Embattled developer Bill Levy pulled a last-minute rabbit out of his hat late Monday, notifying City Hall that he’d obtained a $115 million loan to begin – and hopefully complete – construction on a private redevelopment project to transform the lower three blocks of State Street into a glimmering oasis of upscale Ritz-Carlton timeshare condos.
The top 20 finalists in a young cartoonists’ contest sponsored by the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary won a day trip to Santa Cruz Island with Mad magazine cartoonist Sergio Aragones last Sunday, while the top six teenage cartoonists also took home cash prizes.
American diplomat and former Santa Barbara resident Colleen Graffy found herself in hot water this weekend after telling BBC reporters that last week’s suicides by three prisoners at the United States’ controversial Guantanamo Bay military prison constituted “a good PR move,” designed to “further the jihadi cause.”
Upon receiving my degree in global studies from UCSB last year, I decided to move abroad and put to use what I had learned. Three months after college I hopped a plane to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico to live, work, and practice my Spanish. I had succeeded in doing the minimum of this objective for the first three months of what became a seven-month stay, but somehow was not feeling complete in my quasi-assimilation and cultural research. I knew that volunteering would help me to meet more of the local community, but I wasn’t sure how to go about becoming a volunteer.
Aiming to make marijuana the lowest police priority in town, Sensible Santa Barbara an organization exclusively committed to promoting a ganja-friendly ordinance submitted more than 11,500 signatures of support to the city clerks for certification last week, in hopes of either getting the item on the November ballot or before the City Council sometime before then.
Thu., June 15 Anti-War Crimes Protest: Before MacGregor Eddy’s sentencing for trespassing at Vandenberg. Noon. Federal courthouse, 1415 State St. Go
The Santa Barbara Museum of Art has been shaking things up since last September with a new hanging of its permanent collection, Picture Stories: The Art of Europe and the Americas. It’s hard not to notice the difference in the Sterling Morton West gallery, for example. If you are looking for stylistic unity, or even expecting to find just one artistic medium, the room looks like a jumble.
Outside of Hollywood on Academy Awards night, Santa Barbara arguably boasts the highest concentration of photographers in the country. This makes it all the more ironic that a town so connected with the medium currently has no galleries dedicated to photography.
Superior Court Judge George Eskin (pictured left) was recused from presiding over the felony child endangerment trial of Sylvia Vasquez – a popular preschool teacher accused of locking her adopted children in cages – because of an alleged conflict of interest.
– County Supervisor Salud Carbajal on the Granada Garage and the love-hate relationship between Santa Barbara City Hall and Santa Barbara County.
