By Cheri Rae

Less than a year on the job, Dr. David Cash, superintendent of the Santa Barbara Unified School District, is in the process of making big plans to move the district forward. And he’s been joined by several community leaders in the process.

Specifically, the district’s Strategic Planning Task Force has been drafting a Strategic Plan, and they’re ready for input and open to discussion. At a public meeting held Thursday night at Santa Barbara High School, Dr. Cash led a group of parents and others interested in education and the local community in a review of the task force’s first draft of the blueprint that will substantially move the district into the 21^st century.

It couldn’t come at a better time, since the last plan for the district lasted from 1998 through 2002. So it’s been a decade since there’s been a strategic plan in place for this large bureaucracy that affects and shapes the lives and opportunities for so many.

The first draft of this new plan lists six aims:  Continue Reading →

By Cheri Rae

For the second time in less than six months, I’ve cleared out a home for a loved one who has passed away. In both cases, what was left—besides a lot of memories—was a lot of stuff.

Kitchen cupboards full of expired ingredients; mysteriously gunky glasses gathering dust; long-forgotten appliances, utensils and more pots and pans than anyone needs; closets full of old clothes, old bedding, old Christmas ornaments and so, so much more. A bunch of furniture, cartons of books, and papers; miscellaneous jewelry, coins and artwork collected over the years.

Over a long period of years all of this stuff was selected, paid-for and brought into their homes. And in the end, most of it was given away, donated, or even thrown out, its usefulness no longer important to anyone else.

There is a limit to sentimentality—and what feels important enough to hold onto after the dear one has departed. For me it’s the simple stuff: a picture, a favorite book, an embroidered hanky, a framed cartoon that’s a treasured keepsake. Continue Reading →

Hot Topic Reset: Originally Published on April 25, 2012, by Cheri Rae

While in a Los Angeles home recently for a family event, I had a conversation with the couple next door who for years frequently visited Santa Barbara for a weekend getaway. These hard-working people of modest means saved up for their favorite splurge and, in typical tourist fashion, always enjoyed staying in our nice hotels, shopping, dining and strolling the waterfront. I had often given them suggestions about where to go and what to see, and they always reported back to me on their Santa Barbara adventures.

But never again. They told me that after their last trip a few months back, they will not return.

La Jolla, CA

They were shocked and offended to encounter homeless individuals trying to take their food at a sidewalk café, pawing through trash cans, and wafting their strong aroma as they passed by. “I am sorry for their situation,” said the woman. “But I am afraid and upset to deal with it during my little vacation. I don’t know what to do to help them.” From now on, reported her husband, they’re going to La Jolla. “It’s just as nice as Santa Barbara,” he said, “but we don’t have to deal with the homeless there. I can’t imagine what Santa Barbara is thinking, letting a nice place like that get completely ruined.”

When I told them about the shelters, the parking program, the RV campers, the lawsuits, the many housing projects built to house the homeless, they just shook their heads, and he noted, “It doesn’t make any sense for an expensive place like Santa Barbara to even try to take care of so many homeless people.”

One couple, one conversation, one conclusion.

By Cheri Rae

If you aren’t one of the 5 million people who have taken a look at the video known as Caine’s arcade, stop reading now and spend the most inspirational 10 minutes of your day—if not your week—watching it.

It’s the inspirational story of a bright little boy’s creative vision—one that turned a bunch of cardboard boxes into a wondrous amusement park. And it’s about a couple of wise adults with an appreciation for a child’s strengths of resourcefulness and tenacity—in the face of limited resources—and how, with a little help, he has stepped onto his pathway to success.

And it’s a reminder that not all learning comes from books or in school. Continue Reading →

By Cheri Rae

Of all the dumb political sideshows, did we really have to go back to the issue of mothers, children and the value of work? If there was every any meaningful dialog on the subject, it might be worth it, but as so often happens, there was far more heat than light, too much righteous indignation, too many false assumptions and accusations, and no progress made at all.

But we clearly need to focus on the home front—and the families who live and work there.

As a self-employed, freelance writer and editor for the two decades of my motherhood, I often balanced diapers and deadlines, scheduled interviews around an infant, and felt driven to distraction on a school field trip when I should have been in my office researching a story. Thankful for the internet, I have learned to worked late into the night when it’s finally quiet and I can put in a full, focused shift.

The time spent taking care of my kids and taking care of my career started with the birth of my first child and continues to this day. There are trade-offs, benefits and sacrifices on both sides of the equation.

I didn’t exactly plan it this way; it’s just how it turned out. All the pre-baby ideas we had about bringing our darling bundle of joy into the office—where she would sleep peacefully for hours—went out the window when she was way more interested in the fax machine than dreamland. So I stayed at home and took care of her, and created an office where I worked for pay—and was lucky to have that opportunity, for her, for me and for my career.

But I admit I often felt like I was losing my grip on the world of ideas, although I was working, writing, editing, harder than ever. And when that little darling [finally] went off to Kindergarten I went back to work.

Continue Reading →

By Cheri Rae

Every once in a while it’s good for jaded Santa Barbarans to play tour guide in our little city by the sea, and take a fresh look at what makes this place so special to so many—visitors and residents alike.

This past weekend, my dear friend Lisa arrived for her annual springtime sojourn to America’s Riviera, where she gets a recharge from her long days as a teacher in Los Angeles. She stays at the same B&B each time, visits many of the same shops (with Chaucer’s # 1 on her list), and dines at many of the same restaurants (Paradise and Palazzio are two favorites).

And always, on these trips, we take a couple of long walks downtown and in the neighborhood to catch up on the latest—and to take in the changes in the town she loves to visit, but wouldn’t want to live in. Until now.

I always try to change up the experience and provide some new insights for her to enjoy, away from the tourist track. On Easter Sunday, we left the crowds at the Mission Rose Garden and visited the Stations of the Cross instead. The mosaic stations—relocated here after they stood for years at St. Anthony’s Seminary—are extraordinary pieces of art with great religious significance for the faithful. The gardens were in full bloom, fragrant and simply beautiful.

We then toured Alice Keck Park Memorial Garden and enjoyed the pond teeming with life, the families in their holiday finery and a large group of 20-somethings playing a mean game of Frisbee—Santa Barbara at its most relaxed, fragrant and lovely.

Continue Reading →

By Cheri Rae

Independence just runs in some families: For years, the voice of the independent Earthling Bookshop was young Dorien Davies who recorded weekly radio commercials for the shop owned by her parents, Penny and Terry Davies.

Today she’s grown from the independent book store to an independent filmmaker—and now the winner of an independent film award.

Cleveland is a long way from Santa Barbara—but both places are important destinations on the film festival circuit. The Tower City’s 36^th annual film fest just wrapped, with great news for Santa Barbara native, actress Dorien Davies, and her colleagues. Their independent film, “Missed Connections” generated great buzz to sold-out audiences—with several added showings—and won the American Independent Film Award at the festival Saturday night.

The romantic comedy, which stars Davies and her screenwriter/husband Kenny Stevenson, was shot on weekends—allowing them and their colleagues to pursue their weekday work. The couple raised more than their goal of $10,000 on Kickstarter for the project, and convinced director Eric Kissack and producer Lisa Rudin to work with them, along with other talented friends and longtime colleagues.

The festival’s artistic director observed, ” This movie is why I stay in this business…Every once in a while, a movie comes along that makes it all worth while. I really loved this movie.”

It’s the typical story about “overnight success”—there are years of work behind it, lots of work that had nothing to do with filmmaking. But it all leading up to a triumphant appearance in a Midwestern town, a dream come-true With upcoming screenings at the Boston International Film Festival and in Colorado Springs, Davies and crew hold out hope that “Missed Connections” will connect for a spot in the Santa Barbara International Film Festival—where the hometown girl first got her start and returns to recharge and reconnect with family and friends every chance she gets.

By Cheri Rae

A bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea will never look the same—not since the news of the tragic loss of Trayvon Martin’s life. The African-American young man may just have well been my brother-in-law, my nephew, my cousin who know all-too-well the dangers of simply walking the street or driving the car, and considered suspicious for the color of their skin and the style of their hair and the clothes they wear.

When my sister married an African-American man, decades ago, it sent shock waves throughout my mostly conservative family, rooted in the Catholic Church on one side and the Southern Baptist on the other.

No one in the Sicilian immigrant families that arranged my grandparents’ marriage ever imagined that the family tree would branch out and join up with another race (somewhat ironic, since Sicily has been a crossroads of civilizations for centuries). They—and the rest of the family elders—were mortified, embarrassed and unwilling to accept their granddaughter’s, their daughter’s, choice for a husband, or the children of that union.

Continue Reading →

Re: Not Fit to Print by Cheri Rae

Although today I write primarily opinion based on fact and research, I’d like to add to the discussion about responsible journalism policies and procedures, and how far they’ve strayed from the ideal. Earlier in my career, one of my primary responsibilities as assistant managing editor at Runner’s World magazine was to spend literally days on each issue, vetting each and every story with a lawyer at a high-powered law firm on retainer. The fact-checking was required on everything from minor stories on healthy foods and training methods all the way to the White House for an annual series on politicians who were runners on Capitol Hill (the late Lee Atwater was my liaison there, then a low-level staffer). It was both time-consuming and expensive–and it required seasoned professionals asking pointed questions to understand the work. This was in a running magazine, with very high standards. No story ever made it into print unless it passed through fact-checking and then an extensive editing and proofreading process with a top-quality team of savvy, well-educated editors who proofed and re-proofed and proofed again. Of course a monthly magazine has a much longer lead time than a daily or even weekly newsroom to get it right, but still, none of those facets of fact-checking—which served as the basis of getting it right and maintaining credibility—are deemed as valuable and worthy of investment in today’s approach to journalism as they once were, most particularly in the local paper of record.