Our 167th Year
Story Catcher Mailbox
Year of trials
Community members share letters of praise and grief - B1
Columnist Henry Shulte takes a look back at 2022 - C1
A New Year’s wish for Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara’s newest hotel Andrew Firestone and Jess Parker launch Courtyard by Marriott hotel on State Street
By WENDY MCCAW NEWS-PRESS CO-PUBLISHER
Santa Barbara, once the gem of the Central Coast, is deteriorating into a city that is crime-ridden, graffiticovered, with inebriated indigents and a disgusting downtown mess. Visitors who come to our “fair city” complain about how much downtown has changed and how they don’t feel safe walking there with their families. Maybe therein lie some of the reasons why there are so many vacant storefronts. Walk along State Street in the so-called pedestrian walkway, and you take your life in your hands as bicycles, skateboarders and other wheeled individuals whiz by, often within inches of hitting the unsuspecting pedestrian. What happened to the restrictions about skateboarders and other wheeled devices on pedestrian walkways? The city should have come up with enforceable laws on this dangerous situation many months ago. Why are they dragging their feet? At Ralph’s downtown recently someone had stolen some items and was told to return them by the grocery security guard. The thief ignored him and left the store with his ill-gotten goods. The security guard lamented that there was nothing he could do, that the police will not prosecute shoplifting if under a certain dollar amount. Another witness to the confrontation said that he works at Home Depot and that blatant shoplifting is so out of control that they have had to put products like house cleaning supplies in locked cages. Santa Barbara and Goleta appear to have similar enforcement challenges. Earlier this week we reported on a woman who witnessed a rock being thrown into a window at Rudy’s on State Street. The witness took photos of the crime with her cell phone and was then attacked by the perpetrator. Suffering from an assault and the theft of her phone, remarkably she was able to get the police there in time. Fortunately, she was able to get her phone back; however, the police seem to want to ignore the fact that there was an assault, having declined to put that in their report. Have we reached a point where vigilante action is what citizens must consider? When corruption and hooligans were out of control in the 1850s in San Francisco, the residents
FYI Courtyard by the Marriott is at 1601 State St., Santa Barbara. Average daily rates start at $250 per night. Reservations can be made by calling 805-975-0660. For more information, see marriott. com/en-us/hotels/sbacs-courtyardsanta-barbara-downtown/overview.
Wendy McCaw
DAVID JAKLE PHOTO
formed the Committee of Vigilance. This was the birth of the term, vigilante. It was a community’s solution because law and order had collapsed. Today, the citizens of Santa Barbara may have to be the first-responders. This isn’t the fault of the police — there is simply not enough police presence downtown. We need more police patrolling the streets on foot and on bicycle. And we need laws that have serious consequences for the crimes being committed and the wherewithal of the authorities to enforce them. In 2017, the city introduced the Santa Barbara Downtown Ambassadors, a program which seemingly does little to help clean up State Street. They don’t deal with vagrants, crimes or provide visitors with any type of safety or comfort. They need to be replaced by active police officers with a clear set of priorities to clean up the streets and stop street crimes. Other communities along the coast have laws that are enforced and are thriving. We should follow their example. In Carmel, there is no graffiti, there are no vagrants, and it’s a clean, prosperous, thriving town. Closer to home, Solvang has no vagrants, no graffiti, lots of visitors and successful stores, hotels and restaurants. What are the differences between Solvang and Santa Barbara? Could it be the political difference between the two city councils? My wish for Santa Barbara as we enter this new year is to take a strong stand against crime of all kinds. Laws need to be enforced and made to protect the residents and businesses. It would be nice in the coming year if the city would prioritize for a change, the people and businesses that make a city successful.
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By KATHERINE ZEHNDER NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
Entrepreneur Andrew Firestone this week opened the Courtyard by Marriott Santa Barbara Downtown hotel and Saint Remy restaurant on State Street. “This property is an iconic downtown Santa Barbara hotel that has been around since the late ’60s on the backdrop of State Street for a long time,” said Mr. Firestone, co-founder with Jess Parker of StonePark Capital, a Santa Barbara hospitality development company. Mr. Firestone and Ms. Parker are the managing partners of the hotel. “Its unique look and design has made it a unique adoption of mid-century modern architecture in contrast to Spanish-style architecture of Santa Barbara. To have that look and feel continued was really important and to have the utility of the hotel maximized was one of the most important things,” said Mr. Firestone, the former star of ABC’s “The Bachelor” and a Santa Barbara
KENNETH SONG / NEWS-PRESS PHOTOS
Jess Parker, left, and Andrew Firestone are managing partners of the Courtyard by Marriott Santa Barbara Downtown hotel, which opened Monday.
native. “The other important thing was to figure out a partner which was the best fit for the property. It felt natural for it to be a Courtyard by Marriott. It has a beautiful pool/courtyard area for guests. “Most importantly it is within walking distance of the downtown State Street corridor,” Mr. Firestone said about the hotel,
which opened Monday at 1601 State St. Mr. Firestone said the hotel stands out as being “a little slice of history.” In addition, “it has some amazing downtown views from both roof decks, right down to the Pacific Ocean,” he told the Please see HOTEL on A6
Falcon 9 soars from Vandenberg By KATHERINE ZEHNDER NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
SpaceX wrapped up 2022 with the launch of its Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The Falcon 9 took off at 11:38 p.m. Thursday from Space Launch Complex 4E with its ISI EROS C-3 mission to a low-Earth
FYI To learn more about ISI go to www. imagesatintl.com. To learn more about EROS C go to: imagesatintl.com/home/eros-ng/eros-c.
orbit. This was the 11th launch of this booster, which previously supported the launch of Crew-1, Crew-2, SXM-8, CRS-23, IXPE, Transporter-4, Transporter-5, Globalstar FM15 and two Starlink missions. Jessie Anderson, a production engineering manager at SpaceX, discussed the launch during SpaceX’s live and recorded webcast. The EROS satellite is from ImageSat International, an Israeli-based company specializing in collecting, analyzing and creating space-based intelligence, according to Ms. Anderson. This was Space X’s 61st and last launch of 2022. “Today’s payload is part of the EROS new generation … one of the world’s top, intelligence gathering assets in space. Now,
to date, three of the seven satellites are fully operational, and the EROS C-3 will be the fourth to orbit,” said Ms. Anderson. The Falcon 9 is a two-stage rocket that stands 230 feet tall, which is roughly the height of a 20-story building. While stage 2 continues to orbit, stage 1 returns to Earth and is used again. The landing Thursday night of the first stage marked the 160th overall successful recovery of an orbital class rocket. “Falcon 9 launched the @ImageSatIntl EROS C-3 mission to orbit overnight, completing SpaceX’s 61st and final launch of 2022 — nearly double our record of 31 launches set last year,” tweeted SpaceX. email: kzehnder@newspress.com
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Storytelling Native People through the Lens of Edward S. Curtis
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