••• The eastern side of the State Street undercrossing is done.
••• Emily Joubert has opened at the Montecito Country Mart. It’s very pretty inside; I’ll go back and take some photos soon.
••• The low wall in the Highway 101 median near Padaro Lane is getting an artistic treatment: imprints of falling leaves and a blue wave (or “dynamic ribbon device,” in Coca-Cola’s wording) to indicate that the stretch of road is a Blue Star Memorial honoring veterans. Here’s to all the veterans! Thank you for your service! And I truly mean that. But the blue stripe looks like a painter’s error, and wouldn’t the money be better used toward veteran services?
••• According to the Historic Landmarks Commission’s July 17 consent agenda, the Quonset hut at 210 E. Ortega Street is slated to become a “hostel-style dormitory” with 41 beds and communal bathrooms.
••• And the HLC’s main agenda has an item about a “proposal to relocate the iconic cow statue” at 900 Philinda Avenue (a.k.a. 901 N. Milpas), with a “request for feedback […] for options for the new cow statue location.” This is somewhat confusing, because the famous Bossie statue collapsed in 2020 and was rebuilt and moved to the Santa Barbara High School campus in 2022. Perhaps the building owner has decided to try again? A Gofundme raised $2500 toward a new statue.
••• The price of the old-school West Mesa house at 2401 Medcliff Road has been slashed yet again—this time to $4.333 million, nearly half off the initial $8.4 million ask. Best guess: low-to-mid threes?
••• Westward General closed yesterday in preparation for a move to an unannounced location.
••• Here’s a rant from M. that I suspect will resonate with a lot of people who live downtown. Getting it off your chest can feel good, but you’ll always be better off complaining directly to your local elected official. (Oscar Gutierrez, in the case of the Westside.) And the more people you can get to chime in about the problem, the more likely something will actually be done about it.
Did Santa Barbara give up trying to stop illegal fireworks?
This 4th of July was supposed to have a heavy police patrol, but it was one of the worst 48 hours surrounding the 4th if you have small children and/or animals, especially dogs.
It started lightly on the 2nd and extended some on the 3rd, and by the afternoon of the 4th, they were going off regularly. Yes, in daylight! My neighbor’s vet gave me some medicine for the dog who was hyperventilating from that point on.
At 7 p.m. another neighbor shot off a crate of firecrackers in the street while his friends and kids were watching, I came out to film them, asking who set them off. They blamed another neighbor and hurried away. A different neighbor came out and said his windows were shaking from the same set of crackers going off and his 2-year-old was crying while their dog was going nuts.
I went out on W. Micheltorena close to my house around 10 p.m. and cars were stopping in the street with families stepping out, leaving their doors wide open so that they could watch the displays that locals in the area were shooting off illegally. The area from the Micheltorena bridge down to Mountain was like Disneyland for these folks having viewing parties of illegal fireworks.
There was no let-up, even after midnight, and with only a couple of hours of sleep we were awakened to thunderous noises that seemed like small bombs going off regularly from 3:30 a.m. to 4:30 a.m. I would be amazed if anyone slept through those hours on the Westside.
I called the non-emergency police line and let them know what was going on, only to be met with a very frustrated dispatch that cut me off half a sentence, and said WE KNOW and are on it, but are very busy! Very busy at 4.30 a.m.? This is after one hour of the Westside taking a pounding with these heavy firecrackers until 4:30 am.
Is the answer that we simply can not stay at home twice a year during the 4th and New Year’s? It has become unbearable to live here during these days.
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The underpass was redesigned with no thought to the loud sounds of traffic, esp. motorcycles. I’m not overly sensitive, and I can barely get through the tunnel, on foot. It hurts my ears, and my dogs’ sensitivity to sounds hurts me to see.
The steel fence work, at the least, will amplify the noise.
It is cute, though.
I spoke with Jeff Shelton about 16 months ago about this project, asking specifically about possible noise abatement measures.If I recall correctly, he said that CALTRANS forbids the attachment of any sound-deadening materials to the walls or ceilings of underpasses. Jeff said he hoped that prohibition might be revisited after the other parts of the project are completed.
Maybe a slightly offset series of banners along the centerline?
Interesting about Caltrans position. Might not need to be that long.
I was surprised of the top rail width, the translation from drawings to finished is pretty good. The welded up posts as they reduce diameters is smart. The excess noise is from immature vehicle operators. Acoustic amplification as a design result? Maybe. A lot of cars now have exhaust note selection. Bad.
This installation Will require maintenance to keep from appearing run down. The finished side has already accumulated noticeable dust and dirt.
I was very upset with the lack of response by SBPD to the extensive illegal fireworks on the west side this year. I didn’t sleep at all the night of the 4th due to loud fireworks throughout the night. As M mentioned, it wasn’t just the 4th, several days before and after as well. SBPD non emergency response: “we need an address”. No you don’t, patrol the area and find the culprits. Fine them, arrest them, put them on parole and require community service for constantly disturbing the peace. West side residents have jobs, kids, pets and want quiet peace at night. Oscar Gutierrez did respond to me with a SBFD report outlining 4th fire and police response. I see they missed the west side though. It’s also worth noting that a massive explosion is lit off weekly somewhere near Micheltorena, around 10:30 at night. This must be addressed too. Ok, now who’s on a rant?
Regarding the “blue ribbon” on the 101 median at Padero. It’s so ugly and draws your eye to this blue stripe instead of the beautiful mountain/Sea backdrops. I honor the veterans and the blue star highway but this bright blue stripe looks awful.
Who on earth knows about a blue star memorial? This is why we have parks. I saw the blue stripe and was wondering why it was there. It is just distracted me from my driving. Honor a Veteran? How about a straight line of blue stars. Drivers could see the stars and not be distracted by a wavy line. Better yet, how about a straight line of red, white and blue stars. So many things better than an distracting blue line that says or remotely indicates a veteran of any sort. And falling leaves? First of all what do those represent and second of all I did not even notice them because of the very distracting wavy blue line. Whoever voted for this should have thought more about the impact it would have to drivers and Veterans. But hey, art is art and maybe that is all the artist wanted is to have people talk about it.