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Butterflies are back Santa Barbara Natural History Museum reopens Butterfly Pavilion
City plans town hall in aftermath of Loma Fire By MADISON HIRNEISEN NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT
On the night of the Loma Fire, Chelsea Lancaster’s phone was inundated with frantic phone calls. As flames engulfed the hillside near Loma Alta Drive on the night of May 20, Ms. Lancaster was fielding calls from fellow residents on the lower Westside who watched from the street as the fire progressed. Many were unsure of what to do to protect themselves
and their neighbors. Ms. Lancaster, the founder of El Centro SB, a community hub on the Eastside, said residents were given no notification from authorities or an emergency alert system that the fire was occurring, in addition to no information about whether or not they should evacuate. “People were just out on the streets trying to figure out what to do,” Ms. Lancaster told the NewsPress. Please see FIRE on A6 In the aftermath of the Loma Fire, which charred about nine acres near TV Hill, city officials are gearing up for a town hall on June 12 to discuss emergency plans with lower Westside residents.
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About 1,000 butterflies are now flitting about in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History’s seasonal Butterfly Pavilion, which reopened on Saturday.
By MADISON HIRNEISEN
Safety net for small transit
NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT
Nearly 1,000 butterflies of various sizes, shapes and colors can be seen gliding through the air inside the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum’s Butterfly Pavilion, which made its long awaited return on Saturday. Museum goers wandered through the beloved seasonal “Butterflies Alive!” exhibit on Saturday, stopping to admire the nine different species of delicate butterflies. Yellow and black spotted Malachite butterflies were seen perched on foliage throughout the exhibit, while the intricacies of the Painted Lady’s wings could be admired even from afar. The pavilion, a fan favorite among regular museum visitors, will remain open through Sept. 6. Kim Zsembik, the butterfly pavilion senior manager, said visitors who have seen the exhibit in the past may notice some new changes this year, including a new layout for the exhibit and even a few new species of butterflies. “When we’re creating this exhibit, we were thinking about all the guests that are coming back,” Ms. Zsembik told the News-Press. “So when they’re finally here, it’s a joy to just hear what they think, see if they like it and try and impress them a little bit every year. We try to mix it up every year too and just make some slight changes so that it does feel like a good new experience for like members who have been members for a long time and remember it, keeping the conditional element of butterflies flying around, but maybe mixing up the kind of plants we’re putting in. We’ve updated the flow of the pavilion, so it kind of feels different.” To follow COVID-19 safety precautions, guests are phased into the exhibit every few minutes
Legislation to provide cushion for reduced federal funding for MTD By GRAYCE MCCORMICK NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
A bill was recently reintroduced by U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal, DSanta Barbara, aimed at saving small urban transit providers — like Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District — from a steep cut in federal funds. Santa Barbara MTD has qualified for the federal Small Transit Intensive Cities program, which provides funds to transit providers serving urban areas with a population between 50,000 and 200,000 people. Funds go to these small providers that exceed average levels of service compared to larger transit agencies.
A Common Buckeye butterfly species, left, and a Red Admiral butterfly perched on some foliage during Saturday’s reopening of the Butterfly Pavilion.
and the pavilion is split into nine sections. Guests get a few minutes at each section and move to the next phase at the sound of a bell every two to three minutes. Guests are greeted by friendly volunteers throughout the exhibit, many of whom returned this year now that COVID-19 restrictions are lifting. One volunteer, Veronica Aguirre-Dutton, started volunteering with the museum for the first time this weekend. A butterfly enthusiast and activist in her spare time, Ms. AguirreDutton said she wanted to volunteer to share her passion for butterflies with others. With the population of Monarch butterflies in Santa Barbara dropping significantly in recent years, Ms. Aguirre-
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Dutton said she is grateful to use the opportunity to educate people about the importance of butterflies in the local ecosystem. “I always tell people, if you enjoy your avocado toast and honey, you should care about the butterflies and the bees,” Ms. Aguirre-Dutton told the News-Press. “This is really just a special opportunity to bring that awareness to the community about how important (butterflies) are.” Many families made their way through the exhibit on Saturday, admiring the colorful wings of the butterflies alongside their children, some of which were dressed in T-shirts or dresses with butterfly designs. Museum members Jan and Anna Roestel visited the museum
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A bill was recently reintroduced by U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal, DSanta Barbara, aimed at saving small urban transit providers — like Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District — from a steep cut in federal funds.
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with their children, Arwen and Xander on Saturday, making a special visit to see the butterflies. Ms. Roestel said the family visited the museum last week and decided to come back this weekend to see the Butterfly Pavilion back in action. “I knew the kids would love it,” Ms. Roestel told the News-Press. After going more than a year without visiting the museum due to the pandemic, the Roestel family agreed that it’s good to be back. The couple’s daughter, Arwen, even donned a butterfly dress for the occasion. “It’s nice to be outside, it’s so beautiful here, it’s just lovely,” Ms. Roestel said. “It feels almost like normal.”
However, Santa Barbara MTD expects to exceed the population threshold following the 2020 census, disqualifying them from an estimated $1.9 million annually. Hillary Blackerby, planning and marketing manager for Santa Barbara MTD, explained that there are six metrics transit agencies can qualify for for funds, and she believes Santa Barbara MTD has been the only one in the country which — since the inception of the program in 2003 — has met all six metrics every year. “Functionally, what that means is we have more service, higher ridership and just better performance,” she told the NewsPress. “We have as much service for a place that would have a million people. We don’t have a million people in South County, so our ridership is just generally fairly high for the area. We’re really proud of that.” However, the nearly $2 million loss per year in funding, she said, removes Santa Barbara MTD from a big fish in a small pond to a “very small fish in a very large pond.” And, she said that preliminary predictions for the 2020 census results will put the region “just slightly 700 (residents) over 200,000.” That’s why Rep. Carbajal reintroduced the Small Transit Communities Modernization Act, which would establish a three-year gradual phase out for communities that no longer qualify for program funding, instead of simply cutting it off immediately. “I think any agency that has
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