuster as we know it is now seen as an “artsy” director that can’t make his money back at the box office. Sure, The Fabelmans might be his most personal, most intimate, and smallest (comparatively) movie yet. But you’d think we’d still give him a chance. Hasn’t he earned it by now?

Is it because of the way our culture now views cinema? Director James Gray (who also had his recent Armageddon Time, another semi-autobiographical coming-ofage film, underperform at the box office) makes the argument in an interview that we are losing the culture of going to the movies. He argues, “When you make movies that only make a ton of money, and

they’re only one kind of movie, you begin to get a large segment of the population out of the habit of going to the movies. And then you begin to limit the importance of movies culturally.” Studios have less incentive to take risks on smaller, more personal films. The broad cultural interest of going to the movies, of having many options to choose from, is lost. It’s not Marvel vs. Everything Else. It’s just about diversity. And continuing the experience and cultural importance of going to the cinema.

Look, Spielberg probably doesn’t need the money. But it just feels like a trend in an unfortunate direction. But then again, a movie like Everything Everywhere All at Once was a commercial success that seemed to come out of nowhere. And last night, it took home two big wins (with Ke Huy Quan, winner for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, thanking Spielberg for giving him is first role in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.) But can a few box office anomalies incentivize the studios and sustain the audience’s interest in seeing independent, non-blockbuster fare in theaters? One can only hope!

Wait, wasn’t there something I was supposed to do? Oh yeah, review The Fabelmans! Well, I enjoyed it. An engaging coming-of-age story about a young man falling in love with movies and moviemaking with some solid performances all round. Sometimes a bit too sentimental? Hey, would it be a Spielberg movie if it wasn’t?! Anyway, if this box office situation wasn’t surreal enough, just wait for the David Lynch cameo. The movie is worth it just for that!

The Fabelmans is playing at Metropolitan Paseo Nuevo 4 Cinemas and is also available on demand.

Miscellany (Continued from 8)

Harry has been using Beanie Baby billionaire Ty Warner’s San Ysidro Ranch for major TV interviews to promote his controversial new Penguin-Random House memoir Spare, which was published Tuesday worldwide.

Unfortunately, given the well-laid plans, the Spanish version was accidentally released early with excerpts printed in the Left-Wing U.K. daily The Guardian , formerly edited by an old Cambridge Evening News colleague Alan Rusbridger

The Duke of Sussex, 38, did an interview with old friend Tom Bradby of ITN in London and CBS News’ Anderson Cooper of 60 Minutes, whose CNN show used to appear on talking about the Royal Family.

I instantly recognized the interview locale as one of the 500-acre resort’s 38 cottages which cost from $2,000-plus per night.

JFK and wife Jackie famously honeymooned there, British actor Laurence Olivier and Gone with the Wind actress

Vivien Leigh were married there in 1940, and Oscar winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow and rocker Chris Martin tied the knot in Willow Cottage in 2003.

Post-Interview Review

On Sunday night, a group of my Montecito neighbors gathered with animal activist Gretchen Lieff at her La Lieff tasting room in the Funk Zone with a three-man crew from U.K.’s ITV, led by Washington, D.C. news editor Alex Chandler , to watch the Duke of Sussex’s controversial halfhour interview with Cooper and give our thoughts and insights on it after the show.

The Montecito segment was broadcast the following day to 10 million viewers in Britain.

Among those giving widely varying views, some highly critical, others sympathetic, were Brendon Twigden, writer Robert Adams, symphony president

Christopher Matteo Connor is a writer and filmmak er. When he isn’t writing, watching movies, and work ing on projects, you can be sure he’s somewhere enjoying a big slice of vegan pizza.

Danuta Bennett, Brendon Twigden, Kathryn Martin, and Katherine Murray-Morse at La Lieff tasting room (photo by Priscilla)

From ITV News are Mark Davey, Dan Riversand, and Alex Chandler with La Lieff Winery hostess Gretchen Lieff (photo by Priscilla)

Nancy Caponi, Dan Rivers, Robert Adams, and Laurie Kirby with ITV News Photographer Mark Davey in back (photo by Priscilla)

Kathryn Martin, and Fest Forums producer Laurie Kirby.

After bunking at the Montecito Inn for the weekend, having flown in from the East Coast, the tony TV triumvirate flew to Moscow, Idaho, to cover the highly publicized murder of four students and the arrest of the alleged assailant Bryan Kohberger

Online Poll Result

Prince Harry is losing his Sus-sex appeal!

His popularity in Britain is now at an all-time low, according to a new YouGov survey, with his rating at a disastrous -38.

Almost two thirds of those polled admitted they held a negative view of King Charles’s youngest son, while his support among the 18-24 age group has fallen to its lowest ever score...

Paying (and Singing)

Respect

The late Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin was a larger-than-life character with vocal talents to match.

The singer, songwriter, and pianist, the daughter of a Detroit Baptist church preacher who died in 2018 aged 76, was admirably brought to life again in the American Theatre Guild’s electrifying Broadway production R.E.S.P.E.C.T. at the Granada with four singers and a five-piece band telling Franklin’s colorful life story starting as a gospel singer before hitting the big time, ultimately recording 112 singles, including 73 Hot 100 entries, 17 Top Ten pop singles, and 20 Number One R&B singles.

She also won 18 Grammy Awards out of 44 nominations, as well as being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and in 1987 becoming the first female artist inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

I was lucky enough to see her perform live with a full orchestra at a charity

gala in the multi-tiered ballroom at the Waldorf Astoria in New York when I was an editor on the gossip column of New York Magazine in the ‘80s.

The energized show featuring hits like “A Natural Woman,” “Son of a Preacher Man,” “Freeway of Love,” and “Chain of Fools,” directed by Great White Way veteran Christina Sajous , had a hugely talented cast, but Chela Faulkner stood out from the pack with a powerful voice that would have done Franklin proud.

Her rendition of Puccini’s aria “Nessun Dorma” from Turandot, which Franklin sang at the 40th Grammys in 1998 in front of a TV audience of a billion people when opera legend Luciano Pavarotti fell ill, was a standout...

Nothing Else to Improve

Montecito actress Gwyneth Paltrow says she’s “too old” for New Year’s resolutions and admits she has “nothing else to quit” given her health-conscious lifestyle.

In a Goop newsletter the Oscar winner says she doesn’t like the idea of making New Year’s resolutions she thinks “set us up to fail” and would rather set “broader goals” for the year ahead, though she admits to having run out of vices to give up.

“I think about the little incremental changes I can make as opposed to big sweeping things.”

Interim President for Scholarship Foundation

Former college professor and administrator Dr. Mary Dwyer has been appointed interim president and CEO of the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara.

Dwyer, who led the renowned Institute for the International Education of Students through a period of extraordinary growth, succeeds Barbara Robertson, who recently announced her retirement after 22 of service to the organization.

A search for a long-term successor for Robertson has already commenced.

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in English and social sciences at Mundelein College, Dwyer earned both a master’s degree in education and a doctorate in public policy analysis at the University of Illinois in Chicago. She went on to serve as a faculty member and executive associate vice chancellor for research at the university.

Dwyer currently serves as a board director for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Direct Relief, the Thriving Initiative, and the Arthur J. Schmitt Foundation, among others.

She joined the Scholarship Foundation board of directors in 2021, and served on the executive, human resources, and student programs committee before taking a leave of absence to become interim president and CEO.

New Board Member for Dream Foundation

Marissa Freeman, chief marketing officer of Union Square Hospitality Group, has joined the Dream Foundation’s board of directors.

She will work closely with the marketing and communications team on strategy and creative direction as well as identify and establish relationships to broaden awareness about the 29-yearold organization and its mission across the country.

A globally-recognized business and creative leader, Freeman was part of the team that led USHG out of the pandem-

ic, building an industry-leading group of innovative marketers and communications professionals to help restore the business to pre-pandemic levels.

“This foundation’s work is personal to me,” she says. “I lost my mom to cancer when I was 19. My family faced its darkest time, and those memories are still painful.

“Dream Foundation brings moments of real joy when these families need it most. I feel privileged joining the board.”

Sightings

Prince Harry walking his Labrador Pula in the rain at Miramar Beach... Actor Christopher Lloyd noshing at Lucky’s... Mall magnate Herb Simon and TV political pundit Dennis Miller masticating at Tre Lune.

Pip! Pip! Be safe, wear a mask when needed, and get vaccinated.

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

pays homage to the late Aretha Franklin (photo by Julia Drummond)

Mary Dwyer appointed interim president of the Scholarship Foundation

Marissa Freeman joins Dream Foundation’s board of directors

Mud and water flooded the intersection at Olive Mill and Coast Village roads (photo credit Marcus Boyle)

Mud at the entrance to Montecito Inn, which was evacuated during the recent storms. Later, the Copus brothers, who own the Inn, were on site clearing the property before reopening.

Montecito

“I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.” – Albert Einstein

(photo by Marcus Boyle)

Juncal Dam at Jameson Lake, January 9, 2023 (photo by Alan Prichard, Dam Caretaker)

A eucalyptus tree fell on Channel Drive near the Coral Casino (photo by Marcus Boyle)

Rubble along the Butterfly Beach sidewalk (photo by Joe Cabe)

A work crew helping clear the Olive Mill and Coast Village intersection (photo by Joe Cabe)

An isolated Highway 101 (photo by Joe Cabe)

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Calendar of Events

by Steven Libowitz

SATURDAY, JANUARY 14

Songs at Stories – John Tesh was well into his very successful TV career as a news reporter and sportscaster who later landed a great gig as the co-host of Entertainment Tonight during its heyday, when he decided to augment talking about performers with becoming one himself. In truth, Tesh’s first public gigs as a keyboardist came just a year into his 1986-1996 stint on ET when he joined good friend and budding New Age superstar Yanni’s first tour. The pianist continued to perform and compose – including themes for NBC sporting events as well as the Olympics – throughout his time on ET before turning full time to his own music as a contemporary keyboardist. A quarter century later Tesh can claim a whole host of awards, including six music Emmys, two Grammy nominations, four gold records, seven Public Television specials, and eight million records sold. His concerts feature Tesh reminiscing about his life and career through music, pictures, and anecdotes, with stops at many of the important milestones along the way. While Tesh has played venues as iconic as Carnegie Hall and The Kennedy Center as well as Red Rocks Amphitheater, he’ll appear with his 12-piece Big Band in a more intimate setting here in town tonight.

WHEN: 7:30 pm

WHERE: Lobero Theatre, 33 E. Canon Perdido St. COST: $39.50 & $54.50 ($104.50 VIP tickets include premium seating, early entry into the venue, a Meet & Greet from the stage, a VIP-only Q&A session, and an official souvenir VIP laminate); tickets cost $2.50 extra on day of show

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

Society Leans Toward Latin Jazz – The Santa Barbara Jazz Society rarely turns its eyes toward much outside of the mainstream straight-ahead jazz

FRIDAY, JANUARY 13

Left, Right, Uppercuts, and More –Although the various factions of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives put on their pugilistic best during the recent 15-round battle for Speaker of the House, the professional boxers and MMA fighters from across the country will likely have a few more punches and kicks landing when the World Fighting Championships (WFC) returns to Chumash Casino Resort’s Samala Showroom tonight and tomorrow. Boxing begins the action tonight when the main event will feature Jesus Rizo (12-1), who hails from Santa Paula, against local Central Coast favorite John Dato (15-1-1), who trains in Santa Maria. Also, Angel Flores (8-1), who lives just a few miles down Hwy. 246 in Buellton, is scheduled to take on Midwest native Andrew Rodgers (610) who fights out of Elkhart, Indiana. Flores, who has six career knockouts, is looking to bounce back after he was handed his only career loss a year ago at the Chumash. Saturday’s action features up-and-coming local and regional mixed martial artists who are skilled in Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu among other martial arts. Key local fighters include Santa Barbara native Bill Cooper (2-1), Goleta natives Beau Brooks (5-12) and Kevin Crane (1-1), Oceano’s Gabby Lopez (0-1), and Grover Beach’s Matt Maxwell (1-3). For more information on WFC events, visit worldfightingchampionships.com.

WHEN: 7 pm both nights

WHERE: Chumash Casino Resort, 3400 East Highway 246, Santa Ynez COST: $45-$90 per night

INFO: (800) CHUMASH (248-6274) or www.chumashcasino.com/entertainment

FRIDAY, JANUARY 13

Reed My Lips – A cultural event of a more genteel spirit takes place simultaneously to boxing at the Chumash barely five miles further north in Los Olivos when the Los Angeles Reed Quintet (LARQ) returns to St. Mark’sin-the-Valley as part of the 42nd season of the Santa Ynez Valley Concert Series. Former Music Academy VP of programming Patrick Posey is LARQ’s saxophonist, with Lara Wickes , oboe; Eric Jacobs , clarinet; Anthony Parnther , bassoon; and Brian Walsh , bass clarinet rounding out the fivesome. The LARQ program plans to span centuries with featured works including pieces by Mendelssohn, Mahler, Ligeti, Nina Shekhar , Yanjun Hua, Corelli, Fred Coots, and Sam Lewis to captivate the audience via an energetic, colorful, and imaginative display of what non-strings chamber music can be in the intimate concert experience that features seating for just over 100. Two more Music Academy-connected concerts continue the Santa Ynez Valley Concert Series with the Takács Quartet performing February 19, and pianist Conor Hanick performing solo on March 1, before the series closes with the flute and piano duo of Demarre McGill and Rodolfo Leone on May 13.

WHEN: 7 pm WHERE: St. Mark’s in-the-Valley, 2901 Nojoqui Ave., Los Olivos COST: $20 general, $35 patrons (seating in first eight rows), free for students INFO: www.smitv.info/syvconcerts

world, with some big band and bebop thrown in for good measure. But this afternoon SBJS is going Latin for its first monthly show of the year by presenting the Dennis Berger Quintet, which finds Berger and John Webb , who are both pianists and saxophone players, trading off instruments backed by the Martinez Bros – bassist Ruben , percussionist Lorenzo , and drummer Rene being the brothers in question. Expect a bevy of bossa novas, mucho mambos, and much more in what promises to be an exciting afternoon from the Santa Barbara musicians at their local stomping grounds. Note: ticket prices have been reduced for the new year.

WHEN: 1-4 pm

WHERE: SOhO, 1221 State Street, upstairs in Victoria Court COST: $25 general, $20 Jazz Society members, $10 professional musicians, singers and full-time students

INFO: (805) 962-7776 / www.sohosb.com or (805) 687-7123 / www.sbjazz.org

MONDAY, JANUARY 16

Aslan in the Morning – Reza Aslan is a leading expert in world religions who is also an internationally renowned writer, UC Riverside professor, and an Emmyand Peabody-nominated producer whose credits include the acclaimed HBO series The Leftovers and the CBS comedy United States of Al. Aslan is also the author of the No. 1 New York Times bestseller Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, which has sold more than a million copies. Now, the world-famous Iranian-American scholar is returning to speak in town at Congregation B’nai B’rith’s monthly Sunday Morning Live for the first time in a decade with a presentation based on his new book, An American Martyr in Persia: The Epic Life and Tragic Death of Howard Baskerville, a spellbinding tale of title character whose first-hand experiences in early 20th century Iran turned him from a bystander into a fighter for democracy.

WHEN: 9:45-11 am

WHERE: Congregation B’nai B’rith, 1000 San Antonio Creek Road COST: free INFO: 805-964-7869 or https://cbbsb.org/learn/sml-2

Montecito

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” – Albert Einstein

Make It

a Weekend With MLK, Jr.

– The Martin Luther King, Jr. Committee of Santa Barbara (MLKSB) returns to a fully live weekend of free events for its 16th year honoring the great Dr. King and all he stood for on the weekend concluding with the national holiday today. Activities begin on January 12 with a gathering at the Eternal Flame at UCSB outside Buchanan Hall followed by talks and performances at the Multicultural Center. Student winners of the annual poetry and essay awards are featured at Friday night services at Congregation B’nai B’rith on January 13, while volunteers are encouraged to participate in the “Day of Service” in honor of Dr. King on January 14. Several church and faith organizations also play to honor MLK, Jr. during their gatherings on January 15. Today’s main event includes a morning program at De La Guerra Plaza with readings of the winning essay and poetry entries, and music from the World Dance for Humanity Group to prepare for the march up State Street to the Arlington Theatre. That’s where a 90-minute program features more music, speeches, readings, and a keynote address from Dr. Daina Ramey Berry , the newly hired Michael Douglas , Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts at UCSB. This year’s theme, pulled from a speech by Dr. King made in 1957 in Montgomery, Alabama, offers substantial food for thought: “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?”

WHEN: Official celebration is 9 am-12:30 pm today

WHERE: De la Guerra Plaza and Arlington Theatre COST: free INFO: https://mlksb.org

JANUARY 18

SBMA Travel Lecture Series – Celebrate the half-century history of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s Travel Program with three events over consecutive days in the series’ post-pandemic revival. Nigel McGilchrist , the four-decade veteran of travel with a base in the Mediterranean area and extensive lecture circuit across the United States, is the focal point for the series, which begins at 4 pm today with an Author’s Talk & Book Signing for When the Dog Speaks, the Philosopher Listens . McGilchrist’s new book, which was released in July of 2022, looks at the moment in history when a way of thinking which we can truly call “Western” was born. Tomorrow’s 10 am event brings “Venice & the Veneto,” McGilchrist’s talk about the Italian city and the flatlands and alpine foothills that extend to the north and west of Venice. The series wraps up on Friday at 10 am with “A Conversation between Cherished SBMA Travel Leaders: Susie Orso and Nigel McGilchrist,” an illustrated program with the pair conversing and reminiscing about the SBMA Travel Program over its busy half-century of history, discussing what the real significance of travel is for us, how travel is done at its best, and what instructive lessons we all learned from our abstention during the pandemic years.

WHEN: Today-Friday

WHERE: Mary Craig Auditorium, Museum of Art, 1130 State Street (entrance in the rear)

COST: $15 each

INFO: (805) 963-4364 or www.sbma.net

Storytelling

Now open through Apr 30, 2023

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

Montecito

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

Native People through the Lens of Edward S. Curtis

2559 Puesta del Sol Santa Barbara, CA 93105

“Replastering a Paguate House,” 1925, Edward S. Curtis

(ASEL).

Glenn Novack, Owner. 805-770-7715 info@movingmissdaisy.com MovingMissDaisy.com Consignments@MovingMissDaisy.hibid.com

THE CLEARING HOUSE, LLC

PHYSICAL TRAINING & THERAPY

Stillwell Fitness of Santa Barbara

In Home Personal Training Sessions for 65+, Help with: Strength, Flexibility, Balance Motivation, and Consistency John Stillwell, CPT, Specialist in Senior Fitness 805-705-2014 StillwellFitness.com

Want to improve the way you move?

House calls for personalized exercise sessions for those with PARKINSON’s DISEASE and SENIORS. Certified in PD specific exercises (PWR! MovesParkinson’s Wellness Recovery) evidenced-based moves which target the key areas affected by PD.

Josette Fast, Physical Therapist 805-722-8035

GOT OSTEOPOROSIS?

PERSONAL/SPECIAL SERVICES

Tell Your Story

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

AVAILABLE FOR RENT

Montecito, Santa Barbara, Ca Furnished home for rent $30,000.00 per mo. with a 5yr. lease, 4bd+4ba, nanny quarters, & guest hse + pool Bob 310-472-0870

RENTAL WANTED

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Email: theclearinghouseSB@cox.net Website: www.theclearinghouseSB.com

TRESOR

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POSITION WANTED

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT Organize receipts for taxes, pay bills, write checks, reservations, scheduling. Confidential. Semi-retired professional. Excellent references.

Sandra (805) 636-3089

Trusted, Experienced Caregiver, CA State registered and background checked. Vaccinated. Loving and caring provides transportation, medications, etc. Lina 650-281-6492

AUTOMOBILES WANTED

We buy Classic Cars Running or not. Foreign/Domestic, Porsche/Mercedes Etc. We come to you.

Call Steven - 805-699-0684

Website - Avantiauto.group

I’m the longtime MJ arts editor and Giving List columnist. After 17 years in my rental cottage I need to relocate and am seeking a studio or 1BR apt., ADU, cottage, etc. in SB or Montecito (but open to Carpinteria to Goleta). Occupancy by January 1 preferred. I’m clean and responsible, non-smoker and no pets. Excellent references available. Let’s talk! Call Steven at (805) 837-7262

FOR A MIRACLE

oranges

& veggies. Volunteers Do you have a special talent or skill? Do you need community service hours? The flock at SB Bird Sanctuary could always use some extra love and socialization. Call us and let’s talk about how you can help. (805) 969-1944