Tag archives: pandemic

Montecito Association Virtually Meets
By Kelly Mahan Herrick   |   April 16, 2020

The plans for the Montecito Sanitary District Essential Services building and associated project components were discussed by the Montecito Association Board of Directors on Tuesday, as the project will be in front of the Montecito Board of Architectural Review this Thursday, April 16. The County of Santa Barbara has denied the issuance of an emergency […]

Music as Medicine in Troubling Times
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 16, 2020

If the coronavirus hadn’t turned so quickly into a pandemic, Mick and Tess Pulver would likely have been back in Santa Barbara earlier this month to conduct a “Song of the Soul” workshop, a two-day exploration to find “the song inside you that’s just waiting to break out.” The weekend event is a truncated version […]

Social Solidarity
By Mitchell Kriegman   |   April 16, 2020

The Quarantine Economy Julie McMurry lives in Santa Barbara and is a specialist in public health with a degree from the University of London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is currently an assistant professor, senior researcher, at Oregon State University in the College of Public Health. She wrote the manifesto which became flattenthecurve.com […]

Santa Barbara’s Dire Pre-Existing Conditions and COVID-19
By Mitchell Kriegman   |   April 16, 2020

“Put it this way, the glass is more than half empty. Let’s just throw the glass out the window. Let’s forget it. There’s distrust. There’s disdain. That kind of baggage,” Jason Harris admitted. He’s Santa Barbara’s newly hired, first ever, Economic Development Manager (EDM). He’s moving his family from Santa Monica to Thousand Oaks, not […]

Beer and Bread to the Rescue
By Nick Schou   |   April 16, 2020

For a man who brews beer, Montecito resident Kristopher Parker, the grandson of Fess Parker, the famed winemaker and 1950s television actor of Davy Crockett fame, has a somewhat surprising family background. “I grew up in the wine business,” Parker confirms. “My dad is a winemaker, but winemakers drink beer, and he also did home […]

Camerata Pacifica Curates Concerts for Pandemic
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 16, 2020

Camerata Pacifica was ready when the coronavirus pandemic became a crisis forcing cancellations and resulting in sheltering-in-place orders. The chamber music ensemble had already been compiling videos of its performance for more than a decade. “We definitely had a head start,” said Adrian Spence, the organization’s founding executive and artistic director. “When I see others […]

The Home Front
By Claudia Schou   |   April 16, 2020

With California’s statewide stay-at-home order in effect, businesses are closing and people are hunkering down at home, but still working, courtesy of Zoom and FaceTime. We spoke to four Montecito residents about how they’re managing to keep their businesses going during the coronavirus crisis: Vera Kong, Piano Instructor I spend most of my day connecting […]

Zoomers Helping Boomers
By Victoria Chow   |   April 16, 2020

In the midst of a global crisis, the pandemic and forced quarantine for Americans is causing strife among everyone. The ones that are getting hit the hardest? The elderly and immunocompromised. To stop the curve of the virus, people are encouraged to self-isolate. However, this serves as a major problem, as many people still have […]

Protecting the Community
By Richard Mineards   |   April 16, 2020

Santa Barbara fashion designer Catherine Gee is doing her part in helping with the coronavirus pandemic. Her company has partnered with Grant House Sewing and donated hundreds of yards of cotton linen for face masks, which will be given to doctors, nurses, and the local community. Additionally, the companies have donated stock fabrics to LAProtects.org, […]

Ellen at Home
By Richard Mineards   |   April 9, 2020

Montecito’s Ellen DeGeneres is set to bring back her hit eponymous TV talk show remotely after suspending production at her Warner Bros. Burbank studio because of the coronavirus. Ellen, 62, reveals she has been filming throughout her entire quarantine, conducting a series of A-list interviews for her at-home edition, including John Legend, Jennifer Lopez, and […]

Showing Gratitude
By Richard Mineards   |   April 9, 2020

It was the perfect blend when global medical device manufacturer Karl Storz Imaging president Miles Hartfeld expressed his gratitude to employees when they left work the other day at the Goleta offices. The company makes critically needed endoscopic medical equipment, including bronchoscopes used on the front lines in the battle against COVID-19. Although Governor Gavin […]

COVID-19 Updates
By Kelly Mahan Herrick   |   April 9, 2020

As of press time, Santa Barbara County Public Health Department reports 218 cases of COVID-19 in the county, which includes 14 cases in the South County communities of Montecito, Summerland, and Carpinteria. Of the over 200 cases, it was announced earlier this week that 37 of those are healthcare workers; a number that the Public […]

Santa Barbara Tourism Update
By Nick Schou   |   April 9, 2020

In the past few weeks, hundreds of Montecito and Santa Barbara residents have been laid off or furloughed in the wake of the social distancing and shelter at home mandates issued in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. To get a sense of how this has already affected Santa Barbara’s tourism and hospitality industries, we […]

New ‘Music That Matters’ Marks K-LITE’s Morning Show
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 9, 2020

K-LITE 101.7’s morning show team of Gary and Catherine quickly came to confront the COVID-19 crisis with a new feature called “Music That Matters Now!” The segment, which airs every weekday morning at 8:45 am on the popular Santa Barbara station, also combines talking with a local musician about their ideas about the role music […]

Digital Arts Festival Dives into Dance and Drama
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 9, 2020

Center Stage Theater (CST), the black-box venue that makes itself available to the community through largely low-cost rentals, is also stepping up its game in perhaps an even bigger way by offering a new streaming service every night through the end of the month. The segments will run each night at 7 pm, also starting […]

Persevering Through the Pandemic with Performances
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 9, 2020

The stated purpose of the Lois & Walter Capps Project is “Connecting our community through authentic and essential dialogue,” but its mission comes down to an even simpler three-word mantra, said president and executive director Todd Capps: “Bringing Us Together.” That encompasses all of the project’s enterprises from Common Table – which began a few […]

SB County’s Educators are United
By Anthony Ranii   |   April 9, 2020

When Gwyn Lurie approached me to write an occasional series on education, I jumped at the chance. It combines two things I love: thinking about education and working with Gwyn (she served on the Montecito Union School [MUS] Board during my first two years and made me think almost as much as she made me […]

The Economic Pandemic Meets the Hometown Banker
By Mitchell Kriegman   |   April 9, 2020

They call it the novel coronavirus. It will have existed for 142 days as of this publication. It’s called a “novel” virus because, while variations have existed before, this one is brand new. It’s unique in that it replicates quickly in asymptomatic people who are stealth carriers, then explodes in the population overwhelmingly, debilitating the […]

A Coronavirus Update from Montecito Fire Department Chief Kevin Taylor
By Nick Schou   |   April 2, 2020

Based on the rush of emergency supply hoarding that has gone on for the past few weeks, it seems reasonable to suggest that most Montecito residents weren’t exactly prepared for the COVID-19 crisis when it first hit two weeks ago. Fortunately for us, the Montecito Fire Department (MFD) has been preparing for the event for […]

Santa Barbara’s Stitch Witch Now on Mask Duty
By Nick Schou   |   April 2, 2020

A decade ago, after working at Nordstrom for several years, Ellen Sztuk took a lunch break one day and called up her husband, telling him she was going to quit her job. That night, when she came home from work, her husband asked her what she could possibly be thinking. “I told him that I […]