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C E L E B R AT I N G 5 0 Y E A R S
LAST W Santa Maria Times
AUGUST 1-24 SOLVANG FESTIVAL THEATER
RODGERS RODGERS & & HAMMERSTEIN’S HAMMERSTEIN’S
OKLAHOMA! Music by Richard Rodgers. Book & Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II.
WORLD PRemie emieR Re! JUL 31 - AUG AUG 17
“RIvetIng!” Santa Maria Times
over the summer and was celebrated with a ribbon-cutting on Monday attended by officials from the county and the Santa Barbara Unified School District. Supervisor Janet Wolf, whose district includes the trail, said, “I know this path will provide a much safer route to school for students and community members.”
The Board of Supervisors on 8/19 unanimously approved antenna-system additions proposed for various sites in Montecito by Crown Castle, an agent of Verizon, after previous meetings of the board and the Montecito Planning Commission resulted in requests for the company to make the additions more aesthetically compatible with the area. First District Supervisor Salud Carbajal said he’d only approve the project, which has undergone 162 changes, if four conditions — including removing “blight”-causing battery packs from the infrastructure — were met. Crown Castle obliged.
GOLETA
MARIAN THEATRE, SANTA MARIA
PAU L WELLM AN
“A CLASSIC!”
eeKeND
AUG 28-SEP 7 SOLVANG FESTIVAL THEATER
CONT’D
The Goleta City Council voted on 8/19 to reappoint councilmembers Michael Bennett, Roger Aceves, and Paula Perotte to new four-year terms, rather than holding a $17,000 election in November for the three, who are unchallenged in their bids to remain on the dais. No other applicants filed to run by the 8/8 deadline, weeks after seven candidates interviewed to take the spot of former councilmember Ed Easton, who resigned when he moved out of city limits. Accountant Tony Vallejo was chosen for the seat through 2017. During the interview process, the councilmembers advised the candidates about the low pay ($6,384 yearly salary) and long hours.
EDUCATION
By José Cruz González. Music by Daniel Valdez.
TickeTs 922-8313 | box office 12:30-7pm wed-sun | pcpa.org
What was once a flood-prone dirt path to school for El Camino Elementary School and San Marcos High School students is now a paved walkway with drainage improvements. The new 1,300-foot path in the unincorporated area near Goleta, called the Tatum MultiUse Trail Project (pictured), was completed
UCSB continues to attract more students from out of the state and country, following a trend across the University of California system. Of UCSB’s 4,655 incoming students this fall, 519, or 11 percent, hail from out-of-state or abroad. Five years ago, only 2 percent of students enrolled were considered “nonresident.” UCSB has fewer than the Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses, where about 30 percent of enrollment will be nonresidents this fall. UCSB spokesperson George Foulsham said the campus has a 10 percent goal for nonresident enrollment. Ten years ago, out-of-state and foreign students paid $14,230 more than their in-state counterparts. Now, nonresidents pay $22,878 more. ■
Casa de la Foreclosure?
For the second time in the past two years, officers of La Casa de la Raza find themselves confronting the prospect of imminent foreclosure if they don’t come up with tens of thousands of dollars by this coming Monday. La Casa is both a building — in this case occupying nearly one square block on East Montecito Street — as well as an organization dedicated to providing affordable community-center space to organizations serving the city’s Latino population. Founded in 1971, La Casa has been treading on financial thin ice for some time; two years ago, the County of Santa Barbara initiated proceedings to auction the property after La Casa fell $90,000 behind in property tax payments over a 10-year period. A dispute over property taxes precipitated La Casa’s most recent predicament, as well, though this time the hole — $45,000 — is not quite so deep. According to executive Raquel López, nearly $10,000 of that stems from a delinquent property-tax payment that La Casa is contesting. The bank holding La Casa’s mortgage notified López she needed to pay the property taxes now — regardless of the dispute over their calculation — or face default action. Until that payment is made, she explained, the bank has also declined to accept La Casa’s mortgage payments for two months. Property taxes and back rent, she said, total about $25,000. The rest, she said, were fees, penalties, and interest charged by the bank. López said La Casa’s attorney Robin Unander is seeking to negotiate less onerous terms with the bank. If need be, she added, La Casa could and would make the payment before a default action takes place. La Casa’s well-known financial struggles have been exacerbated by past bookkeeping practices that were lax or nonexistent. This resulted in the organization losing its taxexempt status for a while, during which time the county sought to exact higher property taxes from the organization’s substantial real estate holding. Even with the tax-exempt status now regained, however, La Casa’s path is far from clear. Another issue has been whether La Casa — a nonprofit organization — should be taxed for business endeavors taking place on its premises run by for-profit businesses, like the car repair shop. López maintained that issue has likewise been resolved and that the organization is now due a significant credit for having paid excess taxes for 10 years. The county tax collector maintains just as emphatically that La Casa is entitled to retroactive relief for only four years. In the meantime, however, the drama of this fiscal brinkmanship has rekindled old complaints — and even older animosities — between La Casa’s current management and many of its initial founders, who are worried the — Nick Welsh organization they helped start might go down the tubes. 12
tHE INDEPENDENt
august 21, 2014