Archive | October, 2011

In Santa Barbara, residents have to pay their water bills via standard mail or in person. Just south in Ventura, online payment options are availble 24/7 for a convenience fee.

The City of Ventura even has a website and a Facebook page for it’s users, ” View your water usage and wastewater billing history, whenever it’s convenient for you! For all the latest information from Ventura Water, Like our Facebook page today!”

So why can’t Santa Barbara residents pay their water bills online?
According to one water official, “they’re working on it.”

With two weeks to go before Santa Barbara has a new City Council, how about one final straw poll. Will the incumbents hold? Will the Democrats regain full control. Or, more likely, will we see a la carte voting… where voters pick and choose from the whole menu to suit their tastes?

A drive along Santa Barbara’s scenic Cabrillo Blvd. showcases 15 RVs, in various shapes of disrepair, parked along the boulevard between Milpas and Bath Street.

A view of city council candidate Sharon Byrne, courtesy of Larry Nimmer.

Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. By local cartoonist Steve Greenberg.

I had a tour of a drycleaning facility this week, and found the education alternately depressing and encouraging. So you can artfully skip around, or just read on.

First, it is not “dry” cleaning, just waterless. Clothes have been tumbling around with petroleum based chemical solvents and detergent for over a hundred years, with the result being that the items were cleansed and the environment dirtied, or worse, toxified.

A hundred years ago the solvent was simply gasoline, mid last century the solvent of choice became PCE – perchlorethylene, or perc for short, a VOC (volatile organic compound, easily breathed in) now known as a neurotoxin and otherwise sickening substance. Thousands of facilities simply dumped the used solvent because….what else could they do with it? Hazardous waste was not even an issue until the late 70’s, when regulation began to require proper handling and disposal of substances deemed dangerous to our health. By 1990, the Clean Air and Water acts limited emissions of perc, putting the squeeze on drycleaners to clean up their act. California is mandating a complete phaseout of its use by 2023.

And so, alternative methods of drycleaning have been springing up, (what a relief!) including the “GreenEarth Cleaning” system currently being used in 22 countries, and here in Santa Barbara, at Ablitt’s. This system uses a chemical abbreviated as D5, primarily silicone, and is considered non-toxic and chemically non-reactive, breaking down quickly in the environment. Sasha Ablitt says that the entire facility uses less than a car tank’s worth of the fluid in a whole year, as it is continuously filtered and reused. It is then responsibly removed and treated as hazardous, just in case.

Good to know also that this process of filtering and reuse is used for the petrochemical solvents the others use as well, but requiring much more of them, and their disposal as actual hazardous waste. Many cleaners calling themselves “green” or “eco” now still use them, by the way….talk about greenwashing.

SOURCES

http://issuu.com/ssopcich/docs/drycleaning-historical_developments?mode

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/83/8346specialtychem2.html

http://www.arb.ca.gov/toxics/dryclean/dryclean.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/07/AR2009040703748.html

November, shorter cooler days, rich and deep

Did you make rich soil? If so, your bin and sheet composting is really paying off now! If you have more compost available now, incorporate it with the soil in your new planting places, and plant another round! Keep ‘em coming!

Seeds: MORE beets, carrots near peas, fava, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce where they are easy to reach to harvest, spunky mustard greens, radishes, spinach, turnips, globe onions, parsley. Plant your fattest garlic cloves now through Dec 21, Winter Solstice for June/July harvest!

Transplants: MORE Brocs, Brussels sprouts (if it gets cold enough where you are planting). Do plant mixed varieties of regular sized cabbages, do cauliflower, celery, kales, parsley, turnips. Plant nutritious low-cal chard bouquets of all colors! Chop chard for salads, stir fries, to toss into stews.

Bareroot:

• Artichoke now or in Feb, or in Mar from pony packs. Try some of the new varieties.
• Strawberries NOV 1 to 5 June bearers are Chandlers. Everbearers are Sequoias. Strawberry and onion varieties are region specific, strawberries even more than onions. So plant the varieties our local nurseries carry, or experiment!

1^ST Half of Nov: Plant seeds of onions for slicing. Grano, Granex, Crystal Wax.

Fillers and accents, unders and besides, can be red bunch onions, bright radishes! Fall marks the end of the season for small red radishes though, and the beginning of the season for larger daikon type radishes. Check out the amazing Health Benefits of Eating Radish

Special treat – video of Fred Collins, Northern Chumash Tribal Council, of Los Osos CA, growing VERTICAL strawberries and lettuce in tubes! That means 15 heads of lettuce, 24 strawberries, in ONE square foot! See how!

When you do your fall garden cleanup, turn the soil to expose the Verticillium and Fusarium Wilts fungi that affects our tomatoes, and other plants, so the fungi dries and dies! Weed and clear pathways. Lay down seedless straw, a board, or stepping stones so your footwear doesn’t get muddy. Trench in kitchen trim, lay on straw in unplanted areas.

Start gathering a stack of sheets, light blankets, old towels, in case of hard freezes.

This is your last chance to plant wildflowers from seed for early spring flowers! Germination in cooler weather takes longer, so don’t let the bed dry out. If you are a seed ball person, fling them far and wide, though not on steep slopes where they simply wash away.

What is a seed ball? Think of them like this: Little Adobe Gardens. Imagine then, a clay ball the size of a large marble. Imagine also that it contains seeds for a complete habitat. The seed ball could contain plant potential for an entire ecosystem. It can be made by anyone, anywhere in the world where there is clay, compost, seed and water. The ball is tossed wherever you want to plant, rain moistens it, the clay ‘melts’ its nutrients into the surrounding soil and blankets the seeds with minerals & vitamins. Covered & moist, they germinate, voila! Flowers! Or veggies!

In honor of Masanobu Fukuoka, the Father of Seed Balls, The Seed Ball Story by Jim ‘Catfish’ Bones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWyduWsoy8o&feature=related This is a long video, but oh so fascinating!

Next week: Growing Luscious Strawberries!

A view of city council candidate Randy Rowse, courtesy of Larry Nimmer.

In view of all the recent issues with the Santa Barbara Police Department—the Police Chief looking for another job; alleged embezzlement, a controversial gang injunction, the Peter Lance/Kasi Buetel issue, allegations that political endorsements were based more on salaries and benefits than on public safety, etc. What level of credibility does this statement have with the general public?

Source: SBPD

On the evening of Friday, October 21, 2011, Police Officer, Aaron Tudor, a 4 year veteran of the Santa Barbara Police Department made a traffic stop that resulted in the arrest Tony Vincent Denunzio, 50, for driving under the influence (DUI), resisting and obstructing an officer and other related charges. The arrest was witnessed by members of the public, and some have expressed significant concern over the level of force used to subdue the suspect. These concerns were taken very seriously by the Santa Barbara Police Department. All uses of force are reviewed by the Santa Barbara Police Department and the case involving Mr. Denunzio was reviewed by the Chief of Police.

Read the Full Report…

Mr. Denunzio was driving without a valid driver license, as it was suspended as a result of a DUI conviction he is on probation for. The incident was captured on a video recorder

Santa Barbara Chief of Police Cam Sanchez has completed a review of the arrest of Mr. Denunzio and has authorized the following statement:

“Keeping the City streets safe is important for the Santa Barbara Police Department, and DUI enforcement is definitely one of our priorities. Many serious traffic accidents are caused by DUI drivers. Repeat DUI offenders, such as Mr. Denunzio, represent a real threat to traffic safety. I am glad that he was stopped before he hurt himself or someone else.

In addition, DUI enforcement can be very dangerous for our officers, as intoxicated drivers are frequently uncooperative, resistive and at times even combative. Mr. Denunzio’s choice to drink and drive, in violation of his probation terms, was a very bad decision. He further compounded this error by resisting our officers.

I have reviewed the video recording of the incident, which was recorded from inside Officer Tudor’s vehicle. The video clearly shows that Mr. Denunzio, upon being told to get back into his vehicle, looked back, did not comply with Officer Tudor’s verbal commands, and in fact began to walk away from the officer. This prompted the officer to grab Mr. Denunzio’s arm to stop Mr. Denunzio from leaving, at which time Mr. Denunzio began to resist.

At this point, consistent with standard procedure, the officer had probable cause to arrest Denunzio for resisting/obstructing an officer (148 PC). The video shows the officer using a variety of options, including palm and knee strikes and multiple Taser applications to get Mr. Denunzio to comply with instructions. The use of these options are, as a matter of department policy, available for use by a SBPD officer, depending on his/her reasonable judgment in maintaining their own safety and that of the public and the arrestee; and in also making sure that a person who has violated the law is not able to escape arrest for that violation.

It is a good thing that the most of the incident was captured on video. However, the resistance was so strenuous, that the struggle moved outside the view of the video recording, and for approximately one minute, I was unable to see what transpired in that time frame. In fact in that one minute time frame, it took three officers to eventually take custody of Denunzio. All of the decisions made and options exercised by the arresting officer that were captured on the video recording were justified standard law enforcement practices given Mr. Denunzio’s resistance.

The use of force is never desirable. It is difficult for members of the public to witness, particularly someone not familiar with police arrest/use of force training. To an outside observer, the use of this type of force may seem excessive. However, with the possibility of a fleeing suspect being armed, and officer safety at stake when making an arrest of a non-complying suspect, the techniques and force used by the arresting officer in a split second decision making mode is standard law enforcement operating procedure.

Based on what the video recording shows, witness accounts of the incident, and after reviewing the corresponding police report, there is no apparent violation of department policy or law enforcement procedure that would warrant a formal administrative investigation of the incident. ”

DUI enforcement is a strategy that helps prevent serious traffic accidents caused by DUI drivers that not only hurt themselves but often harm innocent people. Repeat DUI offenders, such as Mr. Denunzio, present a serious public threat to traffic safety.

DUI enforcement can be dangerous to police officers. Intoxicated drivers are frequently uncooperative, resistive and at times combative, particularly when they drive on a suspended license. Mr. Denunzio’s choice to drink and drive, in violation of his probation terms was a very bad decision. He compounded the situation when upon being stopped and told to stay in his vehicle he failed to comply with direction from officers and resisted arrest.

The case is with the District Attorney’s Office, which includes a copy of the video and we await their decision regarding the filing of any criminal charges against Mr. Denunzio.

Touring with the City Council candidates continues, courtesy of Larry Nimmer.

Each day this week, we’ll tour with the candidates, courtesy of Larry Nimmer. Watch Dale Francisco’s video here…