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Keeping the Fiesta spirit alive
‘Uncharted territory’
Unemployment numbers see dip in county, but still long road ahead By JORGE MERCADO NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
Dr. Peter Rupert had some simple advice for those trying to see the economic impact of COVID-19. “Don’t believe anyone,” chuckled Dr. Rupert, who serves as the executive director of the UCSB Economic Forecast Project. “It’s just hard to really understand what’s going on and the reason basically is, of course, we’re in completely uncharted economic territory.” Dr. Rupert held his fifth EFP webinar on Thursday and was joined by Dr. Lynn Fitzgibbons, an infectious disease expert at Cottage Health, and Nancy Anderson, the assistant CEO for Santa Barbara County. Dr. Rupert focused specifically on the economy, both nationwide and at the local level, in Santa Barbara. The first thing he discussed was in regards to the unemployment filings throughout the country. He noted that one key metric people need to pay attention to is data with seasonally adjusted numbers and data without.
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Though most of Fiesta is virtual this year, red and gold banners hanging from lamp posts on State Street keep the spirit of the festival alive.
By JOSH GREGA
A Fiesta banner hangs over the entrance of the Santa Barbara Mission, where the festival’s opening night La Fiesta Pequeña usually takes place.
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Lotusland names new executive director NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT
Old Spanish Days Fiesta 2020 has been deafeningly quiet due to COVID-19. The pandemic has precluded the usual crowded celebration from happening, with Friday’s canceled Fiesta Caravan Parade making it even quieter. However, around town remains the odd reminder of the annual festival keeping the spirit of Fiesta alive. Several locations around town, such as the Santa Barbara Mission, the American Riviera Bank, Shoreline Drive condominiums, and Chad’s Restaurant on Cabrillo Boulevard have hung red and gold banners with the Fiesta poster in recognition of Santa Barbara’s annual celebration. While taking a walk up or down the State Street promenade, one can see Fiesta colored signs hanging from the lamp posts. Under normal circumstances, State Street around this time would be crowded with street and sidewalk vendors, many selling multi-colored cascarones for festival goers to break and release confetti from. There’s just one cascarone on State Street this year, a 4-foot tall one wearing a facemask chained to a bike pole on the 700 block of State Street. In addition to two signs requesting passersby to not touch the egg, the big cascarone also has signs encouraging Please see FIESTA on A9
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Seasonally adjusted unemployment numbers attempt to measure and remove the influences of predictable seasonal patterns to reveal how employment and unemployment change from month to month. For example, Dr. Rupert said, during summer when school is out and more people are applying for jobs, unemployment is typically lower. Unemployment typically rises in January and February. Seasonally adjusted data is the data shared by the U.S. Government, according to Dr. Rupert, “because they want you to know, in normal times, what’s happening.” What the seasonally adjusted data showed was that the unemployment rates rose in the weeks of July 18 and July 25, prompting many people to “assume about a stall in the labor market.” That belief also led to a dip in the stock market. Dr. Rupert countered with the raw numbers from the past few weeks which actually show that since July 11, unemployment claims have actually been falling. “If you had just looked at this, not seasonally adjusted data, which for this environment, (we should be because) we’re not in normal times so we can’t adjust seasonally in a normal way, we actually should they should have Please see jobs on A3
By BRIAN MACKLEY
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
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Santa Barbara local Rebecca Anderson has been selected as the new executive director of Ganna Walska Lotusland. With 20 years of experience as a leader in local nonprofits, Ms. Anderson has served as the interim executive director for the Montecito botanic garden since December 2019. Before serving as interim director, she spent four years as Lotusland’s director of development. “Rebecca is sincerely committed to our mission to foster our knowledge and appreciation of the garden and its plant collections while inspiring and educating visitors about the needs for conservation and environmental stewardship,” Lotusland board chair Lesley Cunningham said in a statement. “Even in the midst of a pandemic, she has navigated the organization with a calm clarity and a keen eye toward safely opening the garden and providing meaningful experiences for members and guests. I am confident Rebecca will bring our organization into an exciting new chapter.” As the fourth executive director in the world-renowned garden’s 36-year history, Ms. Anderson will manage Lotusland’s team of 30 staff
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Rebecca Anderson
members and more than 200 volunteers. According to Lotusland, Ms. Anderson will lead with “an eye to preserving and growing its extraordinary plant collections, advancing its global conservation work and acting as a steward of historic local architecture and a source of inspiration for its beauty and whimsical and bold landscape design.” Before joining Lotusland, Ms. Anderson served in a number of roles including director of advancement of Midland School, director of development for the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara, manager of Annual Giving at Cottage Health Please see LOTUSLAND on A10
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