Your Westmont Education, Technology Join at Impact Conference

by Scott Craig (photography by Brad Elliott)

Westmont’s annual Impact Conference brings together leading thinkers in education and technology to discuss the development of better data systems for colleges and universities. Co-hosted by Salesforce and Westmont’s Center for Applied Technology (CATLab), the free event takes place on campus Thursday, August 10, from 8am - 1:30pm. To register or get more information, please visit westmont.edu/impact.

Keynote speakers will challenge people in education to reimagine what’s possible using the Salesforce platform. Julia Freeland Fisher serves as director of education at the Clayton Christensen Institute, and Jonathan Maher is the principal solution engineer for Salesforce’s Education Cloud.

Westmont’s CATLab students will also present projects they pursued this summer. Four teams create and market critical technological infrastructure and digital systems that keep the college running. The data analysts and developers build these systems, and the marketing and admissions teams help tell the story of what they accomplish.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for administrators in higher education to gain valuable insights into Salesforce and network with other executives with similar visions,” says Zak Landrum, director of CATLab, CRM and data services at Westmont. “I look forward to sparking collaboration among higher education institutions, sharing with colleagues, and uniting educators through the common language of technology.”

In 2018, Westmont became the first school to create a program like CATLab, which includes the collaborative efforts of faculty, staff, and students. By working during the summer, students gain substantial professional experience that helps them find internships in Santa Barbara and employment after graduation. “By allowing students to create our Salesforce infrastructure, we’re pioneering a model that provides low-cost technology solutions to Westmont and invaluable experience to students,” Landrum says.

Education Trailblazers Association, a new professional organization for Salesforce for Higher Education users, is the lead sponsor. Tondro Consulting, FormAssembly, Halosight, and OwnBackup are signature event sponsors.

Women’s Soccer Season Kicking Off

Westmont women’s soccer added seven recruits to its roster ahead of its first season in the NCAA Division II PacWest Conference. The newcomers include Angelina Garcia of Chicago; Kennah Shaffer of Buellton; Ellie Ludwig of Temecula; Katie Lannon of San Pedro; Sydney Reese of Campbell; communications regarding the smart meter program will be going out to District customers shortly. Turner said a study on implementing a recycled water program in Montecito is still underway, with grant funding being pursued to help pay for environmental review and preliminary design for a potential facility. “It’s critical for bolstering our water supply and future water reserves,” Turner said. Another study, this one on the District’s potential consolidation with Montecito Sanitary District, is now published online. The study found that the benefits of consolidation are fairly limited, and the two separate governing boards will be deciding how to proceed, if at all.

The Warriors began training camp this week and have several exhibition games lined up: August 18 at 7 pm at Santa Barbara City College; August 22 at 7 pm at UC Santa Barbara, and August 26 at 3 pm at home against Cal Lutheran University. The Warriors play at Cal Poly Pomona in their first regular-season game on August 31 at 4:30 pm.

Montecito Union School Superintendent Anthony Ranii reported on facility projects on campus, including a recently completed fencing project, which raised the height of fences at the school terraces. Other summer projects nearing completion include a bathroom at the Nature Lab, as well as installation of a new climbing area and purposeful play area. The school continues to be on budget and schedule for a $14M project to renovate the infrastructure in the main building. “We’re really proud to be able to do that project with in-house funds,” Ranii said, adding that up next is the renovation of the kindergarten and first grade classrooms. The first day of school at MUS is August 24, and the campus will welcome 340 students.

Cold Spring School superintendent Dr. Amy Alzina reported that fences around her campus have also been raised and repaired, and that the $2M STEM & Art building project is underway, with hopes it will be completed by the end of 2024. The school is welcoming back 184 students this year, and school starts on August 17.

Santa Barbara County Sheriff Lieutenant Butch Arnoldi reported on recent crime, which included an auto burglary at Loon Point; a residential burglary on School House Road; and packages and mail stolen on Miramar Avenue. There have been 90 parking citations given out in the last two weeks at local trailheads for illegal parking.

Montecito Association Board President Megan Orloff told the Board that numerous candidates have applied for the job of executive director, and that she is hoping to hire someone by the end of the month. The vacancy was left by the departure of Sharon Byrne, who resigned last month.

Biltmore Updates

In a statement released last week, local hotelier Ty Warner confirmed that the Four Seasons Resort The Biltmore will reopen in the fall of 2024, over four years after closing in March 2020, at the beginning of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Warner’s company, Ty Warner Hotels and Resorts, has been working with the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts to prepare for the highly anticipated reopening of both the Four Seasons Resort The Biltmore Santa Barbara and Four Seasons Hotel New York. “Both iconic properties are expected to reopen in fall 2024. Renovations and enhancements are planned throughout and the owner and operator look forward to ushering in a new era for both celebrated properties. In preparation for reopening, recalling furloughed employees will be a priority,” the statement reads, going on to confirm what we’ve been reporting on: that the Coral Casino Beach and Cabana Club is scheduled to reopen in September 2023. The process of recalling furloughed employees for both properties will commence in the near future, according to the statement.

This new turn of events appears to be the conclusion of the legal battle that ensued over the past two years, with Mr. Warner serving notice to the Four Seasons in 2021 to terminate their long-term agreements at both the Four Seasons Santa Barbara and Four Seasons New York after accusing the Four Seasons of mismanagement of the hotel properties; he said at the time that the Four Seasons was in violation of its contractual and fiduciary duties, to the financial detriment of Mr. Warner. The filing stated that the owner has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the hotels to fund extensive renovations and perform ongoing maintenance, and to support day-to-day operations, and that the Four Seasons did not uphold its duties to maximize profits and minimize costs while operating the properties consistent with the standard of world-class luxury hotels. The Four Seasons contested the termination of the agreements, and for months the two sides attempted to resolve their dispute through arbitration.

We’ll have more on the impending opening of both the Coral Casino and Four Seasons Biltmore in subsequent editions.

The ever-busy Postell, by the way, will be back at the Lobero later this year, first on a November date supporting Bruce Cockburn, and likely yet another show with the all-star session group The Immediate Family, who are arranging a December concert to coincide with a screening of the group’s new self-titled documentary film that is set for an end-of-the-year theatrical release. Also in the works is a second annual concert tribute to the late photographer-musician Alan Kozlowski

The Stand and Be Counted tribute concert to David Crosby takes place August 20 at the Lobero Theatre. For more information, visit www.lobero.org.

Pop Notes: Roar & Pour Roars Back

The free concert series Roar & Pour featuring weekly live music from local bands playing on the plaza in front of the Granada Theatre returns for a month of Thursdays beginning this week. On tap are Grateful Dead tribute band The 192s, the Dan Zimmerman Band jazz trio, 1970s-leaning rock band Doublewide Kings, and Something This Way Magic from DeTar Music Studios. See my Giving List column elsewhere in this issue for details.

Academy Bids Adieu Twice at the Granada

Scott Reed’s brief speech at his last official public appearance as the Music Academy’s president/CEO after 12 years at the helm, which drew an instant standing ovation, set the stage for the emotional rollercoaster ride provided by the Academy Festival Orchestra at the Granada last Saturday night in the final event of the 2023 Summer Festival.

The whirlwind trip through the gamut of colors and emotions came courtesy of fiery conductor Hannu Lintu, who led the fellows through a crisp yet sensuous reading of Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), the semi-autobiographical 50-minute tone poem that contains more than 30 quotations from many of Strauss’s earlier works. Another standing ovation was highly in order after the summer session officially ended with a performance of Tchaikovsky’s equally challenging overture-fantasy Romeo and Juliet.

The concert closed the door on the 2023 festival, but Hahn Hall won’t be dark for too long, as Camerata Pacifica launches its new season of chamber music concert at the venue on September 15 with works by Beethoven, Mozart, and Elgar, while the Music Academy has booked a second season of its Mariposa Concert Series for later in the fall. Even better news: We’re less than 44 weeks away from the next Music Academy Summer Festival plus a new crop of fellows and guest artists providing elevated performances, master classes, and more.

Discounts for Devotees of “The Dark”

The annual discount derby for the Santa Barbara International Film Festival next year is going on right now. SBIFF returns to town – or more accurately, dominates the entertainment calendar – from February 7-17, 2024, with its usual slate of celebrity tributes, industry panels, and 200 or so new independent and international films, including daily free screenings. It will be hard to top 2023’s “success rate” though, as nearly every Academy Award winner who picked up a statuette last March – including every major category winner – graced our local stage at the Arlington Theatre a month earlier. Next year’s tributes won’t be announced until the fall and early winter, but the deadline to secure a 25-percent discount on passes and ticket packages comes to a close on August 15. Visit www.sbiff.org for details.

learn that nearly half the MUS families were renters, many of them stretching to live in a place that offered a public school where the average class size was 17. A school that was as good or better than any school, public or private, that we had looked at in L.A. The thing about Montecito we most love is that it attracts people who are less socially aspirational than many of the people we knew who were living in L.A. or in NYC (my husband’s hometown). If climbing the Hollywood social ladder is your priority, you would likely not choose to live in a place like Montecito where one would have no way of knowing that the person in flip-flops at the next table at Jeannine’s actually holds the original patent for fire.

Never mentioned in Larocca’s piece is the burgeoning tech community in Montecito and Santa Barbara. Nor that this is home to some of the world’s most trailblazing entrepreneurs, many of whom are still active and working right here, locally: the founders of SONOS, the Google Quantum AI computer, Gorilla Glue, Kate Farms, Stüssy, Flying A Studio, Deckers, Procore, Sex Wax, Dr. Sansum was the first to administer insulin in a patient, Hidden Valley Ranch dressing, Tri-Tip, SIMS, Powell-Peralta, Martha Graham Dance Company, Earth Day, Kinko’s, Big Dog Clothing, Balance Bar, McConnell’s Ice Cream, Direct Relief International, SEE International, Egg McMuffin, Blue LED inventor Shuji Nakamura (won the Nobel Prize), Clénet Coachworks, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg (source: local historian Erin Graffy).

Montecito’s tragic 2018 debris flow was referenced, but nothing about the incredible way this community rallied to support each other through that tragedy. How our response to that crisis became literally a national model of resilience efforts by organizations like The Bucket Brigade and The Program for Resilient Communities, (TPRC) which worked closely with USCB’s world class Bren School to understand the moment and plan – successfully – for a more resilient future. TPRC researched and found the debris nets, a technology that was then shared with and adopted by Los Angeles for their subsequent debris flow beneath the Getty Museum.

Also never mentioned was that Santa Barbara is said to have more nonprofits per capita than any county in the country. Organizations supported greatly by Montecito’s large and engaged philanthropic community.

Another peculiarity of the Times’ profile of Montecito that gets lost in its litany of celebrity is that somehow Larocca got Montecito’s County Supervisor (Das Williams) to boast about his defiant lack of concern for his own constituents’ interests. “When people come to me and say, oh this or that will be terrible for property value, I just say, ‘Good!’” said Williams.

“I’m surprised the New York Times reporter didn’t say she enjoyed breathing the air here knowing that a microscopic amount of it may have once been exhaled by Gwyneth Paltrow.”

Really? Our elected member of the County Board of Supervisors thinks it’s good when Montecito’s property values go down? Seems a little weird considering a significant amount of Montecito’s property taxes support Santa Barbara County services – including the salaries of Supervisor Williams and his staff.

Steven Libowitz has covered a plethora of topics for the Journal since 1997, and now leads our extensive arts and entertainment coverage

Meanwhile, individual tickets for UCSB Arts & Lectures’ 2023-24 slate of arts-spanning events and enlightening conversations already went on sale late last week. So the time to snap up a favorite anticipated dance performance, pop or classical concert, or other event or talk is now. You can still get discounts up to 25 percent by leveling up to one or more of A&L’s dozen curated series subscriptions that cobble together complementary events and offer other benefits, or take advantage of 10-percent savings by choosing your own package of at least four programs. Details and descriptions at www.artsandlectures.ucsb.edu.

Importantly for me, what I really missed in the NYT reporting about Montecito is what I most appreciate about this place – its quirk. The idiosyncrasies of this little village that have managed to outlast the powerful forces for growth and modernization that perpetually work against that. And all of that is found in the details. The lack of streetlights. The lack of traffic lights. The lack of commercialization. The lack of self-promotion. And, yes, the height limits and regulations on walls and gates.

With its breezily inaccurate and hyperbolic tone, Larocca’s piece most illustrates the perils of having your narrative written by a distant and flippant media giant. For whatever reason, The New York Times decided it was time to write something colorful about Montecito. But they sent a fashion reporter to do it. And Montecito has never been about fashion, being in fashion, or what’s “trending.” We’ll leave that for L.A.

And if you don’t believe me, ask Meghan Markle. Or Katy Perry’s dad.