Theft of Nuns’ $$: A year ago, donations to help three nuns evicted from their longtime Eastside convent vanished. Since then, Santa Barbara police have been painstakingly investigating the Goleta woman who took over the fund drive.

Police have arrested Denise Rachele D’Sant Angelo on suspicion of grand theft of $2,800 in donations, they have been able to verify. She posted $50,000 bail and faces a December 19 court date, according to detective Eric Beecher.

Still a mystery, however, is the fate of the nuns’ modest convent next to Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church on Santa Barbara’s Eastside. In August of 2007, the L.A. Catholic Archdiocese ordered the three nuns of the Sisters of Bethany to leave the convent, saying that it had to be sold to help pay multi-million-dollar settlements to victims of priest abuse in California.

To date, about 15 months later, the vacant property has not been put on the market and parishioners have heard that it might instead be converted to use by Our Lady of Guadalupe. Anger still seethes over the way the nuns were treated—told by the archdiocese to leave on short notice and offered no relocation help. Sympathetic Santa Barbarans raised money to help them.

But after D’Sant Angelo took over the fundraising committee, TV talk show host Ernie Salomon and others became concerned about why the nuns weren’t getting the donations and about the whereabouts of the funds. Some donors canceled their checks, one for a reported $10,000. The three nuns, Sister Angela, Sister Margarita, and Sister Consuelo, finding themselves on the verge of being homeless, were given refuge by Sister Abigail at St. Mary’s Episcopal Retreat House next to the Old Mission.

In May, Sister Angela went on medical leave, Sister Margarita was reassigned by the Sisters of Bethany to their L.A. convent, and Sister Consuelo went to teach school in her native Colombia.

Obama Blend: Blue Booth, co-owner of Vices & Spices coffee shop, is offering Obama Blend java, brewed from Indonesian, Hawaiian, and Kenyan beans, reflecting the president-elect’s global heritage. Some Republicans, Blue hears, find it a bit bitter. Blue is also pouring organic Kona coffee from his own Big Island fields. But it won’t last long.

Bank on This: Money man Steve Crozier passed on this amusing bit that’s been circulating around the Internet: Super Coupon Savings. Buy a toaster and get a free bank, $19.99 each. Coupons included Merrill Lynch, WaMu, Wachovia, Fannie Mae, and Countrywide.

Journo News: Josh Molina, former Santa Barbara City Hall reporter for the pre-meltdown News-Press, is now associate editor of the Santa Barbara-based Hispanic Business magazine. After resigning from the NP, Josh spent two years as city hall reporter for the San Jose Mercury. “It was a fun job,” Josh told me, but this is where his heart is. He’s also freelancing for the Daily Sound. Among those who lost jobs during the recent staff cuts at the Ventura County Star is Patricia Marroquin, senior copy editor. But the good news is that she’s been hired at the Hispanic Business copy desk. Her husband, George Foulsham, former News-Press managing editor (he quit during the meltdown), is news director at UCSB. Since Hispanic Business, a national publication, is located in Goleta, they can carpool from home in Oxnard.

Spoon River: The Ed Giron-directed Spoon River Anthology, adapted from Edgar Lee Masters’s book, was such a hit at Victoria Hall, where Sue and I caught it Friday night, that residents of Spoon River Cemetery will gather to tell their life stories again next month. There’ll be return engagements December 15 for an invited audience at the Center Stage Theater and regular performances December 17-18 at Center Stage. See centerstage.org for info.

Watercolor Folks: It’s a treat for the eye; the Los Padres Watercolor Society show at the Santa Barbara Public Library’s Faulkner Gallery runs through November 29.

Celebutants: Ronnie Mellen, creative director of Santa Barbara Location Services, has acquired movie rights to The Celebutantes, the best-selling series of young-adult books by Antonio Pagliarulo about three glamorous Manhattan teenagers who have an unexpected knack for solving murders. Mellen, a transplanted New Yorker, expects to use her 20-plus years of production experience in Santa Barbara to draw on local personnel for the team she’s putting together, beginning with writers, directors, and talent.

Family Farm: Odd coincidence on Upper State, Farmer’s Insurance is next door to The Farmer Boy restaurant. No connection that I know of.

Stealing Big: Sharon Waxman, who covered the News-Press meltdown in 2006 for the New York Times, told me that she was writing a book about how colonial powers looted conquered countries of art. Now the book is out, named appropriately, Loot, published by Henry Holt & Co.

Photos Burned?: Professional photographer and UCSB prof Richard Ross is offering to help those who lost their photos in the Tea Fire. “I thought it might be a decent idea to help them restart their photographic history by offering to shoot family portraits of these folks. A few of my graduate students will help shoot at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum. Samy’s Camera has volunteered to make 8-by-10 prints as well. SBCAF has offered their space to shoot. People can contact studio@richardross.net. Please put SB FIRE in the subject.

Sweet Music: Kudos to the Santa Barbara Symphony for its free Sunday night Granada concert honoring firefighters, playing the Dvorak’s emotional From the New World symphony. Having heard the program Saturday night, I headed to Santa Barbara City College on Sunday night, when a full house at the Garvin Theater heard Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite and other pieces played by the college’s Symphony Orchestra. (Six bucks for seniors and they jammed the place.)

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