Frightening invasion
Baseball team back in action UCSB students work out at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium- A5
Our 165th Year
Skeletons and more terrorize yards and homes for Halloween - B1
75¢
s at u r da y, o c t ob e r 31, 2 0 2 0
Spooky, scary, smiling students Kids visit Santa Ynez campus for socially distanced trick-or-treating
KENNETH SONG / NEWS-PRESS PHOTOS
Annabelle Abbott (right), dressed as a pirate, and her mother Jaslynn, a teacher at Santa Ynez Elementary School, trick-or-treat on campus on Friday.
Candidates report signs are stolen Dismay expressed over thefts on private property NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
ELECTION 2020
Several local candidates in Tuesday’s election were displeased to find out their signs on private property around town have been repeatedly stolen. This included two candidates for the Santa Barbara Unified School District Board of Education, one candidate running for Goleta City Council and one for Carpinteria City Council. Elrawd MacLearn, who is running for the Santa Barbara Unified board, told the NewsPress that approximately 100 of his campaign signs have been removed from where they were placed. Considering that Mr. MacLearn’s campaign budget is in the thousands of dollars, that his large campaign signs featuring both him and fellow candidate Brian Campbell cost about $15 and that his smaller campaign signs are around $9, 100 missing signs isn’t small potatoes to him. “They’re starting to make a dent in real money we’ve spent,” he told the News-Press. Though he wasn’t pleased with the disrespect displayed by those who have stolen his campaign signs, Mr. MacLearn said such actions are a sign that his political opponents view him as enough of a “contender” to resort to theft and that they are “indicative of my campaign success in this election.” Mr. MacLearn is running for the school board with the goal of turning the administration’s focus away from ethnic studies and sex ed and back to the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic. He said of the board’s current focus on social issues, “Not to say that those things aren’t important, but if we don’t have the basics in our district, then we can’t even begin to talk about social issues if we have kids who can’t read and don’t understand math.” Because he takes people stealing his signs as an indication of his campaign’s effectiveness,
Mr. MacLearn is only encouraged to press forward on the home stretch leading up to Election Day. “It really galvanizes me to push harder in these last three days here and win this race,” he said. Because campaign sign theft has become such a problem, Mr. MacLearn’s campaign has had to find alternative uses for its remaining signs. The solution his campaign found was holding “pop-ups,” during which he and his team go to shopping centers with signs in their hands and chat with the public. He said he will “most definitely” be doing pop-ups around town the next couple days. Santa Barbara Unified candidate Brian Campbell told the News-Press that it was “a shame” that people would steal campaign signs off of his supporters’ property and thereby interfere with their freedom of speech. Mr. Campbell gave the NewsPress a clip of home security footage that shows what appears to be a woman stealing one of his lawn signs from in front of a supporter’s house, throwing the sign into the back seat of a white SUV, and getting in the passenger seat of the SUV, which takes off thereafter. “I am disappointed by those that blatantly steal signs,” he stated. “These ‘adults’ set bad examples for our youth by not allowing other people to have a different opinion and express their constitutional right, freedom of speech.” Goleta City Council candidate Grace Wallace told the NewsPlease see SIGNS on A6
By JOSH GREGA
Polling places open today By JOSH GREGA NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
Jax McGowan, dressed as Christ from the PBS Kids television show “Wild Kratts,” and his mother Laura receive candy from second grade teacher Jennifer Elliot (far left) during trick-or-treating at Santa Ynez Elementary School.
By GRAYCE MCCORMICK NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
In a frenzy of costumes, decorations, music and a lot of Halloween spirit, students of Santa Ynez Elementary trick-ortreated on campus and saw their teachers face-to-face for the first time in a long time. After hearing that the Cold Spring School District got a costume parade and trick-ortreating approved, teachers, staff and the administration of Santa Ynez Elementary School hopped on the opportunity to throw a Halloween celebration together
for their students. Friday afternoon, students from kindergarten through eighth grade donned their Halloween costumes and came to campus in their respective time slots, with 20 minutes for each grade. When students and their parents arrived, they received temperature checks, walked through the quad hallways of campus and met each teacher at their doorways. Soon after the first time slot, skeletons, witches, princesses, sports players and superheroes were buzzing around campus, socially distanced.
FOLLOW US ON
6
66833 00050
3
Sylvana Patterson, a first-grade teacher at Santa Ynez Elementary, drops candy down a chute during trick-or-treating on campus.
Their teachers, also dressed up, slid small, pre-packaged treats down 6.5-foot long chutes made from PVP piping. “I’ve never seen kids so excited to be back in a school environment,” Maurene Donner, the principal/superintendent, said. “We thought this would be a great opportunity for kids to get dressed up, have a little bit of normalcy and just feel like they’re kids again.” She said that while her students have been “resilient and adaptive” to online learning,
connectivity issues and lack of assistance at home have made it challenging. However, small cohorts of students have started to return to in-person learning, and Monday will be day one back to school for kindergarten through third grade, with a noon dismissal five days a week. Ms. Donner said she hopes to have better student success as they return in person. “Seeing the liveliness of children back on campus and Please see halloween on A4
Santa Barbara County’s 35 inperson polling locations open for in-person voting today. Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. They will also be open during the same hours on Sunday, between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Monday, and 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Election Day. All polling locations will have full-on COVID-19 safety protocols, said Joe Holland, Santa Barbara County registrar of voters, clerk, recorder and assessor. This includes mask requirements, poll workers behind plexiglass barriers and steps such as cleaning booths after each voter. Floors are also being marked so voters stand six feet of social distance between each other. In addition to the 35 polling locations, there will also be 30 dropboxes in which voters can drop their mail-in ballots. Though those who have yet to vote can go to a polling place to cast their vote in person if they
wish, Mr. Holland recommends that voters fill out their mailin ballot at home and drop it off at the polling locations without actually going inside. Additionally, he suggested voters not use the U.S. Postal Service to send their ballots this late in the election season. “This close to the election, drop it off at one of our 65 locations,” he advised. He added that electioneering within 100 feet of a polling place is not allowed. This includes holding campaign signs, telling passersby to vote by a certain candidate, or wearing a T-shirt supporting a particular candidate. According to Mr. Holland, slogans such as “Make America Great Again” and “Black Lives Matter” do not count as electioneering. As of Friday, Santa Barbara County had received 117,000 ballots, more than half of the county’s 235,000 registered voters. email: jgrega@newspress.com
ins id e
LOTTERY
Classified............... A5 Life..................... b1-2 Obituaries............. A6
Wednesday’s SUPER LOTTO: 2-7-9-14-46 Meganumber: 19
Friday’s DAILY 4: 7-6-7-8
Friday’s MEGA MILLIONS: 14-19-34-39-59 Meganumber: 11
Friday’s FANTASY 5: 5-7-11-20-32
Friday’s DAILY DERBY: 12-03-11 Time: 1:45.26
Wednesday’s POWERBALL: 11-28-37-40-53 Meganumber: 13
Soduku................. b3 Weather................ A6
Friday’s DAILY 3: 5-2-7 / Sunday’s Midday 9-0-0