Gwyn Lurie

In the annals of Cinderella stories, this was a good one. When Roy Lee decided to throw his hat in the ring against (former) First District County Supervisor Das Williams, naysayers abounded.

IT WAS PARTICULARLY SHOCKING AND DISTURBING ABOUT A WEEK AGO when all my electronic devices got flooded with outraged emails and texts decrying that, in an unprecedented maneuver, the Rosewood Miramar expansion had been yanked from the Montecito Planning Commission’s purview...

I hope you enjoyed your July 4th holiday, celebrating America’s hard-won freedom from the imperious whims of a despot, as symbolized by the signing of the Declaration of Independence almost 250 years ago, on July 4, 1776.

This month a delegation of eight women who survived Hamas’ October 7th massacre, were brought to Santa Barbara as a delegation of “sisters” to share their accounts of what happened, and to feel the love, support and care of this community.

For the first 11 years my family owned our home in Montecito this town was represented on the Board of Supervisors by then Supervisor, now Congressman, Salud Carbajal. Carbajal was and is a politician with the soul of a civil servant who prioritizes constituent services. Which is one of the reasons the MJ supported his candidacy to represent the 24th Congressional District in Congress.

Community is more than a place

Community is more than a place

I for one take no joy or comfort in the death of the Santa Barbara News-Press, our town’s only daily newspaper, which up until last week, had been publishing continuously since 1868. I found it particularly poignant that on the same day the once venerated News-Press declared bankruptcy and ceased operations, The New Yorker published a massive story on the critical importance of local journalism in exposing corruption, citing the example of a small-town paper in southeast Oklahoma where a father-son reporting duo’s series on the county sheriff led to an explosive revelation.

I don’t have many heroes. Maybe because I’m too easily disappointed. Or that just beneath my optimistic surface lives a somewhat jaded self. Or perhaps it’s simply that it’s hard to find heroes these days who stand up to the test of time, not to mention under the harsh glare of modern-day journalism.

Community is more than a place

This year the Montecito Journal co-hosted a handful of Zoom candidate forums, all involving local school board races for which Montecito residents will have a vote (the one exception is the SBUSD area #1 seat, for which a smaller portion of our readers will have the chance to weigh in). This is not…

Community is more than a place

The Project for Resilient Communities received the 2022 National Service Award for leadership and collaboration to install debri nets in canyons to protect lives and mitigate property damage from catastrophic debris flows.”

Community is more than a place

In the movie version of this story, we open on a shot of Invictus, a sleek 215-foot yacht with sophisticated, timeless maritime beauty – all six decks of it – replete with a swimming pool, a gym, a theater, nine bedrooms, and an elevator. Of course.  We pull out further to reveal Rick Caruso, the […]

Community is more than a place

Community is more than a place

A shout out of gratitude to Realtor Dusty Baker for sponsoring this week’s Montecito Journal home delivery. Hemingway famously said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter… and bleed.” Which certainly has been true for me on occasion. But on the positive side of the ledger, writing has […]