••• “In a surprise, 11th-hour announcement, Lisa Plowman, director of Planning & Development for Santa Barbara County, said that the controversial [Rosewood Miramar Beach] housing and boutique shop project is headed for the county Planning Commission—skipping the Montecito Planning Commission, its original destination.” The reasoning is that it involves affordable housing, which falls under the Planing Commission’s jurisdiction. “Skipping the MPC and going straight to the county Planning Commission will speed up the project and possibly allow its approval while First District Supervisor Das Williams is still in office. […] Developer Rick Caruso intends to build 26 affordable-housing units and eight market-rate units at the site of the Rosewood Miramar Beach luxury hotel at 1555 S. Jameson Lane. In addition, he wants to add about 17,500 square feet of high-end boutique retail shops.” —Noozhawk
••• “Pea Soup Andersen’s, the legendary Central Coast destination in Buellton just off Highway 101, […] was purchased by a company called SBID LLC c/o Ed St. George, for $4.95 million.” This is just the restaurant; the inn is under separate ownership. —SFGate UPDATE: “According to St. George, the agreement includes demolition of the aging building and development of a new restaurant while the name and operations remain with the Guggia family. […] In a nod to local history, construction of a 4,000-square-foot replacement eatery will take on features of Pea Soup’s predecessor, Andersen’s Electric Café, an establishment known for serving simple, wholesome everyday foods to highway travelers. […] St. George said he intends to revive this spirit while preserving the essence of the building, the oversized, outdoor signage, as well as much of the memorabilia that people have grown accustomed to since the ’50s.” —Lompoc Record
••• “Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on Sunday banning the sale at grocery checkouts of all plastic bags, regardless of thickness. The only option for customers who lack their own reusable shopping bags will be buying paper bags for 10 cents each.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t take effect until 2026. And if you’re still using plastic bags at the farmers’ market, please consider buying some reusable ones. —New York Times
••• “Safe Home Found for Santa Barbara News-Press Archive [….] Santa Barbara Historical Museum Sole Bidder for Physical Works.” —Independent
••• “A man wearing body armor is accused of throwing an explosive device at the Santa Maria courthouse security entrance on Wednesday, the day he was scheduled to be arraigned on a gun-related felony charge.” —Noozhawk
••• The tree of the month is the California fan palm, “notable as the only palm that is native to California [….] California Fan Palm is rarely planted in our area any longer, since it is susceptible to two nasty fungal diseases, Pink Rot and Diamond Scale [….] As our infected California Fan Palms succumbed to these diseases, they have been replaced with their closest palm relative, the Mexican Fan Palm (Washingtonia robusta), which is disease resistant. To tell them apart, note that the Mexican Fan Palm has a trunk diameter approximately one-half that of the California Fan Palm and has a canopy that is greener, more rounded, and fuller.” —Edhat
••• The Riv ran an extra-baffling essay extolling the talent of Bianca Censori, exhibitionist wife of noted anti-Semite Ye (f.k.a. Kanye West).
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That was quite the unusual essay on the exhibitionist.
Rather than mention Newsom’s environmental virtue signaling with grocery store plastic bag ban (which ignores the massive amounts of plastic wrapped foods and products and bags from other stores), more significant to Californian’s was his veto of a bi-partisan bill to audit the tens of billions of dollars being spent on homelessness in the state, which currently is loosely accounted for and results not tracked.
“This was a bipartisan bill with no opposition,” said Assemblyman Patterson on Monday. “Clearly the Legislature agreed on the need to rein in Newsom’s wasteful spending on ineffective homelessness programs. I’m glad we were able to get some safeguards written into the budget, but the state can’t keep cutting corners on accountability when dishing out billions of taxpayer dollars and seeing the problem get worse.”
“An unnecessary ongoing workload? Really? For more transparency?,” questioned Maria Columbo, a homeless program advisor to the Globe on Monday. “We need laws like this to make sure every dollar is being spent right, and not just thrown into programs that don’t help. Based on what he has done, it’s not redundant either. This is only going to cause a lot of problems for a lot of people.”
https://californiaglobe.com/fr/newsom-vetoes-bill-to-give-annual-report-on-homeless-program/
Since the bill passed the Assembly 71-0 and the Senate 36-0, they can just override the veto. Problem solved.