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J&G Berry Farms Could ExxonMobil decision strike ends impact future business growth? By KAITLYN SCHALLHORN
Santa Maria Chamber leader expresses concerns
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
Farmworkers at J&G Berry Farms in Santa Maria went on strike this week to demand higher wages. But by Friday, employees were back at work because they could not afford to lose another day of wages, a representative told the News-Press. Striking workers had requested a pay increase from $2.10 per strawberry box to $3.50 to offset rising rent and food costs. The company offered to increase wages to $2.20 per box, which the farmworkers have accepted at this time, a representative said. “The community will continue to bear the brunt of inflation and the rising costs on basic
necessities,” Ana Huynh, program director for MICOP, told the News-Press in an email. “Amongst many things, paying rent will continue to be difficult, and affording healthy food will continue to be a concern.” MICOP (Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project) is a nonprofit organization that supports indigenous migrant communities in the Central Coast region. Workers had contacted the group for support. A representative for J&G Berry Farms could not be reached for comment. As of mid-day Friday, more than 1,400 people had signed a Change.org petition in support of the employees’ request for higher wages. email: kschallhorn@newspress.com
‘Different possibilities’ Goleta councilmember candidly shares his abortion story By KAITLYN SCHALLHORN NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
KENNETH SONG / NEWS-PRESS
A cargo container ship glides past an offshore platform — possibly ExxonMobil’s Platform Hondo — in the distance as seen from near the Arroyo Hondo Preserve in Goleta. Chambers of commerce in Santa Barbara County recently blasted the Board of Supervisors’ decision against permit for trucking by ExxonMobil, saying that the county needs the economic stimulus.
By KAITLYN SCHALLHORN NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
About two months after the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors denied an ExxonMobil trucking plan, a coalition of local chambers of commerce is sounding an alarm about how it could impact future economic growth for the community. In a recent joint letter, Santa Barbara County chambers of commerce — which includes the Buellton Chamber, Lompoc Valley Chamber, Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber, Santa Maria Valley Chamber and Solvang Chamber — charged “economic vitality of our county lost out to a vague worldview policy.” It was a 3-2 vote in March by the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors that caused the ire of the chambers. Then the board voted to deny a plan by ExxonMobil to mobilize oil tanker trucks through the area. Many of those in opposition, including board members, cited environmental and safety concerns as reasons for the denial. So why did the chambers band together to decry the decision now? “We wanted to be thoughtful and not react in the heat of the moment but to really think about what were the broader implications and put together a document that all of the chambers could agree to and that was well-considered,” Glenn Morris, president and CEO of the Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce, told the News-Press in an interview. “I don’t expect a direct response from the board about the letter,”
he added. “I do hope it causes them to think about how they balance their decisions and their desires to do good things around environmental issues, around aesthetic issues, and balance that against the need for families in this county to have good, highpaying jobs and for businesses to have more predictability in the decision-making process.” Mr. Morris said he was particularly concerned about the standard this decision could set for other businesses, such as agriculture, that may wish to expand in the area. Expansion could mean additional trucks running up and down Santa Barbara County roadways to move product. “Will the county then look back and say we have a precedent now that says trucks are bad? That’s a very concerning potential,” Mr. Morris said. Santa Barbara Channelkeeper was one group that opposed the project when it was before the board. It noted the trucking route would pass over many coastal creeks and sensitive watersheds, including Gaviota Creek. Ted Morton, the executive director, pointed to a 2020 oil tanker spill as an example of the “devastating environmental impacts” that could occur if such an accident would stem from Exxon’s project. And Julie Teel Simmonds, a senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, said “trucking is inherently dangerous.” “Oil truck accidents cause fires and explosions, injure and kill people, and spill hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil every year onto roads and into waterways, harming water,
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Glenn Morris
COURTESY PHOTO
support of the project in March. “We feel the impact of the job site pretty directly,” Mr. Morris said. “This is a really difficult time to be running a business — the interest rates are up, the pandemic impacts are still there, the labor market hasn’t recalibrated, supply chains are a mess, at all levels of government there is increasing regulation and oversight,” he continued. “I don’t want to say Santa Barbara is unique in being a difficult place to do business. But when we have discretion as a community to make decisions about whether we make job creation harder or easier, I’d like to at least see some of those decisions tip toward the easier side of the ledger.” email: kschallhorn@newspress.com
James Kyriaco
CITY OF GOLETA PHOTO
gave them more chances for education, career or a family later in life. And others have warned of the disproportionate impact overruling Roe would have on people with lower incomes, minorities and other marginalized communities. Abortion has, at times, been chalked up to a “women’s issue,” but Mr. Kyriaco said it’s important for men to be part of the conversation, too — albeit not necessarily at the forefront. “While I think women need to be kept front and center in any conversation related to abortion rights and access, I think that it’s important for men to see the relationship between what preserving and protecting those rights and access for women has to their own lives,” Mr. Kyriaco told the News-Press in an interview. “Having more of an ability to become a parent when you are ready and able to do so benefits them in their careers, their own physical and mental wellbeing, their personal and family relationships and economically.” Mr. Kyriaco shared his story last year before a congregation gathered at the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara. At the time, Republican-led states like Florida, Mississippi and Texas Please see KYRIACO on A2
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biological and cultural resources,” she said in a March letter to the board. “The extraordinarily high rate of accidents makes trucking one of the worst forms of oil transport.” “I will support denial of the project simply because I cannot see how the safety impacts are mitigate-able,” Supervisor Das Williams said at the time. “While I validate all of our political opinions and where we’re coming from in life, what I don’t validate is our driving habits as a society.” Exxon’s plan had included interim trucking of crude oil to the Santa Maria Pump Station until its estimated shutdown next year. This would include about 78 round trips per day, seven days a week. Then operations would pivot to the Pentland Terminal in Kern County either for seven years or until a pipeline became available. Exxon had set an annual limit of 24,820 trucks with an oil production maximum of 11,200 barrels per day. It had also placed a ban on trucking during rainy periods to decrease the potential for oil to end up in waterways. The ECHO Group, which works with veterans in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties, had urged the board to approve the project. Steven Baird, its president and CEO, said many veterans lost their jobs when operations at the Santa Ynez Unit were shuttered. Mr. Baird said this project would give area veterans more job opportunities. And Mr. Morris said many in the Santa Maria area either work for Exxon or would have been employed through this project. Santa Maria Mayor Alice Patino submitted a letter to the board in
James Kyriaco, a Goleta City Council member, believes men should speak out about their experiences with abortion, how they benefited, the role they played. So late Tuesday night, as the nation grappled with a leaked draft U.S. Supreme Court opinion overruling Roe v. Wade, Mr. Kyriaco opened Twitter, took a risk and did just that. Two hundred and eighty characters at a time, Mr. Kyriaco candidly detailed how he didn’t spend “a lot of time thinking about life in terms of its possibilities” in his 20s. And shortly after a tumultuous relationship ended, he learned his former partner was pregnant. He relived the onslaught of emotions he felt — scared, trapped, uncertain — and carefully described the shame his ex-girlfriend kept internalized from a previous abortion. He prepared to support his former partner, however that might look. Ultimately, she made the decision to have an abortion. He drove to the nearest Planned Parenthood and waited outside, warily keeping an eye on a “lonely protester carrying a grotesque sign.” After the procedure, he drove her home. The pair went their separate ways. She got married, became a teacher and started a family, Mr. Kyriaco said. He also later married, and their “journey together has been filled with many different possibilities.” “Abortion allows for new possibilities. Different possibilities,” Mr. Kyriaco, now 48, said. As the draft Supreme Court opinion upended the country this week, many people shared their “abortion stories.” Some have sought to show why abortion should be outlawed, praising others’ decisions to have a child or choose adoption. Others have attempted to destigmatize abortion, explaining how having safe access to the procedure
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