Portraits on Piano

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27 Feb - 5 Mar 2020 Vol 26 Issue 9

The Voice of the Village

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PORTRAITS ON PIANO

2019 MAW FELLOW ELLIOT WUU SELECTED AS WINNER OF SOLO PIANO COMPETITION RECITAL TOUR WITH STOPS AT NATIONAL GALLERY IN WASHINGTON, D.C., CHICAGO CULTURAL CENTER, AND RIGHT HERE IN MONTECITO AT HAHN HALL ON TUESDAY, MARCH 10 (STORY BEGINS ON P. 36)

Endorsements

Vote yes on Prop 13 and Laura Capps for 1st District County Supervisor on the March 3rd ballot, p. 5

Happy Trails

Two years after the Thomas Fire and debris flow, Montecito’s trail system is almost completely restored, p. 8

Field of Dreams

Montecito Union School Foundation spearheads plan to develop adjacent property for outdoor learning, p. 12

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MONTECITO JOURNAL

27 February – 5 March 2020

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• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

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THE LOFT

INSIDE THIS ISSUE 5 Editorial

Executive Editor Gwyn Lurie endorses Proposition 13 – no, not that Prop 13 – as well as Laura Capps for First District Supervisor

6

Montecito Miscellany

8

On the Record

Santa Barbara’s Wildlife Care Network wins major donations; Harvard’s Jill Lepore spoke about her latest book at Campbell Hall; the Dream Foundation delivers a final wish for a young mother of two; Kirk Douglas leaves his entire $60 million fortune to charity; Montecito makes another wealthy places list; and more Two years after the disastrous debris flow wiped out Montecito’s trail system, they’re almost completely restored – just don’t try to cross San Ysidro Trail’s Psycho Slide yet

10 This Week

Tech help sessions, pre-school story-time, knit ‘n’ needle and Spanish conversation at the library; Santa Barbara Horticultural Society meeting; Montecito Board of Architectural Review; Cold Springs Trail hike; Westmont President’s Breakfast featuring Daniel Kahneman; Musicology Benefit concert at MAW; and more

11 Letters

Readers freak out about the coronavirus and react to a recent editorial about apologies and point fingers at politicians while opining on a dangerous intersection (of roads, not ideas), while the Capps vs. Williams for Supervisor debate rages on, plus Our Apologies

12 Village Beat

This week, Montecito Union School begins planning how to best utilize a 2.3-acre parcel of land adjacent to the campus, while members of the Montecito Fire Protection Commission told the MPC about recent changes to the District’s Fire Code

14 Seen Around Town Photography by I Heart My Groom

LOCATED AT

The American Heart Association “Go Red for Women” fundraiser at the Hilton Santa Barbara Waterfront Resort; UCSB Arts & Lectures presented a sold-out event at the Granada featuring columnist David Brooks; The Santa Barbara Club hosted a lively meet and greet for the California Rangeland Trust

16 Focus on Finance

Christopher Gallo gives insight into a new federal law that made sweeping changes to most Americans’ retirement plans

20 Robert’s Big Questions

A physicist’s approach to the question of the meaning of truth, and why there will never be a post-truth era

24 Jerry Meandering

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25 A Good Sign

March’s astrological outlook, a Montecito miracle birth shout-out, plus your horoscope

26 Optimist Daily

Solar-powered barges can scoop up to 50 tons of plastic from rivers per day – and they are taking on some of the world’s most polluted rivers

27 Spirituality Matters

Singer-songwriter Noell Grace of Yoga Soup fame returns to SB at the Arden House; yoga teacher Barbara Rose Sherman offers daylong practice; Shining Lion and the Ojai-based World Peace Tribe guide a sacred ceremony; plus more Montecito meetups

28 Montecito Moms

Melissa Petitto and Cynthia Abulafia have formed a new, somewhat psychoactive supper club

31 Your Westmont

Westmont music scholarships; history professor Richard Pointer on peacemaking traditions of Native Americans; meanwhile the men and women’s golf teams host their first intercollegiate tournament

33 Brilliant Thoughts

Benjamin Franklin once said fish and visitors begin to smell after three days. Maybe he was being too hard on the fish?

35 Santa Barbara in a Glass

Epiphany Cellars, the Rhone blend arm of Fess Parker, turns 20

36 On Entertainment INTRODUCING

MONTECITO R ANC H ESTATES

20-year-old piano phenom Elliot Wuu performs at MAW’s Hahn Hall on March 10; SBCC takes on Curious Incident of the Dog; and a Buddy Holly tribute band puts some rock and roll in all the nostalgia at the Granada

38 The 501c3 Weekly

Leading From Within, through its Courage to Lead Program, empowers community leaders in Santa Barbara County

SUMMERLAND, CALIFORNIA

42 Our Town

Only a few ocean and mountain view parcels remain in the exclusive gated community of Montecito Ranch Estates. Stunning +5 acre parcels available separately or choose a completed custom estate with the finest amenities. Pricing from $3,250,000 for parcels with approved plans to $8,300,000 for a finished estate.

Joanne A. Calitri sits down with Montecito’s Erland Wanberg, Director of Musicology SB at the Music Academy of the West

43 Behind the Vine

Held in partnership with the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts, the Santa Barbara Culinary Experience is set to take place throughout Santa Barbara, Montecito, and beyond

47 Scam Squad

Patti Teel, Deputy DA Vicki Johnson, and Richard Copelan, CEO/President of the BBB of the Tri-Counties, offer advice on avoiding bogus real estate deals and other scams

Ernie’s World

A Hawaiian road trip involves more than its fair share of signage syllables

48 Real Estate Tracy Simerly · Engel & Völkers Santa Barbara 1323 State Street · Santa Barbara · CA 93101 DRE# 01256722 +1 805 550 8669 · tracysimerly.evrealestate.com ©2020 Engel & Völkers. All rights reserved. Each brokerage independently owned and operated.

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MONTECITO JOURNAL

Four Montecito estates hit the market in the $10 million-plus range, including one designed by Marc Appleton

50 Calendar of Events

Moliére’s masterpiece Tartuffe at UCSB’s Performing Arts Theater; Men At Work’s Colin Hay comes to the Lobero; Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jane Smiley and Andrew Winer in conversation at the SB Museum of Art; another Down Under performer, Joe Robinson, hits SOhO; National Geographic writer Daniel Stone talks travel at Mary Craig Auditorium; Bill McKibben wrote the first book about global warming and talks at UCSB’s Campbell Hall

54 Classified Advertising 55 Local Business Directory “Music is like a dream. One that I cannot hear.” – Ludwig van Beethoven

27 February – 5 March 2020

Editorial

by Gwyn Lurie

MJ Endorsements

T

his political season feels tedious and interminable. Like watching Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar acceptance speech on a continuous loop. Set to elevator music. And then the elevator gets stuck.

Unfortunately, for many of the races that matter to us, we still have eight months to go till November – eight months of promises, sniping, wooing, and unrelenting asks for cash. For these races, we will endorse in the fall.

But for one ballot measure and one race that will be decided next Tuesday, March 3, it’s time to weigh in: PROPOSITION 13: Prop 13 will be decided on March 3 and warrants an endorsement. This educational facilities bond authorizes $15 billion for K-12 and college facilities, including Community Colleges, State Universities, and UC campuses.

California’s educational institutions are so far behind in facilities maintenance needs, we cannot strongly enough state the importance of this funding, which is not about making schools new and fancy, it’s about getting our educational institutions out of the 1940s. Since the late ‘70s California’s spending on education has gone from the top 10% to the bottom 10% nationally. This is a catch-up measure and we need it. (FYI, this does not directly raise your taxes. Bond sales and debt servicing come out of the state’s general fund.)

Vote YES on Proposition 13.

LAURA CAPPS FOR 1st DISTRICT COUNTY SUPERVISOR: The local race that will be decided next Tuesday, March 3 is between incumbent Das Williams and his challenger Laura Capps for the 1st District County

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• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

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Monte ito Miscellany

WLC Hospital manager Elaine Ibarra attending to an adult female red hawk assisted by Samatha Gerratty, and animal care assistant Liz Poffley, who brought the hawk that was a victim of a hit and run (photo by Priscilla)

by Richard Mineards

Richard covered the Royal Family for Britain’s Daily Mirror and Daily Mail, and was an editor on New York Magazine. He was also a national anchor on CBS, a commentator on ABC Network News, gossip on The Joan Rivers Show and Geraldo Rivera, host on E! TV, a correspondent on the syndicated show Extra, a commentator on the KTLA Morning News and Entertainment Tonight. He moved to Montecito 12 years ago.

WCN Hospital Underway

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anta Barbara’s 32-year-old Wildlife Care Network (WCN), which is building a two-story, 5,000 sq. ft. animal hospital on its 1.8 acre Goleta property, has raised more than $3 million of its $6 million budget, including a hefty donation of $3 million from News-Press owner Wendy McCaw and $250,000 in a grant from the Oiled Wildlife Care Network.

Animal lover McCaw’s gift occurred after Ariana Katovich, WCN’s executive director, bumped into her at the trendy Coast Village Road eatery, Tre Lune, and explained the project, which will feature radiology, laboratories, and a songbird nursing wing, saving long drives by volunteers to other veterinary facilities in Long Beach, San Pedro, and Ojai.

“She came the next day and com-

mitted to the donation,” says Ariana.

“Needless to say, it has been a godsend and we expect to break ground in September, completing the project next year.”

McCaw also donated $1 million to the charity ten years ago, which enabled it to purchase its current site for $2.5 million.

The network will also soon have a resident vet, Stanford undergraduate Avery Berkowitz, 31, who starts work in May, working with more than 300 volunteers, who deal with between 40 and 60 animals daily from March to September.

Montecito resident Penny Bianchi recounted rescuing a possum on a recent drive back to our Eden by the Beach from the Big Orange.

“I immediately stopped the car,”

Betsy Denison and Nan Butterfield with Gretchen Lieff and Roland Bryan toasting the forthcoming building of the SBWCN hospital (photo by Priscilla)

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Wildlife Care Network supporters celebrating the new hospital (photo by Priscilla)

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MONTECITO JOURNAL

says Penny. “It was perched between a 75-foot drop and eight lanes of heavy traffic. What a nightmare! I took it straight here.”

Among the party animals turning out for the Wild Wine bash were Gretchen Lieff and Miles Hartfeld, Hal Conklin, Luke Swetland, Sandy Robertson, Ann Smith, Betsy Ingalls, Sharol Siemens, Judi Weisbart, Carol Wathen, Anne Sutherland Fuchs, and Sarah McLean.

This America It was a night on the tiles when tony twosome Dan and Meg Burham opened the doors to their Granada penthouse for a bash for supporters of UCSB Arts & Lectures and Harvard University professor Jill Lepore who spoke on This America: The Case for the Nation, based on her latest book, at Campbell Hall.

Lepore, who is also a staff writer for The New Yorker, previously wrote the 2018 book These Truths: A History of the United States, which was a New York

“Without music, life would be a mistake” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Barbara Lowenthal and Sharon Rich at the UCSB A&L reception (photo by Grace Kathryn Photography)

Times bestseller, widely translated and published internationally.

A recipient of a doctorate degree in American Studies from Yale University in 1995, Lepore joined Harvard’s his-

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• The Voice of the Village •

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ON THE RECORD

Nicholas Schou

Nicholas Schou is an award-winning investigative journalist and author of several books, including Orange Sunshine and Kill the Messenger, his writing has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The Atlantic, and other fine publications. If you have tips or stories about Montecito, please email him at newseditor@montecitojournal.net.

The Los Padres Crew

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bout four miles and 3,500 vertical feet uphill from the San Ysidro Trailhead, a Los Padres Forest Association (LPFA) work crew wearing hardhats printed in block letters with their names, are wielding hand hoes. They’re fixing a somewhat crumbling ridge dotted with small bushes and the scorched skeletons of small trees that burned in the canyon-hopping December 2017 Thomas Fire.

The LFPA crew is led by Jason Morris and Daniel Smith, and includes John Nagy, Brayson Ogan, Silas Kok, Tyler Chard, and Leo Herrera. They all hail from either Santa Barbara or Lompoc, and earlier that morning, they’d hiked about a mile south down the hill from the nearest road, El Camino Cielo.

Many of them are backpackers with a decade or more experience camping out for days or week at a time.

Every 25 feet or so, the crew has

Ashlee Mayfield checks out one of two debris nets along San Ysidro Creek

A rock bears evidence of the 1/9/18 debris flow

carved out downhill drainage funnels. The steep, upper stretch of the trail is the last remaining obstacle to restoring Montecito’s entire network of trails, much of which was wiped out by the fire and subsequent 1/9/18 debris flow. The men are accompanied by a pair of friendly dogs that patrol the hillside. Sometimes, while restoring the San Yisdro Trail, they prefer to camp overnight for a couple of days at a time, either for the fun of it or because it’s too exhausting to hike out and make the long drive home.

“I love it out here,” Chard, an aspiring firefighter, tells me. “Sometimes I don’t really want to be around other people all that much,” he adds, grinning at the fog-covered green mountainsides all around us.

Going up the Mountain

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MONTECITO JOURNAL

To reach the LPFA crew, I meet Ashlee Mayfield, president of the Montecito Trails Foundation, at the San Ysidro Trailhead off Park Lane and just east of the San Ysidro Ranch.

As we begin our hike at 10 am, Mayfield warns another pair of hikers about the dangerous trail conditions higher up. They thank her for the advice and take a different trail. At first, it’s an easy stride through an oak grove, then a gentle, tree-covered path takes us alongside a small creek which terminates in the gently sloping bowl of the San Ysidro debris basin.

It’s chilly, almost cold, with fog obscuring the sky, and peaceful, and at one point, we hear frogs down in the bubbling creek. Yet both sides of the canyon bear violent scars from where the base of the canyon began slipping southwards at a depth of 25 to 30 feet thanks to an unprecedented combination of fire and rain. “It used to be lush,” Mayfield tells me of the rock-strewn gulley that remains.

“There was a good tree canopy, and creek crossings were mild. The debris flow ripped almost everything out.”

Higher up in the canyon, we pass

“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” – Plato

by the first of a pair of Swiss-made steel debris nets that were installed in San Ysidro Canyon last year with funding from Montecito’s Project for Resilient Communities (TPRC). Both nets stretch across narrow reaches of the canyon, chokepoints for any rocks or debris flowing downhill.

Beyond the San Ysidro Falls – at this time of year just a trickle – Mayfield and I ascend a steep series of switchbacks. The views – of the Pacific Ocean to the south and Montecito Peak to the west – are stunning. Yet the climb is difficult, especially when the trail completely disappears. On several occasions, we have no choice but to scurry across slopes that had been eroded or overrun by sliding rock.

The difficult terrain underscores the efforts of the LPFA crew,” Mayfield tells me. “The crews working the trail are incredibly hard working, fit, nature-loving individuals that really care about our environment and access. It’s great to see people who love what they are doing and who are appreciated, especially by trail runners who have a great appreciation for what they do as trail builders.”

A Legacy of Fire

Long before the Spaniards explored the area a few centuries earlier and then finally founding the Santa Barbara Presidio in 1872, most of the trails that make up Montecito’s rugged front country were Chumash routes. “Before that, they were animal trails,” says Bryan Conant, a LPFA trail clearing supervisor. “Some of the trails were built by the U.S. Forestry Service in the 1920s, like the Franklin Trail. They took the path of least resistance, the quickest route to the top.”

“Back then, the objective of the trail was to get to the top as quickly as possible,” Conant continues. “A lot of the users were on horseback and in the last fifty years it’s turned from

ON THE RECORD Page 224 27 February – 5 March 2020

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27 February – 5 March 2020

• The Voice of the Village •

7 PARKER WAY SANTA BARBARA 805-966-1390 | haywards1890.com

MONTECITO JOURNAL

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This Week in and around Montecito

SUNDAY, MARCH 8 Her Festival Celebrate International Women’s Day with a lineup of inspirational speakers and live music, plus food trucks, family fun activities, and a free prize drawing.

When: 12-4 pm Where: Girsh Park, 7050 Phelps Road, Goleta

(If you have a Montecito event, or an event that concerns Montecito, please e-mail newseditor@montecitojournal.net or call (805) 565-1860) THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27 Tech Help Sessions Reserve a 30-minute session with library staff for help with basic computer skills (email or internet), downloadable library materials, and the Black Gold App When: 10 am to 12 pm Where: Montecito Library, 1469 East Valley Road Appointments: (805) 969-5063 Knit ‘N Needle Fiber art crafts (knitting, crochet, embroidery, and more) drop-in and meetup for all ages at Montecito Library When: 2 pm to 3:30 pm Where: 1469 East Valley Road Info: 969-5063 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28 Farmers Market When: 8 to 11:15 am Where: south side of Coast Village Road Wine & Cheese Tasting Complimentary wine and cheese tasting at Montecito Village Grocery When: 3:30 to 5:30 pm Where: 1482 East Valley Road Spanish Conversation Group at the Montecito Library The Montecito Library hosts a Spanish Conversation Group. The group is for anyone interested in practicing and improving conversational skills in Spanish. Participants should be familiar with the basics.

When: 1 pm to 2:30 pm Where: Montecito Library, 1469 East Valley Road Info: 969-5063 Tech Help Sessions Reserve a 30-minute session with

library staff for help with basic computer skills (email or internet), downloadable library materials, and the Black Gold App When: 3 pm to 5 pm Where: Montecito Library, 1469 East Valley Road Appointments: (805) 969-5063 MONDAY, MARCH 2 Preschool Storytime The Montecito Library offers this weekly story time session for toddlers and parents When: 10:30 am Where: Montecito Library, 1469 East Valley Road WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4 Santa Barbara Horticultural Meeting Join Dr. Anabel Ford for her talk titled “Exploring Solutions Past: The Maya Forest Garden as Action for Climate Change.” Ford is the Director of the UCSB MesoAmerican Research Center and President of the non-profit Exploring Solutions Past: the Maya Forest Alliance. Her quest to understand the ancient Mayan landscape has grown into several research areas including how does climate change and geography affect settlement patterns. The program includes a free plant exchange, refreshments and a plant raffle.

When: 7 pm Where: Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, 909 La Cumbre Road Wine Down Wednesday Each week, the Rosewood Miramar invites you to enjoy delectable pours of red, white, and sparkling varietals from local wineries alongside a complementary menu of small bites.

This week features bottles from Santa Maria’s Presqu’ile Winery.

When: 5-7 pm Where: The Manor Bar, Rosewood Miramar Beach, 1759 S Jameson Lane Cost: $30 per person including tasting, cheese and charcuterie, excluding tax and service THURSDAY, MARCH 5 Montecito Board of Architectural Review This group meets bi-weekly for hearings on ongoing and future development projects in Montecito; meetings are open to the public When: 1 pm Where: 123 East Anapamu Street, Room 17 FRIDAY, MARCH 6 Montecito Trail Hike Join Montecito Trails Foundation members each Friday morning for a roughly three-mile hike When: 8:30 am Where: Cold Spring East Trailhead Westmont President’s Breakfast Join Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize-winner, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and bestselling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow.

An Israeli psychologist by training, he has been named as one of the world’s most important thinkers by The Economist.

When: 7-9 am Where: Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort Grand Ballroom, 633 East Cabrillo Boulevard

M on t e c i to Tid e G u id e Day Low Hgt High Thurs, Feb 27 5:21 AM 1.4 11:17 AM Fri, Feb 28 6:07 AM 1.5 11:56 AM Sat, Feb 29 12:25 AM Sun, March 1 1:04 AM Mon, March 2 2:01 AM Tues, March 3 3:22 AM Wed, March 4 4:42 AM Thurs, March 5 5:46 AM Fri, March 6 12:32 AM 2.3 6:39 AM

10 MONTECITO JOURNAL

Hgt Low 4 5:28 PM 3.4 5:49 PM 4.2 7:06 AM 4.2 8:33 AM 4.2 10:23 AM 4.3 11:42 AM 4.6 12:32 PM 5.1 1:12 PM 5.6 1:49 PM

Hgt High Hgt Low 0.9 11:55 PM 4.3 1.4 1.5 12:50 PM 2.9 6:08 PM 1.5 2:41 PM 2.5 6:24 PM 1.1 0.6 7:17 PM 2.9 10:05 PM 0 7:35 PM 3.2 11:35 PM -0.6 7:57 PM 3.6 -1 8:22 PM 3.9

“How is it that music can evoke our laughter, our fears, our highest aspirations?” – Jane Swan

Hgt

1.9 2.3 2.9 2.7

Price: $125 per ticket Info: westmont.edu/breakfast Musicology Benefit Concert This one-night only affair will provide 100 percent of proceeds to benefit the Santa Barbara-based non-profit Musicology Foundation to continue providing free 1-1 music lessons for low income youth at the Santa Barbara Police Activities League teen center. It features appearances by Andrew McMahon (In the Wilderness, Jack’s Mannequin, Something Corporate), Mendeleyev Allan-Blitz (recently mentored by John Legend on The Voice), Erland Wanberg (Musicology SB Founder), and Haddon Cord (award-winning singer-songwriter, mentored by T Bone Burnett).

When: 6-10 pm Where: Music Academy of the West, 1070 Fairway Road Tickets: musicacademy.org/events SUNDAY, MARCH 8 Rumi Study Group: My Religion is Love This group meets to learn, share, and discuss the ancient teachings within Persian poet Jalal ad-din Muhammad Rumi’s poetry. All are welcome!

When: 2-4 pm Where: Montecito Community Hall, 1469 East Valley Road Suggested Donation: $20 Info: rumieducationalcenter.org/events JACK’S WEEKLY FORECAST

by Jack Martin This week, high pressure and above normal temps are in the forecast. On Thursday, east winds kick in; this might be the warmest day of the week with highs in the 80s. Saturday the 29th (Leap Year Day) will end one of the driest Februaries in recent memory. Sunday, March 1, brings us our next chance of rain, although it’s not a given.

Looking into March: After Sunday’s hopeful rain event, the first week in March does not seem to have anything notable. The only bright part to this is that long range models really mean nothing, so just enjoy the warmer temps all week long.

27 February – 5 March 2020

LETTERS

TO THE EDITOR

If you have something you think Montecito should know about, or wish to respond to something you read in the Journal, we want to hear from you. Please send all such correspondence to: Montecito Journal, Letters to the Editor, 1206 Coast Village Circle, Suite H, Montecito, CA. 93108. You can also FAX such mail to: (805) 969-6654, or E-mail to letters@montecitojournal.net

Not Sorry

T

hank you for your questions and observations regarding the power of apology in the February 20-27 editorial. Among other things, the editorial points to a number of principles of concern, the value of the press and ethics and honesty in politics. After the next election these issues will persist. We count on the MJ for important coverage at all levels of the political discourse to highlight accountability.

As for Das Williams not apologizing for the cannabis mess, it is not that he is unwilling to apologize for the ordinance; it is simply that he likes the ordinance and this ordinance helps his supporters. After all, he assisted in writing it with input from the cannabis lobby. From the beginning, while it was being considered, citizens objected because it clearly favored cannabis operators.

Residents continue to object to the near-unrestrained growth of the cannabis industry in our community.

Williams has said more than once he will not change anything in Carpinteria. “If I move cannabis operations to be 1,000 feet from schools as mandated by federal guidelines, those around the High School will be put out of business.” “I’d rather have the students smell cannabis (it’s been three years now) than… lose a teacher.” Teachers are not funded by county tax money by the way…

The record reflects that at nearly every Planning Commission and Supervisor’s meeting citizens plead for carbon filtration to be required to safely filter out the odors of cannabis.

The cannabis industry refuses and Das Williams refuses to support the citizens on this issue.

The fact is Williams could have voted to change cannabis guidelines in Carpinteria as he did for Santa Ynez, but chose not to. Why? Because his cannabis industry supporters do not want him to.

Could it be he really is beholden to the cannabis operators? While saying he would not take more money from them, a PAC was formed and cannabis money is flowing into it.

Did he give back the earlier donation of $8,000 given to him by Barry Brand, who was just arrested for illegal growing, volatile manufacturing and selling on the black market? This is why he won’t apologize.

Das Williams is not sorry about the students, residents or avocado growers affected by the allowable 27 February – 5 March 2020

186 acres of cannabis in Carpinteria’s four-mile-long valley. Santa Barbara’s over abundance of cannabis and poor ordinance has been written about in many major newspapers, including The New York Times and three times in the Los Angeles Times, twice on the front page, and just recently in Politico. Residents are pitted against operators just wanting clean air, not cannabis odor or industrial vapor misting into the valley 24/7. Why apologize when you are not sorry? He has the backing of the Santa Barbara Democrats and the Sierra Club so he is taking full advantage of their seemingly blind endorsements. The citizens of Carpinteria deserve to be heard. We want to preserve the quality of our community, clean air for one, but it is being abused for financial gain. Some people do not like to apologize; it appears Das Williams is one of them.

Nanci Robertson Santa Barbara County

enjoys change when it benefits the community. Apparently, I’m the only one. From the very beginning, I have had people honk at me, heckle me, flip me the bird, and even had a woman tailgate me to write down my license plate number. I only pray that she called the police. I would love to have heard that phone call.

At first, I was really angry that people would react in such a horrendous way. If you haven’t had a woman as old as your grandmother honk, flip you off, and scream curse words at you, you haven’t lived.

Admittedly, I wasn’t behaving any better. When someone would honk or give me the middle finger salute, I returned the favor.

Then I realized that people in Montecito need a little time to accept change. I continue to use the new lane as a straight away and endure all the violence outburst. But I keep telling myself that when people drive down this road again, they will remember me. Maybe check the new road paint. And soon, it will start to trickle down into everyone’s psyche.

I am still waiting. Two years later, and I am still waiting.

I thought I would write to you and see if we could mention this in the Journal because yesterday, it got dangerous.

I passed a long line of cars waiting

in the left lane to go straight. I pulled into the right lane and when it was our turn to pull through the four way stop, I proceeded to go straight and then merged in front of the truck that was next to me. The driver, waving his hands and screaming, tailgated me all the way to the roundabout.

I was in the right lane preparing to go around towards the freeway entrance. He pulled up next to me on the right to drive down Old Coast Highway. Of course, he didn’t pull up to my window and say anything to me directly. He just waited until we had room to merge and then proceeded to cut in front of me and drive towards the freeway.

I ended up on the median in the middle of the roundabout with my kids in the car all because this moron can’t read a road sign. Enough is enough!

Danny Eades Montecito

Capps for Supervisor

I am supporting Laura Capps for District 1 Supervisor and I am hoping the Montecito Journal will endorse her candidacy prior to the March 3rd election. I am supporting Laura because I believe in her commitment to restor-

LETTERS Page 304

Dangerous Intersection

I get that we live in a sleepy little town that hasn’t changed much in 50 years and that is part of what I love most about Montecito. However, about two years ago Caltrans actually changed a little corner of our world; specifically, the corner of Hot Springs, Middle, and Sycamore Canyon; for the better. If you have ever driven west from the Hot Springs/Olive Mill Triangle in the afternoon you noticed that traffic usually backs up all the way to Casa Dorinda.

In an effort to decrease traffic congestion and speed up the afternoon commute, they repainted the arrows on the two lanes going west towards the roundabout. It used to be, if you wanted to turn left down Middle or go straight towards Von’s that you would stay in the left lane. If you wanted to turn right and drive up Sycamore Canyon then the right lane was for you. However, someone decided to paint straight arrows on both lanes. So now, the left lane is for turning left or going straight and the right lane is also for going straight or turning right. If both cars go straight, then you merge after the intersection. Two cars get to clear the intersection instead of one. It’s perfect!

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Village Beat

The 2.3-acre parcel could be used for extending the school’s STEAM program

by Kelly Mahan Herrick

Kelly has been editor at large for the Journal since 2007, reporting on news in Montecito and beyond. She is also a licensed realtor with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, and is a member of Montecito and Santa Barbara’s top real estate team, Calcagno & Hamilton.

MUS’s Field of Dreams Montecito Union School Foundation president Cate Stoll with MUS superintendent Dr. Anthony Ranii on the adjacent property to the campus, which is slated for development for outdoor learning space

T

his week, a consultant team is on the Montecito Union School campus interviewing students, staff, teachers, parents, and administrators in order to start formulating a plan for how best to utilize the 2.3acre parcel of land located adjacent to the campus on San Ysidro Road.

After acquiring the land in 2006 as part of a land-swap deal with the Montecito YMCA, the MUS school board has toyed with several ideas on how to make best use of the property, on which sits a residential home that used to be rented out to bring in income for the school. The home, which was built in 1975, is not up to code to utilize it for students, and five years ago, the front of the property began to be utilized for overflow staff parking, which has increased over the last two years. Since then, the home has essentially become “a very expensive storage shed,” accord-

ing to superintendent Dr. Anthony Ranii. “It’s not up to the necessary standards to use it for classroom space,” he explained, adding that the home, which resembles an old adobe, is neither ADA compliant or seismically retrofitted. Back in 2014, plans for the property included building a five-classroom building on the site, as well as an expanded parking lot, as part of a larger development plan on the campus that has since been put on hold indefinitely. “We don’t need more classroom space,” Dr. Ranii added, saying that enrollment is currently lower than average, and is trending downward. The school continues to focus its efforts on maintaining its current buildings and infrastructure, and has no immediate plans to build any permanent structures on the campus or the adjacent lot.

The Montecito Union School Foundation, headed by president

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Cate Stoll, decided last year that they wanted to help fund development of the property, as an area for outdoor learning space, bolstering the school’s already robust STEAM program. “The technology piece is there, and we have this amazing opportunity to get kids away from their screens and back into nature,” Stoll said during a recent visit to the property. “We envision a space for kids to get their hands in the dirt, like we used to do,” Stoll said, adding that the space is large enough for gardening areas, bird houses, a pond, insect colonies, and more. “We want our kids to learn through play and experience,” Dr. Ranii said. “The learning multiplies when you’re outside.”

There are two access points to the property; one is a walkway from the south parking lot into the overflow parking area, the other is further west, connecting to a space on the campus currently being used as an outdoor classroom. Facilities crews are currently working on expanding that area with funds donated through the Foundation, and it will eventually be connected to the adjacent land parcel via a pedestrian bridge. “The idea is that the kids will get to go on a sort of field trip to the property next door,”

Stoll said. The consultants, in addition to interviewing every student at the school, will also visit schools in other towns, to get a feel for how they are incorporating outdoor learning space into their curriculums. “This is the week of information gathering,” Dr. Ranii said.

The consultants will formulate a plan for ideas in how best to use the space; it will then be presented to the School Board for review and decision.

Each year, the Montecito Union School Foundation, which is funded mostly through an annual campaign and gala, as well as the school’s jog-a-thon and Carnival, funds one improvement project on the campus. Last year it was the upper terrace playground and ball wall. This year the Foundation is committed to spending money on instruction, offering continued improvement in student curriculum.

“What Cate and her leadership team have brought to the Foundation, is just invaluable,” Dr. Ranii said. “They see the importance of offering our current students an area for outdoor learning.” Dubbed the “Field of Dreams”

VILLAGE BEAT Page 164

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27 February – 5 March 2020

Dear Santa Barbara County Families, We are writing this open letter because we believe Laura Capps should be our next 1st District County Supervisor.

Laura’s values and integrity have been on full display throughout her career, most recently in her work on the Santa Barbara School Board and in her non-profit leadership positions. Laura is a responsive and innovative leader who makes sure all stakeholders have a seat at the table so their voices are heard. Laura is a devoted mom whose love of children extends to the community, where she worked to combat the high poverty rate suffered by kids in our County.

Laura has a forward-looking Climate Safety Plan that addresses threats of fire, wind, drought, and sea level rise. Laura is a fierce advocate for campaign finance reform and is proposing a long overdue limit on campaign contributions, raising the bar on ethics so that everyone has a voice.

Many of us are not quick to get involved in politics, but we believe this of vital importance! We need smart and ethical leaders who will listen and respond thoughtfully, rather than force decisions upon us that have been pre-promised in exchange for campaign contributions. It is on THIS subject that we come together most strongly behind Laura: Das Williams has taken an exaggerated amount of credit for the response to the Thomas Fire and Debris Flow. As involved members of this community, our experience is to the contrary. Just as he was not responsible for the water delivered to the Summerland community by the Red Cross – another blessing for which he has falsely claimed credit. Many of us who were impacted directly by the disasters found Das to be very present at the photo-ops but a reluctant partner on the less glamorous work of actually pulling the community together.

Additionally, we can all see that the process of bringing cannabis to this county has greatly benefited the industry that bankrolled much of Das’ campaign ($80,000+, which he refers to as “chump change”) as Das was writing the ordinance and dispensing permits. As a result, our community has suffered - we have received very little revenue, the people of Carpinteria – especially our kids - are suffering, and our wine and avocado industry has been compromised.

We want a leader who brings people together and listens, rather than talking at them. We want a leader who will admit when they could have done better. want a leader who fosters innovative ideas. We want a leader who has integrity. Please stand with us in taking back our community: Vote for Laura Capps.

Sebastian Aldana Verity Allen Jack Amon Minos Athanassiadis Dr. Jeffrey Becker Michael Bennett Valerie Bentz Alan Bleecker Alexandra Bongaerts EJ Borah Ben Bycel Lou Cannon Mary Cannon Michelle Carbone Anna Carrillo Michael Cheng Stacy Christopher Scott Christopher Bill Cirone Barbara Cirone Bob Collector Betsy R. Cramer Marsha Croninger Anna Cronshaw William Curran

Thomas Dabney Robert Dautch Rogelio Delgado Jill Dexter Ron Dexter Elaine Dietsch William Dietsch Bonnie Donovan Lanny Ebenstein Brook Eiler Paul Ekstrom Linda Ekstrom Pamela Elliott Cassandra Ensberg Joan Esposito Leslie Esposito Lynda Fairly Farideh Farinpour Morey Farinpour S Figler Dawn Fitzgerald Bonnie Freeman Suzan Garner Beth Geiger Dodd Geiger Eric Georges Marilyn Gilbert

Kelly Gleason David Green Andrea Gurney Lynette Hall Richard Hecht Denise Higgins Michael Higgins Mara Hochman Rev. Anne Howard Richard Hutton Tom Jacobs Susan Jordan Katherine Corley Kenna Beverly King Beryl Kreisel Erin Leifer Daniel LeMelle Morgan LeMelle Tammy LeMelle Robert Lesser Sarada Lewis Jessica Liberman Sheila Lodge Bruce Lyon Christine Lyon Marsha Marcoe

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Deborah L. Schwartz Bobby Shand Susan Shand Barbara Rose Sherman Mark Sherman Sudi Staub Evan Turpin Justin Tuttle Bobbie Tweddle Judi Weisbart Harry Weisbart Alison Werts William Werts Marcy Wimbish Howard Winant Lesley Wiscomb Neil Wood Tina Wood Sandra Wood Keith Yeager John Ziegler Lana Ziegler

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27 February – 5 March 2020

• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

13

Seen Around Town

Go Red for Women

by Lynda Millner

Go Red passion speaker Jon Hyde with Kathryn Kendrick’s mom Patty Swenson and survivor Michele Mallet

T

he ballroom of the Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort was a sea of red, literally. It was time for the annual American Heart Association “Go Red for Women” luncheon when everyone is encouraged to wear red. And they do. Adding to that were fabric boas for all the committee members and blinking red heart necklaces for those who donated. Even better, it was Valentine’s Day. This event always begins with a Health Expo. One large room is set up

14 MONTECITO JOURNAL

to educate guests about heart disease, particularly as it relates to women.

You can have your blood pressure screened and learn from all the professionals there. Montecito Bank & Trust even has a tiny sip of red wine and a small piece of chocolate for those of us who know that wine and chocolate in moderation are good for us. For the fashionistas there was a boutique booth and another full of jewelry.

One of the passion speakers was Jon Hyde who in his 40s had a widow

Founder of the Red Tie Society David Edelman. A group of men who support the Go Red movement for women Ms Millner is the author of The Magic Makeover, Tricks for Looking Thinner, Younger and More Confident – Instantly. If you have an event that belongs in this column, you are invited to call Lynda at 969-6164.

maker heart attack and survived. He had never drunk alcohol and looked perfectly healthy. He now has a stent which is keeping him alive. Mom Patty Swenson spoke for her daughter Kathryn Kendrick who couldn’t be there. “Kathryn’s life was saved by hearing Michele Mallet’s heart attack

Go Red committee member Steve Golis and event chair Denise Sanford at the luncheon

survival story last year” and then we heard today from Michele.

Event chair Denise Sanford told us, “The Go Red for Women movement advocates for more research and swifter action for women’s heart health. We help to eliminate the many misconceptions about women’s heart disease like ‘It’s a man’s disease’ or ‘I’m too young to have heart disease.’

Thanks to the more than 450 of you who are participating today. We’re sold out.”

Board president Dr. Taylor Holve, MD spoke to us through a “letter” in the program. “Our goal today is that

SEEN Page 404

27 February – 5 March 2020

©2020 Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties (BHHSCP) is a member of the franchise system of BHH Affiliates LLC. BHH Affiliates LLC and BHHSCP do not guarantee accuracy of all data including measurements, conditions, and features of property. Information is obtained from various sources and will not be verified by broker or MLS. Buyer is advised to independently verify the accuracy of that information.

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27 February – 5 March 2020

• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

15

Focus on Finance

VILLAGE BEAT (Continued from page 12)

by Christopher Gallo

A pedestrian bridge will be built to join the adjacent parcel to the campus

Since graduating from UCSB in 1992, Christopher has worked with local individuals and families as a financial planner. He is a Vice President with UBS Financial and holds the CFP, CIMA, and CPWA credentials. He can be reached at christopher.t.gallo@ubs.com or 805-730-3425.

Retirement Plan Changes

A

new Federal law passed in December has made sweeping changes to the retirement plans used by most Americans. The SECURE (Setting Up Every Community for Retirement Enhancement) Act brings with it many benefits, including pushing back the mandatory retirement distribution age for IRAs, but the cost is the removal of the popular “stretch IRA” provision for distributions.

First, the benefits of the new SECURE Act. Previous IRA rules required owners to begin distribution during the year they turned age 70 ½, essentially turning on the income spigot and taxing this income. The new Act pushed the required age of distribution to 72, giving you a few more years of tax-deferred accumulation. In another positive move, there was previously a maximum age of 70 ½ to contribute into your IRA – this has been removed and there is no longer an age limit for which to put contribute to an IRA so long as you have earned income.

There are variety of other positives for retirement plans, but one other significant change is to 529 plans, the popular tax-deferred education savings accounts. Alongside qualified distributions for college expenses, which were always tax free, and private school costs up to $10,000 each year, which were made tax free a few years ago, the Act adds

a few more tax-exempt distributions: $10,000 each year for qualified student loan repayments, costs of a religious school, and costs for a registered apprenticeship.

One positive recent piece of legislation that was not changed was the recently permanent law allowing up to $100,000 per year from an IRA to be distributed to a qualified charity without paying taxes.

On the other side, many IRA owners with large balances who had planned to bequeath these assets to their children are losing a key feature – the so-called “stretch IRA” provision. Simply put any non-spouse beneficiary of an IRA was previously allowed to stretch distributions over their lifetime, allowing younger beneficiaries to have the assets grow tax deferred and keep mandatory distributions and taxes low. This rule has been changed to mandate a maximum 10-year distribution period to beneficiaries (that are not a spouse) and popular IRA trusts. This may mean re-working previous estate plans and perhaps incorporating life insurance trusts, the use of charitable remainder trusts and conversion to Roth IRAs in order to minimize the costs of this new Act. I encourage you to discuss these changes and how they may affect you with your advisors, estate planning attorney and CPA before making any changes.

•MJ

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project, a gala is planned for March 7 at the Montecito Club. If you have ideas for the property, and how students can best explore and discover in nature, you are invited to email Dr. Ranii at aranii@montecitou.org.

For more about MUS, visit www. montecitou.org.

New Fire Code

Reps from the Montecito Fire Protection District were in front of Montecito Planning Commission last week outlining recent amendments to the District’s Fire Code. Fire Marshal & Battalion Chief Aaron Briner outlined the changes, which include changes to access road width and design, fire sprinklers requirements, emergency power systems, and more.

Every three years, the California Fire Code is amended and adopted. The 2016 California Fire Code was superseded by the 2019 version and became State law on January 1, 2020. On December 23, 2019, the Montecito Fire Protection District Board of Directors formally adopted Ordinance 2019-02, making amendments to the California Fire Code, California Residential Code, and California Building Code creating the Montecito Fire Protection District Fire Code. Briner explained that it was a collaborative effort between fire prevention officers of Montecito, Santa Barbara County, Santa Barbara City, and Carpinteria-Summerland, who met and attempted to determine where agency amendments could be standardized. “The goal behind the 2019 amendments for Montecito was simplification, consistency, and collaboration with surrounding agencies,” he said.

There were 17 amendments to the Montecito Fire Code, with four being the most significant. Road access requirements were amended to account for more dwelling units on parcels, which increase the number of lives that would need to be saved in an emergency. Fire access roads are required to be 14-feet wide for a single parcel or dwelling unit, and 16-feet wide for two to four parcels or dwelling units, among other requirements.

Fire sprinklers are required for new

“Music is a language that doesn’t speak in particular words.” – Keith Richards

homes, while alterations and additions to homes are more complicated situations, Briner said. The new code simplifies the calculation in which sprinklers are required; if the home is altered 50% or more of the existing gross square footage, or the addition causes the home to reach 1500 sq. ft., the home will require sprinklers.

Briner also discussed emergency and standby power systems, as many homeowners are opting for battery backups versus generators.

“This is an area that we are going to continue to keep an eye on over the year to continue to make changes,” he said.

Lastly, Briner explained the new code has stronger language related to explosives and fireworks: all are prohibited within the District.

As part of the revised code, MFPD created development standards to help planners, architects, and homeowners in understanding and applying the code. Those standards, which outline roofing assembly, vegetation management (defensible space), fire department access, water supply, water storage, fire sprinklers for residential and commercial, and post disaster rebuilds, are available on the District’s website.

“We were able to simplify our code and make it more consistent with surrounding agencies, ensuring that the residents of Montecito have a code that best serves the community.” Briner said.

Also happening at the District: earlier this month MFPD launched an interactive Story Map to highlight the Department’s Wildland Fire Prevention Program. Story Maps combine text, images, multimedia, and interactive maps to create an engaging online experience. This new Story Map provides a unique opportunity to exhibit the importance of the Montecito Fire Department’s numerous wildfire mitigation projects and give a voice to the programs that continue to strengthen our community’s resilience to wildfire.

The Story Map, as well as the new fire code ordinance and development standards, are available on the District’s website at www.montecito fire.com.

•MJ 27 February – 5 March 2020

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©2020 Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties (BHHSCP) is a member of the franchise system of BHH affiliates LLC. BHH Affiliates LLC and BHHSCP do not guarantee accuracy of all data including measurements, conditions, and features of property. Information is obtained from various sources and will not be verified by broker or MLS. Buyer is advised to independently verify the accuracy of that information.

27 February – 5 March 2020

• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

17

MISCELLANY (Continued from page 6) A&L History Matters series sponsor Loren Booth (center) with A&L Ambassador Heather Sturgess (left) and Jill Lepore (photo by Grace Kathryn Photography)

Event sponsors Judy Wainwright and Jim Mitchell with Jill Lepore (photo by Grace Kathryn Photography)

Belmi, Gustavo, Genesis, and Isaiah Tepecque, Belmi’s Dream Coordinator from Dream Foundation Megan Higgins, as well as her care team from Hospice of Santa Barbara, and friends from the Ridley Tree Center

A&L Ambassador and event sponsors Meg and Dan Burnham with Jill Lepore (photo by Grace Kathryn Photography)

Melissa M. Pierson, Owner

tory department in 2003 and was chair of the history and literature program a number of times between 2005 and 2014.

A two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, three years ago she launched the Democracy Project: Arguing with American History, an undergraduate course on the history of the United States. She also teaches at Harvard Law School and is a former commissioner of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.

Among the guests were Sara Miller McCune, Todd and Allyson Aldrich, Gail Arnhold, Heather Sturgess, Lou Buglioli and Natalie Orfalea, Beno and Kandy Luria-Budgor, Chris and Dori Pierson Carter, Sharon Rich, James and Judith Mitchell, and Celesta Billeci.

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a 12,249 square foot $7 million home on 1.75 acres in Malibu will come as absolutely no surprise to readers of this illustrious organ.

I have been reporting for some time the tony twosome are keen to relocate to California, where they would also be close to Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley.

The pad in question is an eight-bedroom mansion in a securely gated community formerly owned by Baywatch star David Charvet with near neighbors including Mel Gibson, Robert Downey Jr., Dick Van Dyke, and Caitlyn Jenner.

Stay tuned...

Dream Come True Young Santa Barbara mother of two, Belmi Tepecque, 22, and her family are the latest recipients of the largesse of the Dream Foundation, which has delivered more than 32,000 dreams over the past 22 years.

The popular organization is providing Belmi’s final dream of a trip to Maui with her husband, Gustavo, and two children Genesis, 4, and Isaiah, eight months, after she was given a terminal diagnosis.

“Genesis loves the ocean so much that she comes home every day, puts her bathing suit on and asks when we

“I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity.” – Billy Joel

are going to the beach,” Belmi wrote to the foundation. “A trip to Hawaii would allow us to create memories together, ones that will last forever, in her mind and her heart.”

The family will travel to Maui with help from Alaska Airlines, and Coconut Condos, a vacation rental agency, that has hosted Dream Foundation recipients and families since 2012.

And the Winner is…

Longtime Santa Barbara International Film Festival board member Jeff Barbakow and his wife, Margo, are proud parents.

Their director son Max’s existential comedy Palm Springs has just narrowly broken the Sundance Film Festival record for the biggest sale ever!

Hulu and indie distributor Neon purchased the film rights for $17,500,000.69, exceeding the previous record set by The Birth of a Nation in 2016, which went to the former Fox Searchlight Pictures for $17.5 million.

The film stars Cristin Milioti as a lost and occasionally self-destructive bridesmaid to a younger sister getting hitched in the desert. Andy Samberg, Peter Gallagher, and Camila Mendes also co-star.

MISCELLANY Page 214 Jeff, Margo, and Max Barbakow (photo by Priscilla)

27 February – 5 March 2020

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WE REACH A WORLDWIDE AUDIENCE THROUGH OUR EXCLUSIVE AFFILIATES

All information provided is deemed reliable, but has not been verified and we do not guarantee it. We recommend that buyers make their own inquiries.

27 February – 5 March 2020

• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

19

We are pleased to announce the affiliation of

Robert’s Big Questions

by Robert Bernstein

Degrees from Physics departments of MIT and UC Santa Barbara. Career in designing atomic-resolution microscopes. Childhood spent in Europe and the East of the US. Passion to understand the Big Questions of life and the universe. Duty to be a good citizen of the planet.

What is Truth?

MATT ROWE, CIMA® Financial Advisor Vice President, Wealth Management D 805.730.3363 matt.rowe@raymondjames.com

with

Granada Building 1216 State Street, Suite 500 Santa Barbara, CA 93101 O 805.730.3350 raymondjames.com/mattrowe Raymond James & Associates, Inc., member New York Stock Exchange/SIPC. 20-BR3GD-0078 TA 2/20

“T

he moon is made of green cheese.” Fact or Opinion?

This was a question we were given in a high school English unit on telling the difference between facts and opinions. This was a required part of the Montgomery County, Maryland curriculum. It took me many years to learn that it was not part of high school curricula elsewhere.

The answer? It is a fact. Meaning that it is a matter that can be tested, at least in principle. It is a fact which is false, but it is a matter of fact. In contrast “Rocky Road is the best flavor of ice cream” is not something that can be tested. It is a matter of taste for each individual. Before one can even begin a discussion on a topic, step zero is knowing if the topic is a matter of fact or opinion.

Some have claimed that we are in a “post-truth era” and that we are facing dire consequences as a result. The

THE

Martin Minute January 2020 Market Update In the south county, closed home sales, pending sales, and new listings were all up compared to last year while active inventory was down. Closed condo sales and pending sales are comparable to last year and total active inventory and number of new listings are down over 30%. As of this writing, I’m personally seeing an increase in overall consumer activity, attributed partially to seasonality, coupled with the historically low interest rates. Considering buying or selling? Now is a really good time to make your move.

For new map, reports, and to watch the video, visit: M A RT I N M I N U T E .CO M

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20 MONTECITO JOURNAL

stakes indeed are high, but this challenge to the very concept of “truth” has origins going back much further.

When I was a child in the 1960s, a new generation was challenging standards that shocked an older generation. Men were wearing their hair long and wearing “love beads.” Girls were wearing slacks instead of skirts.

And challenges were being made to long-standing institutions like traditional religion and the military.

Conservatives saw these challenges as an assault on “the way things ought to be.” Even as a child I understood there was a mismatch of what each side was claiming. The conservatives were treating traditional customs as if they were matters of fact. As if a boy with long hair was not really a boy and a young person challenging the U.S. war in Vietnam was not a real American. But those are not matters of fact. They are customs.

There was talk of “moral relativism.” Conservatives saw everything that held civilization together as being threatened. If young people could challenge these customs, what is next?

Stealing and murder becoming acceptable? This was a misunderstanding of what was seen as “relative” by young people. One could choose a new religion or no religion at all without challenging the true basis of civilization.

And where did this idea of “relativism” come from? For better or worse, many challengers of the status quo turned to new discoveries in 20th century physics to bolster their case.

After all, didn’t the brilliant physicist Einstein say that “everything is relative”? Well, no.

Einstein developed a mathematical theory of space, time, energy, and matter that challenged previous understanding of these aspects of reality. These quantities indeed were relative depending on how fast you were going in relation to the reference frame being examined. But those relationships were solidly constrained by the math.

And what about quantum physics?

Didn’t it show that everything is random and that nothing is predictable.

Well, no. The Apollo program sent human beings to the moon and back with extraordinary precision based on Newtonian mechanics. No relativity or quantum mechanics needed.

A final 20th century challenge came from Kurt Gödel’s surprising math-

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” – Bob Marley

ematical discovery: There are mathematical theorems that are true, yet they cannot be proved. Does this mean that even in math anything could be true? Well, no. Every mathematical theorem is in fact true or false. It just means that it may not be possible to prove that theorem with a specific set of axioms.

For my entire life, our civilization has faced a series of existential crises that are matters of fact: Nuclear war, depletion of critical resources, overpopulation, climate. These are not matters of opinion. One can gather data on these dangers and develop risk analyses for each. It may be impossible to make perfect predictions given our human limitations. But the actual risk is still a matter of fact, not opinion.

Before one can even begin a discussion on a topic, step zero is knowing if the topic is a matter of fact or opinion.

There will never be such a thing as a “Post-Truth Era.” Individual humans can be confused or can be in denial.

But the truth remains. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson said it best: “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”

I know followers of Eastern religions who claim that there is no reality outside of what their own minds create. But I notice that they live their lives very much as if there is an outside reality. They earn money.

They save money in banks. They buy basic needs and sometimes they buy luxuries.

I am completely open to the possibility that reality is nothing at all like the way we perceive it. In fact, I am quite sure that is the case. But there is still a reality outside of what I perceive.

I am grateful to Gwyn Lurie and the other new owners of Montecito Journal for giving me space to explore a range of issues in new ways. I would like to transcend the usual political divides.

Not to avoid being political. After all, society can only function with effective policy making. “Politics” and “Policy” come from the same root. I look forward to using this space to raise issues that are not necessarily part of the current furor in the news or in social media.

If this encourages readers to challenge what I say, so much the better. But please know the difference between fact and opinion. In the words of the mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, if we have a disagreement: “Let us calculate.”

•MJ 27 February – 5 March 2020

MISCELLANY (Continued from page 18) 1919–2019/20

Cirque Eloize impresses (photo

by Pierre Manning)

MASTERSERIES

AT THE LOBERO THEATRE

SEASON SPONSORSHIP: ESPERIA FOUNDATION

MARCH

2020

13

FRI, 8:00 PM

No Vacancy Quebec-based Cirque Eloize showed its boundless acrobatic talents in a 90-minute show Hotel at the Granada, part of the popular UCSB Arts & Lectures series.

The talented company has also produced iD, Saloon and Cirkopolis, which have been seen by more than 3.5 million spectators, and performed more than 5,000 times in 550 cities around the globe.

The show featured maids, handymen, and waiters showing their expertise on the tightrope, juggling, and swinging on ropes and trapezes.

The stage featured the hotel’s lobby doors, which enabled us to go inside and see the intricately woven story of the hugely entertaining production of the circus arts combined with the latest technology.

Kirk Douglas leaves quite a legacy (seen here with Kevin Taylor)

27 February – 5 March 2020

SANTA BARBARA RECITAL DEBUT

City of Love

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Prolific author Michael Bowker launches first novel (source: Twitter.com)

Investigative journalist Michael Bowker, 68, who writes on health, science and environmental issues, has written his first novel Gods of Our Time: A Paris Love Story and launched it with a bijou bash at Tecolote, the bustling bibliophile bastion in the upper village. It has now been optioned for a movie.

Michael, who lives in our Eden by the Beach and Placerville, has written 24 books and 4,500 articles, including for the L.A. Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Readers Digest.

The new book transports readers to Paris in the 1920s, when artistic gods included Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and relates a torrid romance between a painter-healer and a journalist.

Living in Luxury An old friend, New York interior designer Geoffrey Bradfield sends me his latest 295-page tome A 21st Century Palace Asia, featuring a 250,000 sq. ft. 36-bedroom home in China on 30 acres, which took four

MISCELLANY Page 494

MARCH

26

2020

Final Gift The late Montecito actor Kirk Douglas, who died earlier this month aged 103, has left his entire $60 million fortune to charity.

Kirk, who was known for his charitable contributions throughout his life, has reportedly left the money to several major beneficiaries, including $50 million distributed by the Douglas Foundation, founded by the actor and his wife, Anne.

These include the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City, the Children’s Hospital and Sinai Temple, which

houses the Kirk and Anne Douglas Childhood Center, in Los Angeles, and St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, where the couple established a scholarship for minority and underprivileged students.

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• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

21

ON THE RECORD (Continued from page 8)

transportation to recreation. So now when you look at the trails, you get mountain bikers, trail runners, back packers, and folks just trying to get some exercise.”

Conant grew up in L.A. but moved to Santa Barbara in the 1990s to attend college at UCSB. “I didn’t look at the mountains for three years,” he marvels. “I was focused on surfing and the beach, and I assumed these mountains were just like the ones in Santa Monica, but I realized it was much more expansive. I started hiking and exploring and doing backpacking trips and started volunteering with the Forest Service doing trail work.”

In the early 2000s, Conant, a professional cartographer, began working for the US Forest Service, and recalls trails manager Kerry Kellogg as a “natural born leader” who inspired him to dedicate his life to the great outdoors. “I worked on a map of the back country in 2003, which is available at REI and different places,” Conant notes. “I became somewhat known.”

Throughout the past few decades, Conant says, the increasing frequency and destructive power of fires had become apparent, as the mountains above Santa Barbara and Ventura seemed to catch fire nearly every year.

In 2006, the Day Fire destroyed 11

structures in Ventura. The 2007 Zaca Fire burned most of the backcountry over a period of several months and became the second biggest fire in California history at the time.

Then, in November 2008, the Tea Fire destroyed 210 homes in Montecito and Santa Barbara.

None compared to the Thomas Fire of December 2017, the largest inferno in California history, which turned to ash 281,893 acres in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. At the time, Conant was assigned to an LFPA trail crew that was supposed to work the San Ysidro Trail, clearing bushes above the waterfall where the trail begins to get steep along a seemingly endless series of switchbacks.

But after checking out the dry and windy weather conditions, Conant called off the work. He knew that just one errant spark from a weedwhacker could cause a conflagration. “We cancelled it, and a week later, the whole canyon burned out,” Conant says.

“There have been a lot of people in charge of the trail over the years. Now it’s people like me and Ashlee.”

Saving the Trails

During the disaster, Mayfield and her family, who’d moved to Montecito a decade earlier, lived in a hotel room

Hulett and excavator on the Cold Spring Trail

Doug Hulett and his pal, Gigi

for 70 days. After she was able to move back into her house in March 2018, she wanted to volunteer. An avid hiker and trail runner, she had already been exploring the trails, even running weekly hikes up the canyons. “A friend of mine on Montecito Association knew there was an opening on the Montecito Trails Foundation (MTF) board,” she says. “The pieces fell into place naturally.”

Within a few months after the disaster, Mayfield and other MTF mem-

bers began organizing meetings. “The Forestry Department hadn’t had time to scout the area yet,” she recalls. “We went to them and guaranteed we’d get after the repairs and restoration and show them there was a network of safe places to hike around.”

The group also held a successful meeting at the county’s Office of Emergency Management, and, two days later, the forest reopened to the public. After surveying the trails, it was agreed that the first one on LPFA’s and MTF’s restoration schedule would be Romero Jeepway.

“That was actually a project we did

ON THE RECORD Page 454

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©2020 Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties (BHHSCP) is a member of the franchise system of BHH affiliates LLC. BHH Affiliates LLC and BHHSCP do not guarantee accuracy of all data including measurements, conditions, and features of property. Information is obtained from various sources and will not be verified by broker or MLS. Buyer is advised to independently verify the accuracy of that information.

27 February – 5 March 2020

• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

23

Jerry Meandering

by Jerold Oshinsky A Partner with Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP, Jerold Oshinsky has more than 35 years of experience litigating insurance cases in federal and state courts throughout the country. Chambers USA consistently has designated him as the only lawyer to be accorded “Star” ranking in its national insurance category. Jerry has been a resident of Montecito for 14 years.

Coronavirus and Insurance Coverage

T

he recent coronavirus outbreak has impacted all aspects of society: health, travel, and business. Although it is difficult to calculate the full extent of the damage that will be caused by this emerging pandemic, and how it will ultimately impact various industries, the virus has already led to business closures, suspension and cancellation of travel, and supply chain issues, and we’ve only begun to feel the potentially dramatic repercussions in the stock market. The principal cause has been orders of civil authority that have quarantined vast areas of China.

Various types of insurance may provide coverage for businesses that have been adversely impacted or disrupted by the coronavirus. An in-depth review of the portfolio of insurance policies issued to businesses will assist to uncover any possible coverage for losses suffered and/or liability incurred as a result of the coronavirus. The following discussion sets forth a brief summary of the various insurance policies that may provide coverage in the event an insured suffers loss due to the coronavirus either directly or as a consequence of the virus.

Commercial Property Insurance Policies

Standard commercial property insurance policies typically provide coverage for physical loss of or damage to Covered Property caused by or resulting from a covered cause of loss. This has led certain insurers to state that there can be no coverage under such policies for losses caused by a virus. Significantly, however, this position ignores the fact that there is no uniform rule applied by the courts in determining when an insured has suffered a physical loss. In fact, some courts have found that the loss of use or uninhabitability of property under certain circumstances can provide the requisite “physical loss or damage” to trigger cov-

Travel insurance policies are widely diverse, but generally provide coverage for losses that result from a delay or cancellation of a trip that is caused by bad weather, equipment failure, illness, or a medical emergency. Although these policies typically do not contain a virus or bacteria exclusion, the exclusions section of the policy should be examined thoroughly to ensure that there is nothing that would exclude coverage due to an unexpected or widespread outbreak of a disease.

Life and Health Insurance

Commercial General Liability Policies

Commercial General Liability (“CGL”) policies provide coverage to insureds for bodily injury or property damage caused to third parties who sue the insured for damages. CGL policies contain numerous exclusions, which may include a virus or bacteria exclusion. These exclusions must be examined carefully to confirm their applicability.

Director’s & Officer’s Liability Policies

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24 MONTECITO JOURNAL

Travel Insurance

Typical political risk policies may cover currency inconvertibility, expropriation, political violence and other losses. Although unlikely, depending on the specific coverage that is provided by the policy, there is a possible argument that an order by a foreign government that shuts down or impacts an insured’s business may constitute “expropriation.” A careful analysis of the coverage provided in the policy is necessary to determine whether this coverage argument is feasible.

T

969-4057 genetyburn@yahoo.com

Event cancellation policies provide coverage when an event such as a concert, trade show or wedding is cancelled for, among other reasons, equipment failure, illness of the artist, medical emergencies, and bad weather. Although these policies typically do not contain a virus or bacteria exclusion, the exclusions section of the policy should be examined thoroughly to ensure that there is nothing that would exclude coverage due to an unexpected or widespread outbreak of a disease.

Political Risk

his article was to alert you “why big trees fall over because of wind, rain and fungus, and how you can prevent it.” But then I figured, if you have a large stump or roots in your front yard now, you don’t need me to tell you what you should have done.

So I’m going to write about problems coming up. Yes, avocados should be cut back hard to encourage interior growth, but any dead wood left on the tree is detrimental, and of course painting the end of the cut with black tree paint is very harmful.

Eugenia hedges should be sprayed and deep irrigated to fight off the syllid. (A spray license is required by the agriculture commissioner).

Sycamores are in very serious trouble unless they get a leaf system soon. How do you encourage that to happen? Call and we’ll talk.

And last, because of the very cold winter, fruit trees are going to be prolific. You may think that’s good, but do you really want 10,000 plums, apricots, and peaches, etc., etc., on your trees?

What should you do, and when should you do it?

That is the question.

Gene Tyburn

Event Cancellation Coverage

The coverage afforded by health and life insurance policies should not be affected by the coronavirus. The exclusions that typically appear in these policies typically relate to personal conduct, such as self-harm, dangerous activities, alcoholism, or suicide. They do not exclude harm or loss caused by environmental factors.

“TO BE OR NOT TO BE” . . . IS NOT THE QUESTION

TLC TREES

erage under property policies.

As relevant here, property policies often provide coverage for lost income or extra expenses from “business interruption” that are due to orders of civil authority that impact your business. This means that the insured has suffered loss to the property due to a governmental interference with the running of his business. For example, a quarantine ordered by the government is an order of civil authority.

Similarly, property policies often cover losses caused by the inability to gain “ingress to or egress from” to your property, even without an order of civil authority. Road blockage is an example.

In addition, policies may provide coverage for damage to dependent properties which are, for example, third parties who provide a necessary component for the business. For instance, where property damage to a newsprint supplier prevented a newspaper from printing its edition, this could trigger dependent properties.

Often times these policies contain exclusions for losses caused by a “virus or bacteria.” A careful review and dissection of the policy, as well as an understanding of exclusions in insurance policies, and the purpose behind the virus and bacteria exclusion is required in order to ascertain whether coverage exists for disruption to business due to the Coronavirus under property insurance policies.

A

RB

ORIS

T

Director’s & Officer’s (“D&O”) liability policies do not cover bodily injury or property damage claims. Thus, the question as to whether D&O policies contain a virus or bacteria exclusion is virtually irrelevant with one possible caveat. There is a split of authority as to whether these policies cover negligent decision making that causes bodily injury or property damage.

A client of ours was involved in the sale of a business and allegedly failed to disclose pollution claims at the property being sold; and the buyer filed a lawsuit for damages against the seller. In one case that that we did not handle, the court held that the D&O policy did not apply because the case really was about property damage. The other court disagreed and ruled that the D&O policy did provide coverage because the case really was about non-disclosure by the officers and directors of the pollution. This disagreement typifies the world that I live in – same case, same facts, two different courts, two conflicting decisions.

In conclusion, this is a rapidly evolving area of the law and predictions as to what might or might not be covered have no better odds than a Las Vegas slot machine. Therefore, it would be wise to consult insurance counsel before purchasing new coverage rather than waiting for the problems to arise.

•MJ

“The only truth is music.” – Jack Kerouac

27 February – 5 March 2020

A Good Sign

your elimination campaign to thoroughly enjoy the spaces in between.

Libra: This month, you will experience great opportunities for diplomacy and doing the right thing even when no one is watching. You may have to own up to ways in which you have not been authentic in favor of pleasing others. This month, you will be able to set a new direction for your deepest truths.

by Jennifer Freed, PhD Jennifer Freed PhD is the best-selling author of USE YOUR PLANETS WISELY and a renowned psychological astrologer and social and emotional education trainer. She is the CCO of Ahasb.org. Jennifer has spent over thirty years consulting clients and businesses worldwide on psychological, spiritual, and educational topics. She can be reached at www.jenniferfreed.com

The Astrological Outlook for March

T

his month, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto are in the astrological sign of Capricorn.

Symbolically and psychologically, this collection of archetypes and energies calls us to the realms of reality and consequence.

Those of us who have worked hard and shown great maturity and discipline in reaching our goals will feel the solidity and reward of our labors. Folks who have been distracted and avoiding responsibility will be faced with serious wake-up calls about their lack of planning.

At the world level, this shows up as tension between the plutocrats and their lobbyists and the folks who have been underrepresented and marginalized – who have not had their basic needs for shelter, safety, medical care, and food met.

The biggest challenge before us in this time: to end the illusion of “us” versus “them” and to find true solutions that bring an “us-with-them” way of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Character is the theme of 2020. There is no actual substitute for civility, kindness, honesty, and accountability. As Capricorn represents our capacities for moral and social intelligence, this moment where four major planets are passing through the sign of Capricorn tasks us all to upscale our integrity.

The ultimate evolving energy of Capricorn is expressed through the steward – the one who understands that all actions should be taken in light of their impact for the next seven generations.

Shout-out to a True Montecito March Birthday Miracle!

Happy birthday, Lana McIntyre! She and her husband, John, are constant gifts to this community.

Lana is the past president of the National Charity League and has been a constant and avid volunteer and philanthropist in support of non-profits like AHA!, the Breast Cancer Resource Center, and CASA. She is a pet whisperer and an extraordinary mother to three spectacular daughters.

May your star always rise and shine, Lana!

Scorpio: If your motives are pure and you have garnered true support along the way, you can take things as far as you are willing to go. There’s no need to be shy about how profoundly you feel about things or about what keeps you up at night.

Your ability to penetrate to the depths is of great necessity right now.

Sagittarius: Buoyant and serene, you are able to bring great levity and optimism to serious matters. You can see beyond the horizon of doubt this month.

Be a beacon in the darkness; encourage others to dig in for the long haul of transformation. Make sure to take long walks in nature to remind you of who you really are.

Capricorn: This is an enormous time of contribution for you. You have never worked harder or had so many reasons to do so.

Balance this elevated time of contribution with many time-outs for self-care and play. Others have never relied on you more; stay steady by feeding and nurturing your inner child first.

Aquarius: BOOM! BOOM! You can see clearly now that the rain has gone.

Metaphorically, you can ride the rainbow of your intentions as long as you spend time dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. Don’t go so fast that you can’t keep up with yourself. Make sure to honor all the less-recognized supporters of your life.

Pisces: Everyone is wondering: can you swim through these towering waves of feeling and pressure? You can – as long as you constantly petition the divine of your own understanding for guidance and support. No one person can metabolize the intensity of this month alone; turn to a spiritual or psychological guide for support in breathing, believing, and releasing.

•MJ

This month, if the sun, moon, or rising signs in your birth chart are in the following signs:

Aries: This is the month to harness the horns of the ram in support of patient, brave acts of valor for protection of those less fortunate than you. Use the redhot passions of Mars to help uplift someone in need.

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Taurus: Double down on moderation this month. Pick a cause that honors the earth in some way, like gardening, tree planting, or even recycling. What you give back to this great creation of beauty will come back to you as satisfaction, anchoring, and joy.

Gemini: Time to clarify those 100 new directions you are moving in. This month, you will meet many challenges to your customary manner of charming your way through life. If you step back and choose two great ideas, you will attract substantial allies.

Cancer: You are either going to be crowned as leader of your universe this month or feel overlooked in some big way. The choice is yours. Let folks in your life know what they can do to best support you right now. Take time to make a list of three dreams you have yet to fulfill but that you will work tirelessly towards. If you allow others to nurture you, the sky is the limit.

Leo: You have been tested around your big-hearted plans. This month is about turning toward the grind and making some delicious brew from it.

Adversity and delay can be just the nudge you need to strengthen your resolve to be a long-lasting ray of sunshine.

Virgo: It’s a great moment for you to really get down and do all the Spring cleansing you have ever dreamed of. This month brings the emotional and material clearing you have been waiting for. Just make sure to take breaks from 27 February – 5 March 2020

• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

25

Starting Every Day with Optimism

lution of human consciousness. The team is made up of award-winning editors, journalists, and graphic designers.

As independent, reader-funded journalism, The Optimist Daily is supported

by Emissaries who pay only five dollars per month, equivalent to (or perhaps cheaper than) one iced vanilla latte. While the stories on The Optimist Daily are available to everyone, Emissaries participate in a special, active, and vibrant community of optimists on a mission to make The Optimist Daily’s work in the world possible.

To learn more, visit www.optimistdaily.com.

These Solar-powered Barges can Scoop up 50 Tons of Plastic from Rivers Each Day

From left to right: Kristy Jansen, CCO; Amelia Buckley, Staff Writer; Rinaldo Brutoco, Impact Investor; Summers McKay, CEO (photo courtesy of The Optimist Daily)

T

he Optimist Daily delivers over 50 positive, solution-based news stories each week to an avid audience of over 100,000 people with the mission “to accelerate the shift in human consciousness by catalyzing 100 million people to start each day with a positive solutions mindset.”

Every morning, The Optimist Daily publishes original stories that subscribers can experience and share in just a few moments. This allows them to elevate, motivate, and reignite their intelligent optimism as a way of catalyzing the evo-

ts ! n e ar ents P r ion dpa t ten Gran t A d an

The Optimist Daily would first like to share a wildly popular story published earlier this month about solar-powered plastic removal from rivers. While removing the plastic waste that currently contaminates the ocean today will be crucial for protecting marine ecosystems, it is arguably more important that we stop any more plastic trash from entering the ocean. Fortunately for humanity, The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit taking on plastic waste in the ocean today, also has a novel solution for stopping plastic from entering it via rivers.

The solution comes in the form of a solar-powered barge named the “Interceptor.” The 78-foot-long vessel resembles a large houseboat and uses a curved barrier to catch waste floating downstream. The trash, much of it plastic, is directed to the “mouth” of the barge – which operates autonomously and silently – from where it rolls up a conveyor belt and is dropped into dumpsters.

The Interceptor is capable of collecting up to 50 tons of waste per day.

Currently, the Klang River in Malaysia is home to one of these Interceptors where it can be seen quietly scooping up trash. The Klang River alone sends more than 15,000 tons annually into the sea, making it one of the 50 most-polluting rivers across the globe. As well as the barge in Malaysia, one has been stationed in Jakarta, the overcrowded capital of neighboring Indonesia, while two others will be sent to Vietnam and the Dominican Republic.

The Ocean Cleanup is well aware that 80 percent of plastic waste that ends up in the sea floats down just 1,000 rivers worldwide. That’s why the nonprofit has an ambitious target of stationing one trash-collecting barge in all these waterways.

•MJ

Please Join Us on Friday, March 6

A Teen Health Roundtable Navigating today’s teen health challenges!

DATE

Friday, March 6, 2020

PLACE

Ridley-Tree Cancer Center at Sansum Clinic Lovelace Conference Hall 540 W. Pueblo Street

TIME

2:30 pm – 4:30 pm

CO-CHAIRS Julie Nadel & Bobbie Rosenblatt, Women’s Council EMCEE

Dr. Marjorie Newman, Medical Director

RSVP

By February 27 to (805)681-1756 or RSVP@sansumclinic.org

Tom R. Anderson, MD

Ryan Arnold, MD

Laura Polito, MD

Sean Johnson, MHA, BSN, RN

Urgent Care

Urgent Care

Daniel Brennan, MD

Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine

Bret Davis, MD, FACP Dermatology

PARKING Complimentary Valet Parking

UCSB Student Health Services

VP, Applications and Analytics

David Raphael, MD

Obstetrics & Gynecology

Heather Terbell, MD

Obstetrics & Gynecology

Hear the latest on: vaping, sexually-transmitted diseases, skin cancer prevention, addiction to substances and alcohol, digital distractions, sports-related injuries.

The adolescent years have a long-lasting impact on a young person’s current and future health. Today, teenagers must manage many 21st century challenges.

A panel of expert physicians from multiple specialties will discuss what the picture of health is like among teens in Santa Barbara County, the greatest health risks they face and what parents can do to encourage healthy decisions that have a positive impact on their teens. Guests are welcome to join a reception with refreshments in the beautiful Healing Garden immediately following the panel discussion to meet the doctors and other health professionals.

26 MONTECITO JOURNAL

27 February – 5 March 2020

Spirituality Matters

by Steven Libowitz “Spirituality Matters” highlights two or three Santa Barbara area spiritual gatherings. Unusual themes and events with that something extra, especially newer ones looking for a boost in attendance, receive special attention. For consideration for inclusion in this column, email slibowitz@yahoo.com.

BlissSing is a Rebirthing

S

anta Barbara singer-songwriter Noell Grace’s evenings of original chants and simple songs have returned to her hearth and home for monthly gatherings. The events were originally private satsangs that morphed into Spirit Sings held at her home before expanding into fully public events at Yoga Soup a few years back. The gatherings came to a close when Grace moved to Arkansas in 2018 for what turned into only a brief relocation.

Back in town for good, Grace has reconfigured the events again as BlissSing, calling in the boundless joy, love and life of our Holy Spirit together in call-and-response singing of Grace’s ever-increasing catalog of songs and chants, designed to invoke our Divine Life through ecstatic song.

The chants are mostly in English, with a dash of Sanskrit, Aramaic and other languages, and there’s room to dance when the spirit moves. Fellow like-minded travelers are welcome to “bless and bliss yourself and your world” with the love songs to, and as, Divine Presence, all beings and beloved Mother Earth in “a safe, freeing space to express the holy fire of our wild hearts ‘til bliss is vibrating our bones.”

BlissSing takes place every fourth Thursday of the month – the second event is on February 27 – at Arden House, Grace’s home on Arden Road just off De La Vina Street. Admission by donation. Email Noell.Grace@ gmail.com or call (805) 403-1063 for details.

Mindfulness for the Yoga Practitioner

Barbara Rose Sherman is a Yoga Alliance Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher 500 who is also a Trained Mindfulness Facilitator through the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and a UCLA Mindful Awareness Practices Affiliated Teacher. Now she’s bringing her experience in drawing from the two spiritual practices to a teacher training weekend available to all in Santa Barbara.

The course, which is a component of the Santa Barbara Yoga Center’s advanced studies and teacher training programs but open to anyone, will impart principles of mindfulness to make for better teachers and students of life by providing tools and skills to become more resilient to 27 February – 5 March 2020

stress. Participants will gain immediate access to your own powerful inner resources for insight and healing, learn to enjoy the present moment, and experience more peace, calm, and happiness. Saturday of the two-day training explores “Why Mindfulness?”, how to develop Presence and Attunement, how to use breath as a meditation anchor, how to uncover and understand common issues affecting teachers and students, and develop compassion and self-compassion practices. Day 2 is conducted as a mindfulness retreat mostly in silence while participants learn how to teach various mindfulness meditations and practices, including opportunities to practice leading a mindfulness meditation and/or teaching the seated and lying down body scan.

Mindfulness for the Yoga Practitioner, which costs $295, takes place 10:30 am to 4:30 pm on Saturday, February 29, and 9 am to 3 pm on Sunday, March 1, at the Santa Barbara Yoga Center.

more love within this weekend at a private estate in Montecito. The event – in which the sacraments include Sacred Honey Bee, Mycelium, Cacao, Hape, Essential Oils, and more – is intended to cultivate community and create an energy field to cultivate love, joy, gratitude, forgiveness, compassion, flow, and prayers for all life. The estate boasts sprawling gardens that will inspire the heart to fully express its magic in its fullness, while all are invited to bring flowers, crystals, or other sacred items to be placed on the Altar.

The I AM Love Ceremony, hosted

by Ascension Academy, takes place 1:11-11:11 pm on Saturday, February 29, and costs $188. Message Ascension Academy on Meetup (www.meetup. com/Santa-Barbara-Kundalini-Yogaand-Meditation-Meetup-Group/ events/268120955) or contact shineril ling@gmail.com for more information and required pre-registration.

Ascension Academy also hosts its weekly Meditation & Breathework Practice at Lower Manning Park Area 9 from 10-11:30 am on Sunday.

The events focus on learning the basic techniques of meditation and breathwork and how to incorporate meditation and its techniques into our daily lives, and includes guided meditation and a sound healing immersive experience. Admission by suggested $10$20 donation.

More Montecito Meetups

Santa Barbara Buddhist Meditation, which holds regular meditation and other gatherings at the American Buddhist Temple in Goleta as well as various Montecito locations and elsewhere, has a special offering for this Saturday night. Its Once-in-a-LeapYear Forest Retreat is a three-hour excursion at La Cumbre Peak designed to briefly isolate participants from the “busyness,” noise and clutter of our daily lives. Other than brief opening and closing remarks, including general orientation of the area, the retreat will consist of silent individual sitting and walking meditation practice in the forest and around the crags on and near the summit of the mountain.

While group practice is not necessarily discouraged, this forest retreat is envisioned as an ideal time to go off and be alone in silence with only the trees and the wind. Meet on East Camino Cielo at the gate just below the very top of the mountain for the event, which begins at 9 pm on Leap Year night, Saturday, February 29.

Santa Barbara Buddhist Meditation also returns to Vedanta Temple (927 Ladera Lane) for its monthly Half Moon Morning Retreat at 8 am on Monday, March 2. Visit www.meetup.com/Santa-Barbara-BuddhistMeditation.

•MJ

More MAPS

Sherman, who has facilitated twenty-three yoga-meditation retreats in Montecito before La Casa de Maria fell victim to the 2018 mudslide, will also lead a “MAPs I for Daily Living,” her first offering of the introductory course from acclaimed, scientifically-based UCLA program here in town since last summer. The MAPs I course provides insight into the basics of mindfulness, how to develop a mindfulness meditation practice, and how mindfulness can be applied in daily life. It is also appropriate for experienced practitioners who wish to revitalize their practice. The six-week class series – taking place Thursday evenings in downtown Santa Barbara March 5 to April 9 – is open to everyone interested in reducing stress and becoming more present by cultivating a personal meditation practice. Each class is a combination of lecture, practice, group feedback, and discussion. Admission is $200. Email Sherman at Barbara@ MindfulBusinessWorks.com, call (805) 569-5659, or visit https://www.face book.com/events/184220588892328.

I AM Love Ceremony

Shining Lion (aka Shane Rilling) and the Ojai-based World Peace Tribe guide a sacred ceremony to cultivate

1218 State Street 805-770-8300 | 805-452-2692 | www.tmollie.com

• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

27

Montecito Moms

by Dalina Michaels

Dalina Michaels worked as an award-winning television news producer for KEYT NewsChannel 3. She also served as a reporter for several years with “Inside Santa Barbara,” the city newsmagazine show.

She now freelances for various websites and journalistic outlets. She is a native of Montecito and is grateful to be raising her own children here. If you are a Mama-Cito mama (or know someone!) who would like to be featured, please email: tim@montecitojournal.com

Fragrant Cane Supper Club

T

here is a new supper club in town – but it’s not your granny’s get-together of the ‘50s.

This is a chance to experience a meal on a new level… a “high”-er level, if you will.

Just when you thought your Friday night couldn’t get more exciting, enter Melissa Petitto and Cynthia Abulafia. Both moms. Both health nuts. But both with a passion for bringing good, high-quality organic food to your table in a five-star restaurant sort of way, and with a cannabis twist: each meal item from the cocktail to the dessert will have some form of cannabis in it.

Now, before you go thinking that you’ll be serving dinner to get stoned, you need to know that these moms know what they are doing.

As a chef with a bachelor’s in Culinary Nutrition with a concentration in bio-chemical sciences as well

28 MONTECITO JOURNAL

Melissa Petitto and Cynthia Abulafia hope to bring local guests together for a unique dinner experience

One of Petitto’s Fragrant Cane Supper Club dishes, garnished with a cannabis leaf

The dinner table is set and ready for guests to arrive for Fragrant Cane’s Friday night supper

as a registered dietician, Petitto is the brains behind the menu.

Abulafia, a master yogi who leads packed classes at Yoga Soup each week, holds a master’s degree in nutrition.

So how did two culinary scholars with scientific backgrounds come up with this idea?

Says Petitto, “We wanted to elevate the dining experience and take away some of the misconceptions surrounding cannabis. The truth is, the leaves of the cannabis plant have more vitamins and minerals than kale!”

They decided on the name Fragrant Cane Supper Club by going old school, or rather, Old Testament. Petitto explains, “Some scholars believe the name ‘fragrant cane’ referred to cannabis in biblical times.”

Petitto knows her nutrition: After doing a dietetic internship at Emory University Hospital and then working as a celebrity chef for 13 years in New York City (creating dishes for clients like actress Lucy Liu, Danny DeVito, and supermodel Christy Turlington), she came to California to continue bringing wholesome organic-vegan inspired meals to the West Coast. “I wanted to use my degree to show people that food could be the answer to helping them lead healthier lifestyles; my motto is: ‘Food is Medicine.’”

Abulafia concurs, “I have always liked the community-building aspect of sharing meals. It has been a natural bridge between my yoga practice and my desire to want to help people cook better and eat healthier.”

The two women came up with a plan: a dinner party where you can let down your inhibitions and try something totally new: bringing together people who may never have tried cannabis. The goal is to enlighten and enjoy!

Says Abulafia, “This plant is worth exploring. We believe in the medicinal properties of cannabis, and the opportunity to share it with people in a relaxed fine dining experience.”

What can you expect when you show up for dinner?

First, you’ll be handed a special-

ty cocktail, perhaps a Thai iced tea crafted with coconut milk and a CBD tincture.

Petitto explains, “CBD is not so psycho-active. It’s very calming as opposed to THC, the bio-active part of the plant, which would make you high.”

The meal starts with an amuse-bouche – a single bite to tickle the palate.

According to Petitto, “Think of this as your starter or an appetizer. Something to amuse or kick off the evening.” She likes to create a theme for the evening, so she tries to pair items that are seasonal and flow together.

The first course may be pan-seared king royal trumpet mushroom “scallops” with cannabis infused dash broth (made from Kombu, a type of seaweed). With each item, the chef comes out to share the meal and the ingredients used to create it.

Dessert sounds heavenly, for example, salted caramel pots de creme with shisho (a Japanese inspired sweet leaf), and candied ginger with cannabis infused dark chocolate sauce.

Abulafia is quick to point out the cannabis is optional on all items, “If someone wants to skip the cannabis on any course, the chef can accommodate. Sometimes you may want to have it on the main course, but not the dessert. It’s easy to pull it for someone who prefers to leave it out.”

You can sign up for private dinner parties on Friday nights; if you want to do a full buy-out you can, otherwise just sign up and see who else is on the guest list as a surprise.

The Club recommends you have guests Uber to your location: “Just like if you’re going to a restaurant and plan to order a bottle of wine, you wouldn’t drive home. This is the same thing. If you’re going to have cannabis in your meal, you’ll be able to enjoy yourself more if you can catch a ride home.”

“There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.” – Albert Schweitzer

Fragrant Cane can be reached at FragrantCaneSupperClub@gmail. com. More information at www.fra grantcanesupperclub.com.

•MJ 27 February – 5 March 2020

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27 February – 5 March 2020

• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

29

LETTERS (Continued from page 11)

ing government accountability and getting special interest money out of politics in Santa Barbara County. I also agree with her commitment to protecting our environment and fighting climate change. I appreciate Laura’s willingness to work on lowering our county’s high poverty rate and advocate for women, families and children.

As a long time Santa Barbara County resident I have become very concerned with Das Williams listening primarily to his constituents who contribute large sums of money to his campaign.

I don’t feel he is representing or listening to the concerns many of his constituents, including myself, have regarding the regulation of marijuana, the proximity of the greenhouses growing marijuana to our local schools, and the adverse effects the odors have on both the Carpinteria/Santa Barbara County residents and the environment. Laura has listened to these concerns and has indicated that she would be an active advocate for increasing the buffer zone of where marijuana could be grown so that it won’t be in such close proximity to schools and residences.

I believe an endorsement of Laura Capps, in the Montecito Journal, would greatly improve her chances of becoming the next Santa Barbara County District 1 Supervisor.

Thank you for time and consideration.

Sincerely, Jill Stassinos 25+ years resident of Carpinteria 32+ years Santa Barbara Special Education Teacher President of Santa Barbara/Weihai Sister City Association 2nd Vice President of Santa Barbara/ Puerto Vallarta Sister City Committee

Support for San Ysidro Pharmacy

When I read about the Pharmacy’s run-in with the DEA I wanted to weep. Steve Hoyt is the best pharmacist in town, possibly the state. The service he provides to the community is vital and irreplaceable. He is more

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30 MONTECITO JOURNAL

knowledgeable, empathetic and wise than most M.D.’s, and is always willing to listen and try to find an answer to whatever problem you may have.

His staff are wonderful, and for those of us with limited mobility their delivery service is a blessing. If Steve needs community members to stand up and vouch for his honesty and integrity, count me in.

Sheila McNeill Montecito

The Need for ‘I’

Thanks, Gwyn, for your thoughtful editorial comments on the importance and need for more, “Sorry” these days. I couldn’t agree more. However, I would like to add a bit more to your wise comments.

Saying “sorry” is one thing; adding to it, and preceding it with the personal pronoun “I” – “I am sorry” – is an additional step toward reconciliation when we have hurt or somehow wronged another person.

Usually when a parent has instructed their child to apologize for some childhood crime, what usually follows is a perfunctory, “sorry.” I’m not sure, but I suspect that leaving out the “I” provides some sort of quasi self-protection and the avoidance of being any more vulnerable than is necessary.

More difficult yet is adding to the tail end of, “I am sorry,” the question, “Will you forgive me?” This really opens ourselves up to being vulnerable since we are asking for a response – and we don’t know what it will be.

“Forget it!”, “When Hell freezes over!”, “You’ve got too earn my forgiveness”, “Now it’s my turn to get even.” And the most painful possible response of all: “No. I will not forgive you.”

Or – and hopefully – we might hear, “of course I will,” which then opens the door to healing and reconciliation, and also gives a clear picture of where we stand with the person we have hurt or offended. Forgiveness can come immediately, or asking might just be the beginning of the healing process.

Either way, owning our error with “I,” and actually asking for forgiveness in addition to simply acknowledging we goofed (“sorry”), is more likely to bring about true closure and healing than simply uttering-often muttering-a vague, “sorry.” And when true closure occurs, it minimizes the likelihood of holding a grudge by the person we have somehow offended.

I hope I haven’t offended you, Gwyn, by adding my two cents. If I have, sorry.

No, I am sorry.

And, oh, yeah. Will you forgive me?

Ed Wimberly, Ph.D.

Lab Leak?

Could the coronavirus have leaked from a lab?

At an emergency meeting in Beijing held last Friday, Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke about the need to contain the coronavirus.

Good idea Xi!!

A national system to control biosecurity risks must be put in place “to protect the people’s health,” Xi said, because lab safety is a “national security” issue. Xi didn’t actually admit that the coronavirus now devastating large swathes of China had escaped from one of the country’s bioresearch labs.

For full story Google “New York Post – Leaked from Lab.” Maybe China could adopt Obamacare to “protect people’s health.”

Could the Russians (and Bernie Sanders) also be involved?

Cautiously rewatching The Andromeda Strain, Dale Lowdermilk Santa Barbara, CA Founder NOTSAFE(dot)ORG

Boot Das

I have had the great privilege of living in Montecito for close to thirty years. During that time I have looked to the Independent as my source for electoral guidance. I have trusted their voice.

No longer.

With the Independent’s shocking endorsement of Das Williams, a man whom they quote as having “…serious concerns and significant reservations about…” and “who seems tone deaf and arrogant…” they have lost, for me, their stature.

Mr. Williams had his chance. He had the opportunity to provide true leadership – after the debris flow.

Instead, that fell to the inspired citizens who worked tirelessly to raise $5 million dollars to install ring nets to keep the public safe.

These private citizens fought tremendous obstacles at the local and state level.

Leadership from Mr. Williams from the outset could have made a tremendous difference.

In sharp contrast, Laura Capps embodies proactive, inspired leadership. She has a proven record at the national and regional level of not reacting, but being proactive. She surrounds herself with the smartest people she can find, soliciting answers to the most challenging issues, gaining consensus, and then making decisions (and action plans) from an informed, ego-less position.

That is the kind of leadership our county deserves and that is the only kind of leadership we should be settling for.

“Music is the shorthand of emotion.” – Leo Tolstoy

Das has had his time as supervisor, it’s time for new leadership.

It’s time for Laura Capps.

Bobby Shand Montecito

No Mas Das!

Supervisor Williams is not exercising control over the cannabis explosion in Carpinteria Valley. He is not protecting us! Contrary to what some letters here have suggested, few of us are opposed to the growth of cannabis. But it is the completely disproportionate density of this growing that is causing the problems... especially odor! This is not simply a figment of the media as other writers here have suggested. All you have to do is drive by on the freeway in the evening or on Via Real almost anytime. Perhaps these other writers do not live downwind? In any case we don’t oppose the cannabis business.

And if the taxation were shifted to taxation on acreage and not hard to verify revenue, it COULD make a big difference in our community. But the odors are not only giving children and adults headaches and nausea, but it is affecting the value of real estate. You only have to talk to those Realtors attempting to sell properties! The answers are simple. Insist that permits be granted only when there is closed system carbon filtration installed. Yes we know this is more expensive but these growers should have no problem with the millions of dollars they expect to take in. Enforce your own ordinance Mr. Williams… read it.. it says “best available” odor control. NO ONE disputes that carbon filtration is better than Byers!! So I encourage readers to vote for Laura Capps, not only because she is ready to actually cut back on the density of these grows near schools and residences, and enforce and strengthen ordinances, but because she is also willing to go along with restrictions on campaign financing. Das’ PAC is largely cannabis $$! Seriously Mr. Williams!

Whose side are you on!

Jim Mannoia

Too Much Cannabis

I am a physician and a resident of Carpinteria. Today I met with the Director of the Santa Barbara County Planning Department Lisa Plowman with questions on how we have arrived at the current state of air pollution and the uptick of respiratory illnesses in Carpinteria Valley.

For example, why did the County Board of Supervisors ignore an assessment from an outside consulting firm, the Woods Group, stating that new cannabis grows would significantly impact air quality and needed an EIR.

LETTERS Page 324 27 February – 5 March 2020

Your Westmont

by Scott Craig (photography by Brad Elliott) Scott Craig is manager of media relations at Westmont College

REAL ESTATE PARTNERS

Musicians Compete for Scholarships

T

he eighth annual Westmont Instrumentalist Guild Competition features eight musicians vying for Westmont music scholarships on Saturday, February 29, at 7 pm in Deane Chapel on the lower Westmont campus. Prospective Westmont student instrumentalists Sean Tran (piano), Daniel Macy (violin), Katie Peel (French horn) Natasha Loh (bassoon), Emma Wu (piano), and Evan Zhou (violin) will perform. The event is free and open to the public.

Ava Kimmel of Bellevue Christian School in Seattle took top honors in the Vocal Guild Competition on February 22, earning up to $10,000 in annual scholarship funds (up to $40,000 over four years). Vocal finalist Sarah Duff, a senior at Dublin Coffman High School in Dublin, Ohio, confirmed she will be attending Westmont in the fall. The soprano, who also plays cello, has sung in her high school choir, the Columbus International Children’s Choir, and her church’s Worship Academy.

The competition is funded by The Guild for Music at Westmont and judged by Grey Brothers, professor of music; Steve Butler, professor of music; Steve Hodson, professor of music; Han Soo Kim, assistant professor of music; and Michael Shasberger, Adams professor of music and worship.

Lecture Examines Peaceful Native Americans Richard Pointer, Westmont professor of history, uncovers the peacemaking traditions of Native American communities in a lecture, “Peace-loving Indians? Recovering A Missing Piece of American History,” on Tuesday, March 3, at 7 pm in Hieronymus Lounge at Kerrwood Hall. The Paul C. Wilt Phi Kappa Phi Lecture is free and open to the public.

“Given what most of us know about the long and often painful history of native peoples in America, it is easy to imagine they were by nature or necessity warlike,” Pointer says. Drawing upon his forthcoming book, Pacifist Prophet, Pointer will tell the story of one such remarkable peacemaker, Papunhank, in war-torn 18th century Pennsylvania.

Pointer, who graduated from Houghton College, earned his master’s and doctorate at Johns Hopkins 27 February – 5 March 2020

Dr. Rick Pointer speaks about pacifist Native Americans

401 Chapala Street, # 107 University before joining Westmont’s history department in 1994. His books include Encounters of the Spirit: Native Americans and European Colonial Religion and Protestant Pluralism and the New York Experience; A Study of Eighteenth-Century Religious Diversity.

Pacifist Prophet: Papunhank and the Quest for Peace in Early America is expected to be published in fall 2020.

Warriors Season Swings to Santa Barbara

Spacious Corner Condo with Modern Luxury $1,185,000 | 1 BD, 1.5 BA 1,666 SF | Sevilla Condo Lisa McCollum (805) 886-6746 Lisa@HomesInSantaBarbara.com www.HomesInSantaBarbara.com DRE 01499736/01129919/01920859 ©2019 Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties (BHHSCP) is a member of the franchise system of BHH Affiliates LLC. BHH Affiliates LLC and BHHSCP do not guarantee accuracy of all data including measurements, conditions, and features of property. Information is obtained from various sources and will not be verified by broker or MLS. Buyer is advised to independently verify the accuracy of that information.

Westmont’s Suzie Taylor of Draper, Utah, lines up a putt

The Westmont men’s and women’s golf teams hosted their first intercollegiate golf tournament, the Westmont Invitational, on February 23-24 at Sandpiper Golf Club in Goleta.

Seniors Tanner Shean of Santa Ynez and Miles Witt of Mount Vernon, Washington, lead the men, and seniors Kat Bevill of Crystal Lake, Illinois, leads the all-first-year women’s team.

The Warriors will also host La Piranha Challenge on March 30-31 in Lompoc at La Purisima Golf Course, known locally as “La Piranha.”

The Golden State Athletic Conference holds the Men’s and Women’s Golf Championships at Briarwood Country Club in Sun City West, Arizona, on April 27-29. Conference champions will receive automatic berths at the NAIA National Tournaments. The men will play May 19-22 at Las Sendas Golf Club in Mesa, Arizona, while the women play May 12-15 at Lincoln Park Golf Course in Oklahoma City.

•MJ

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31

LETTERS (Continued from page 30)

That assessment was made just on the basis of the odors and chemicals emitted by the cannabis itself.

Numerous environmental issues have become increasingly apparent but the BOS have yet to require Environmental Impact Reports for cannabis production or processing.

Sitting Supervisor Das Williams was the architect and driving force behind our woeful Cannabis Ordinance, and has also stymied ANY meaningful remedies to the crisis that he and his Ordinance has created.

So in the county that banned plastic straws, chemicals are being pumped into the air 24 hours a day, seven days a week by the 50-gallon drum. These chemicals were previously used on land fill sites, far away from homes, schools, and businesses. Now their use is required on cannabis operations in Carpinteria. That is troubling for two reasons: 1) Carpinteria now smells so bad it requires industrial odor abatement previously reserved for garbage dumps, and 2) though these compounds are untested for long-term human exposure as vapors, the cannabis industry is deemed more important than human health in Carpinteria Valley.

These chemicals are permitted by our local Air Pollution Control Board – run by Willams’ allies and appointees – because they are not listed on the State of California list of Toxic Air Contaminants. If we have learned anything from the vaping crisis of recent months, it is that otherwise innocuous substances can be lethal when vaporized and inhaled. Mark Byers, the supplier of the most common vapor system in use in Carpinteria, called our Valley “Ground Zero” for use of these systems in a community setting.

The only safety data he presented was of four-hour exposure tests of rats in a closed box. That’s like saying well, you smoked one cigarette and you didn’t die or get cancer, so cigarettes must be safe. Without consideration of the DAILY and CHRONIC exposure to the vaporized chemicals being used, and no studies of long-term safety, how can this be allowed? Since no such evaluations have been done, why are these being allowed and even promoted?

Non-toxic substances can be toxic if vaporized and inhaled. Personally, I don’t want to be “Ground Zero” for any new industrial exposure.

Even if the Environmental Impact exemption can be justified for an individual project, there is simply TOO MUCH CANNABIS in the First District.

Every time another pot grow commences operations, the air quality in my neighborhood deteriorates. Every municipal district in the County, including the City of Carpinteria, Goleta, and Solvang, has beseeched

32 MONTECITO JOURNAL

the Board of Supervisors to address this, but they have not – with Williams leading the opposition, stalwartly championing his patrons, the cannabis growers.

Judy Dean MD

Setting the Tone

If the ‘tone’ is set at the top, the ‘tone’ stinks. No, I am not referring to the ‘pot odor’ that permeates the air but to some of your supporters. Within this last week three ‘lawn signs’ in support of Laura Capps, which I personally put up disappeared into thin air. This morning we found the ‘lawn sign’ which was in front of our house, on our private property, missing from its very visible spot. Not to worry though, they have all been replaced and we now have two ‘lawn signs’ in support of Laura Capps in front of our house.

You need to set the tone for your supporters. You need to tell them that if they want to support you that they should transparently campaign on your behalf. Tell them that they do not need to be so small-minded and weasily that they feel that the only way you can prevail is if they swipe Laura Capps’ ‘lawn signs.’ How juvenile.

For weeks, I have looked at the three ‘lawn signs’ around the perimeter of the former Big Yellow House in Summerland (now occupied by Headwaters (https://goheadwaters. com/) – yes, another cannabis related business – and have managed to neither remove or deface them. It is possible to not support a candidate and leave their ‘lawn signs’ in place.

So, how-about getting your head out of the ‘weeds’ of your campaign and setting a more positive tone for your supports.

A former supporter, Elaine Dietsch

Choose Excellence!

When you vote on Tuesday, I’d like you to think about demanding excellence.

Allow me to explain: A recent endorsement (sort-of) of our First District Supervisor lauded the fact that he “made sure that bottled water got passed out” following the most heartbreaking and deadly natural disaster in our history. I don’t question the compassion or the need but is this the best our $1.1B County, with 4,200 employees, can do? How about a climate safety conference where we bring to bear national thought leaders? Or, meaningful public funding initiatives for innovative and privately conceived projects? Or, a local office as people reinvest and have questions about insurance, permits, etc.

– we can’t keep accepting mediocre and allowing our public servants to

Laughing Matters

Hide and Seek

A

woman, cranky because her husband was late coming home again, decided to leave a note, saying, “I’ve had enough and have left you... don’t bother coming after me.” Then she hid under the bed to see his reaction.

After a short while the husband comes home and she could hear him in the kitchen before he comes into the bedroom. She could see him walk towards the dresser and pick up the note...

After a few minutes he wrote something on it before picking up the phone and calling someone... “She’s finally gone... yeah I know, about bloody time, I’m coming to see you, put on that sexy French nightie. I love you... can’t wait to see you... we’ll do all the naughty things you like.”

He hung up, grabbed his keys and left.

She heard the car drive off as she came out from under the bed.

Seething with rage and with tears in her eyes she grabbed the note to see what he wrote... “I can see your feet. We’re outta bread: be back in five minutes.”

Send us your best joke, we’ll decide if it’s funny. We can only print what we can print, so don’t blame us. Please send “jokes” to letters@ montecitojournal.net

describe it as “excellent.”

Capps, on the other hand, has developed a detailed/thoughtful Plan, has vowed to be a “proactive partner” with the Partnership for Resilient Communities and to support Curtis Skene who privately (does anything in this district get done with public funding/innovation?) seeks to clean and maintain the debris basins.

Also impacting our district and, believe you me, it will only get worse, is cannabis. Remember, our Supervisor was one of two ad-hoc Committee Supervisors (three would have required public meetings at the drafting phase) that created the most lenient cannabis ordinance in the state. One that circumvented Prop 64’s large grow moratorium thereby allowing the “largest pot farms in the world.”

Our sweeping Ordinance – the crowning legislative achievement of this Supervisor—has become the posterchild for CA’s other 57 counties of what NOT to do. We have a nearly three square mile “cap,” anemic tax revenues, the potential destruction of our $2B wine/avo industries, lack of any Economic Impact and/or Health Studies (yes, VOC’s have health risks) and the failure to require odor eradication systems that effectively preserve health, values and quiet enjoyment.

An ordinance that poses an existential threat to our entire County and that will likely degenerate into litigation is not “excellent.”

Finally, we have no transparency of process and public trust has been destroyed. SB has no Ethics Commission or recusal standards and allows political contributions to be

“Without music, life would be a blank to me.” – Jane Austen

paid close in time to a Board vote.

We have rubberstamped and/or faux endorsements that occur before challengers ever officially enter the race – union money flows, special interest money flows, and the dominos fall.

The incumbents retain power and all is right with the world. But really, it’s not!

Over the past few months, I have come to know Laura Capps and while I don’t agree with her on every issue, I can tell you that she is right for the District. She is willing to listen and, more importantly, she has integrity.

She is a reformer who knows that we are ethically challenged. She understands that our $1.1B county can do much more as it relates to homelessness, climate safety and poverty and that we can learn from others with respect to cannabis. She doesn’t shoot from the hip and instead relies on a solid education and local knowledge to propose solutions. She has a moral compass we can trust.

This is a non-partisan local election so let’s not be distracted by national issues and catchphrases. Whomever you support and whatever your party, vote! Vote your individual conscience, vote for change, and know that we can do better than mediocre.

Jeff Giordano SB County Resident

Our Apologies

In the 7th paragraph of Calla’s Corner (Jan. 20-Feb 6) it should read: “Many of Dr. Hrach’s patients were able to pay the $2,750 for individuals and $5,000 for couples for the 24/7 care.”

•MJ 27 February – 5 March 2020

EDITORIAL (Continued from page 5)

Supervisor. This is the only contested race for which we are currently endorsing, as it will be decided in Tuesday’s primary.

First and foremost, we applaud Laura Capps for her bravery in deciding to run for County Supervisor knowing that she would be going up against the party establishment. We believe all candidates who file on time should be at least considered – interviewed – for their party’s endorsement. So kudos to Laura for taking on democracy’s back room. Not surprisingly, Laura’s courage in the face of political pressure is evident elsewhere in her public service.

For example, when a challenging and highly charged issue came before the School Board, related to the firing of San Marcos’s principal, Laura took seriously her responsibility to consider the disparate and at times emotional pleas coming at her from all sides; and in the end she had the courage to be the lone dissenting vote in that decision. We commend Laura for working to understand the divergent perspectives of a complicated issue, and for standing up to untold pressure and voting for what she believed was right, rather than for what was politically expedient.

This is the kind of brave leadership we deserve; a leader who has the patience and interest to take in diverse stakeholder perspectives, and create thoughtful policies based on that understanding.

Our district deserves nothing less than an inspired leader.

Laura’s strong work on the Santa Barbara School Board, her proposal for an ethics commission and campaign finance reform within our county, her work with state and national organizations to combat climate change, her leadership in the county’s fight against hunger and poverty, and her strong record advocating for women and children are just some of the reasons we enthusiastically support Laura.

We think it’s worth mentioning that Laura cut her teeth in the White House, working in the Communication’s Office and as a Presidential speechwriter, alongside some of the most storied and experienced names in American politics.

Her father was a revered UCSB professor and Congressman; her mother was a school nurse who went on to become an equally beloved member of Congress.

Laura, like her folks, is a credit to the Capps family name – good people who have done good and important work from which we have all benefitted. She is a chip off the old block in the best possible way. Integrity is in her DNA. As a community we face many profound issues, including: vital environmental concerns, the need for further natural disaster abatement and rebuilding, congestion issues regarding traffic and its pervasive impact on residents and businesses, density and other quality of life issues, homelessness, poverty, not to mention our own potential upcoming cannabis issues.

Now more than ever we need a fearless and inclusive leader with unwavering integrity who will actively explore innovative solutions and bravely face the inevitable resistance that seems to always ride shotgun along with change.

And… we deserve a leader who, when she makes a mistake, as humans do, will have the humility and courage to say, I’m sorry.

We are inspired by Laura Capps the candidate and Laura Capps the person, and we would very much like to see what she will do as our 1st District County Supervisor. We deserve it.

VOTE LAURA CAPPS FOR 1st DISTRICT COUNTY SUPERVISOR. But no matter who or what you support, our most important responsibility is to our democratic process. So, if you haven’t already done so by mail please…

DON’T FORGET TO VOTE MARCH 3.

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Brilliant Thoughts

by Ashleigh Brilliant Born London, 1933. Mother Canadian. Father a British civil servant. World War II childhood spent mostly in Toronto and Washington, D.C. Berkeley PhD. in American History, 1964. Living in Santa Barbara since 1973. No children.

Best-known for his illustrated epigrams, called “Pot-Shots”, now a series of 10,000.

Email ashleigh@west.net or visit www.ashleighbrilliant.com

Guest Who?

O

ne mark of a civilized society is a code of manners, part of which involves rules of hospitality. How should one behave when one is a guest or a host? We are not usually taught such things at school.

There are books of “etiquette” – but, if we learn these rules at all, it is mostly from our parents. The supreme guiding principal is of course the “Golden Rule.” Do as you would be done by.

Treat others the way you would wish to be treated.

But what if this involves expense and inconvenience? What if your own comfort has to suffer in order to make your guests comfortable? And just how long should you have to put up with them anyway? I think it was Benjamin Franklin who said that fish and visitors begin to smell in three days.

But, as a general rule, the more harsh the conditions may be outside your dwelling, the more you are obliged to offer refuge to anyone seeking it. That is why desert-dwellers like the Arabs are famous for their hospitality. Some years ago, I had an almost embarrassing experience of this attribute, when hitchhiking in an Arab region of Israel.

Not only was I invited into the tenthome of a family who saw me passing by on the road, to share their simple dinner, but, when I left, the children ran after me, offering coins, which of course I couldn’t accept.

I’m not by nature a compassionate person – but am still haunted by the memory of an incident more than 40 years ago, when I failed to meet the minimal test of being a “Good Samaritan.” Time has erased many of the details, but I had heard on the news something about a big fire on a far edge of our community, with a number of people driven from their homes. And what I remember is that I received a telephone call from someone I didn’t know, but who was in need of somewhere to stay, because of the fire. It appeared that the only reason he chose to call me was that I was a sort of local celebrity, with my name and work in the paper every day. I don’t think our conversation was very long – but it did not end with my inviting this person to come and stay with me – or even offering any other kind of help.

I could offer you excuses, such as having had an upbringing in which I’d always been cautioned to beware of strangers. Or the fact that my wife happened to be away, and it was really her house, and she was even more wary of

• The Voice of the Village •

strangers than I was. Still, after all these years, the memory weighs heavily on my conscience.

Nowadays, along with the debasing of many other words and concepts in our language, “hospitality,” once something of a family virtue, has become a mass- marketed industry, with its own schools, standards, and certifications. Millions earn their livelihoods by accommodating and entertaining others. The comforts of eating, sleeping, and relaxing have become highly homogenized, as represented by chains of lodging-establishments, national and international, in each of which you may expect to find facilities so similar that it is easy to forget just where you are.

I’m not by nature a compassionate person – but am still haunted by the memory of an incident more than 40 years ago, when I failed to meet the minimal test of being a “Good Samaritan.”

Nevertheless, there are no corresponding schools of what I might call the art of “guestmanship.” The trouble is, there’s no money in it. Unless you happen to be a truly exceptional person, very few people will pay for the privilege of receiving you in their house. In most cases, they will feel that the free room and board they’re providing is quite enough. Some people have become so adept at moving about from house to house of friends or family members, that they might be called professional guests.

But being a guest provides its own problems in etiquette. For example, hosts put out “guest towels” in their bathrooms – but is the guest really supposed to use them? If so, why are those towels so inadequate, compared with all the others on display? And how does one resist the temptation, when securely locked in that little room, to inspect the contents of one’s host’s medicine cabinet?

Of course, like everything else in our now-digital world, there are today plenty of online methods of matching hosts and guests, who might otherwise never have met. But, however it has been arranged, the big difference between host and guest remains unchanged: only the guest can go home.

•MJ MONTECITO JOURNAL

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Blair Fox regularly leads vineyard tours on the Parker family ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley. He leads the team that makes all the Fess Parker projects, including Epiphany Cellars.

SANTA BARBARA IN A GLASS

by Gabe Saglie Gabe Saglie has been covering the Santa Barbara wine scene for more than 15 years through columns, TV and radio. He’s a senior editor with Travelzoo and is a leading expert on travel deals, tips and trends. Gabe and wife Renee have 3 children and one Golden Retriever named Milo

The Bet on Rhone that Paid Off: Epiphany Cellars Turns 20 Eli Parker is celebrating the 20th anniversary of his Epiphany Cellars label.

Part of the Fess Parker brand, Epiphany specializes in Rhone wines.

W

hen Eli Parker launched his pet project, Epiphany Cellars, 20 years ago, his dad had doubts.

“He was not thrilled with what he perceived to be a distraction at the time,” says the vintner, referencing Fess Parker, the Disney icon who launched his eponymous wine brand in 1989. Ten years in, the label, anchored on a sweeping 700-acre ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley that remains the family homestead today, had already won fame for a diverse portfolio of wines. A new label might dilute its visibility in the marketplace.

The new venture was timed right, though, thanks to several factors that had come into play in the 1990s; indeed, the family’s beloved patriarch would soon have a change of heart.

Syrah, the flagship grape of the Rhone grape varieties – as in, originating in the Rhone region of France – saw a surge in popularity during the final decade of the 20th century. It meant, on the one hand, that the marketplace became flooded with cheap renditions of syrah. “Consumers embraced it at the $10-to-$12 price point but then couldn’t understand the other, more expensive end of the spectrum,” recalls Mr. Parker.

But the younger Parker’s own travels in the ‘90s to places like France, where Rhone wine production was well established, and Australia, where wines like syrah were getting a fresh new spin, solidified his love for all 27 February – 5 March 2020

things Rhone. “The more I drank those wines, the more I loved those wines,” he says, and he quickly came to the realization that “the Rhone set is really what I had a passion for.”

At this time – the clock was quickly ticking toward a new millennium – the Fess Parker label was fine-tuning its own focus in earnest, thanks to new leadership from Tim Snider, an E & J Gallo alum who joined the family business in 1999 (and who’d soon become Eli’s brother-in-law). The brand’s hard pivot toward pinot noir and chardonnay cleared the way for Eli to focus on Rhone varieties in earnest: syrah, for sure, plus lesser-known red grapes like grenache and mourvedre, and whites like viognier, Roussanne, and grenache blanc.

The first releases of wine under the Epiphany Cellars label were small lot experiments that Eli conducted with then-winemaker Brett Escalera (who’s with the Sanger Family of Wines in Solvang now), including the syrah-grenache amalgam known as Revelation ($49), which remains a flagship Epiphany blend to this day.

Twenty years later, Epiphany Cellars is one of the best vintage-by-vintage snapshots in all of Santa Barbara County, and in all of California, of the potential of Rhone grapes. The label produces various vineyard-specific syrahs, bottles rare finds like the red grape counoise on their own and produces phenomenal blends, including one of my favorites, Gypsy ($29).

anyone, Blair was a no brainer. His whole team is amazing.”

Indeed, Mr. Blair and his crew handle winemaking for the Parker family’s entire production of more than 70,000 cases a year, including the Fess Parker label, the Fesstivity group of sparklers and the Addendum line of high-end Napa cabernet. The Epiphany lineup is available for tasting daily at its sleek, breezy tasting room along Grand Avenue in Los Olivos.

Epiphany’s 20th birthday will be celebrated February 29 from 6 to 9 pm during a special event inside the Fess Parker Winery barrel room. Open That Bottle Night, an annual commemorative day launched by Wall Street Journal wine writers Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, encourages The Epiphany Cellars label features an array of wine fans to – finally – open and enjoy Rhone-focused bottlings, including vineyard-spethat special bottle that’s long been cific syrahs and a variety of red blends sitting in their wine racks, awaiting Grapes are sourced locally, includ- a special occasion. At the Parker faming Rodney’s Vineyard on the family ily’s event, library wines, including ranch for some of the best bottlings, bottlings from throughout Epiphany’s and as far away as Napa. With Eli tak- 20-year history, will be poured, and ing a more supervisorial role, the label guests are encouraged to bring their is in the hands of winemaker phenom own special wine to share. The event Blair Fox. is limited to 80 people, so get your “He’s a Rhone fanatic, too, and we tickets at epiphanywineco.com. I’ll see have similar palates,” says Mr. Parker. you there!

MontJournal_Feb26th'20:Layout 1 2/20/20 6:33 PM Page 1 “If I had to hand over the program to Cheers!

•MJ

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• The Voice of the Village •

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MONTECITO JOURNAL

35

On Entertainment MAW Piano Winner

by Steven Libowitz

E

lliot Wuu doesn’t have a direct memory of the first time he slept next to the bench while his older sister Rebecca practiced on the family’s piano, something his parents told him he started doing as a baby barely one year old. But he does recall frequently taking naps as a toddler while Rebecca, who is almost six years older, went through her paces on the keyboard, and he believes those experiences shaped his desire to follow in her footsteps even though neither of his parents are musicians.

“I’d hear her practice day in and night out, and I loved listening,” Wuu recalled. “I’d go to all of her recitals, and I grew to really like piano. So I told my parents I wanted to be like her.”

Things have turned out pretty well so far, as Wuu, who is just 20 years old, was named a Young Steinway Artist and 2018 Gilmore Young Artist – the latter is one of the most prestigious as it is bestowed every two years to just two young pianists – as well as a 2014-2016 Young Scholar of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation,

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Steven Libowitz has reported on the arts and entertainment for more than 30 years; he has contributed to the Montecito Journal for more than 10 years.

all before turning 18. Last summer, he capped off his teenage years by winning the Music Academy of the West’s third annual Solo Piano Competition, earning The Luria Foundation Prize of $5,000, career consultation with music career experts 21C Media Group, and an innovation fund to use towards recital programming and commissioning as well a multi-city solo recital tour in partnership with Steinway & Sons.

The latter prize brings Wuu back to Hahn Hall on Tuesday, March 10, to kick off the three-concert excursion that also includes appearances at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. on March 27 and at the Chicago Cultural Center as part of the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series on April 1, with the Chicago recital broadcast and streamed live by WFMT. (Mezzo-soprano Sun-Ly Pierce and pianist Chien-Lin Lu, the winners of MAW’s 2019 Marilyn Horne Song Competition, will take their turn at Hahn on Friday, April 10, when the program include the world premiere of Wise Moon, commissioned by the Music Academy and written by Jennifer Higdon. Look for an interview closer to the concert.)

Wuu took time out of rehearsing in the studios at Juilliard in New York to talk about his time here at MAW in Montecito, and the upcoming concert.

Q. I’m guessing that winning the competition, which we’ll talk about in a moment, was the highlight of your summer at MAW. But what else stood out in your experiences here?

A. Spending eight weeks with the seven other pianists and in the incredible learning environment. We all had our own little projects going on, but all eight of us became a very tight knit group, got along very well, and even now we still talk a lot, and see each other frequently, especially the ones who are also at Juilliard. The friendships we made during the festival, and connections, seem like they’ll be lifelong and lasting. I really enjoyed watching the faculty concerts too, and PianoFest at the very end of the summer, where all of us and Conor Hanick played really unusual pieces, including ones for four hands, eight hands, and even 16. That was really fun.

You’ve had a lot of experiences in competing and have won quite a few. Do you enjoy those experiences? How does it fur-

“If music be the food of love, play on.” – William Shakespeare

ther your growth?

I have done a lot. The more I competed the more I began to understand the value. Now my perspective is that it’s a chance for us to put ourselves on the outside world stage beyond what’s happening in schools. For me, it’s not about being compared to others, it’s about experiencing what else is happening. I love watching the other pianists play. Even at the Music Academy, as soon as I finished, I watched the rest of us play. It’s one of the ways I learn the best, by seeing how they perceive music, their interpretations and approach. I love the learning aspect.

So you don’t get nervous?

It’s really that there’s a different kind of focus. There’re so many outside factors that matter in those 15 minutes you have on stage that you can’t control, so you can’t afford to make any mistakes. It takes a pure concentration mentality, giving 120 percent. Every time I perform and prepare there’s an extra adrenaline that pushes me to be even better. That’s why I like to line up competitions, because it forces me to become a better musician, exceed what I can already do, and find new ways to do things that’s different from others.

How do you do that, separate yourself?

That’s what it’s all about, really.

It’s one of the reasons I love to listen to recordings, seeing what the others’ nuances are and how they work.

We have to produce something that’s most convincing to ourselves but also convincing to the audience. That’s why every performance is different.

Returning to the MAW competition, did you know that you nailed it when you finished?

(Laughs) Actually I was upset at myself. There was a technical passage I’d been working on, a new piece to me, but it wasn’t completely in my hands yet and I fumbled it a tiny bit.

We musicians are always nit-picky on the stuff we didn’t get. But I guess it went OK. Among your prizes, of course, is getting to premiere a piece commissioned by MAW from Amy Williams, who was also one of the judges. How is the work, Piano Portraits, resonating for you?

Oh, it’s completely fascinating.

It’s the first time I’ve ever had anything written for me, so it’s always going to be special. It’s written as five mini movements, piano portraits of five people who are very important to her life. (Williams’ teachers Yvar Mikhashoff and Elizabeth Wright, colleagues Ursula Oppens and Helena Bugallo, and musician role model Lukas Foss). There are so many char-

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Up Close & Musical Series Sponsor: Dr. Bob Weinman

Buddy Guy

Jimmie Vaughan - Charlie Musselwhite Sat, Mar 7 / 7 PM (note special time) / Arlington Theatre Tickets start at $45 / $25 UCSB students An Arlington facility fee will be added to each ticket price

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Buddy Guy is an American treasure, guitar master and ambassador of Chicago blues. He’s joined by 2020 Grammy Award nominee Jimmie Vaughan, an Austin icon with a four-decade career of Texas Roadhouse blues, roots and jazz, and Charlie Musselwhite, whose Delta-infused harp glides seamlessly from blues to gospel to country.

Presented with additional support from Sharon & Bill Rich Corporate Season Sponsor:

(805) 893-3535 | www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu Granada event tickets can also be purchased at: (805) 899-2222 | www.GranadaSB.org Arlington event tickets can also be purchased at: (805) 963-4408

27 February – 5 March 2020

• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

37

The 501c3 Weekly

The range of programs offered by Leading From Within are designed to support to all levels of leadership (photo by Sarita Relis)

by Zach Rosen

Leading From Within

Leading From Within empowers community leaders with both inner and communal skills (photo by Sarita Relis)

I

t is well known that the area hosts a plethora of nonprofits, covering many needs and missions. There tends to be a large focus on supporting the mission of the nonprofit and often times there is not as much consideration given to the leaders actually running the organization.

Nonprofits are known to have a high rate of attrition and burnout from its employees. I recently sat down with Ed France from Leading From Within to discuss how their programs are developing nonprofit leaders and helping them avoid burnout by identifying their own mission and gifts. His own journey with the organization began six years ago while attending their main Courage To Lead program.

He personally experienced the value that Leading From Within brought towards reenergizing his work with Bici Centro, which he ran for 12 years.

Now as the Executive Director of

38 MONTECITO JOURNAL

Leading From Within (LFW) he is helping hone the craft of current and future nonprofit leaders.

Established in 2008, the main principles of the LFW programming stems from the work of Parker J. Palmer, Ph.D. at the Center for Courage & Renewal. Ed emphasizes that LFW is not a professional development program, and their offerings are based around courage and renewal methodology. Part of the LFW programming centers on the inner journey and identifying one’s authentic voice and the gift that you truly want to give.

“Part of how we invest in ourselves is how we think about our work.” Ed identifies this as an important process in avoiding burnout. “When you offer your true gift to the world, it naturally replenishes itself.” These self-energizing gifts help bring sustainable roles and tasks to nonprofit leaders that allow them to thrive and grow within

the organization and the community, instead of burnout. These programs also bring leaders together to help them move past mindsets of scarcity and competition. By having leaders and nonprofits build trust and connection between one another, everyone can work together to create a bigger impact on the community.

Courage To Lead

The main offering of Leading From Within is the Courage To Lead Program (CTL). Each iteration of the CTL takes about two dozen nonprofit executive leaders on an inner journey spanning five three-day retreats over 12 months at the picturesque Pacifica Graduate Institute campus. Since enrolling in the program is a time commitment, LFW offers an Introductory Retreat program so that potential participants can get a glimpse into the lessons that they have to offer. The program is largely focused on nonprofit executive directors, however is not limited to that role and does allow space for other positions of management in nonprofits and those who are on a clearly rising to a leadership position.

The cost of CTL reflects their program operating expenses, however sponsorships are offered since they understand that some leaders and associated nonprofits may not be able to afford to send their executive director to the program.

While CTL is the core programming that the Leading From Within organization centers around, over the years they have introduced other programs that deliver similar concepts and techniques. The Emerging Leaders Program (ELP) is focused on mid-level employees and those who have established roles in the nonprofit and social sectors that want to develop their leadership skills. This shorter program takes participants through ten monthly sessions lasting a full day each. LFW is currently offering enrollment to the ELP with info sessions happening locally on February 27 at the Braille Institute.

A while back, Leading From Within noticed the potential and need for support of the nonprofits found

“Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.” – Maya Angelou

around the north counties and began a new program specifically with that region in mind. Leading for Community Impact (LCI) spans the Santa Maria, Lompoc and Santa Ynez Valley, as well as the surrounding areas. This program brings together leaders and members of the nonprofit and social sectors from the north county region to explore their own leadership skills and build relationships with the other nonprofits in the area.

The Katherine Harvey Fellows program is broader in its intended participants and is focused on anyone who is looking to further their impact on the community. Now in its 20th year, this program brings together lessons in leadership development and social impact split into four components: Values Exploration, Community Education, Experiential Learning, and Connecting. Through monthly two-hour meetings over a period of 18 months, participants learn to identify the values that speak to them while gaining a deeper understanding of the challenges facing Santa Barbara County. With group projects and experiential work, these future leaders develop a better knowledge of themselves and establish meaningful connections in the area. Rather than program fees, the Katherine Harvey Fellows program asks participants for a personal contribution of any amount. From the support of the Santa Barbara Foundation, Montecito Bank & Trust, and other sponsors, all of these programs are able to be offered to participants at a fraction of their operating expense.

These different programs create an environment that allows participants to personally and professionally develop, culminating in handson work and capstone projects that give participants the opportunity to apply their newfound strategic thinking and project building lessons to the community. The combination of inner development and communal work establishes an effective bond of trust and connection with both themselves and their peers, ultimately empowering them to lead from within.

•MJ 27 February – 5 March 2020

of Greater Santa Barbara

SHE LEADS 35th Annual Scholarship Luncheon Friday, March 20, 2020

At Girls Inc., we believe every girl has the power to change the world. We also feel strongly that every girl, regardless of her family’s financial situation, should have the opportunity to grow up healthy, educated, and independent.

JOIN US! Reception | 11:30 Luncheon & Program | 12:00 Noon AM

Featured Speaker

GWYN LURIE

Four Seasons Biltmore La Pacifica Room in the Coral Casino 1260 Channel Drive | Santa Barbara Limited tickets available! girlsincsb.org or (805) 963-4757 Inspiring all girls to be strong, smart, and bold 27 February – 5 March 2020

• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

39

SEEN (Continued from page 14)

you help us break the silence about the devastating impact heart disease is having on our families, communities and on women in particular.

Cardiovascular diseases cause one in three deaths a year. That’s approximately one woman every minute. The good news is that 80 percent of cardiac events can be prevented with education and healthy lifestyle changes.”

Awareness is up from 30 percent to 56 percent since a decade of the Go Red movement.

Members of Denise’s event committee were: Justin Anderson, Paula Bottiani, Connie Boyd, Karen Chackel, Jill Fonte, Steve Golis, Jonathan Johnen, Dianne Johnson, Austin Lampson, Michele Mallet, Stephanie Petlow, Catherine Remak and Tony Vallejo. Janet Garufis and Catherine Remak led a paddle raise and the dollars kept rising.

For more information call 805.963.8862. See you next year Friday, February 19, 2021.

The Quest for a Moral Life

UCSB Arts & Lectures (A&L) keeps filling up theatres. The latest was a sold-out Granada to listen to columnist David Brooks. As he said, “I can jabber about anything,” and indeed he

UCSB A&L speaker David Brooks

can. William F. Buckley Jr. heard him speak years ago and offered him a job.

How good is that?

But before the lecture some A&L supporters and guests went to the stunning home of Jillian and Pete Muller in Montecito who were sponsoring David. After enjoying wine and bites we sat in the living room for an informal Q & A. Brooks is a prominent New York Times op-ed columnist and regular guest on PBS NewsHour and NPR’s All Things Considered. He admitted he had always wanted to write since hearing the stories of Paddington Bear when he was a kid. Growing up he said, “I was somewhat of a hippie, majoring

A&L supporters Morrie Jurkowitz, Jill Levenson, and Patty and John MacFarlane

tional couple that explains how neuroscience and sociology play into America’s politics, culture and future. Brooks is witty, entertaining, and informative. He says, “There are two mountains to climb: people tackling personal goals and second to learn to focus on service to others.”

He sheds light on how our culture shapes us to be individualistic but it’s the community approach to life where joy is found.

David is currently teaching a course at Yale University. He holds many honorary degrees and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

A&L pre-talk hosts Jillian and Pete Muller

Do you have a Beautiful, Waterwise Landscape?

The 2020 Waterwise Garden Recognition Contest is designed to promote attractive and water efficient gardens.

Residents of single-family homes served

by Montecito Water District are eligible to compete for an agency award and the countywide grand prize!

in history and celibacy.”

In his most recent book, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life he explores the four commitments that define a life of meaning and purpose: to a spouse and family, to a vocation, to a philosophy or faith, and to a community.

His New York Times best seller, The Road to Character, “explains why selflessness leads to greater success.” He tells of ten great lives and how they achieved rich inner lives.

In The Social Animal: A Story of How Success Happens he uses a fic-

Reunir

Reunir is a Spanish word meaning “to gather”; to bring together friends whose collective passion, ideas, and commitment are making a legendary difference serving the land. The invitation wanted us to reunir with the California Rangeland Trust (CRT) at the Santa Barbara Club.

Why the Santa Barbara Club? The club was formed in 1892 to serve as the in-town meeting place for those living on ranches out of town where they could spend the night if it was

View contest rules and apply online by APRIL 1st at: www.waterwisesb.org/GardenContest/ 805.969.2271

www.montecitowater.com Sponsor Keith Moore, CRT CEO Nita Vail, Maria McCall, and Linda Rosso

40 MONTECITO JOURNAL

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” – Aldous Huxley

27 February – 5 March 2020

,

Sponsor and host Eric Hvolboll, Daniel and Pamela Doiron (co-hosts), along with Russell Chamberlin and Monika McCoy

an american in paris march 21 + 22 | 2020 Constantine Kitsopoulos, C O N D U C T O R Gershwin: An American in Paris Academy Award-winning film with live orchestra accompaniment!

The iconic musical An American in Paris was inspired by George Gershwin’s jazz-infused orchestral treasure of the same name, and the Santa Barbara Symphony has combined the two for an unforgettable program of music and film! Gershwin’s evocative and vivid An American in Paris is arguably the finest musical love letter ever penned to a city, while director Vincente Minnelli’s Academy Award-winning motion picture starring Gene Kelly has lost none of its insouciant charm. Come hear the Symphony, under the baton of guest conductor Constantine Kitsopoulos, provide live accompaniment to a screening of one of the world’s greatest movie musicals.

Principal Sponsor: Dave & Chris Chernof Artist Sponsors: Patricia Gregory for the Baker Foundation, Nancy & Fred Golden Selection Sponsor: Chris Lancashire & Catherine Gee | Corporate Sponsor: Impulse

More CRT guests Carolyn Chandler, Missy DeYoung, and Keith Moore

too far to go home. The local businessmen would meet as well. The Club had a strong element of western culture which remains visible today in its décor. It is a key gathering spot for friends of the Rangeland Trust.

The program tells us, “Founded in 1998, the California Rangeland Trust is the premier organization providing for the long-term protection of our state’s historic ranches and working landscapes. Their conservation approach respects private property rights while preserving our watersheds, wildlife habitat and shared Western heritage.”

That is why the CRT was invited here to ensure we can enjoy these things for many generations to come.

They want to bring together the old and new of Santa Barbara to meet one another and envision preserving the best of our county for now and the future.

CRT is a non-profit founded by a group of innovative cattlemen and women who have partnered with conservation minded landowners 27 February – 5 March 2020

to permanently protect over 300,000 acres – that’s equivalent in size to the Hawaiian Island of Kauai.

Event co-hosts were Pamela and Daniel Doiron from El Rancho Espanol de Cuyama and Russell Chamberlin from the Ted Chamberlin Ranch. Event sponsors were six generations Keith Moore, Eric Hvolboll, and Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.

The CEO is Nita Vail and the incoming CEO is Michael Delbar. Folks on the inside of the rangeland work were Royce Larsen and Matthew Shapero.

All the meeting and greeting was done during cocktail time with four kinds of yummy tacos for plenty to eat. The program informed us about CRT. The next event will be at Rancho Mission Viejo in San Juan Capistrano to celebrate their ranching roots and the pivotal role ranching continues to play in the growth of healthy communities. For more information, call communications and outreach manager Alyssa Rolen at 916.444.2096.

•MJ

upcoming concerts... carpenter conducts poulenc & saint-saëns april 18 + 19, 2020 Nir Kabaretti, C O N D U C T O R Cameron Carpenter, O R G A N

beethoven’s 250th birthday celebration may 16 + 17, 2020 Nir Kabaretti, C O N D U C T O R Alessio Bax, P I A N O Full list of guest artists on our website!

805-899-2222 | thesymphony.org

• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

41

Our Town

by Joanne A. Calitri

Joanne is a professional international photographer and journalist.

Contact her at: artraks@yahoo.com

Musicology Benefit Concert

John Lucchetti with Musicology Foundation Director Erland Wanberg at their Music Academy of the West studio

M

ontecito’s Erland Wanberg, Director of Musicology SB located at the Music Academy of the West (MAW), and John Lucchetti, CEO of Green Room Strategy, are producing a benefit concert with 100% of the proceeds going toward the Musicology’s free oneon-one music lessons to low income youth at the Santa Barbara Police Activities League teen center. The concert is March 6 at MAW, with Andrew Firestone as MC, musicians Andrew McMahon (In The Wilderness/ Something Corporate), Mendeleyev Allan-Blitz of Montecito (The Voice), Haddon Cord (T Bone Burnett), Sofia Schuster (2019 SB Teen Star Winner & Musicology student), Erland, and our town’s Randy Tico, Bear Erickson, and Khasy Modisette.

My interview with Erland: Q. A bit on your music, and you.

A. I was born in San Francisco, but spent my elementary years in Portland, Oregon. At fifteen, I moved to Dana Point, California where I picked up the guitar and began writing songs immediately. After high school, I moved to Santa Barbara where I started a band. In 2015, my first album

gained traction, and I was signed to Songs Publishing, which prompted a move to Nashville. After a few years of what I like to call ‘Songwriting College’ in the music city, I returned to Santa Barbara.

Your role models in the industry?

I love Bon Iver’s music production, lush soundscapes around beautifully stacked harmonies, and his arrangements are unexpected but not too avant garde to lose me. Jason Isbell is a true storyteller. I’m a lyrics-first guy and his songs inspire me to be completely honest in my own songwriting. Jack Johnson has used his success with music to create positive change in the world. Rick Hall (Mussel Shoals Studio) had an extraordinary ear for talent and the ability to consistently create timeless records. He was a visionary, and initially achieved the famous ‘Muscle Shoals Sound’ using local singers in his small town, thousands of miles away from any music industry hub.

He taught me that with vision and determination, you can create your own music hub, and eventually bring the music industry to you. That’s what I aspire to do in Santa Barbara.

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Who founded Musicology and why?

I founded Musicology SB as a multi-faceted music school and artist development program. Musicology’s mission is to develop musicians, singer/songwriters and bands that will continue to inspire others in the SB community and beyond. I really wanted to give back to our community from day one. The Musicology Foundation was formed as a 501c3 to provide the same quality of professional oneon-one music lessons to low-income youth that our other students receive.

It would be significantly cheaper to provide group scholarship music lessons, but as a long-time music educator, I know how effective the one-onone lessons are for rapid improvement on a student’s instrument of choice, as well as building self-confidence and customizing goals to their dreams and aspirations. After seeing how these lessons have improved my own students’ lives in a meaningful way over the years, I knew that was the way to go for our scholarship program. To further Musicology’s focus on artist development, we recently partnered with John Lucchetti to help provide brand development and music marketing guidance to select students on how to independently get in front of the right target audience. Digital and social media has dramatically changed how the music industry operates so we take a data driven approach to find fans who are most likely going to engage with their music regardless of genre. We are joining forces on a new for-profit concert and event promotion entity called Surf The Sound to help us bring top-notch talent to SB while providing additional performance opportunities for local musicians. Surf The Sound is producing this March 6 benefit concert.

Where does this new foundation work fit into your music career?

For me, it’s all about the music.

Teaching, performing, writing, producing, promoting concerts, and Musicology foundation are all interconnected. I get to provide music opportunities for students who couldn’t otherwise afford it, and to mentor up and coming talent in a city that I love, and I get to provide employment opportunities for local musicians who are pursuing their own careers in music. I’m interested in helping to create a thriving music eco-system in Santa Barbara, and as I learned from Rick Hall, we might just end up with a legendary music city of our own.

How are the low-income students selected for the music lessons?

The Santa Barbara Police Activities League came through an introduction and they have become a model partner for the Musicology Foundation.

They provide mentorship and a safe

“The most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex.” – W.H. Auden

and supportive environment, and help bridge the gap between police and at-risk teens. SBPAL is a second home for these kids in a lot of ways, so it made sense for us to send our instructors to the SBPAL teen center.

Research shows that students who study music do better academically, know how to listen and collaborate in teams, have better self-confidence, and build skills that serve them for the rest of their life. By offering music as an additional program available at SBPAL we create a positive feedback loop that will help the teens individually and serve our community for generations to come.

Number of students, the program, instruments, and success rate?

Currently we have 35 students with weekly one-on-one 30-minute lessons Monday through Friday, 3 pm to 6 pm at the SBPAL teen center on the corner of Chapala and Victoria streets. The kids can choose guitar, bass, piano, drums, or voice. For more advanced students we facilitate the SBPAL Band Program, and every Friday afternoon there is an open band rehearsal. Band members get opportunities to perform at local community events like the Avocado Fest and Fiesta. Musicology provides access to all instruments at the SBPAL Teen Center. The SB Bowl Foundation is very supportive in supplying and repairing instruments and funding performance opportunities.

Students who commit to their lessons and attend weekly have a very high success rate developing to an intermediate skill level with their instrument.

We have a strict attendance policy implemented to ensure lesson time is not wasted. There is a waiting list of students who want to join this program, so students are expected to show up to their lessons consistently or risk losing their spot.

Funding target?

A $60k per year is the target goal.

The more funds we have, the more kids we can serve. We pay our instructors a market rate because we feel it is important to support active working musicians who contribute so much to the local arts and culture in our community and we want to set a precedent for our students that they need to be compensated for their music if they want to make a living at it. As of now, all donations are directed to our annual budget to continue lessons at SBPAL year-round. The Musicology/SBPAL scholarship music program would not exist without the generous support of our donors. On March 6, we are inviting the community to join us of this amazing evening of music.

•MJ 411: Erland Wanberg at info@musicol ogysb.com Tickets: https://www.musicologysb. com/concert 27 February – 5 March 2020

Behind the Vine

PHORUM 2020

by Hana-Lee Sedgwick Hana-Lee Sedgwick is a writer, wine consultant and lover of all things wine and food. As a Certified Specialist of Wine and Sommelier, she loves to explore the world of wine in and around her hometown of Santa Barbara. When not trying new wines or traveling, she can be found practicing yoga, cooking, entertaining and enjoying the outdoors. Visit her popular blog, Wander & Wine, for wine tips, tasting notes and adventures in wine and travel: wanderandwine.com

Santa Barbara’s Inaugural Culinary Experience

T

hough we are all captivated by Santa Barbara’s stunning scenery, historic charm, and laidback vibe, there’s no denying that Santa Barbara County has become a destination in its own right for food and wine. What we lack in Michelin stars and grandiose dining experiences we make up for in talented winemakers, skilled chefs, dedicated farmers, passionate mixologists, restaurants that are committed to sourcing regional ingredients, and a growing population of oenophiles and foodies that live by the “eat local, drink local” mentality.

Indeed, Santa Barbara’s burgeoning food and wine scene is pretty special. It’s no wonder the legendary cookbook author and TV personality Julia Child chose to spend her last few years here, where she regularly visited the farmers market, dined at area restaurants, and mingled with chefs and winemakers. In fact, it was Julia’s love of food, wine, and Santa Barbara that has inspired the upcoming Santa Barbara Culinary Experience, a unique culinary-focused event that celebrates the bounty of our region.

Held in partnership with The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts, the Santa Barbara Culinary Experience is set to take place March 13 - 15, 2020 at various locations throughout Santa Barbara and Montecito. This one-ofa-kind event features a curated collection of cooking classes, wine seminars, exclusive dinners, and other special events that are thoughtfully designed to enrich, educate, and entertain, providing participants with the opportunity to become fully immersed in Santa Barbara’s culinary, artisan, and wine communities.

Highlights of the daytime events include a soufflé and salad cooking class with food writer and cookbook author Pascale Beale; a tour of one of Santa Barbara’s rare macadamia nut groves; a donut-making workshop with pastry chef Christina Olufson; a cheese board and cocktail workshop with Slate Catering and Glass House Cocktails; a farmers market tour and Julia Child-inspired cooking experience for young chefs-in-the-making; an interactive wine and chocolate pairing experience with chocolat27 February – 5 March 2020

PERSPECTIVES IN HEALTHCARE

ier Jessica Foster and winemakers Chad Melville and Andrew Murray; and a wine blending seminar with Doug Margerum of Margerum Wine Company – to name a few.

Evening events involve such experiences as a San Ysidro Ranch wine cellar tour and four-course dinner inspired

by Julia Child’s favorite dishes; a sunset sail and wine tasting aboard the Double Dolphin; a family-style Indian feast at Bibi Ji with unique wine pairings selected by owners Rajat Parr and Alejandro Medina; a five-course collaboration dinner at Bettina featuring guest chef Chris Bianco of the acclaimed Pizzeria Bianco; and a Winemaker Dinner with Matt Dees of Jonata, The Hilt, and The Pairing showcasing the labels’ wines paired with food from The Lark’s Executive Chef Jason Paluska.

Even more, The Alisal Guest Ranch & Resort in Solvang will play host to the official Santa Barbara Culinary Experience After Party, with special events taking place Sunday, March 15 and Monday, March 16. Though the resort is offering a 3-day, 2-night package for the ultimate experience, tickets to each event are also available á la carte without an overnight stay required.

The After Party at The Alisal will feature a spice-blending workshop with Solvang Spice Merchant; a Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wine panel and cooking demonstration; and a Sunday evening potluck featuring the food of some of the Santa Ynez Valley’s most dynamic chefs.

To close out multiple days of hedonistic fun, The Alisal will welcome James Beard Award finalist Chef Ludo Lefebvre on Monday evening for a rare dining experience under the stars. After a cooking demo and hayride, this extraordinary dinner will take place in the rustic setting of the ranch’s historic Old Adobe, where Chef Ludo and The Alisal’s Executive Chef Anthony Endy will create a French-inspired feast highlighting local, seasonal ingredients. Further paying tribute to Julia Child, Valerie Gordon of Valerie Confections will prepare one of Julia’s classic desserts.

It all promises to be a spectacular finish to what can only be described as one delicious celebration of Santa Barbara.

•MJ

PHENOMENAL RESEARCH ON END-OF-LIFE EXPERIENCES

Dr. Chris Kerr

Returning Keynote Speaker

In Conversation with

Dr. Michael Kearney

THURSDAY MARCH 12 5:00–7:00 PM FREE Community Event with Advanced Registration

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• The Voice of the Village •

Sponsored By

MONTECITO JOURNAL

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ENTERTAINMENT (Continued from page 36)

acteristics for each one so it’s very exciting to learn, and it encompasses both virtuosity and lyricism. I talked to her a couple of weeks ago about her inspirations for each movement and you can hear a lot of things going on now that I understand that. It’s so fun that I get to unravel everything, and I feel so lucky that she’s trusting me with such a personal work.

Can you take us through the piece and how you connect to it?

The first movement is for Ursula Oppens, an important pedagogue, and you can hear a lot of jazz influences, from the walking bass line in the left hand and the free rhythm in the right. And the rest of the movements have different elements of Stravinsky and Bach. There are some movements that are very lyrical, personal and intimate, and that was one of the things I grasped onto immediately, and there are also very virtuosic ones.

My hands are just flying all over the keyboard. Even though I’m spending a lot of time learning them, once I get the hang of it, it will be a lot of fun. I’m getting there.

How do you think the piece will evolve as you continue to practice and perform it and develop a relationship to it?

Each movement has such a distinct characteristic, so they’ll evolve differently. I’ve never played jazz before, but day after day I’m getting more comfortable with the idea of tempo freedom, having a less strict ideology that I can relate to. Amy plays a lot with different textures you don’t find very often in western classical music.

So I need to experiment and find what I like best, which is why each performance will be slightly different. That makes it cool.

How did you choose the other works on the program (Bach’s Capriccio sopra la lonrananza del suo fratello dilettissimo, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 18 in E-flat Major, Op. 31, No. 3, and Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy in C Major, Op. 15)?

They’re all works I love, and they each have an aspect, a theme of wandering out into the horizons and having a sense of traveling. The Bach I first heard a few years ago in a master class by Leon Fleisher (who, coincidentally, was a guest artist at MAW

two years ago) and I thought it was so beautiful as the suite, which is about his brother, goes thru the entire emotional process of feelings, and is very sentimental. The Beethoven is nicknamed The Hunt because of the horn call that comes in the first three notes, which represents sending someone off who is leaving, while the Schubert, his most technically difficult solo piano work, encompasses a lot of journeys the pianist has to go through to make it to the end.

What’s your growth edge now?

Honing the technical ability for the piano is important, but much more, what differentiates great performers, is being able to put oneself in the music without being too intimate.

That can only come from life experiences. I have had teachers who told me to get a girlfriend because he can’t teach me how to play pieces about love otherwise. Or that I have to lose someone to truly know what pain and loss feel like. I get that. The pianist can share his own experiences with the audiences through the pieces.

SBCC Takes on ‘Curious Incident’

Katie Laris wasn’t moved much when she took in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time on Broadway back in 2014. Despite having enjoyed the original 2003 novel

by Mark Haddon that is narrated in the first-person perspective by Christopher, a 15-year-old boy afflicted by unnamed Asperger syndrome, the veteran SBCC Theater professor and director was left a little dry by the Tony Award-winning theatrical version.

But Laris felt a ton of emotions when she read the script itself.

“Weirdly I wasn’t much of a fan when I saw it in New York,” she said.

“The technical effects employed were amazing, but I was actually more impressed by the technology than moved by the story. But when I read it, I had a very different response. I was so emotionally affected... The play is more personal and human-sized than it seemed on Broadway, much more intimate. It’s such a beautiful story about parents and a brilliant but challenged child and the constellation of

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Daniel Sabraw stars in SBCC Theater Group’s production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the NightTime

people around him. It was that core story that I wanted to tell.”

Laris gets that opportunity when SBCC Theater Group presents the area debut of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – which was adapted for the stage by Simon Stephens and originally produced by the National Theatre in 2012 – on February 26-March 14 in the Garvin Theatre, with a full cast of mostly SBCC veterans and other professional actors along with 16-year-old Daniel Sabraw, a junior at Santa Barbara High School who has appeared in two previous SBCC shows, portraying Christopher. It’s a tough role because the character barely leaves the stage at all, and, as Laris said, the responsibility for the show working rests on his shoulders because he has to be easy to empathize with despite having trouble with human interaction.

Sabraw is proving up to the task, she said.

“Daniel is very smart and energetic, but also has a way of reaching the audience, projecting his heart and mind right out into the theater. It’s incredible to watch him work. We have a cast of incredible actors with vast experience and Daniel is absolutely able to hold it together with the best of them.”

The staging and production also matter, of course, with SBCC enjoying a much more limited budget than available on Broadway, as well as Laris’ desire to tell a more intimate story.

“It’s very different from the plays we usually do in the Garvin, which have realistic, detailed period-appropriate sets that look so much like rooms in houses that people often tell me that they want to live in our set,” Laris said. “This is a very simple set but technically much more elaborate, with projections, sound, music, lighting that are all very complex and complicated to take the audience through many locations.”

“Where words fail, music speaks.” – Hans Christian Andersen

More importantly, the actors are asked to physically create environments, too, to invite the audience into Christopher’s imagination, which takes up a good part of the second act as his therapist asks him to turn diary-like story into a play. That’s a lot to cover, Laris said.

“You get into the lives and the hearts of the parents, and his teacher and other people around him. It’s also very intimate, covering the day to day life of him and family, but also has the aspect of the epic scope of where he is fascinated by the idea of space travel. There’s both micro and macro perspectives and we have to show all of that theatrically.”

If it sounds like Christopher’s world is so foreign that audiences can’t relate, Laris was quick to explain that’s what makes the play so compelling.

“It’s about being different, what is it like to go through the world that way, lonely and alienating and very hard.

But in some ways he never lets that deter him from his goal, the pursuit of information, achievement, and his own sense of where he’s going. That’s something we can all understand.”

5Qs with Keaton Eckhoff

Buddy Holly died more than 60 years ago in a famous plane crash that also killed Richie Valens and The Big Bopper. But it seems the early rock star just won’t stop touring.

And the ongoing Holly performances aren’t even in the guise of tribute bands. Unlike Elvis and the Beatles, say, Holly hasn’t attracted too many guys wanting to don his nerdy glasses and hiccup their way through his catalog. But just last year Holly himself appeared at the Granada in the first holographic show to hit town. And this week, the 30th anniversary tour of the Broadway musical Buddy, the

ENTERTAINMENT Page 524 27 February – 5 March 2020

ON THE RECORD (Continued from page 22) The Cold Spring Crew (L to R): Aaron Songer, Abby Brown, and Hulett

Mayfield runs across a loose slide covering San Ysidro Trail

in partnership with Santa Barbara Mountain Bike Volunteers, which has since become Sage Trails Alliance,” Mayfield tells me. “That was critical to opening up Romero Canyon Trail. It was five miles of fire road restoration, just a month clearing debris.”

With help from a local family who provided a generous grant, the MTF’s next project was to restore the Cold Spring Trail, which had remained closed because unlike the other trails in the Los Padres Forest, it was subject to both city and county jurisdiction. “We knew we needed a machine operator, so we hired a company in Auburn called Trailscape Inc.,” Mayfield recalls. “They spent four months in Cold Spring working one end to the other.”

“The work Ashlee and the Montecito Trails Foundation and others have done helps facilitate our response,” says Montecito Fire Chief Kevin Taylor. “It’s really inspiring to see a community group just go do something for the benefit of everyone. That and the work that TPRC has done has brought us to a return to normal. It’s the very definition of resiliency. It’s inspiring.”

Steep Work

Three individuals played critical roles in helping to restore Montecito’s front country trail system: Aaron Songer, Abby Brown, and Doug Hulett, who has been building trails for 30 years, the last four for Trailscape. “Ashlee got my contact and I ended up in Montecito,” Hulett says. His first job, in late summer 2018, was to restore the Cold Spring Trail by heading north from Gibraltar Road. “The whole project was scary,” he recalls. “We had a mini-excavator that we had to collapse down to just three feet wide.”

San Ysidro Trail, which required Hulett to operate a 2,500-pound 27 February – 5 March 2020

machine down a steep, narrow path, was “really hair raising,” he remembers. “In a few places the edge of my tracks were hanging in space. You can’t go back.” The whole experience lasted 77 days, Hulett recalls. “It was a whole lot of nail biting. Gravity is trying to suck you out of your seat, and when you pull on the ground with the bucket, you are sliding out of your seat.”

Hulett credits Mayfield and other volunteers he’s encountered on the trail with cheering him up and motivating him to finish the job. “There are now twenty bikers or hikers I know as friends, people just walking on the trail, really tender people who had endured the fires and debris flow and really appreciated the work we were doing.”

Meanwhile, other mini-ex operators worked with LPFA and MTF to restore Buena Vista Canyon and MTF and Bucket Brigade sponsored volunteer days in which dozens of people worked on the trails in conjunction with both the city and county.

“The first time seventy-five people showed up,” Mayfield says. Gradually work also began on several community trails lower down in Montecito. “A different crew was helping out in the Ennisbrook Open Space and we partnered with the Bucket Brigade and Peter Bakewell Open Space and broke ground on a new trail, the North Jameson walking path.”

According to Mayfield, San Ysidro was the last trail in the network to be restored because it’s the most difficult to access. “It is not an easy place to get your crew in,” she says. “We had to have enough opinions weigh in and decided whether to try to helicopter an extra machine in there or restore it by hand. We let it sit there over the winter and have some growth.”

Fortunately a wet winter last year helped regrow much of the vegetation. “We had an incredible winter,” Mayfield says. “Now when you go up there it is a whole different place.”

The Psycho Slide

Los Padres Forest Association workers busy on the upper San Ysidro Trail

About half a mile above where Mayfield and I encountered the LPFA work crew is a patch of missing trail at least ten yards wide stretching above a certifiably steep, boulder-strewn slope. All along the trail, there had been intermittent spots where it had eroded beyond recognition, but usually the missing section was only a few yards wide. Conant isn’t 100 percent sure but believes he came up with the popular name for this spot on the San Ysidro Trail: the “Psycho Slide.”

“The Psycho Slide is a real problem,” says Conant. “It is scary, just incredibly steep. If someone falls there it’s bad.” His first visit to the Psycho Slide was on behalf of the Forest Service’s Burn Area Emergency Response, or BEAR team. “I came out and looked at it. MTF brought in three or four people and we considered whether to attempt a reroute or a repair.”

In the end, the experts decided to let the 2019 winter weather take its course before attempting a repair job in the spring. One of those experts is Yonni Schwartz, a U.S. Forest Service geologist. “First of all, this whole area is very unstable,” Schwartz tells me.

“This mountain range has some of the steepest mountains in North America

– they are uplifting faster than they are eroding. The geology leads to unstable slopes. You add a fire to it that undermines all the support to this soil, and you are adding an additional factor to this natural instability.”

A year and a half after the debris flow, Schwartz hiked up and down every drainage from Carpinteria to Montecito, as well as the backcountry near Ojai, including San Ysidro Canyon. He says the so-called Psycho Slide isn’t so much a deep slide as it is a steep one. “It’s actually a pretty shallow slide but is on a steep slope and the conditions around that slope, with alternating shale and sandstone makes fixing it very difficult. And because the slide is taking place at a deep gully, it is going to get deeper and larger over time.”

Fortunately, Mayfield says, since the 1/9 debris flow, MTF has raised a $750,000 endowment to help maintain Montecito’s trails, money that will continue to grow for years to come.

Meanwhile, the San Ysidro Trail is scheduled to open this June. “It’s all been done by hand,” Mayfield says.

“To be standing here two years later on our last full trail restoration project is beyond our wildest dreams.” •MJ

• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

45

PUBLIC NOTICE City of Santa Barbara NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the City Council of the City of Santa Barbara will conduct a Public Hearing on Tuesday, March 10, 2020, during the afternoon session of the meeting which begins at 2:00 p.m. in the Council Chamber, City Hall, 735 Anacapa Street, Santa Barbara. The hearing is to consider the appeal filed by Victoria Valente of the Architectural Board of Review’s Project Design Approval of Application PLN2019-00192 for property owned by Teri Baggao Tuason located at 601 Alameda Padre Serra, Assessor’s Parcel No. 031-261-004; R-2, Two-Unit Residential, General Plan Designation: Medium Density Residential, 12 dwelling units per acre. The project involves the construction of a second residential unit on a site currently developed with a single residential unit. The project consists of an addition of a 1,724 square foot, three-story unit to the rear of an existing 2,453 square foot, two-story residential unit. A new two-car garage is proposed with driveway access from Alameda Padre Serra. The project also requires two Minor Zoning Exceptions for an over-height wall proposed within ten feet of the front property line and to allow hedges to reach a maximum of twelve feet along the southerly interior lot line to be considered by the Architectural Board of Review at a Final Approval hearing. The project will address all violations in Enforcement Case ENF2019-00519.

If you challenge the Council's action on the appeal of the Architectural Board of Review’s decision in court, you may be limited to raising only those issues you or someone else raised at the public hearing described in this notice, or in written correspondence delivered to the City at, or prior to, the public hearing.

You are invited to attend this hearing and address your verbal comments to the City Council. Written comments are also welcome up to the time of the hearing, and should be addressed to the City Council via the City Clerk’s Office, P.O. Box 1990, Santa Barbara, CA 93102-1990.

On Thursday, March 5, 2020, an Agenda with all items to be heard on Tuesday, March 10, 2020, will be available at City Hall, 735 Anacapa Street, and at the Central Library.

Agendas and Staff Reports are also accessible online at www.santabarbaraca.gov under “Most Popular”. Regular meetings of the Council are broadcast live and rebroadcast on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:00 p.m., and on Saturday at 9:00 a.m. on City TV Channel 18. Each televised Council meeting is closed captioned for the hearing impaired. These meetings can also be viewed over the Internet at www.SantaBarbaraCA.gov/CouncilVideos.

In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, if you need auxiliary aids or services or staff assistance to attend or participate in this meeting, please contact the City Administrator’s Office at 564-5305. If possible, notification at least 48 hours prior to the meeting will usually enable the City to make reasonable arrangements. Specialized services, such as sign language interpretation or documents in Braille, may require additional lead time to arrange.

(SEAL) /s/ Sarah Gorman, MMC City Clerk Services Manager February 20, 2020 Published February 26, 2020 Montecito Journal

46 MONTECITO JOURNAL

F I C T I T I O U S B U S I N E S S NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Dax and Milo, 1331 Virginia Rd, Santa Barbara, CA 93108.

Amanda Suzanne Tenold, 1331 Virginia Rd, Santa Barbara, CA 93108. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on February 21, 2020. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk. I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office. Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL), filed by John Beck. FBN No. 2020-0000572.

Published February 26, March 4, 11, 18, 2020.

F I C T I T I O U S B U S I N E S S NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Zip Kleen INC, 1998 Cliff Dr., Santa Barbara, CA 93109. Zip Kleen INC, 1998 Cliff Dr., Santa Barbara, CA 93109. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on February 19, 2020. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk. I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office. Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL), filed by Maria F. Sanchez. FBN No. 2020-0000541.

Published February 26, March 4, 11, 18, 2020.

F I C T I T I O U S B U S I N E S S NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Pacific Party Services; Santa Barbara Face Painting, 5773 Encina RD #201, Goleta, CA 93117.

Samantha Marx, 5773 Encina RD #201, Goleta, CA 93117.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on February 6, 2020. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk. I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office. Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL), filed by John Beck. FBN

No. 2020-0000431.

Published February 19, 26, March 4, 11, 2020.

statement on file in my office. Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL), filed by Brenda Aguilera.

FBN No. 2020-0000437.

Published February 12, 19, 26, March 4, 2020.

F I C T I T I O U S B U S I N E S S NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Pacific Party Services; Santa Barbara Face Painting, 5773 Encina RD #201, Goleta, CA 93117.

Samantha Marx, 5773 Encina RD #201, Goleta, CA 93117.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on February 6, 2020. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk. I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office. Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL), filed by John Beck. FBN No. 2020-0000431.

Published February 19, 26, March 4, 11, 2020.

F I C T I T I O U S B U S I N E S S NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HOMES805, 1187 Coast Village Road #187, Santa Barbara, CA 93108. HOMES805 INC, 1187 Coast Village Road #187, Santa Barbara, CA 93108.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on February 6, 2020. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk. I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office. Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL), filed by John Beck. FBN No. 2020-0000415.

Published February 12, 19, 26, March 4, 2020.

F I C T I T I O U S B U S I N E S S NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Marisol’s Cleaning, 5926 Corta St., Goleta, CA 93117. Marisol Aguirre, 5926 Corta St., Goleta, CA 93117.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on January 27, 2020. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk. I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office. Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL), filed by John Beck. FBN No. 2020-0000278.

Published February 19, 26, March 4, 11, 2020.

F I C T I T I O U S B U S I N E S S NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Key 2 Fitness, 324 State Street STE C, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. Brian Sawicki, 324 State Street STE C, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on January 30, 2020. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk. I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office. Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL), filed by John Beck. FBN No. 2020-0000350.

Published February 5, 12, 19, 26, 2020.

F I C T I T I O U S B U S I N E S S NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Miller Group Construction & Development, 1224 Coast Village Cir #20, Santa Barbara, CA 93108. Robert F. Miller III, 559 Friendly Ct., Murphys, CA 95247.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on February 7, 2020. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk. I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original

“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.” – Victor Hugo

F I C T I T I O U S B U S I N E S S NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Jhana Studio, 5809 Encina Rd. #101, Goleta, CA 93117. Max Hennard, 5809 Encina Rd. #101, Goleta, CA 93117. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on January 17, 2020. This statement expires five years from

the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk. I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office. Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL), filed by Thomas Brian. FBN No. 2020-0000191.

Published February 5, 12, 19, 26, 2020.

F I C T I T I O U S B U S I N E S S NAME STATEMENT: The following person(s) is/are doing business as: Clearwater Engineering, INC., 28 El Arco Dr., Santa Barbara, CA 93105. Clearwater Engineering, INC., 28 El Arco Dr., Santa Barbara, CA 93105. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Barbara County on January 13, 2020. This statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the Office of the County Clerk.

I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office. Joseph E. Holland, County Clerk (SEAL), filed by Maria F. Sanchez.

FBN No. 2020-0000132.

Published February 5, 12, 19, 26, 2020.

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME: CASE No. 20CV00524. To all interested parties: Petitioner Rosemary Ann Seegert filed a petition with Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara, for a decree changing name to Teri Ann Huestis.

The Court orders that all persons interested in this matter appear before this court at the hearing indicated below to show cause, if any, why the petition for change of name should not be granted.

Any person objecting to the name changes described above must file a written objection that includes the reasons for the objection at least two court days before the matter is scheduled to be heard and must appear at the hearing to show cause why the petition should not be granted.

If no written objection is timely filed, the court may grant the petition without a hearing. Filed February 18, 2020 by Elizabeth Spann. Hearing date: April 15, 2020 at 9:30 am in Dept. 6, 1100 Anacapa Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. Published 2/26, 3/4, 3/11, 3/18

27 February – 5 March 2020

Scam Squad

Ernie’s World

by Patti Teel, Deputy District Attorney Vicki Johnson & Richard Copelan, CEO/President of the BBB of the Tri-Counties

Recognizing & Avoiding Scams

T

his week’s Scam Report will focus on Business Email Compromise Scams (BEC), which have tripled in the last three years, resulting in more financial losses than any other fraud type in the U.S. It’s when a fraudster uses a compromised email account to insert himself into a transaction where two parties are exchanging money. The broad consensus among law enforcement and internet security companies is that 90 percent of BEC groups operate out of Nigeria.

Here’s how the scam typically works. You receive an email which appears to come from the head of a company. For example, a fraudster manages to hack into your boss’s account, so it looks like the emails you receive are coming from her.

The main way a fraudster gets into someone else’s account is through an email that asks the receiver to click on a link. If the link is clicked on, the crook can insert malware and gain access. Sometimes they get access to many accounts this way, for example if they hack into a company’s payroll records.

Deputy District Attorney Vicki Johnson and Richard Copelan, CEO/ President of the BBB of the Tri-Counties, report that the BEC Scam has been affecting real estate transactions, small businesses, and even individuals in Santa Barbara County.

The BEC Scam and Real Estate Transactions

Here’s how it works. A hacker gets into an escrow officer’s email. The savvy crook sits back for a while, watching messages go back and forth between buyer and seller and their representatives, while learning the language specific to the company they are targeting. When the sale is about to be finalized, the hacker, pretending to be the escrow officer, instructs the bank to release the funds and will provide the account information for the deposit. Within hours or days, that money is gone and in the fraudster’s account.

Here’s a quote from an FBI special agent who works these cases: “…the perpetrators leave a long wake of financial and emotional damage, stealing money from small businesses – leaving them unable to pay bills, and from families in the process of buying a home, all but erasing their dreams of home ownership.”

The BEC Scam and Small Businesses

A scammer recently hacked into a business account, pretending to be the owner of a Santa Barbara company. When the accountant received email instructions to pay an invoice, she wired several thousand dollars to an account controlled by a crook before realizing that the invoice was fake.

Con-Artists Use this Scam to Rip off Individuals, Too

A Santa Barbara woman received an email from someone she thought was her uncle. He said he was very sick and needed immediate funds for emergency surgery. Since the email contained a lot of believable details, the woman thought it was real and wired $20,000 into the crook’s account.

BBB advises us to always use the telephone to confirm requests before acting. Most BEC fraud could be stopped if those directed to send money simply called the person who’s supposedly asking them to send the money.

To report a scam, call the District Attorney’s Fraud Hotline at 805-5682442. The Better Business Bureau urges you to visit their Scam Tracker site at https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker/santa-barbara/reportscam or call them directly at 805-963-8657.

The District Attorney’s office and Better Business Bureau of the Tri-Counties each have segments on the Young at Heart Radio Show, with host Patti Teel.

It airs on KTMS Newstalk 990 on Saturdays at 5:30 pm and Sunday mornings at 8:30. During Scam Squad, Deputy District Attorney Vicki Johnson warns listeners about the latest scams and often interviews victims. This is followed

by Your Moment of Trust, a segment by BBB of the Tri-Counties – providing timely advice to businesses and individuals. After airing, they can be found at www.hubforpodcasting.com.

•MJ 27 February – 5 March 2020

by Ernie Witham

Read more exciting adventures in Ernie’s World the Book and A Year in the Life of a “Working” Writer. Both available at amazon.com or erniesworld.com.

Road Trip, Hawaiian Style

M

y wife hesitated at a puddle of unknown depth at the former Kahuku Sugar Mill parking lot, which is now a series of small restaurants and food trucks that cater mainly to the surfing crowd at North Shore on Oahu.

“This thing could cross a raging river,” I said.

“The rental company might charge us more if we get it too dirty.”

“It’s raining. It’s a free car wash day.”

Still unsure we could make it, Pat floored it and we bounced through the puddle and careened over a couple of large potholes. I almost hit the roof, which wouldn’t have been good because it might have come flying off.

Pat had reserved a compact car for our trip, so the “Advantage” car rental company at the airport gave us a fullsize Jeep Wrangler. Or should I say Cheap Wrangler? It was such a basic model that you have to use the key to lock and unlock both front doors and it had hand-crank windows. I looked in the manual to see if there was a hidden auto feature. The manual showed this multi-functional key fob.

Our key fob had nothing on it – not even a “Welcome to Hawaii” stamp.

The instrument panel in the manual showed all these hi-tech features. Our dashboard had a large gaping hole where someone forgot to put in the features. Earlier we had searched for the mirror adjustment button, then figured out you had to crank the window down and push the edges of the mirror around.

“Lower. Too much. Not enough.

Okay, now right. No, left. No…” Did I mention it was raining?

Fortunately, being the “sport” model, it offered the option of taking off the hood, the roof and the doors.

I guess some tourists stay in extralarge rooms so they can store half a Jeep exterior leaning up against the mini bar. Being a guy who loves to take things apart, but is not always completely successful putting them back together, and being in a smaller, second-floor room at a hotel with no elevator, I had pretty much decided against vehicle demolition.

The Jeep had 4-wheel drive – important for managing the streets in Waikiki Beach which, on a good day, allow for speeds up to fifteen miles per hour.

It was also a tad large for one of the eight Smartcar-sized parking spaces we had to rent for thirty-five dollars a day at our 1970s era hotel, which was undergoing some minor renovations

• The Voice of the Village •

involving jack hammers.

But it was nice to have a vehicle.

The previous evening, we had headed for Hawaii Kai for dinner with our Hawaiian family members. The Wrangler, surprise surprise, didn’t have a GPS, but I did have my iPhone.

The street we were looking for began with a K, one of the more popular of the seven consonants in the Hawaiian alphabet. I must have missed one of the eleven vowels in the 17-letter-long street address when inputting because it took us an hour to go 12 miles and it told us we had arrived after we turned into a vacant field.

I must have missed one of the eleven vowels in the 17-letterlong street address when inputting because it took us an hour to go 12 miles.

We did see a part of the island that is not included in the travel brochures including a tent city and some buildings that last saw paint during the Eisenhower administration. Pat put the directions into the phone for the trip back to the hotel.

We were getting somewhat used to driving the Beast, so today we decided to cut through the middle of the island from sunny Honolulu and go to the Dole Plantation. Halfway there it started raining and the temperature dropped fifteen degrees. We were wearing shorts.

“Can you figure out how to turn the heat and defroster on,” Pat asked.

“I think it suggested in the manual to bring along firewood.”

It was raining hard at the Dole Plantation. Plus, it was mobbed. A lot of people were wearing brandnew Dole sweatshirts and hats. One woman had Dole socks under her open-toe sandals.

So, we decided to keep going, but cold, damp, daredevil excursions can make you hungry, so we had bounced up to a small burger joint called Seven Brothers.

“Maybe they have ice cream,” I said.

Pat gave me the hang loose hand sign. At least I think that’s what it was.

•MJ MONTECITO JOURNAL

47

Real Estate

by Mark Ashton Hunt

Mark and his wife, Sheela Hunt, are real estate agents. His family goes back nearly 100 years in the Santa Barbara area. Mark’s grandparents – Bill and Elsie Hunt – were Santa Barbara real estate brokers for 25 years.

Estate Offerings in Montecito

2

018 and 2019 saw solid years for sales in the $10,000,000+ range. In 2019 there were 10 homes that sold over $10,000,000 in the Montecito 93108 zip code, and 14 over $10,000,000 if you include homes sold in the Padaro Lane area. In 2018 there were seven sales in Montecito over the $10,000,000 price point. And this year we have not yet seen any closed sales in Montecito over $10,000,000, although there are two properties over $10,000,000 currently in escrow.

As of the writing of this article there are approximately 24 properties for sale above $10,000,000 in the Montecito area. At this price point one can expect a larger home (often 8,000 to 10,000 square feet or more), an acre of land or more (unless it’s a beachfront home then a full acre is rare indeed). Also one can expect ocean views, parking for guests, a pool and spa, a guest house, sometimes a tennis court and pavilion and even more amenities depending on the estate listing.

Most homes over $10 million include two or more stories and grand staircases, long driveways, gates and more. These are the homes most people dream about… and yet for some, a $10 million or $15 million estate might be just a second home for weekends and holidays. This is where the differences in needs and tastes comes into play. What style of architecture does one want? What location in town? Are ocean views critically important? It is in these details that one can get lost deciding between one lottery winning fantasy home and another. Here are four options of Montecito estates for sale in the $10,000,000+ category for you to consider.

1050 Cold Spring Road - $11,950,000

Crafted from a singular vision, this estate at the top of Cold Spring Road is known as Ca’ di Sopra (meaning ‘’House Above the Clouds’’).

This is a modern-day heirloom estate embracing the style, design and romance of the Golden Age of architecture from the early 1900s.

This revitalized Mediterranean residence is located on a prominent lane among other world class estates, and stands as an enviable property with ocean views, impressive attention to detail and mature landscaping.

The house includes seven bedrooms and a total of eight bathrooms in 12,500 +/- square feet of living space. There is central air conditioning, Montecito water, and a well in place. Ca’ di Sopra is located within the Cold Spring School District.

Rebuilt in 2014 by Giffin and Crane, and perfected by Harrison design, this Mediterranean estate is a study on beauty, luxury, design, and indoor/outdoor living. No stone was left unturned. This estate features vast verandas, covered terraces, pool, north/south tennis court, organic orchard, and gardens (aided by two wells).

There is a media room, wine cellar, gym, luxury guest accommodations, and more in the over 11,000 square feet of living space.

743 San Ysidro Road - $15,800,000

Casa Leo Linda is a classically designed estate set on approximately 2.7 acres just a short block or two from the upper village shops and the San Ysidro Ranch.

You know you have arrived as you drive through your own gates and up the long private driveway leading to the landscaped gardens and motor court.

The home features over 8,500 square feet of living space. There is a pool, cabana, tennis court, and a dog run. Homes on San Ysidro Road are located within the Montecito Union School District.

Situated among homes of similar and even higher prices, there is a feeling of peace and serenity here, with the home offering glimpses of the Pacific, stunning mountain views and the sounds of birds singing and frogs warbling in the koi pond and garden surrounding.

975 Lilac Drive - $16,900,000

1475 East Mountain Drive - $13,900,000 Ocean views, timeless architecture, and world-class craftsmanship coalesce in a magical Montecito location. Designed by Marc Appleton and built by Unander Construction, Villa Ravello is an estate of over 10,000 square feet of living space that offers understated elegance and a sense of sophistication on a lovely 2.62-acre lot.

Long site-lines showcase thoughtful details throughout the home. Nearly every room in the residence opens to a terrace offering different views of natural beauty; the sea, mountains, lacy oak trees, or lush lawns.

The guest house is ideal for extended visitors and the pool/cabana calls for fun. A detached office is perfect for focusing on business or creative ventures.

This home is located within the Montecito Union School District.

This estate is nestled on nearly two lush acres in the heart of Montecito’s upper village on prestigious East Mountain Drive. The home is a stone’s throw from the San Ysidro Ranch hotel and is within the Montecito Union School District. Enjoy ocean, island, and mountain views.

48 MONTECITO JOURNAL

For more information on any of these listings or to have me arrange a showing with the listing agents, please contact me directly, Mark@Villagesite.com or call/text 805-698-2174. Please view my website, www.MontecitoBestBuys.com, from which this article is based.

•MJ

“We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.” – Arthur O’Shaughnessy

27 February – 5 March 2020

MISCELLANY (Continued from page 21)

1989, she was appointed fiscal director for the city’s Community Housing Corp. and in 1993 became director of finance for the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara, a position she held for 11 years.

She was also vice president of finance and administration at the Music Academy of the West before rejoining the Scholarship Foundation as operations director in 2011. Appointed chief operating officer in 2016, she served as the foundation’s interim president and CEO from February to December 2018.

Versailles has competition

years to complete.

Geoffrey, who has worked on homes with quite stratospheric budgets in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Jakarta and Japan, is listed by the Robb Report as one of its Top Ten designers.

The Louis XIV-style grand chateau, which makes Versailles look like a fixer-upper, uses Geoffrey’s knowledge of feng shui, the Chinese system of geomancy used to ensure harmony and balance.

Canadian-born architect Richard Landry, whose clients include footballer Tom Brady, Eddie Murphy, Mark Wahlberg, Sylvester Stallone, and Rod Stewart, also worked on the extraordinary project.

Land of the Rich Montecito is ranked at 44 with an average household income of $265,940 in Bloomberg’s Richest Places just released annual index.

Atherton, a town of 7,000 in the heart of Silicon Valley, tops the list for the fourth consecutive year with an annual income of $525,324.

Scarsdale, New York, a town in wealthy Westchester County, north of Manhattan, is ranked number two, with more than half the towns on the list in New York or California.

Malibu is at number 37 with an average household income of $275,675.

On the Market One of America’s 400 richest people, Peter Sperling, 60, son of John Sperling, the founder of the University of Phoenix, who sold his Montecito three and a half acre estate, formerly owned by British actress Jane Seymour for $10.5 mil27 February – 5 March 2020

lion in 2015, is now selling his eight bedroom, 14 bath Spanish-style Holmby Hills property for $18.995 million.

The 11,653 sq. ft.1927 property on 1.65 acres, formerly owned by actor Vincent Price, was originally on the market last year for around $21 million.

Audition Evacuations Singer Katy Perry and her fellow American Idol judges had to evacuate the set of the hit ABC show during auditions in Sunriver, Oregon, because of a gas leak.

In a clip from the show, the former Dos Pueblos High students becomes increasingly alarmed about a strong propane smell, saying: “Do you guys smell gas?”

As fire alarms go off, Katy eventually picks up her belongings and makes for the exit, along with the show’s bemused contestants.

The clip, on People magazine’s website, shows her complaining of a headache before dropping to the ground as EMTs arrive to revive her.

Ink Slip Santa Barbara warbler Katy Perry’s British actor fiancé Orlando Bloom has just corrected a tattoo blunder.

Bloom, who starred in Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean, had the inking on his arm featuring a thin black line and a series of numbers – representing the date and time of the birth of his son Flynn, 9, with actress Miranda Kerr –, with Morse code supposed to spell his son’s name. But instead it spelled ‘Frynn.’

The 43-year-old corrected the spelling error and went on Instagram, blaming Pinterest for the initial mistake.

“Finally dot it right! How do you make a mistake like that? #Pinterest fail.”

New CEO Canadian Barbara Robertson, who has held a succession of finance, operations and administrative positions with several area nonprofit organizations, has been named president and CEO of the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara.

Robertson studied business economics at the University of British Columbia and accounting at the British Columbia Institute of Technology before working as a consultant, first at Peat, Marwick and Partners in Vancouver.

After relocating to Santa Barbara in

Natural Beauty It was a no maquillage moment when Montecito actress Gwyneth Paltrow threw an A-list party in Beverly Hills.

The Oscar winner invited Demi Moore, 57, Kate Hudson, 40, and Los Angeles-based artist, Alexandra Grant, 47, who is dating actor Keanu Reeves, but made it clear it was makeup-free event.

The bash was to promote her new Goop Glow skin products.

Moore, ex-wife of actor Bruce Willis and Carpinteria actor Ashton Kutcher, seemed particularly delighted to ditch makeup.

“Beauty is more than what you see, it is what you feel,” she raved on Instagram. “A powerful, memorable and meaningful evening!”

Rest in Peace On a personal note, I offer my condolences to Summerland winemaker and Santa Barbara Polo Club player Bilo Zarif, who has just lost his son, Jason Davis, at the all too early age of 35 in Los Angeles.

Jason, who voiced the character of Mikey Blumberg in the Disney animated series Recess, had long been open about his struggles with substance abuse and co-founded a charity, Cure Addiction Now. Bilo was married to Jason’s mother, Nancy Davis, daughter of the late Texas oil tycoon Marvin Davis, owner of the Beverly Hills Hotel and 20th Century Fox, who died in 2004 aged 79.

Sightings: TV talk show host Ellen DeGeneres celebrating Valentine’s Day with actress wife Portia de Rossi noshing at the Plow & Angel... Oscar winner Natalie Portman checking out the Public Market... Singer Neil Young at the Hotel Californian Pip! Pip!

Barbara Robertson new president of Scholarship Foundation

• The Voice of the Village •

Readers with tips, sightings and amusing items for Richard’s column should e-mail him at richardmi neards@verizon.net or send invitations or other correspondence to the Journal.

To reach Priscilla, email her at pris cilla@santabarbaraseen.com or call 805-969-3301 •MJ MONTECITO JOURNAL

49

C ALENDAR OF Note to readers: This entertainment calendar is a subjective sampling of arts and other events taking place in the Santa Barbara area for the next week. It is by no means comprehensive. Be sure to read feature stories in each issue that complement the calendar. In order to be considered for inclusion in this calendar, information must be submitted no later than noon on the Wednesday eight days prior to publication date. Please send all news releases and digital artwork to slibowitz@yahoo.com)

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27 Who can Hay be Now? – It was just shy of 40 years ago that the Scottish-Australian singer-songwriter Colin Hay won early international success as the lead singer/guitarist of Men At Work. By 1983, they’d become the first Australian artists to have a simultaneous No. 1 album and No. 1 single on the U.S. Billboard charts with Business as Usual, which had been originally released 14 months earlier, and “Down Under,” and went on to win the Grammy Award for Best New Artist later that year. When totaled, their three studio albums sold over 30 million albums worldwide. The record sales slacked off after Men At Work disbanded in 1985, and frontman Hay spent the better part of a decade stumbling around unfocused, in his own words, before transforming himself, as the Washington Post put it, into a thoughtful and sophisticated contemporary songwriter. Things turned completely around when actor Zach Braff put his solo song “I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You” onto the Garden State soundtrack, leading to appearances

and soundtrack songs on such shows at The Larry Sanders Show, JAG, The Mick Molloy Show, A Million Little Things, and Scrubs. Hay now counts more than a dozen albums in his solo studio output, a very worthy catalog that he’s likely to extensively explore in tonight’s show at the Lobero.

WHEN: 8 pm WHERE: Lobero Theatre, 33 E. Canon Perdido St. COST: $46-$56 INFO: (805) 963-0761 or www.lobero.com Smiley Speaks – The Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s Parallel Stories series takes a close look at the life-long passions, prodigious productivity and well-honed writing practice of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jane Smiley as she engages in a far-ranging conversation with Andrew Winer, her longtime friend, fellow author, and colleague in the Creative Writing program at UC Riverside. Smiley, a novelist and essayist whose 1992 novel A Thousand Acres won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, has also written several works of nonfiction, including Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel, a history and anatomy of the novel

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27 Molière’s Masterpiece – Molière’s Tartuffe is one of the most famous pieces of literature from France and also one of the funniest farces. The 350-year-old classic is a hilarious, satiric romp, exposing hypocrisy and greed that remains not only a timeless comedy but also terrifically timely in that we’re in the thicket of a major election year. The play examines ideas of hypocrisy and virtue, while confronting issues of authority and totalitarianism. The character Tartuffe tricked a wealthy homeowner, Orgon, into trusting him and believing his every word. Orgon’s family recognizes Tartuffe’s manipulating manner, and hilarity ensues as they attempt to convince Orgon otherwise. In UCSB Theatre’s production of Moliere’s work adapted by David Ball, and directed by Julie Fishell – who is helming stage movement and choreography that are being designed using images and manners from the time of the play “with a soupçon of screwball comedy techniques” – advanced acting students will portray the players, including Tartuffe, Elmire and Orgon, all of which are considered among the greatest classical theatre roles in history. WHEN: 8 pm tonight and February 21-26, plus 2 pm tomorrow and February 25-26 WHERE: UCSB Performing Arts Theater COST: $17 general, $13 children & seniors in advance; $19/$15 day of INFO: (805) 893-2064 or www.theaterdance.ucsb.edu

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EVENTS

by Steven Libowitz

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 29 Half-century of Eco-study – Bill McKibben wrote the first book about global warming for a general audience with 1989’s The End of Nature before going on to found 350.org, the world’s largest grassroots climate campaign, and writing a dozen more books, including his latest New York Times bestseller, Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? More than 30 years after he fired the first salvo, McKibben continues to serve among the leaders of the movement against human-induced climate change, and now sounds an even more urgent call to arms. “Falter” offers a piercing look at our environmental challenges, but also at the existential questions that come with new technologies.

In talks, McKibben shares examples of “the right kind of pressure” to make change, such as inducing college campuses to divest from fossil fuels, and encouraging the use of solar panels across Africa. McKibben offers a dual approach to saving our planet, arguing that we must make informed choices as individuals, but also think as members of a mobilized group. McKibben was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the alternative Nobel, and has lectured and organized on every continent including Antarctica and was asked by Bernie Sanders, who is currently the favorite for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, to help write the DNC climate platform of 2016. His talk tonight, titled “Our Changing Climate: A Global Movement of Reform,” co-presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures, the UCSB Environmental Studies Program and the Community Environmental Council, comes in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the UCSB program. WHEN: 7:30 pm WHERE: Campbell Hall, UCSB campus COST: $10 general, $5 UCSB students & youth 18 & under INFO: (805) 893-3535 www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu

as a form. Within those pages, Smiley posits that “A novelist has two lives – a reading and writing life, and a lived life. He or she cannot be understood at all apart from this.” Perhaps the two will merge in this evening’s presentation, titled “Love Comes First Beauty Follows.” WHEN: 5:30 pm WHERE: Mary Craig Auditorium at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1130 State Street (entrance in the rear) COST: $10 general/$6 seniors, $5 museum members INFO: (805) 963-4364 or www.sbma.net SUNDAY, MARCH 1 Here’s to you, Mr. Robinson – There’s a lot of hyperbole in the world of acoustic guitarists, but the accolades affixed to Australia native Joe Robinson all seem to apply. A largely self-taught musician, picked up the guitar at age 10 and promptly outgrew his guitar teacher in less than a year, and started to teach himself from the internet. At age 11, he began touring with older Australian artists, including the legendary fingerpicker Tommy Emmanuel, who became his mentor. At 13, he won the Australian National Songwriting Competition, recorded his debut album two years later, and won Australia’s Got Talent at 17 in 2008, when he performed a fingerstyle cover of “Classical Gas” – not coincidentally

“Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.” – Confucius

a favorite of Emmanuel’s. Robinson’s one-man solo acoustic/electric show is an energetic display of virtuosity and witty, finely-crafted lyrics delivered with his fine voice accompanied by his Aussie charisma, and cover songs that were inspired by George Carlin, Al Capone, and a person he once picked up hitchhiking, to name just a few. After more than 2,000 shows across the world, Robinson’s debut for the Santa Barbara Acoustic Music Association at the Alhecama Theatre was a sellout; tonight he returns for SBAMA’s new Listening Room series at SOhO for another adventure in exploring undertones of harmony, rhythm, melody, rhyme and narrative. WHEN: 7:30 pm WHERE: SOhO, 1221 State Street, upstairs in Victoria Court COST: $20 general, $60 VIP (includes pre-show dinner and seating in first six rows) INFO: (805) 962-7776 or www.sohosb.com Travel a Stone’s Throw Away – Although things are shifting once again with the gig economy, it’s still informative to take a look back and when American supermarkets were not as abundant and diverse as they are today. Our favorite foods came to America in the hands of food explorers who circled the world for the USDA in search of novel plants that transformed the American diet.

27 February – 5 March 2020

MONDAY, MARCH 2 Bryson’s Bodywork – Best-selling American-British author Bill Bryson has become one of the world’s most beloved and prolific writers, one who is capable of winningly communicating delight in the minutiae of travel, the subtleties of culture, and the world of science. Bryson shot to prominence in the United Kingdom with Notes from a Small Island, a humorous travel book that takes readers on an exploration of Great Britain, which was also adapted for a popular British TV series. A Walk in the Woods, his chronicle of hiking the Appalachian Trail, also proved immensely popular and was adapted into a film starring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte, while he also captured the zeitgeist of the Roaring ‘20s in One Summer: America 1927.

Bryson’s wryly titled A Short History of Nearly Everything was widely acclaimed for its approachable communication of science, exploring not only the histories and current statuses of the sciences, but also revealing their humble and often humorous beginnings. His new book, The Body: A Guide for Occupants – which is the basis for his talk tonight of the same title – takes readers on a head-to-toe tour of the marvel that is the human body. Full of extraordinary facts (your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this) and typically buoyant Bryson-esque anecdotes, the book offers a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and each of us in particular. No wonder a Chicago Sun Times critic opined “Bryson could write an essay about dryer lint or fever reducers and still make us laugh out loud.” Live, the Iowa-born Bryson is said to be even more accessible, charming audiences with the same warmth, goofy wit and dry, self-effacing humor that has made his work so universally appealing. WHEN: 7:30 pm WHERE: Granada Theatre, 1214 State Street COST: $25-$40 INFO: (805) 899-2222/www.granadasb.org or (805) 893-3535/www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu

National Geographic writer Daniel Stone’s The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats chronicles the excursions of David Fairchild, a late-nineteenth-century botanist who traveled the globe, and his team – including their stops in Indonesia, Japan, Iraq, Egypt, Chile, and New Guinea – to introduce diverse crops like avocados, mangoes, seedless grapes, and thousands more, to the American plate. Stone, a new Santa Barbara

GranadaSB.org

805.899.2222 Goldenvoice presents

HERB ALPERT & LANI HALL Fri FEB 28 7:30 pm

UCSB Arts & Lectures presents

BILL BRYSON

THE BODY: A GUIDE FOR OCCUPANTS Mon MAR 2 7:30pm

resident, invites readers to let your mouth water with stories of the big and small ways food innovators and chefs are still working to keep us satisfied and well-fed in the coming decades in today’s Armchair Travel Lecture at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art titled “The Mysterious Origins of Our Favorite Foods.” WHEN: 3 pm WHERE: Mary Craig Auditorium, 1130 State Street (entrance in the rear) COST: $10 general, $5 museum members INFO: (805) 9634364 or www.sbma.net •MJ

The Broadway In Santa Barbara Series presents

BUDDY

THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY Tue MAR 3 7:30pm Wed MAR 4 7:30pm CAMA presents

LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4

Fri MAR 6 7 pm (Early Start Time)

Cash-ing In – Rosanne Cash’s 14th album seemed like something of a career-crowning achievement, as 2014’s The River & the Thread not only received widespread received critical acclaim and fan support, but also took home three Grammy Awards, sweeping every nomination category including “Best Americana Album” and “Best American Roots Song” and “Best American Roots Performance” for “A Feather’s Not a Bird.” But the eldest daughter of late country icon Johnny Cash was nowhere near ready to retire, as indicated by the new album co-created with her producer-husband John Leventhal, She Remembers Everything, which is replete with her iconic sound that encompasses country, pop, rock, blues and her own take on Americana. Released in 2018, the record is rich with history, heartache, strength and humanity as Cash reckons with a flawed and fragile world, the songs reflecting a return to more personal style of writing after a trio of albums that explored her southern roots and family heritage. The singer-songwriter, who turns 65 in May, returns to town with Leventhal – also known for his body of work with Shawn Colvin, Rodney Crowell, Joan Osborne, Loudon Wainwright III and many others – once again by her side. WHEN: 8 pm WHERE: Campbell Hall, UCSB campus COST: $45-$65 INFO: (805) 893-3535 www.

ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu

27 February – 5 March 2020

UCSB Arts & Lectures presents

BRIAN GREENE

UNTIL THE END OF TIME Mon MAR 9 7:30 pm

State Street Ballet presents

SLEEPING BEAUTY Sat MAR 14 7:30 pm

Thank you to our Season Title Sponsor

1214 State Street, Santa Barbara

• The Voice of the Village •

Donor parking provided by MONTECITO JOURNAL

51

ENTERTAINMENT (Continued from page 44) Nebula Dance Lab’s sixth annual HH11 Dance Festival takes place at Center Stage Theater February 27-March 2

Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story takes the Granada stage on Tuesday, March 3 and Wednesday, March 4

Buddy Holly Story – which features 20 of Holly’s greatest hits including “That’ll Be The Day,” “Peggy Sue,” “Oh Boy,” and “Rave On,” and won Tony Awards in 1991 and 2000 and many others around the globe – arrives on the same stage for two performances.

We caught up with Keaton Eckhoff, the actor who portrays Holly, to have him rave on about the rock star’s enduring appeal.

Q. Playing a well-known real person in a jukebox musical can be a challenge. Do you try to completely impersonate him, or bring some of yourself to the role?

A. Oh, man, I did so much research, listened to his recordings so I could imitate his voice as well as possible.

I’ve heard every single song multiple times just trying to get his style down, duplicate how he does his vowels, which is really different. I want it so that people can close their eyes and hear Buddy, the records they know and love… I’ve tried to put as many dimensions and layers to the character as I can within the story that we’re telling, which doesn’t capture all of it, obviously, because there was so much more to his life. But I try to bring my knowledge of who he was to my performances… But it’s not about me at all. I am a songwriter myself, so it’s easy to empathize with the hardships he went through from the beginning of his career. But mostly I just love getting to bring all my theatrical training, acting, musical abilities, motivations, and the tools in my toolbox.

Do you connect internally to Holly’s songs, his music, and life? Does it speak to you?

Buddy Holly was a real renegade of his time and it’s a pleasure to play him. He pushed the form forward, so much so that most pop music we have today just wouldn’t exist otherwise because he opened the door for everything that followed. But he also had so many different sounds, wonderful quiet songs, and real rockers. His versatility is something I have to respect.

And he was a very driven dude, very cocky. There are moments of that in the show, the cocky 19-year-old boy who is a guy clawing his way to the top, hungry to make it. I can see that

52 MONTECITO JOURNAL

grit. I’m bringing that life to the role, bringing the truth of who he was and I am… And I’m also 100 percent driven.

I’m always writing songs, figuring out my way into the music game, even though it’s completely changed. I’m trying to find my voice in the chaos.

But I’m cocky and I want it too.

Why do you think Buddy has been such a success, the show itself, and the fact that all those songs are 50 years old?

Back in those days, when radio and record players were the only sources of music. We didn’t have cell phones and streaming. Stardom was a completely different thing. All of the people of that generation, who danced to and knew every word of his songs – they still come to the show over and over. That was the first generation of rock ‘n’ roll and they still want to see it. But we have a good younger demographic that comes to the show. It’s great to look out there and see that.

Buddy is one of the rare musicals where the actors are playing instruments live on stage. How is that for you?

That’s the best part of the show.

Everything you hear is live, and I get to play my own guitar. I had to watch even more videos to learn the guitar parts on his songs, and how he played them. There’s a lot of tricky stuff; they’re so simple, but also powerful and very lyrical.

I’m told that 25 actors have played the role in this show before you. How do you differentiate yourself?

I don’t think about that. I think about how I can do my best. As long as I’m doing that, I can let all the other wonderful people fade into the past because it’s now in my hands. I take that seriously and I practice every day.

But it’s just so fun and a wonderful role. Playing Buddy Holly is a complete joy.

Nothing Nebulus about Dance Festival

Dozen of local, national, and international dance artists are set to come together under one roof in Nebula Dance Lab’s sixth annual HH11 Dance Festival at Center Stage Theater this weekend (February 27-March 2).

Artists both emerging and established present more than 30 different pieces over the course of the three performances, which include appearance, by non-local companies and choreographers Kelly O’Connor, Elizabeth Reyes, CaZo Dance, Nadine Tran, Elicia Kraus, Marcos Duran, Errant Movement, and many others. Full festival passes, patron passes, which include early entry and a complimentary beverage, and individual tickets are all available, while special events include the annual Apogee Awards highlighting Arts Education & Youth performances, and a special Mix & Mingle event with pre- and post-show receptions. Call (805) 9630408 or visit www.centerstagetheater. org.

Offbeat Outings to Ojai

After 10 years at other area locations, the Ojai Mardi Gras celebration marks its 30th anniversary back at the Ojai Valley Woman’s Club fittingly on Leap Day, February 29, as the venue hosted the first public event on Leap Day in 1992. This year’s Masquerade Ball carries the theme “Naughty Gras... Leap into your Fantasy,” fea-

turing hundreds of costumed revelers dancing to the R&B, funk, Cajun, and Zydeco rhythms performed by The Ojai Mardi Gras Band, featuring a veritable Who’s Who of local luminaries, plus witnessing such annual traditions as the Coronation of the King & Queen, Tossing of the Beads, and a Costume Contest along with art installations and festive decorations by the Mardi Gras Art Fools directed

by Lucy Roadarmel. Admission is $25 in advance, or $30 at the door. Call (805) 646-7843 or visit www.ojaicon certseries.com.

Ojai Valley Improv welcomes Ventura Improv Company in both ensembles’ first-ever improv comedy mash-up/meet-up. Expect wacky games, groan-inducing puns, sticky situations, musical mayhem, and much more when the two experienced companies compete against one another in a ComedySportz-style extravaganza where everything is made up on the spot via suggestions from the audience. All proceeds from the 7 pm show on Saturday, February 29, benefit The Ojai Art Center Theater Branch. Get the $10 tickets at the door or online at www.ojaiact.org/store/ p192/improvshow.

•MJ

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27 February – 5 March 2020

• The Voice of the Village •

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Dawn Jackson Hodges 661-433-7809 Handwritten Modern Calligraphy Service Envelope addressing & signage services for all occasions whether big or small. Contact Charlene at Bellamiacalligraphy@gmail.com (805) 889-8520

RENTAL One Bedroom + Office (or 2nd BR) & 1.5 Bath. Recent remodel on private lane, new appliances, on sunny second floor, W/D, Garage, Patio, short walk to Butterfly Beach. Furnished if desired.

Chris (805) 705-9247 27 February – 5 March 2020

ADVERTISE IN THE LOCAL BUSINESS DIRECTORY (805) 565-1860 BUSINESS CARDS FOR VOL 20#48, Dec 10, ’14

SPECIAL

Hydrex Merrick Construction Bill Vaughan Shine Blow Dry Musgrove(revised) Mission Pool Tables & Games Valori Tri-Counties Fussell(revised) Only Complete Game Store Lynch Construction Modern & Antique Designs Sales • Service • Rentals Good Doggies Pemberly (805) 569-1444 26 W Mission Street in Santa Barbara Beautiful eyelash (change Forever Beautiful Spa) Mon - Satto 9:30am - 4pm Luis Esperanza Simon Hamilton

$49 MONTHLY SERVICE General Pest Service Only. Gophers & Rodents Not Included.

One Year Term Minimum. Offer Expires December 15, 2019.

www.askdollyia.com

Free Gopher & Rodent Estimates ECO SMART PRODUCTS Look for the ANT (805) 687-6644 on the Door www.OConnorPest.com

www.asdoggrooming.org

805-855-0292

805-855-0292

STEVEN BROOKS JEWELERS Appraisals

"FINANCIAL PLANNINGAS ASITITWAS WASMEANT MEANTTOTOBE" BE" "FINANCIAL PLANNING William WilliamT.T.Toner, Toner,Jr. CFP® AIF® Jr. CFP® AIF®

for Estates and Insurance Graduate Gemologist ~ Established 1974 Sales of Custom Designed and Estate Jewelry Purchasing Estates sbjewelers@gmail.com or 805-455-1070

Complimentary Consultation

Complimentary Consultation

www.plainscoastal.com/faq www.plainscoastal.com/faq bill@plainscoastal.com

bill@plainscoastal.com

1482 East Valley Road, STE 10, Montecito, CA

1482 East Valley Road, STE 10, Montecito, CA

Montecito Office 535 sq. ft.

1470 E. Valley Rd. $1,590 mo.

Upstairs with large windows and views.

Available now.

805-565-0021 The office is suitable for one to two professionals.

Not suitable for practitioners.

MONTECITO ocean & mountain views in the beachside gated community of BONNYMEDE. 2bed 2.5 baths, fireplace,chefs kitchen, W/D, garage and much more, all just steps from the Four Seasons Biltmore and the many wonderful shops and restaurants on Coast Village Rd. $7850 lease (805)969-1008

INVESTOR WANTED Investor-Working Partner Required Santa-Barbara-Horse-Drawn-Carriages http://www.santa-barbara-horse-drawn-carriages.com/ I am looking for an investing partner who will be responsible for event planning in our business. An understanding of the Santa Barbara community is important with Social Media skills required. T homas J Miller/ Owner thomasjmiller@santa-barbara-horse-drawn-carriages.com 27 February – 5 March 2020

DONATIONS NEEDED Santa Barbara Bird Sanctuary Menagerie 2340 Lillie Avenue Summerland CA 93067 (805) 969-1944 Donate to the Parrot Pantry!

At SB Bird Sanctuary, backyard farmer’s bounty is our birds best bowl of food!

The flock goes bananas for your apples, oranges & other homegrown fruits & veggies.

Volunteers Do you have a special talent or skill?

Do you need community service hours?

The flock at SB Bird Sanctuary could always use some extra love and socialization. Call us and let’s talk about how you can help.

(805) 969-1944

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED K-PALS need volunteers to be foster parents for our dogs while they are waiting for their forever homes. For more information info@k-9pals.org or 805-570-0415.

CA$H ON THE SPOT CLASSIC CARS RV’S • CARS SUV • TRUCKS MOTORHOMES We come to you!

702-210-7725

STEVEN BROOKS JEWELERS Appraisals for Estates and Insurance Graduate Gemologist ~ Established 1974 Sales of Custom Designed and Estate Jewelry Purchasing Estates sbjewelers@gmail.com or 805-455-1070

• The Voice of the Village •

MONTECITO JOURNAL

55

©2020 Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties (BHHSCP) is a member of the franchise system of BHH Affiliates LLC. BHH Affiliates LLC and BHHSCP do not guarantee accuracy of all data including measurements, conditions, and features of property. Info is obtained from various sources and will not be verified by broker or MLS. Sellers will entertain and respond to all offers within this range. Buyer is advised to independently verify the accuracy of that information.

BHHSCALIFORNIA.COM

PICACHO LN, MONTECITO 6BD/6+(4)½BA • $22,450,000 Cristal Clarke, 805.886.9378 LIC# 00968247

296 LAS ENTRADAS DR, MONTECITO UPPER 6BD/11BA • $28,500,000 Nancy Kogevinas, 805.450.6233 LIC# 01209514

1558 MIRAMAR BEACH LN, MONTECITO 4BD/2BA • $5,850,000 Janet Caminite, 805.896.7767 LIC# 01273668

719 LILAC DR, MONTECITO 5BD/5½BA • $5,595,000 Cristal Clarke, 805.886.9378 LIC# 00968247

2896 HIDDEN VALLEY LN, HIDDEN VALLEY

4BD/4½BA • $4,950,000 Cristal Clarke, 805.886.9378 LIC# 00968247

284 SANTA ROSA LN, MONTECITO 4BD/3BA • $4,650,000 Daniel Encell, 805.565.4896 LIC# 00976141

560 MEADOW WOOD LN, MONTECITO 4BD/4½BA • $4,300,000 Daniel Encell, 805.565.4896 LIC# 00976141

2760 SYCAMORE CYN RD, MONTECITO 5BD/4½BA • $3,995,000 MK Group, 805.565.4014 LIC# 01426886

700 RIVEN ROCK RD, MONTECITO 2.49 ± acs • $3,975,000 Jody Neal, 805.252.9267 LIC# 01995725

1385 OAK CREEK CYN RD, MONTECITO 6± acs • $2,995,000 MK Group / Joe Stubbins, 805.565.4014 LIC# 01426886 / 01002182

2942 TORITO RD, MONTECITO UPPER 3BD/3BA • $2,595,000 Joyce Enright, 805.570.1360 LIC# 00557356

760 HOT SPRINGS RD, MONTECITO 4BD/3BA • $2,275,000 Daniel Encell, 805.565.4896 LIC# 00976141

1375 PLAZA DE SONADORES, MONTECITO

1701 E VALLEY RD, MONTECITO LOWER ±1.1acs • $950,000 Calcagno & Hamilton, 805.565.4000 LIC# 01499736 / 01129919

2BD/2½BA • $2,150,000 Nancy Kogevinas, 805.450.6233 LIC# 01209514

@BHHSCALIFORNIA