29 Jul 2021
After Long Year, Barbara’s Birthday Bash Just What Hillside Needed
The pandemic put a damper on everyone’s best-laid plans, but for the residents of Hillside — a Santa Barbara facility for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities — it was truly devastating. Many of the residents lead active lives and follow carefully constructed routines under usual circumstances. Most leave Hillside daily for a variety of […]
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Sharing the Love of Jewelry at Peregrine Galleries
For nearly 40 years, Marlene Vitanza and her late husband, Jim, have been bringing together a unique blend of paintings, jewelry, and ethnographic arts at their local establishment, Peregrine Galleries. They had a shop in Santa Barbara about 10 years prior to opening Peregrine Galleries on Coast Village Road in 1984. Their first gallery had […]
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23 Jul 2021
Pay It Forward
It was a case of kids helping kids when youngsters from Mountain View Elementary School donated $1,600 – 20 percent of their tickets sales from their annual school fundraiser – to Cold Spring School, which lost two pupils in the January mudslides and is currently trying to raise $485,000 after property tax revenues were impacted […]
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Out Goes Another SBCC President; In Comes New Identity for Private School
The seemingly revolving chair that is the top job at Santa Barbara City College is turning over yet again — the latest presidential resignation a partial byproduct of ongoing disagreements over COVID protocols as the school sets to reopen August 23. In an abrupt announcement after a Board of Trustees special meeting on July 12, […]
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Montecito Club’s Sports Complex Latest
Last Thursday, after more than four hours of discussion, the Santa Barbara City Planning Commission voted unanimously to give Montecito Club owner Ty Warner and disgruntled neighbor Angelo Mozilo two months to cooperate enough to conduct a noise study at the Club’s “Sports Complex,” which was built on the property’s upper lawn without the benefit […]
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Marymount To Become “The Riviera Ridge School”
Christina Broderick has been receiving plenty of congratulatory calls from her predecessors at Marymount Santa Barbara — er, The Riviera Ridge School (RRS). After years of discussion, the K-8 private school on Santa Barbara’s Riviera — which serves roughly 20-25 students from Montecito per year — has a new brand for the 2021-22 school year, […]
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22 Jul 2021
An Architectural Jewel: Lobero Associates Still Serving the Theatre
“Welcome home!” exclaimed Lobero Associates President Mindy Denson as the group gathered for the first time since the pandemic. We were sitting under the new sail ceiling in the courtyard — a gift from the Associates to the Lobero Theatre. The sun and shade danced above us while a nice breeze flowed throughout. It’s a […]
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Montecito Market Movement and a Few Best Buys to Boot
In pre-COVID times, one could buy a very nice home with 2,000 – 3,000 square feet of living space on a larger lot (over half-acre) or in a prime spot or beach area, for around $2 to $2.5 million. I can point to dozens of closed comps just two years ago, that illustrate how these […]
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The Saint of Montecito: The Life of Steven Berg
You sensed straight away that he was more than a nice guy; something other than a rail-thin, tall soul in a plaid shirt and jeans, looking to lend a hand. Though Steven Berg, who passed away on May 31, worked hard to convince you that he was just a regular gruff Joe, it was a […]
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Jeanne Cooley Greeley Thayer: A Life of Wanderlust, Art & Family
Jeanne Thayer never felt comfortable on a pedestal, ever since she was a young girl, too tall and lanky to feel like she belonged at the center of attention. Modesty followed her like a shadow, from her self-perceived awkwardness of youth into the awareness of her own privilege as a young adult. She lived a […]
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Whale of a Show
“I’ve never seen it like this. Business has never been better.” That’s quite the statement from Hiroko Benko, the CEO of the Condor Express, the booming whale-watching outfit that takes daily trips into the Santa Barbara Channel to give locals and tourists a glimpse at nearly every species of whale, as well as dolphins, seals, […]
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To the Garvin! New Revue Puts SBCC Theatre Group Back on Stage
If SBCC Theatre Group’s welcome back production at the Garvin Theatre this weekend evokes a feeling of deja vu, that might be because the show, now titled Here We Go Again! A Musical Revue is something of an update of one SBCC offered last fall. But while Looking Back, Looking Forward was made inside its […]
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Raab Writing Fellows Develop Writing Skills as a Form of Personal Discovery
Writing is oftentimes a multidisciplinary creative process, combining the mechanics of English with one’s understanding of the subject matter. Since 2017, the Raab Writing Fellows Program at UCSB has been giving students the opportunity to express their range of interests and explore the multidisciplinary skills that writing requires. Supported by author and educator Diana Raab, […]
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Thank you, Montecito
Thank you to everyone who cut back overgrown vegetation to make your community safer from future wildfires. Thank you for hauling your branches and brush to the curb, for welcoming our chipping crews to your neighborhood and for taking initiative to protect your home ahead of fire season. Now in its 22nd year, Montecito Fire’s […]
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Get Your Priorities Straight
To the Mayor, City Council Members: 4th of July my family and I took a walk down upper State Street in Santa Barbara. As we walked, we had concerns about the planning by the city to provide a safe sidewalk. We also wondered if there would ever be another parade down State Street. The heritage of […]
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Rowe-ing in a New Direction
Former attorney turned successful financial management analyst Matt Rowe has been elected chair of the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara. A native of Melbourne, Australia, Rowe, who began his two-year term last week, earned a law degree at the city’s Monash University and later immigrated to New York, where he transitioned from law into wealth […]
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All Saints-by-the-Sea Reopens
After an extensive 2.5-year remodel project coupled with a complete shutdown due to the COVID pandemic, All Saints-by-the-Sea Church in Montecito reopened last weekend, welcoming dozens of parishioners eager to reconnect with one another. “It was a true homecoming,” said Reverend Aimee Eyer-Delevett. In 2012, engineering consultants advised leadership that the church’s iconic bell tower […]
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So Many Words, So Little Action! It’s time for Corporate America to step up its game
As almost everyone in the U.S. is now aware, Georgia’s Republican legislators passed legislation to: a) actively suppress voter turnout, making it significantly harder for minorities to vote by adding new vote-by-mail identification requirements, limiting drop boxes, and an assortment of other measures designed to resuscitate “Jim Crow” voting in the state; and, b) provide […]
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Order in Court
I’ve only been in court twice in my life, and the first time, in 1956, resulted in a jail sentence. I was 21, recently immigrated from England, and eager for new American experiences. Driving my first car, I had received a ticket for going over an occupied pedestrian crossing. (Since then, I’ve mostly been a […]
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