As a world and as a county, we face monumental challenges: climate, poverty, education, income inequality, systemic racism and sexism, houselessness, mental health, inflation, access to healthcare, etc… It’s a too-long list of issues that are intersectional and deep. And the only way for our leaders to even begin to unpack such a multiverse of […]
Remember the 2018 devastating debris flow that changed Montecito forever? Those of us who lived here at the time do. Like it happened yesterday, with all the pain and loss and destruction it brought. But for those who made Montecito their home post-debris flow (or PDF as I like to call it), the knowledge of […]
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When I arrived at the Montecito Journal in 2019, my partner, Tim Buckley, said to me: “This might surprise you, but everything that happens everywhere else, also happens in here.” Tim’s apocryphal and prescient message, however, made it no less shocking for me when I learned that on Wednesday, February 16, smack in the […]
I reconnected with showbiz vets James Widdoes and Tim Matheson on the passing of Ivan Reitman, the prolific director and producer and founder of the wildly successful production company The Montecito Picture Company. All four of us (including Reitman) are connected through the National Lampoon, a magazine where I was once editor but which has […]
We love our pets. They’re family members. And the dozen or so years most of us get with our canine loved ones fly by too quickly. But when one dies prematurely and unexpectedly, it’s a whole other level of painful and tragic. No one understands this more than a local Montecito family, who brought their […]
The last time I sat face-to-face with Congressman Salud Carbajal was in September of 2020, when we were all optimistic that the pandemic’s end was in sight. That was three years into his stint in Congress. And as honored as he was to be representing this district in the People’s House, he nonetheless seemed burdened […]
I’ve lived in Santa Barbara and Summerland for nearly 50 years and while I love our community, the continued lack of transparency needs to end. The current gas station remodeling in Summerland is a microcosm of the darkness that shrouds many County-decisions. More importantly, it demonstrates how our 1,500-person community is being run: In the […]
As we face the new year, it is lost on no one that those of us fortunate to have made it this far are heading into our third year living with COVID. At the same time, we are careening toward another all-important midterm election inside a nation seemingly as politically divided as ever. In addition, […]
“Let the Chips Fall Where They May Say” More and more I hear people say: “I hate politics.” But is it really politics we hate, or is what we hate the subversion of democracy by small groups of people who work hard to amass and hold on to power so they can determine who we […]
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It’s become a useful axiom in national politics to ask voters: Are you better off than you were four years ago? Applied to the City of Santa Barbara, I don’t know anyone who would answer that question in the affirmative. I don’t even believe the Santa Barbara County Democratic Party (known to insiders as the […]
Scheduling is never easy where busy people are concerned. It’s less easy when you throw stubborn or otherwise motivated people into the mix. We’ve covered this with the county’s scheduling of an important meeting on Yom Kippur regarding a permit for a cannabis dispensary on Santa Claus Lane. A meeting which has since been rescheduled […]
Today’s Community Voices by Janna Zimmer is one I encourage readers, including those who plan for and are elected to serve Santa Barbara County, to read (it’s on page 23). As Zimmer points out, the County of Santa Barbara has scheduled an important hearing to discuss the naturally controversial proposed cannabis dispensary on Santa Claus […]
When I arrived at the Montecito Journal, I received some push back for writing about affairs outside of Montecito. But I felt strongly then, and still do, that many aspects of life in greater Santa Barbara are integral to the lives of Montecitans. That goes for healthcare, social impact work, the development of downtown, the […]
Amidst the national news that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo resigned for his misogynistic and retro (at best) workplace behavior, I wouldn’t want you to miss our own local cringeworthy episode. Not much shocks me these days. But yesterday, while watching local journalist Josh Molina interview influential Santa Barbara real estate developer Ed St. George […]
