Monthly Archives: May 2020

5G Impact and Santa Barbara City Council Update: Part 1

Most people have heard of “next generation” 5G wireless signal, its technical merits, and you may have even perused some research on its effects on humans including in utero. This series presents published 5G information, the status of 5G in our town, and interviews to provide current vetted information with references for the reader. About […]

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People of Montecito: Lynn, Montecito Flowers

When Did You Start Your Business in Montecito? “I’ve been here for twenty-six years. I used to work at the café at the Montecito Inn. I can’t remember the name now, it was so long ago. But I came to Montecito and was working there for a while and there was a little flower stand […]

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Duck Duck Two

In last week’s Journal you’ll recall “ducknappers” had snatched a nest with a mamma duck, three ducklings, and seven eggs from under an oak tree at Montecito’s Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church parking lot. Our “Duck Column” describing the story had “gone viral” as pressure mounted to “find the ducks.” It’s been an exhausting […]

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Zip up Your Zoom

Fight fatigue and pep up the popular pandemic platform Late in April, The New York Times published an instantly popular essay called “Why Zoom is Terrible.” The piece posed that the problem with the platform is that the way the video images are digitally encoded and decoded, altered and adjusted, patched and synthesized introduces such […]

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The Time to Plant Your COVID Victory Garden is Right Now

“The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.” – Alfred Austin Couldn’t we all use some nurturing right now? Planting and harvesting your own food is rewarding and even more so now, with fewer […]

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Coast Village Road’s New Moment in the Sun

Montecito may oddly benefit from California’s post-COVID grand reopening. Coast Village Road may be one of the few dining, shopping, and hotel areas that is elegant, energetic, and well designed for the next new normal. You know the Pandemic New Normal – that’s the normal after the Debris Flow New Normal and that other new […]

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San Ysidro Roundabout at MPC

After nearly 12 hours of discussing the proposed roundabout at San Ysidro Road last Wednesday, the Montecito Planning Commission agreed to continue their hearing on the project until June 10, in order to give County staff time to formulate additional conditions to the project. In what Commissioner Susan Keller called Montecito’s biggest land use and […]

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Real Estate Remains Strong

The real estate market in Montecito and Santa Barbara remains strong, despite major changes to the way properties are marketed and viewed. Sales in Montecito are up from last year in May; as of press time 16 homes have sold in May, with five full days still left in the month. This is compared to […]

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Montecito’s Water Supply Much Improved. Still Needs Love, Luck, and Lucre

An Historic Vote On June 25, the five members of Montecito Water District’s Board of Directors will hold a public hearing – almost certainly to take place via Zoom – to discuss a proposed change in water rates for its customer base of roughly 4,000 Montecito households. The hearing will allow affected ratepayers as well […]

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Potter Tales: Genesis

When Jose Lobero expanded the old adobe Sebastopol schoolhouse and created his Opera House between 1871 and 1873, Chinatown was already established on the first block of East Canon Perdido street. At that time, the street was nothing more than a narrow dirt track and an article from November 1873 stated, “This narrow and disagreeable […]

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