What else is in NoozWeek’s Top 5? Masks, a stolen car and two high-speed chases, one at the Goleta Hotel and a “missing average” housing proposal in downtown Santa Barbara
What kind of dirt do the Houston Astros have in Major League Baseball?
Once again, league officials intervened in the asterisks, the authors of the biggest cheating scandal in the history of any sport.
The league still refuses to do the right thing and cancel the fraudulent 2017 World Series “title” in Houston, has selected to place a single player in the signal theft complex, and has distributed only slap to the franchise owner and management.
MLB had no problem, however, in swiftly and preposterously lowering the boom on Los Angeles Dodgers relief pitcher Joe Kelly, who has proven time and again that he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with a baseball thrown from 60 feet, 6 inches.
True to form, Kelly had a couple of close calls with two Houston hitters the night of July 28, then made a face at the second one as he walked off the field. That playground gesture evidently prompted a benches-clearing … gathering, during which no physical contact was made and no one was thrown out of the game.
The next day, Kelly was suspended in the league for eight ridiculous games in an 60-game season, even though he did not touch any and was not sent off by the game’s referees.
Kelly is now a popular hero in Los Angeles and baseball, while MLB’s spiritless commissioner Rob Manfred has demonstrated how pathetic his handling of the game is. The faster he leaves, the better.
There was far less drama about Noozhawk last week, four of our five most sensible items have theaters in the primary leagues.
According to our Google Analytics, Noozhawk has had an audience of 100,643 readers in the last seven days. Next up is my opinion of what you read most. As you continue on your way, this is my opinion piece and not a story.
He wasn’t your typical exercise enthusiast taking steps, but a black bear amassed some while walking in Montecito in early July 27.
To the surprise of several witnesses, the “good-sized adolescent” bear was spotted outside the front gate of Birnam Wood Golf Club at 1941 East Valley Road, near the Ennisbrook Trail at the south end of East Valley Lane about a half-mile to the west, on the adjacent estate of media mogul Oprah Winfrey and in the backyard of at least one other nearby property.
As our Jade Martinez-Pogue first reported, the sightings were called to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department, which alerted the State Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Captain Patrick Foy told Jade that the state firm decided not to send the workers’ corps because the bear did not appear to stay.
“We had a verbal exchange with the sheriff, but the bear was moving all the time,” he said. “This scenario does not require an answer because the bear is moving.”
A guest of CBS co-host This Morning Gayle King posted a video on her Instagram account of a security guard describing the animal as a “good-sized teenager” and advising him to “stay inside.”
The bear eventually disappeared, probably up the mountain through a stream.
2020 revealed a large number of divisions in the country, however, few flash points seem to be larger, or more annoying, than putting on a mask around other people.
While public fitness officials have not been on the same page in terms of its effectiveness in mitigating coronavirus, the mask price proposal is quite undeniable, as anyone who has endured the thick, suffocating ashes of the 2017 Thomas Fire deserves to remember.
If the face mask could, and we did, of these pollutants in China, can we all agree that they will also help disrupt the transmission of an invisible contagion?
And it’s not about constitutional rights, it’s about unusual courtesy.
All these raw and emotional triggers were exposed on July 28, when the Santa Barbara City Council weighed the implementation of a public mask mandate opposed to schooling and awareness to inspire the network to do the same.
As our Josh Molina reported, the debate was contentious and personal, but in the end the council voted unanimously to go with the carrot and not the stick. At least for now, the city will encourage people to wear masks and to do targeted enforcement — meaning ticketing and fines — only with groups that are flagrantly disregarding the concept of social distancing.
Rob Dayton, the city’s transportation and parking planner, told the council that weekend observers estimated that “about 90 percent” of others wore masks in and around the center of State Street Drive.
That’s a very important thing, and it’s a testament to the voluntary commitment that most of us have been willing to make without having to submit. I suspect there would be even more acceptance if there were fewer reprimands and signs of virtue.
Turns out we’re going to live with COVID-19 for a long time. Few of us have the ability to replace this course, however, we can all keep our distance, wash our hands, stay home if we are engaged or feel unwell, and wear the mask responsibly.
A couple of high-speed chases involving the same stolen SUV on back-to-back days resulted in the catch-and-release arrest of one juvenile, but it took Santa Barbara police a few more days to capture the alleged driver.
Lieutenant Aaron Baker told our Tom Bolton that an officer patrolling the Lower Westside on the afternoon of July 24 an Infiniti SUV that had been reported stolen the day before.
With the officer in pursuit, he said, the driver sped away from Marilla Avenue, a two-block-long street at the far southern end of San Andres Street, raced up San Andres and turned right on West Carrillo Street toward downtown.
At the Highway 101 overcrossing, Baker said, the driver tried to go the wrong way up the southbound exit ramp but was blocked by oncoming traffic.
He said the driver and a passenger jumped out of the still-moving SUV and ran off, and the vehicle ended up colliding with another car.
The passenger — a juvenile — was quickly arrested in nearby Mission Creek. Baker said the boy, whose identity was withheld because of his age, was cited for resisting arrest and released to his parents.
The same SUV apparently was used in a harrowing, high-speed police chase through another congested Westside neighborhood the day before. That pursuit reached speeds of 80 mph as it tore along West Micheltorena, State and West Mission streets.
Police suspended the chase after the suspect lit red lamps on the streets of the Vina and Bath angels. The driving force of the getaway actually took credit for West Mission Street’s extensive repair assignment the most angelic year. If the deep channels had not been replos angelesced at the intersection, the SUV chassis may have come to a violent end.
Either way, none of the incidents were injured.
Police discovered the identity of the driving force in any of the interests and, despite everything, arrested him on July 30.
Baker said Carlos Rivera Buenrostro, 18, arrested an outdoor apartment in the 1800 block of Castillo Street and arrested him in the Santa Barbara County Jail on suspicion of car theft, theft and driving a stolen vehicle.
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He said that when police arrived with a search warrant, Buenrostro tried to flee through a back window.
“The officers were waiting for this option and Buenrostro was arrested,” Baker said. “In his room, the key to a stolen car he had used in a chase.”
A guest at the Goleta Hotel was beaten in his room in an attempted braged robbery on the morning of July 26. The victim was able to escape and ask for help, and the two suspects, whether from Los Angeles County, were arrested nearby.
As our Tom Bolton was the first to report, Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s spokesman Rachel Zick said the victim told lawmakers that a guy and a woguy followed him to his hotel room at 6800 block Hollister Avenue. When he opened the door, they turned to him and took his car keys.
“The victim refused to give the suspects his keys as one of the suspects battered him with a replica firearm,” Zick said. “The victim was able to force his way out of his hotel room, and ran to the parking lot area, where witnesses called 9-1-1.”
She said deputies arrived within minutes and spotted the suspects a block away as they were attempting to run off.
“The agents searched and discovered a hidden reproduction of the Glock pellet gun and luggage taken from the hotel room,” Zick said.
He knew the suspects such as Kelly Espinoza, 43, of Pico Rivera, and John Chavez-Hernandez, 20, of Covina.
Espinoza sentenced to county prison on suspicion of false imprisonment, robbery, conspiracy and robbery, all crimes.
Chavez-Hernandez arrested on suspicion of robbery, conspiracy, robbery and gun attack, also all crimes.
Bail was set at $50,000 each, and Chavez-Hernandez has since been released.
The victim was not seriously injured and refused medical treatment.
After a dud of a proposal for homeless housing on a gateway corner of downtown, the Housing Authority of the City of Santa Barbara has returned with an attractive project intended for the beleaguered middle class.
The new plan would convert the commuter parking lot at 400 W. Carrillo St. into 103 rental apartments for the “missing middle,” meaning locals who can’t afford market-rate apartments but earn too much for a housing subsidy.
Skip Szymanski, the Housing Authority’s deputy executive director and chief operating officer, acknowledged the struggle to assist that often-overlooked demographic.
“We have done an admirable job with providing low-income affordable housing, but we do have a need for that missing middle,” he said during a July 27 virtual meeting.
Calling them “the backbone of Santa Barbara’s workforce,” Szymanski noted they are “our teachers, construction workers, mail carriers, medical assistants, hospitality and service industry employees, and our office workers.”
As our Josh Molina first reported, rents for the development are projected at $1,600 a month for one of the 66 studio units; $1,900 for one of the 26 one-bedroom units; and $2,200 for one of the 11 two-bedroom units.
Market rents for those same units would be up to $3,300, $4,125 and $5,175, respectively, without price restrictions.
Designed by the Cearnal Collective, the mostly three-story, Spanish-style project would include 52 parking spaces and retention of the trees that help screen the property from Mission Creek and the northbound Highway 101 entrance ramp.
The site is across the Castillo Street intersection from Casa de las Fuentes, another Housing Authority complex that I think is one of the most charming in Santa Barbara.
In 2018, the Housing Authority proposed taking the land for travelers and building 40 small houses that will serve as short-term housing for the homeless. The plan sparked a buzz of opposition and ridicule on the part of the community, but the task was abandoned when state investment failed.
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What’s our most read story this time last year? The consultant’s report confirms the problems in downtown Santa Barbara.
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I’m in favor of in-street dining. My wife? Not so much. But I hope she gets the joke: Los Angeles Designates Open-Air Dining Areas Along 101 Freeway Median.
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Hours after being spayed, @sadiethealaskanmalamute was creating a hissing fit in a cone-frontation out in our orchard. It’s in my Instagram feed, and there’s more in hers.
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This could never happen, right? Certainly not this year!
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– Bill Macfadyen is the founder and editor of Noozhawk. Contact him at [email protected], him on Twitter: @noozhawk and Instagram: ‘bill.macfadyen’, or click here to read the columns above. The opinions expressed are yours.
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