••• “The City of Morro Bay will remove its iconic power plant stacks. […] The removal will likely be a lengthy process which will require the stacks to be taken apart bit by bit rather than demolished.” (Above: detail of a photo by TheConduqtor via Wikimedia Commons.)—KEYT
••• From Newsmakers: “Voters are staying away in droves from Santa Barbara’s historic city election, with a mere one-fourth of those registered having returned ballots 36 hours before polling ends at 8 p.m. [today]—half of the final turnout percentage in a similar contest four years ago. […] Whoever is elected mayor, the city’s only citywide official, along with the winners in council races, will get five-year terms, a one-year bonus. […] The five-year terms are due to the historic anomaly of the 2021 race being the city’s last odd-year election; voters several years ago approved charter changes to move local balloting to even years, a change expected to boost turnout, as well as save money.”
••• The press got a little frothed up in the final days before the election: The Montecito Journal was aghast that mayor Cathy Murillo sent out an aggressively misleading mailer about challenger Randy Rowse, while the Independent ran a hatchet job on city council candidate Barrett Reed. Hell hath no fury like a reporter who feels he has been lied to. (P.S. From the city: “The public can view City Election results today, November 2, at City Hall. The display will be outside City Hall, facing De La Guerra Plaza. The public can also view results at the County of Santa Barbara’s election website.”
••• “Monarch Butterflies Slowly Returning to Goleta, but Population Counts Still Historically Low […] Many factors have contributed to decrease in monarch populations, such as droughts, climate change, and increased pesticide use.” —Noozhawk
••• “Publicly traded companies in the tri-county region have added 18 women board directors this year, though a few companies still need to appoint more women to comply with stepped-up state diversity requirements that go into effect in 2022. A total of 69 women sit on the boards of the 22 companies headquartered in the Tri-Counties and traded on major U.S. stock exchanges, according to Business Times research, up from 51 at the start of 2021. There are 203 board members at those companies, which means 34% of board seats are occupied by women. That’s up from 26.4% of board seats occupied by women at the beginning of 2021, and 17% in 2018.” —Pacific Coast Business Times
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