Note to readers: This update covers the time period from Dec. 20, 2020 to Jan. 9, 2021. Crews will not work on Dec. 24, 25, 31, and Jan. 1 in observance of the holidays. Drive safe and enjoy the break! Closures: Northbound Highway 101 Sunday nights, 9:00 pm – 5:00 am, 1 lane: N Padaro […]
Assuming that Montecito makes it through the next few years without any major wildfires, floods, mudslides, earthquakes, or tsunamis (okay, so that last potential natural disaster seems about as likely as a meteor strike), then the biggest story that will affect everyone in town for the foreseeable future is the 101 Freeway widening project. With […]
The shortest day of the year turned out to be an unexpectedly generous one for needy Santa Barbara area drive families. From 9 am to 6 pm on Monday, December 21, the Santa Barbara Salvation Army held a food and toy drive at its headquarters on Hollister Avenue, providing gifts of food and toys to […]
You might recognize Dana Newquist and his 1937 Ford Fire Engine from Montecito’s annual Fourth of July parade, which he cofounded in 1996. Newquist bought the engine about 20 years ago from a Hollywood producer who used the vehicle for only a day – the lovingly restored, bright-red truck still bears the previous owner’s initials […]
More than one hundred Montecito and Santa Barbara residents gathered at noon on Saturday, December 12 in front of Tre Lune Ristorante to protest California Governor Gavin Newsom’s ban on outdoor dining in several Southern California counties including Santa Barbara. Although Newsom’s order aims to help local hospitals avoid an unmanageable spike in COVID-19 patients […]
If you’ve ever trekked up the walking path on the west side of San Ysidro Road between the 101 Freeway and East Valley Road, or along the north side of North Jameson Lane between San Ysidro and Olive Mill Road, then you are already familiar with Montecito’s recently established community trail network. While sidewalks were […]
Thanks to a collaboration between Heal the Ocean and MarBorg Industries, as well as funding from the Ohana Foundation, which was created by Kim and Jack Johnson (yes, that Jack Johnson), all the debris from a boat that disintegrated in early November near the Santa Barbara Cemetery has been removed. Although the identity of the […]
In a unanimous vote last week, the Montecito Planning Commission extended the permits for several Swiss-built flexible steel debris nets that were installed above town after the tragic mudslides that occurred in the wake of the Thomas Fire nearly three years ago. Thanks to a multi-million-dollar fundraising effort by The Partnership for Resilient Communities (TPRC), […]
Six years ago, former California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law landmark water management legislation consisting of several bills which bundled together were called the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). The law made history by finally mandating a statewide campaign to protect and preserve the groundwater basins that collectively make up the reserves of California’s […]
For the past 22 years, the Pierre Claeyssens Veterans Foundation has celebrated Veterans Day in style with gala events at the Hilton Waterfront Resort (formerly the Fess Parker). The group is named after the Belgian-born architect and humanitarian who fondly remembered his homeland’s First World War rescue by allied troops before moving to Santa Barbara […]
Santa Barbara’s hospitality industry still isn’t close to recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic but few employees have had it as bad as the roughly 450 workers from the Four Seasons Resort the Biltmore Santa Barbara, all of whom were furloughed last March and who lost their employer-funded medical insurance in July. Although the resort is […]
The Santa Barbara-based nonprofit Teacher’s Fund has raised tens of thousands in cash to help local teachers purchase tools and materials for their classrooms. Although the annual fundraiser, which took place between September 16 and October 16, had to be held online this year, it nonetheless managed to raise $56,000 worth of badly needed school […]
Montecito’s newest storefront, the small yet striking Caldwell Snyder Gallery features a monumental Brad Howe steel sculpture out front and showcases works by an exclusive roster of 55 living contemporary artists from around the world. It’s no coincidence that it’s located just across the street from the Honor Bar. Along with his longtime partner Susan […]
Now that the 101 Freeway widening project is finally upon us, the Journal will be regularly updating you on all the details of ramp closures and other construction news to help you better navigate the traffic. Here is what to expect on the 101 between Carpinteria and Montecito for the following week. Keep in mind […]
Earlier this year, the Journal highlighted the laudable efforts of our local beekeeping society, the Beekeepers Guild of Santa Barbara, to promote the health and welfare of our local pollinators. Aside from promoting best practices for maintaining beehives and providing resources for humane hive removal, the group also urges local residents to maintain bee-friendly gardens, […]
By the time you read this, the outcome of the U.S. presidential race may not be decided, but one thing will be certain: The much-anticipated 101 Freeway widening project, which will add two new lanes between Summerland and Santa Barbara over the next three years, will not only not be over, it will have already […]
On Tuesday, October 20, a few dozen teenagers held a protest outside the Santa Barbara Unified School District’s headquarters on Santa Barbara Street. Carrying signs bearing messages such as “We Want to Go Back to School” and “Give Us a Choice,” the group had a clear message for local school officials: After more than a […]
Every Halloween since 1996, the year after Montecito Journal’s first issue hit local newsstands, Coast Village Road has turned into “Ghost Village Road.” The annual event typically drew upwards of 1,000 parading trick-or-treaters along Coast Village Road, where local shop owners, restaurateurs, and hoteliers would hand out candy and in some cases create pop-up haunted […]
Congressman Salud Carbajal’s office announced today that it had secured a $13.5 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on behalf of the Santa Barbara County Flood Control District that will allow the county to purchase several properties along Randall Road in Montecito and begin construction on a new debris basin near San […]
After an almost monthlong closure aimed at preventing new fires in what is already one of the busiest fire seasons in California history, the National Forest Service reopened the Los Padres National Forest on October 9. At just after 9 am that morning, 13 mules and a horse led by a trio of wranglers hired […]
There’s a long history in Montecito of well-intentioned yet pricey local school bond measures that have failed to win at the ballot box. In 2012, Montecito Union School unsuccessfully sought to raise $27 million for various campus improvements, an effort that collapsed under the weight of criticism by property tax paying opponents who viewed it […]
If it wasn’t for the fact that his boss told him to steer a tea tray to President Ronald Reagan three decades ago, Tobias Pohlmeyer might never have come to America. It was a momentous occasion, as meeting Reagan inspired Pohlmeyer to cross the Atlantic and rise through the ranks of the global hospitality industry […]
When we first met Paul Madsen, he was the subject of much speculation within a lower Montecito message board on Nextdoor.com. Over the summer, several community members had posted on the app that they’d observed (and had been observed by) a gentleman seated in a white SUV parked on Posilipo Lane, just past the Rosewood […]
This November, three candidates are running for Carpinteria’s five-member city council: Mayor Wade Nomura, a former professional skateboarder; Mark McIntire, a former Santa Barbara City College philosophy professor; and Natalia Alarcon, a nonprofit program manager and clinical psychologist. Of the trio, Nomura, an incumbent, is the only candidate with any experience in city politics. McIntire, […]
Hard to believe there are only 40-plus days until the November election – which will (God-willing) be decided before 2020 happily rides off into the sunset. Judges like to say that ignorance of the law is not a defense. We believe the same goes for elections. The following is meant to provide you with relevant […]
Fresh on the heels of donating and distributing 33,000 cloth masks sewed by 300 volunteers, the Bucket Brigade (as well as 16 other organizations including the Santa Barbara County Food Action Network and the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County) is taking its crowd-sourcing expertise in a new direction: launching a major campaign of community and […]
Ever since March, Montecito’s Friendship Center has been delivering monthly care packages to its senior citizen clients who have been mostly isolated at their homes from Goleta to Summerland during the pandemic. Two months ago, the center also hosted a drive-in event where clients could wave to staff from the comfort and safety of their […]
Back in January, a standing-room-only crowd filled Montecito Union School’s auditorium for an update on what to expect this year in terms of both fire and rain. The message was exactly what residents were hoping to hear. First, a lower than average chance of the kind of rain events that could lead to another debris […]
For a man accustomed to building and racing some of the world’s fastest cars, Paul Madsen could be forgiven for thinking that it wouldn’t take two years to receive a permit to rebuild his house, which was destroyed in the January 2018 debris flows. But as the Montecito Journal highlighted last week, so far, it’s […]
County Responds to Concerns Over Pesticide Spraying in Debris Basins On August 6, acting on a tip from a reader, the Montecito Journal‘s Kelly Mahan Herrick reported that Santa Barbara County Flood Control employees had been spraying Roundup brand weed killer in the San Ysidro Creek debris basin. Since that article appeared, concerned readers have […]
To get on the 101 Freeway heading south at San Ysidro Road, you must first turn left on South Jameson Lane and then drive past the Rosewood Miramar Beach until you come to a stop sign at the corner of Posilipo Lane, just north of the train tracks. In front of you is an unforgivingly […]
This week, both sides of State Street would typically be lined with crowds watching men and women wearing traditional Mexican costumes parading on horseback or dancing in formation from one end of town to the other. But thanks to COVID-19, the annual Old Spanish Days Fiesta has been called off for the first time since […]
On May 26, the Santa Barbara Unified School District Board of Education voted unanimously to hire Hilda Maldonado as Superintendent in charge of the education of the county’s more than 14,000 elementary, junior and high school students. Maldonado’s prior job: Associate Superintendent of Leadership and Partnerships for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the […]
Anyone old enough to remember being at the beach or a nearby boardwalk in the 1970s and early ’80s will recall the sartorial zeitgeist: Tie-dyed or surfer tees (or no shirt at all) and Ocean Pacific-style board shorts. In those days, they were known simply as “swimsuits” anywhere outside California or the Hawaiian Islands or […]
Since 2009, the Organic Soup Kitchen has been the only organization in Santa Barbara County to deliver nutrient-rich soup meals to low-income families and homeless individuals. What started as a homespun effort to provide healthy meals to the homeless in local parks, has gradually become a successful, self-sustaining enterprise with its own kitchen that works […]
In an exclusive interview with the Montecito Journal, Ty Warner, Montecito resident, Beanie Baby creator, and billionaire owner of the Coral Casino Beach and Cabana Club, the Four Seasons Resort the Biltmore, the Montecito Country Club, and the San Ysidro Ranch, said he had no plans to sell any of his local properties, all of […]
In a video clip released July 27, former First District Supervisorial candidate Laura Capps officially announced her re-election campaign for the Santa Barbara Board of Education. In her case, “re-election” is somewhat of a misnomer, as Capps is the first to point out. “We got two new Board members in 2018, but the three of […]
After moving north to Montecito from Long Beach 10 years ago so that his family could be closer to the mountains and the sea at the same time, Tim Sulger began hiking the local canyons above his home near Westmont College. A decade into what has become a near daily routine, the daytime options trader […]
Ever since the Santa Barbara Grand Jury issued its damning report last month on the explosion of cannabis cultivation in Santa Barbara County, a widening ripple of reaction has circled around Carpinteria, Goleta, and Buellton, where residents hope the controversy will aid their efforts to curtail the industry. As the Montecito Journal reported last week, […]
Das Williams, Santa Barbara’s First District Supervisor, suddenly found himself under a harsh, almost Perry Mason-style cross examination during a July 13 interview with Steve Chiotakis, host of KCRW’S Greater L.A. radio talk show. “Your campaign contributions come from pot lobbyists trying to grow weed,” Chiotakis scoffed at one point. “And look, it’s legal, yeah, […]