California Attorney General Bill Lockyer denounced the collection of political information by the governor’s Office of Homeland Security (OHS) earlier this year about a protest co-hosted by the Santa Barbara chapter of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) in the Courthouse’s Sunken Gardens.
Esau’s – one of Santa Barbara’s signature breakfast and lunch spots for more than 50 years – may be forced to find new quarters because the restaurant’s landlord refuses to negotiate a new lease. According to Esau owner Scott Stanley, landlords Abe and Mike Safina have declined to discuss renegotiating his lease at 403 State Street, which expires in October.
After barely snagging the most votes in the June primary, 2nd District supervisorial candidate Dan Secord is taking the offensive against candidate Janet Wolf, his opponent in the November run-off.
Six months after it opened for business, Santa Barbara’s $25-million five-story parking garage is still only one-third to one-half full during most workdays. According to public works officials, the 575-space Granada Garage typically has between 150 and 250 cars parked in it, despite a chronic downtown parking deficit – frequently cited by garage advocates – of about 1,500 spaces.
The City of Santa Barbara’s street-sweeping program has proven so successful in its four years in operation – scooping up 1.9 million pounds of debris and gunk from city streets and curbs each year – that public works administrators want to expand into the Mesa and the upper Mesa. While generous with their praise, councilmembers urged caution when it came to what Councilmember Grant House termed “street sign pollution.”
Any notions that the Metropolitan Transit District (MTD) might relocate its Chapala Street transit center to the railroad depot – in anticipation of the still hypothetical day when Santa Barbara might enjoy commuter rail service – were soundly squashed Tuesday afternoon during a joint meeting of the Santa Barbara City Council and MTD’s board of directors. Members of both agencies unanimously and enthusiastically affirmed their support for the transit center’s octagonal-shaped current digs, pointing out that downtown is the final destination for many bus riders, not merely a jumping-off point for other journeys.
About 30 South Coast activists associated with the Santa Barbara Chapter of MoveOn.org – including former assemblymember Hannah-Beth Jackson – gathered at the Chevron gas station by Hollister Avenue and Storke Road to protest the recent spike in gasoline prices and denounce the political influence oil companies exert through campaign cash.
SMOKE ‘EM IF YOU GOT ‘EM: Legendary baseball great Satchel Paige once warned, “Don’t look back. They may be gaining.” I’ve got news for Satchel: There ain’t no “maybe” about it. I can feel their fetid breath on the back of my neck, and it’s only getting warmer. This Tuesday, the U.S. Senate came within just one measly vote of celebrating the Fourth of July by torching the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. By that, I’m referring to the 66 U.S. Senators – including California’s ranking Dempublicrat Dianne Feinstein – who voted in favor of amending our Constitution to ban flag burning.
A state bill co-sponsored by Santa Barbara Assemblymember Pedro Nava that would cap the amount of greenhouse gases that California businesses can produce – effective in 2012 – easily passed the Senate Environmental Quality Committee Monday afternoon, despite a major adversarial campaign launched by a coalition of state business interests led by the Chamber of Commerce. The bill – co-sponsored by Assembly Speaker Fabian N°±ez – would require businesses to start monitoring their greenhouse gas emissions in 2010 and then begin reducing them two years later.
CLASH OF THE TITANS: Okay, so it wasn’t Godzilla vs. Mothra, Alien vs. Predator, or even the Mummy vs. the Wolf Man. But by Santa Barbara standards, it was easily the next best thing: John Davies vs. Marshall Rose. Or perhaps John Davies versus the world, which is probably how it seemed at 7:30 a.m. just a few Thursdays ago. What had been billed as a long-awaited PowerPoint wonk fest on how best to get downtown employees to bus, bike, walk, or carpool to work quickly degenerated into a verbal smackdown worthy of the World Wide Wrestling Federation‘s pre-fight theatrics.
