Westmont coach’s 350th win
Waves of transformation
Dave Wolf reflects on decisive men’s soccer game - A3
‘Sea Change’ features Nicole Strasburg’s art - B1
Our 166th Year
75¢
S AT U R DAY, S E P T E M BE R 18 , 2 021
FDA committee approves Pfizer booster shots for 65 and older, high risk groups By MADISON HIRNEISEN NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
COURTESY PHOTO
Dr. Van Do-Reynoso, Santa Barbara County Public Health Department director, said Friday that the department has a plan in place to deliver booster shots when federal regulators and the California Department of Public Health give the final go-ahead.
Chamber endorses Rowse for mayor By DAVE MASON NEWS-PRESS MANAGING EDITOR
Mayoral candidate Randy Rowse has won the endorsement of the Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Rowse is a former Santa Barbara City Council member, and like many members of the Chamber, he’s had a long career in business. He is the former owner of the Paradise Cafe, the Anacapa Street restaurant now known as La Paloma. Mr. Rowse is running for mayor in the November election against incumbent Cathy Murillo; James Joyce II, founder of Coffee with a Black Guy; Matt Kilrain, owner of BoatRatMatt; Deborah Schwartz, chair of the Santa Barbara Planning Commission; and Mark Whitehurst, publisher of Voice magazine. In addition to Mr. Rowse, the Chamber endorsed Barrett Reed, a planning commissioner and businessman, and incumbent Eric Friedman for the Santa Barbara City Council seats for districts 4 and 5 respectively. Mr. Reed is running against incumbent Kristen Snowden, and Mr. Friedman is running unopposed. Please see CHAMBER on A2
RAFAEL MALDONADO / NEWS-PRESS
The Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce has endorsed Randy Rowse for mayor.
An advisory committee with the Food and Drug Administration unanimously voted in favor of deploying PfizerBioNTech’s COVID-19 booster vaccine to people ages 65 and older and those at high risk for contracting serious illness on Friday. The decisions came after hours of deliberations on Friday, where the Vaccine
3
of evidence currently available about the safety of boosters in young adults and teens. “I have major concerns with regard to the extrapolation of data from much older populations to 16- and 17- year-olds,” Dr. Archana Chatterjee, dean of the Chicago
Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University, said. “We have no data on the safety in this population at all that have been presented so far, and that concerns me significantly,” she added. Please see BOOSTER on A3
By MADISON HIRNEISEN NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
In the days following Tuesday’s recall election, officials from the Santa Barbara County Elections Division remain hard at work counting the last few thousand ballots submitted by mail and at the polls. On Wednesday, Joseph Holland, the county’s registrar of voters, estimated that more than 146,000 ballots had been cast in the recall election. Of these, more than 105,000 were counted as of Tuesday night, and volunteers have been working throughout this week to get the remaining 41,000 ballots counted and reported. According to Renee Bischof, the chief deputy registrar of voters, the Elections Department plans to release updated election results on Monday afternoon, which will include an update on the total number of ballots received. She said the division will not know the county’s final results until the election is certified locally, which will occur on Oct. 15. Until the official certification, officials with the Elections Division will remain at work in the lower level of the elections building, completing the multistep process that each ballot moves through before being counted. The process followed by the Elections Division is intended to ensure that ballots are tallied accurately and securely. When a ballot arrives at the Elections Division, it goes through a two-part verification process using a special processing machine. In the first step, the machine captures a digital image of each ballot envelope, including the signature on the outside, and sorts each ballot into supervisorial districts. The data collected from the digital image is then filed into the election management system, where each signature is validated and matched with the voter’s record. These signatures are then verified a second time when the ballots are inserted into the machine once more. During this second batch, the machine sorts each ballot into one of two groups — one group that is verified and ready to move on to the next phase of the process, and another group
MADI HIRNEISEN / NEWS-PRESS PHOTOS
Melissa Hepp, a system operations lead at the Elections Department, loads a stack of ballots into a machine to be tabulated.
that warrants further review. Ms. Bischof said sometimes ballots will need further review during this step because voters forgot to sign their ballot or the signature on the ballot does not match the name on the ballot. When this happens, the Elections Division carefully reviews each ballot and sends a note to voters who forgot to sign the ballot. The voter can then return the letter with a signature to verify that their ballot was turned in. “We have a number of measures in place, not only in our county but across the state, that will allow a voter to cure any issues with their ballots in order for us to be able to count it,” Ms. Bischof told the News-Press. Please see BALLOTS on A4
Ballots received at the Elections Division run through a special processing machine (shown above) two times for verification before they are opened.
LOTTERY
i n s i de Classified.............. b4 Life..................... b1-2 Obituaries............. a6
66833 00050
and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) heard from Pfizer officials about their booster shots. In an initial vote, the committee outright rejected booster shots for everyone ages 16 and older, citing concerns about the level
Election officials continue to tally recall ballots
FOLLOW US ON
6
The committee outright rejected booster shots for everyone ages 16 and older, citing concerns about the level of evidence currently available about the safety of boosters in young adults and teens.
Sudoku................. B3 Weather................ A6
Wednesday’s SUPER LOTTO: 1-5-7-28-45 Mega: 8
Friday’s DAILY 4: 1-3-7-7
Friday’s MEGA MILLIONS: 17-32-40-59-61 Mega: 18
Friday’s FANTASY 5: 5-6-7-26-30
Friday’s DAILY DERBY: 09-11-12 Time: 1:49.88
Wednesday’s POWERBALL: 1-4-18-46-62 Meganumber: 25
Friday’s DAILY 3: 4-1-2 / Midday 3-2-3