More than six months behind schedule, the draft Environmental Impact Report for the proposed development of Santa Barbara Ranch was released late last week. The long-awaited report – compiled by the URS Corporation – identifies several Class I (i.e. significant) environmental impacts within Orange County developer Matt Osgood’s plan to put 54 luxury homes on the 485-acre area popularly known as Naples.
I was halfway through the fifth hot dog when the nausea began to set in. The heat was unbearable – pushing 90 degrees in a parking lot just off Milpas. I hadn’t eaten all day in hopes of leaving my stomach race-ready for the first annual hot-dog-eating contest at the Doghouse, and now my mind was swimming in the brutal July sun, lost in a sea of cheap keg beer and orange and brown balloons. There was a kid to my left – probably half my age – still struggling to finish his first wiener. To my right was some guy named Jesse, just in from San Francisco via Cape Cod, sweating his way fast and furious through dog number four. I heard the emcee call out, “Eight minutes!” and I munched on, each chew a simultaneous attempt to stuff more pig product down my gullet while resisting the urge to projectile vomit.
Longstanding rumors came true last week when locally based surf industry giant Channel Islands Surfboards (CI) was bought out by an East Coast snowboard company. Living in the tenuous times of the post-Clark Foam shutdown, Al Merrick – the mastermind behind arguably the most famous surfboards in the world – announced last Thursday afternoon that his privately held multi-million- dollar international business is now owned by Vermont native Jake Burton and his equally world-renowned snowboard company, Burton.
Despite being exonerated recently at a state-level administrative hearing, former Dos Pueblos High School social studies teacher Matef Harmachis is still fighting for his job and his good name.
Responsible for helping multiply CDs’ memory capacity by five, creating streetlamps that don’t attract bugs, and working to bring brighter and more energy-efficient light bulbs to the world, UCSB professor Shuji Nakamura (pictured) was recognized last week by the international scientific community with the 2006 Millennium Technology Award. Nakamura – who has been a Gaucho professor of electrical and computer engineering since 2000 – was given the “Holy Grail of semi-conductor research” for his work with light emitting diodes (LED) and the blue laser diode that reads CDs and DVDs.
The rumors are true. One of Santa Barbara’s most beloved eating and drinking establishments is calling it quits at the end of next month. July 29 will mark the last call for alcohol and egg rolls at Jimmy’s Oriental Gardens on East Canon Perdido Street. A staple in the local community since it opened in 1947, Jimmy’s has been a favorite of downtown workers, the theater community, and anyone just looking for a good drink and a welcoming place with arguably the best jazz soundtrack this side of the Mississippi.
Emotions ran high this week at City Hall as several UCSB students – a majority of them black – publicly accused the Santa Barbara Police Department of brutality during a late-night arrest gone terribly wrong last week. With Police Chief Cam Sanchez looking on, a dozen witnesses gave their accounts of the scene outside Cooney’s Bar late last Thursday night, relaying teary and outraged stories of unwarranted pepper spraying, excessive use of batons, and a woman being “dragged by her hair across the street with her breast hanging out.”
With parents organizing to propose a charter school in the Hope Elementary School District, officials held an impromptu informational hearing Monday night with a Los Angeles-based lawyer who specializes in charter-school policies.
Closing arguments in the rape trial of former Devereux School employee Darren Boyer Thomas (pictured) concluded this week, with a jury verdict expected as soon as this Friday. Thirty-nine-year-old Thomas – who is charged with raping and impregnating a developmentally disabled resident at the school in December 2003 – took the stand on Monday afternoon as the sole witness for the defense.
Ominously tagged with the devilish dateline 6/6/06, Tuesday was Election Day for Californians. With several significant local primaries, and a proposal to split Santa Barbara County in half on the docket, turnout at the polls was markedly light; about 46 percent of registered voters county wide cast ballots, and nearly 60 percent of these were absentee. While there were no jaw-dropping returns Wednesday morning, there was enough percentage-point jockeying on Tuesday evening to keep the camp fires burning late in many of the candidates’ post-election party sites.
