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The Week That Was: March 25 - April 1 Santa
Barbara Jackson molestation
case shrouded in secrecy County officials took
judicial secrecy to new levels this week in the Michael Jackson
molestation case. Grand jurors met in a secret
location near the Sheriffs Department building Monday for opening
testimonies, while the court banned photographers from taking pictures of
anyone entering or leaving a jury building and banned reporters from
questioning witnesses. After Mondays testimony,
Judge Clifford R. Anderson III eased his order.
Reporters can now question witnesses, but not about their testimonies, and photographers can take pictures, but
not of minors. Grand juries typically meet
at the Courthouse, and intense media coverage prompted the move and the
secrecy. N.S.W. Off-leash dogs to
remain at Douglas preserve That happy woof you may have
heard late Tuesday was the overjoyed sound of dog owners, who had just
been granted daily off-leash access to the Douglas Family Preserve, Hale
Park and Shoreline Beach between the steps and the Arroyo Burro Beach
Estuary. Seven years in development,
the Douglas Family Preserve Management Plan presented by staff had a
recommendation to allow five days off-leash access. The dog lovers were
particularly relieved to have been granted off-leash access because,
earlier in the week, unfounded rumors had surfaced that the City Council
planned to ban dogs from the Douglas preserve. Almost 100 people spoke at
the four-hour hearing and Councilman Roger Horton said he received more
than 400 e-mails, mostly from dog owners wanting off-leash access to the
preserve. The majority of the public
comment centered on the use of the Douglas preserve and the debate over
whether the property deed to remain as is constituted allowing daily
off-leash access. The overburdened Mesa neighbors did receive some
concessions from the council, including the creation of a buffer zone to
cut down on noise, a semi-permeable path to reduce the amount of dust, and
the development of additional parking near the Arroyo Burro Beach side of
the preserve, in hopes that more people will use that entrance to the
preserve rather than parking and walking through the neighborhoods.
L.D. Notable
neighborhood improvements City special projects
manager Don Olson led officials on a tour of blighted neighborhoods Monday
and followed up with a presentation Tuesday on the citys Neighborhood
Improvement Program, earning praise from
Mayor Marty Blum and the City Council for efforts to improve the
neighborhoods without any increase in funding. The first round of priority
neighborhoods identified last year were the Westside, the Lower Westside,
the Lower Eastside and the West Downtown areas. In process are repairs to
the Pilgrim Terrace, Rancheria and Yananoli Street Community Gardens. Also
under way is fixing the pathway between Coronel Street and McKinley School
(as well as Santa Barbara City College). In addition, efforts
are ongoing to improve the railroad and Caltrans corridors, which tend to
attract cubbyhole uses, such as crime, people who camp in bushes and use
them as a dumping place for
trash, said Olson. This is actually what cities
do, theyre supposed to keep their citizens safe and provide the
infrastructure, said Mayor Blum. Its really good to get
back to basics, she said. L.D. UCSB 2 boys coaxed down from 115-foot crane Two boys can be grateful
county firefighters are skilled in urban search
and rescue and a bit of child psychology.
Firefighters from stations
at UCSB and Goleta found that the
boys, 14 and 11, had climbed to the top of a 115-foot crane at a
construction site just inside the UCSB east gate Monday afternoon, and
were throwing debris from the top, said county Fire Department spokesman
Joe Guizzardi. Two firefighters trained in
rescue climbed to the top of the crane and
convinced the boys, from the nearby Devereux facility, to climb down a
stairway inside the crane, which the boys did, Guzzardi said. The boys
were uninjured. S.C. Goleta Goleta teen dies in motorcycle accident A Goleta teenager was killed
Sunday night while attempting to cross Highway 101 at the Signal Oil
turnaround (near Winchester Canyon) on an off-road Honda motorcycle,
authorities said. The 17-year-old, who
Wednesday was identified as Blair Perry by the county Coroners Office,
was killed as he rode across the northbound
lanes of the highway toward Calle Real about 7:
45 p.m., according to the California Highway
Patrol. The force of the impact threw Perry off
his motorcycle, where he landed along the right shoulder of the highway.
Perry was taken to Santa
Barbara Cottage Hospital, where he died of his
injuries. The driver of the car, Jose
Luis Vital Flores, 44, of Santa Maria, did not sustain any injuries.
L.D. South Coast Two-day heat flash sets, ties temperature record One high temperature record
was set and another was tied as Santa Barbara sizzled in summer-like
temperatures early this week. On Monday, the mercury at
the Santa Barbara Municipal Airport rose to 80 degrees, eclipsing a
60-year-old record for March 29 of 77 degrees, set in 1944, the National
Weather Service reported. On Sunday, the airport
temperature hit 84 degrees, tying a record from 1989. The marks were part of an
onslaught of records as sunshine, dry air and
high pressure settled over Southern California,
according to the weather service. Lompoc
hit 89 degrees Sunday, smashing the old record
of 82 degrees from 1971, while Santa Maria had 86, topping the former
record of 83 going back to 1923. The heat wave was
short-lived as temperatures dropped back to near normal by midweek. Normal
high for April 1 is 68 degrees. No foolin. S.C. Out of this world Raytheon sensors play key role in Mars journey Raytheons Miniature Thermal
Emission Spectrometers are playing a key role
in NASAs ongoing Mars Exploration Rover Project by examining the mineral
composition of the Mars environment, said spokesman Ron Colman.
Both Mini-TES instruments
are compact, high-powered sensors that collect
data on Mars physical composition and
atmosphere to help evaluate whether the
environment was ever conducive to
life. Raytheons Santa Barbara
Remote Sensing organization, developers of both TES and Mini-TES, now has
four working infrared sensors operating in the Martian environment.
L.D. |
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