News of the Week
May 26-June 2, 2016
by KELSEY BRU RUgg ggER ER @kelseybrugger, @kelseybrugger, LÉNA gARCIA @lenamgarcia,, KEIT EITh h hAMM hAMM,, TYLER hAYDEN @TylerHayden1, and NICK WELSh, with Independent STAff pau l wellm an
politics
news briefs LAW & DISORDER
Fernando Castro, 19, an Amber Alert suspect who allegedly abducted Pearl Pinson, 15, out of Solano County on 5/25, was killed in a shootout with deputies in Solvang on 5/26. Santa Barbara Sheriff’s deputies pursued Castro’s Saturn sedan that day from Los Alamos to Fjord Drive. After barricading himself inside a trailer and firing shots, Castro tried to flee. Officers opened fire. Pinson — a white female, 53 tall, 130 pounds with brown hair (dyed green), and green eyes — is still missing. Anyone with information should call 9-1-1.
The Cuyama Buckhorn restaurant’s first anniversary party on 5/21 included the arrest of Bakersfield biker Robert Miller, 32, for possessing anabolic steroids for sale. Two more bikers — Oscar Romero, 24, and Thomas Trees, 44 — were cited for possessing a loaded, concealed 9mm gun and a .25 caliber gun in a vehicle in New Cuyama that same day. With them was Russell Gillette, 40, who was booked into San Luis Obispo County Jail on a S.L.O. arrest warrant.
6,000 Feel the bern Sanders Rallies Supporters at SBCC Event
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by N i c k W e l s h and M a c Wa l b y
he only thing burning through the mid-morning fog at City College’s West Campus this Saturday was the voice of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, still vying for his party’s nomination. Sanders made it clear he was not going into the good night of historical and mathematical inevitability ascribed to Hillary Clinton’s potential victory. After getting a warm-up from actor Justin Long, Sanders was introduced to almost 6,000 attendees by longtime entertainer Dick Van Dyke, who called the senator “the sanest man in America.” But SBCC professor and California Democratic Party Secretary Daraka Larimore-Hall stole the opening acts with a fiery speech. He urged the crowd not just to vote for Sanders but to phone-bank and canvas alongside him. At the podium, Sanders didn’t utter a single critical word about Clinton and not that much even about putative Republican nominee Donald Trump. Sanders dispensed with him in almost a desultory fashion, describing how he’d challenged Trump to a debate only to be told it was on, then off, then on again, and most recently off. If and when Trump changes his mind, Sanders said he would demand an explanation of how Trump could be so insulting to Latinos, women, veterans, and African Americans. Mostly, however, Sanders, seemed intent on banging the gong of his “bottom-up” revolution and preaching the gospel of economic, racial, and environmental justice. There were
no hecklers, and the crowd responded warmly to his message. Sanders vamped on the shortcomings of the American medical system, using the word “crazy” as a point of departure for an extended riff. “‘Crazy’ is one out of five Americans getting medical prescriptions that they’re unable to pay for,” he said. “‘Crazy’ is that last year the top five pharmaceutical companies made $55 billion in profits, and ‘crazy’ is the United States spending more on health care than any other country and having so little to show for it.” Sanders delved into the issue of campaign finance reform, declaring, “The billionaires already own the country; we’re not going to let them buy the United States government.” The answer, he said, was publicly financed elections and the legislative repeal of Citizens United. The billionaires, Sanders argued, have rigged the economy in their favor. As a result, he contended, the middle class has all but disappeared in the past 30 years while those at the top have enjoyed intense concentrations of wealth not seen in this country since the days of the robber barons. The top one-tenth of the one percent now control as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, he asserted; the richest 20 people have about the same as the poorest half of our population—about 152 million people. Just one family—the Waltons of Walmart fame —own wealth equal to the bottom 40 percent of Americans. Walmart pays such low wages, Sanders objected, that many Walmart workers needed food stamps and Medicaid. The middle class, he continued, subsidized
FORGING ON: “We’re going to go into the Democratic convention with a lot of momentum,” Sanders declared.
the Walton family in the form of higher taxes to cover the cost of food stamps. “I say to the Walton family, get off welfare,” he exhorted. Santa Barbara County was not exempt from the candidate’s critique. The City of Santa Barbara, Sanders noted, was one of the 10 most expensive places to live, while the county ranks fourth in statewide poverty rates, and one-half of public school students qualify for free and reduced meals. The economic criticism turned to the wage gap between men and women, which still exists, Sanders decried, with women making 79 cents on average for every $1 their male coworkers take home. “Today women want the whole damn dollar.” The 5 percent unemployment rate, he said, understates the real economic hardship experienced by working Americans. He outlined an ambitious program to put 13 million people to work by launching a massive infrastructure repair program for the nation’s roads, bridges, water systems, levies, and dams. Though Sanders never mentioned Clinton by name, he was sharply critical of free trade agreements supported by Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, which Sanders claimed put 60,000 factories out of work. He lambasted the United States for having 2.2 million people behind bars — more than any nation on the planet—at a cost to taxpayers of $80 billion a year. The war on drugs, Sanders said, has been an absolute bust. He vowed to remove marijuana from the federal Controlled Substances Act, which lists pot as dangerous as heroin. In the meantime, states such as Vermont have been hard hit by heroin
Four campers and Rex, a 75-pound yellow Labrador retriever, were airlifted by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue (SBCSAR) Team on 5/30 from the San Rafael Wilderness after Rex injured a leg while hiking on 5/29. Two thirty-something women from Santa Barbara and Ventura and two children became stuck due to the severity of Rex’s injury. A hiker found the group and called 9-1-1 just after 7 p.m. on 5/29, prompting the rescue.
COUNTY A gender-neutral restroom opened on 5/27 at Dos Pueblos High School. Formerly a girls-only bathroom, the six-stall restroom is open to all students.“I am so glad that Dos Pueblos could be the first school in the SBUSD to let our students who are transgender or gender nonconforming know they are important to us, they are seen, and they matter!” Assistant Principal Mary Ziegler said. The facility was supported through a partnership with the Santa Barbara Transgender Advocacy Network. Santa Barbara County joined communities across the country to declare 6/2 National Gun Violence Awareness Day and Wear Orange Day. On Thursday at De la Guerra Plaza, the Coalition Against Gun Violence and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America host a #WearOrange event to honor victims of gun violence. Speakers included Bob Weiss — the father of Veronika Weiss, who was killed in the 2014 Isla Vista tragedy — and Mayor Helene Schneider.
MONTECITO Efforts to expand Casa Dorinda retirement home moved forward on 5/18, with a unanimous vote by the Montecito Planning Commission. The project calls for 90,000 square
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THE INDEPENDENT
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