!%$@# HAPPENS: Poor Vladimir Kogan. He can’t buy a friend. At least not on Santa Barbara’s unforgiving blogosphere, now energized like never before. Kogan is one of the News-Press newbies recently hired to replace the 30-plus writers, editors, and photographers who quit-or were fired-protesting NP owner Wendy McCaw’s ferocious reign of error.
In the latest twist in the spiraling saga of Santa Barbara’s daily newspaper, Nick Welsh explains why The Independent is being sued by the News-Press, why they got no case, and why Wendy P. McCaw might be better off suing herself.
CHAMELEON BLUES: Poor Dan Secord. It’s not an easy time to be a Republican. It’s even harder to run as one. It’s Dan’s unhappy lot in life to run as a moderate, enlightened, bike-path Republican for a spot on the County Board of Supervisors at precisely…
The race for County Sheriff heats up as the last men standing, current Sheriff Jim Anderson faces off against Lompoc Police Chief Bill Brown shed the usual political niceties.
It was all about dollars and cents and very little Good Samaritan sentiment early Tuesday afternoon as the county supervisors unanimously approved a new plan its authors boldly claim will end chronic homelessness countywide in the next 10 years. The linchpin of the plan is to first get the chronically homeless into housing; then bombard them with social services, detox treatment, mental healthcare, and job training.
No-Brainer Blues: Somebody get Kinsey Millhone on the phone. If Measure D, the countywide traffic congestion relief effort, fails to pass this November, Santa Barbara’s most famous detective writer, Sue Grafton, will have to revisit her alphabetical crime novels and replace “D Is for Deadbeat”-written eons ago-with “D Is for Dummies.”
The gloves came off within the first few seconds of last Thursday evening’s candidates’ forum that pitted incumbent Sheriff Jim Anderson against his challenger, Lompoc Police Chief Bill Brown-and they stayed off all night.
A Santa Barbara man who claims city police illegally beat and detained him after he exited a State Street bar on Halloween two years ago has sued the City of Santa Barbara in federal court, claiming civil rights violations.
We heard that Garry Trudeau, who created the politically oriented comic strip Doonesbury in 1970, doesn’t do interviews. So when The Independent was contacted by UCSB Arts & Lectures with the opportunity to interview the only comic strip writer to ever win a Pulitzer Prize, we jumped at the chance. The prescribed format? A short introduction by the writer and a few questions. The result? Read on.
The Santa Barbara City Council executed a drastic about-face Tuesday night, voting in concept to allow developer Mark Lee to build up to 26 units on vacant land running along Las Positas Road across from Elings Park, rather than the 15 units the councilmembers had insisted upon this March.
