Last week – in the middle of the mess of coronavirus-related closures and several days of seemingly nonstop rain – the inevitable happened: I got a flat tire. The tire pressure light on my Prius had been on for a few days, so I did what any sensible busy person would do and swung by […]
Not even an epic coronavirus pandemic can slow down Abe Powell. The founder of the Bucket Brigade who became a local hero in Montecito after the 1/9 debris flow, when he led local residents in an impromptu effort to dig out their neighbors’ homes, is now taking a front-line role in educating the public about […]
Although for humans it might seem like life has come to a complete stop, the cycle of life and rebirth in the natural world around us continues. This pattern is never more striking than during spring, however, which to wildlife rescue experts has another name: “Baby Season,” which is when mammals produce the bulk of […]
Summerland resident Lee Heller has lived in Santa Barbara County, including Montecito, for the past 23 years, and has been active in animal services for another few decades before that. She’s also a longtime volunteer with the cat-centric Animal Shelter Assistance Program, or ASAP, which is based in Goleta. According to Heller, animal shelters throughout […]
One person who has no problem practicing social distancing in Montecito’s front country is Andrea Strand, 42, a registered nurse and nurse practitioner who gets up well before dawn each morning to ride her bike up various paved inclines, especially Gibraltar Road, with the goal of reaching the top by sunrise. “I’m the unofficial hill […]
Despite mounting fears over the COVID-19, aka the “coronavirus,” on March 24, the U.S. Forest Service officially declared that the extensive trail network in the hills above Montecito will remain open for recreational activities until further notice. The news came as a relief to Ashlee Mayfield, president of the Montecito Trail Foundation (MTF), in part […]
In the past several days, the so-called coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic has spread into California and registered its first infection in Santa Barbara. On March 13, Santa Barbara’s Organic Soup Kitchen announced it is expanding its delivery service to help people stay in and stay healthy during the health scare. “We produce soup and deliver […]
If you’ve ever had breakfast or lunch at the Montecito Coffee Shop – it’s the restaurant next to the San Ysidro Pharmacy at the intersection of East Valley and San Ysidro roads – then you may have been waited on by a petite and unassuming woman who seems to know her way around the establishment. […]
A long–simmering conflict over cannabis odor and pesticide use continues in Carpinteria Smell, What Smell? On a recent afternoon, Hans Brand steers his electric golf cart-type vehicle from the main office of his Carpinteria cannabis farm to a sprawling greenhouse that seems big enough to fit a football field inside it. Inside the structure, at […]
About four miles and 3,500 vertical feet uphill from the San Ysidro Trailhead, a Los Padres Forest Association (LPFA) work crew wearing hardhats printed in block letters with their names, are wielding hand hoes. They’re fixing a somewhat crumbling ridge dotted with small bushes and the scorched skeletons of small trees that burned in the […]
The Montecito Sanitary District (MSD) was formed in 1947 with the sole purpose of collecting, treating and disposing of the community’s wastewater, but it didn’t actually come online as a completed sewage system and treatment facility until the early 1960s. Today, the MSD serves approximately 3,100 customers in Montecito, with only a scattered number of […]
As evidenced by the January 27 debate between First District Supervisor Das Williams and challenger Laura Capps – the Montecito Journal Media Group’s standing-room-only event at the Music Academy of the West’s Hahn Hall – we’ve been paying a lot of attention to local politics of late. Continuing with that mission, we offer this guide […]
Over the decades since he became a highly successful architect, Robert Easton has constructed custom design homes for a litany of celebrities – everyone from Barbara Streisand, Jane Fonda, Michael Douglas and Michael J. Fox to Joe Cocker, Barry Manilow, Mike Love and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys – even Charo of “Cuchi-Cuchi” and […]
Two years ago this week, at approximately 3:30 am on the morning of January 9, 2018, a massive rainstorm unleashed a series of lethal debris flows that swept through Montecito, killing 23 people and leaving scores more injured and homeless. Two victims were never recovered, including Jack Cantin, whose father, David, also died in the […]
The life and accomplishments of one of the most influential but least known Santa Barbara architects will be celebrated at the Lobero Theatre on January 5. LUTAH A Passion for Architecture: A Life of Design tells the story of Lutah Maria Riggs (1896-1984), a protégé of famed architect George Washington Smith, who, among other landmark local buildings […]
The standing room-only crowd that filled Montecito Union School’s meeting hall on the evening of December 5 wanted one thing above all else: good news. And by and large, that’s what they got from the group of city, state, and federal officials who presented their latest findings on both the winter weather forecast and the […]
In the wake of the devastating debris flows of January 9, 2018 that killed 23 people in Montecito, local residents gathered together to brainstorm a safety solution that could prevent a similar tragedy. The Partnership for Resilient Communities (TPRC) raised millions of dollars to purchase state-of-the-art steel nets – high-tensile ring nets designed by the […]