••• “The City of Santa Barbara wants to move homeless populations who live in encampments into a hotel. City leaders did not reveal the actual hotel, but they will before [the city council’s] next meeting on the issue in three weeks. If the hotel project falls through, the council voted 5-2 on a backup plan for the tent encampments—the commuter lot at the corner of Carrillo and Castillo streets.” —Noozhawk
••• A week before the whole tier system goes away, Santa Barbara County entered the yellow tier. What that means, via KEYT:
Some of the business activities that now allowed under the Yellow Tier include:
• Restaurants: 50% capacity indoors; 200-person maximum is removed.
• Gyms and Fitness Centers: 50% capacity indoors; saunas and steam rooms can open.
• Wineries, Breweries and Distilleries: 50% capacity indoors or 200 people maximum.
• Movie Theaters: 50% capacity indoors; 200-person maximum is removed.
• Museums, Zoos and Aquariums: Indoor capacity limit removed.
• Bars with no food service: 25% capacity indoors or 100 people maximum.
••• Construction has begun on a 4.3-mile stretch of Highway 101 between La Faria and La Conchita; as a result, the left lane in each direction is closed through late 2023 or early 2024. —KEYT
••• This is fantastic: “Six weeks into operation, more than 100 people have signed up for [the Better Bucket‘s home composting program]. Initially offered just in Santa Barbara, Summerland, Montecito, and Carpinteria, Better Bucket is expanding its route to include Goleta, Ventura, and Newbury Park. Anyone within the pickup radius can opt into the curbside service for $27 per month.” You get a five-gallon bucket that the company picks up on Fridays (and leaves you a new one); your quarterly reward is a bucket of compost and a dozen eggs.” The founders are Katherine and Jason Lesh of Farm Cart Organics and the forthcoming Good Plow restaurant in Carp. —Independent
••• The Music Academy of the West announced its 2021 season, which will be in person. —Independent
••• “A sexual harassment lawsuit filed against former city finance director Robert Samario alleges City Administrator Paul Casey had full knowledge of Samario’s actions and allowed him to retire instead of facing termination.” The list of allegations against Samario is ugly. —Independent
••• From a press release on Edhat: “As part of the City’s Vision Zero Strategy and Streets Pavement Maintenance Project, the City will repave and incorporate new safety features on Chapala Street between Sola and Mission Streets in late 2021. […] Safety enhancements in this corridor include a new traffic signal and improved intersection lighting at Arrellaga Street, and Chapala Street will be reduced from two traffic lanes to one traffic lane plus a bike lane between Arrellaga and Mission Streets. […] About eight on-street parking spaces would be removed on Chapala Street between Padre and Pedregosa.”
••• “The expected closure date on El Capitán State Beach has been moved to August 2022.” —Independent
••• From a press release on Noozhawk: “Artists participating in the 20th Annual Open Studios Tour have been announced by the Santa Barbara Studio Artists. This year’s Labor Day weekend event features the works of 28 studio artists.”
••• Interesting article in the New York Times about the Biden Administration’s effort to rethink the Section 1031 exchange tax provision, which “provides real estate investors a tax deferral on the financial gain of a sale if they roll the proceeds directly into a similar investment property within 180 days. […] The government enacted the deferral mechanism in 1921 to fuel real estate transactions after tax rates had risen to 77 percent from 7 percent for top earners following World War I, said Steven M. Rosenthal, a senior fellow with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a nonprofit research organization.”
••• Jeff Abrams, founder of the fashion company Rails, showed Coveteur around his Montecito estate. In one of the captions, he says the property is 15 acres, but it’s composed of a 4.5 acre lot he bought in 2019 and a 13.75-acre lot he added a year later. Anyway, it looks fantastic. (The photos show more of the place than the video.)
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