Bike Ride to Mercury Lounge

During Bike Week in Santa Barbara, one of the events is to ride from BiCi Centro, the community bike shop to the Mercury Lounge way out in Goleta, to watch....bike movies! We just can't get enough of it.

Whitaker Peak Trash Pickup

Los Padres Forest Watch organized a trip to Whitaker Peak to clean up the Condor feeding site. It was a dynamic day, with the weather changing rapidly. After a few short hours picking up tiny little reflective pieces of glass, fired clay, bullet casings and the like, guess what? It started to snow!! See this 3 minute video about our fun trip to a beautiful site.

PUEBLO Makes Plans

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PUEBLO (People United for Economic justice Building Leadership through Organizing) recently retreated for the weekend in San Ynez to extablish their plans for the year. With new leadership from its Director, Belen Serea, the organization laid out it's plans for the year. It was an arduous  process and came out with great results - our 4 most important things to accomplish this year!

Albert Ellis Interview

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Albert Ellis, Ph.D. Died July 24, 2007, New York City Dr. Ellis, who was 93 years old, died of natural causes. At the time of his death, he was President Emeritus of the Albert Ellis Institute in New York City. As a practicing psychoanalyst from 1947 to 1953, Dr. Ellis grew increasingly doubtful about the efficacy of that form of psychotherapy, concerned that no amount of talk would help his clients if they failed to take action against their habitual thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. By late 1953, he had stopped calling himself a psychoanalyst and begun developing Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), an action-oriented therapy aimed at making emotional and behavioral change through challenging self-defeating thoughts." Ellis was 90 years old when I interviewed him. He was working from his room, co-writing a book with James Walter, Jr. I asked him questions about war, the Bush administration, and 9/11.

Ventura Transit Needs

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The Ventura County Transportation Commission (VCTC) had its annual public hearing on transit needs. It takes testimony to see if there are any unmet needs. The money that is spent for this comes from the California State Transportation Development Act (TDA) which provides funds for local transit, bicycle/pedestrian and street projects. These funds are administered by VCTC.

You may share your views of public transit service needs within Ventura County, and between Ventura and Los Angeles/Santa Barbara Counties to help identify unmet transits needs which are reasonable to meet.

If the funds are not spent on these needs, road capacity improvements would then receive it.
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Das Williams, a part time employee for CAUSE, (Coastal Alliance United for A Sustainable Economy) a grass roots group representing workers, wants to see more transit funding for those who use it every day.

Most of the comments were very specific, such as needing another bus run between Ojai and Ventura in the afternoon, additional bike racks on the busses, Sunday service on the Camarrillo Route, more routes between Pt. Hueneme and Los Angeles, Oak View and the High School, Thousand Oaks to Santa Barbara (include fewer transfers and wait times), and to please have the Vista bus stop in Montecito.
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The moderating Supervisor, Kathy Long, asked staff if these comments and questions that were made had been responded to by the staff. Vic Kamy, Director of transit said, Yes, and they will be responded to after this meeting. We do try to answer the questions for information our riders have. They can also contact our office any time to tell us their concerns.

Mary Harris: The disabled need night time service between Thousand Oaks and Santa Barbara. After hours for disabled people need to be coordinated between cities and counties so that they don't become stranded somewhere in the dark.

Andrew Hecker: After hours service is needed. The connections between towns need to be coordinated, like the Metro link and Amtrak sharing one ticket. Bus, train connections. It took me a long to figure out the real way to get around. It is sometimes a secret. The service is not publicized enough.

P.U.E.B.L.O.'s got the winnng team!

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PUEBLO is a non-profit economic and environmental justice organization dedicated to building the political power and leadership of low-income residents throughout Santa Barbara County.

Santa Barbara County is home to one of the wealthiest communities in the United States, yet there is tremendous poverty throughout our County. Santa Barbara County has the highest rate of uninsured children in the State, and the economy is dominated by low-wage jobs in the service, tourist, and agricultural industries.

However, PUEBLO has come up with a way to gain political power for its work. Here's one way they do it. Click on movie to play.

It's a STYLE Thing

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Santa Barbara High School has a new bike club for low rider bikes. See what the boys have created for STYLE..........and they are rideable! time is 8:47