Local Official Participated in the January 6 Mob

••• The Independent and others have posted that the Ritz-Carlton Bacara resort (above) changed hands for $530 million. The news here isn’t the transaction—in May, the Pacific Coast Business Times reported that the hotel was “among 25 hotels in a portfolio being sold by Watermark Lodging Trust [for $3.8 billion] to private real estate funds managed by Brookfield Asset Management”—but the amount. I’m no accountant, but it seems to me that the seller and/or buyer may have various reasons to assign higher or lower values to certain properties. When the property last sold in 2017, it went for $243,854,000.

••• “There are still about 55,000 ballots that need to be counted in Santa Barbara County, and updated results won’t be released until next Tuesday,” reports Noozhawk. The results so far are here, and there were no surprises, says the Independent. As it stands now, Measure T in Carpinteria—which would have prevented the Surfliner Inn from being built—is down by eight votes.

••• “A Santa Barbara–based ‘sedition hunter,’ a member of an online group of amateur sleuths who help the FBI identify members of the pro-Trump mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, has collected video evidence of a North County elected official and her husband trespassing into the Capitol building during the riot. The footage, which was forwarded in recent days to the FBI as well as the Santa Barbara Independent, first shows Karen Jones ​— ​a two-time candidate for county supervisor who currently serves as president of the Santa Ynez Valley Community Services District ​— ​and her husband, Robert, attending the rally.”

••• “During a special closed-door hearing, the Santa Barbara City Council voted to terminate long-time City Attorney Ariel Calonne, who’d been placed on paid administrative leave this past July after what had been described as an exceptionally heated exchange with another attorney who worked in his office.” —Independent

••• Cottage Health’s urgent-care facility on Coast Village Road opens this week. —KEYT

••• “The Santa Barbara News-Press slimmed down its operation again, […] dropping the Sunday edition and instead folding the content into the Saturday paper.” —Independent

••• Television producer Marcy Carsey “spent $7 million on a 1.25-acre estate consisting of two contiguous parcels [in the Hedgerow]: one vacant and the other with a midcentury ranch house and gardens. Both parcels sit directly next door to a half-acre estate that Carsey has owned since 2001, meaning that her Montecito compound now consists of three separate parcels totaling nearly two flat acres.” —Dirt

••• “Organizers of the Ojai Valley Lavender Festival, which began in 2004 at Libbey Park in downtown, plan to uproot the event and take it to Santa Barbara in 2023. Festival owners decided to relocate when the Ojai City Council voted last month to reduce the number of vendors to 75 for all events in the city including the festival.” —VC Star (via Edible Santa Barbara)

••• Beach Baby Kids Boutique has opened in Goleta: “The store, according to a news release, sells shoes, hats, baby things, gifts and toys, water/swimming supplies, jewelry and more.” —Noozhawk

••• The folks trying to build “an 18-lane bowling alley, arcade, restaurant/bar, meeting rooms and office space in a 45,633-square-foot, two-story building” in Buellton finally gave up—and put the property up for sale—because the county red tape and associated costs were just too much. Whether it’s the city or the county, pretty much everyone trying to do anything around here can tell a similar story. The question is, how can any of it ever be reformed? —Noozhawk

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16 Comments

Christine!

Karen Jones and her family host a music party every year coinciding with Old Santa Ynez Days- well stocked with talent and people come far & wide to get a seat near the stage. She and her husband went to a political rally, and you are reporting she attended? Wow

Katy Perry’s father stood next to me at the Vote 4 Larry Elder SB courthouse sunken garden event last year- he is pretty funny even if he looks like he fell off the Liberace Palm Springs tram.

Sad that people in charge ( Ms Partridge ) think smearing people is cool due to their vote- worse that I have to re-read it here.

You’d probably like Karen, Erik- consider buying her a coffee at Pony Espresso next time your up in cowboy country

Reply
Erik Torkells

She attacked Congress. If you think that’s acceptable, feel free to get your news from the News-Press.

Reply
Christine!

? I see no evidence of her or her husband hurling a brick into a crowd, I see no evidence of her wearing a ski mask hitting another human with a fortified stick nor does she look armed with much more than her voice.

But ok

Reply
Sally

All of those traitors deserve every day in prison that they get. They should lose their right to vote too.

Reply
erika

Cristine,

If nothing questionable happened on January 6th at the Capitol, merely stating they attended wouldn’t be smearing.

The fact that you rushed in here to defend them means that there was something highly inappropriate, even seditious that occurred. My question is why aren’t you willing to hold the people of your community, or government officials accountable for their choices? It is a absolute disgrace to those who DIED because of that day.

Reply
Doug

And your defense of a woman who broke the law in hopes of overturning an election says oodles about yours.

Reply
Charles H Keyser

That she went to THAT rally says oodles about her character. Especially her judgement,

Reply
Liz

If all they did was attend the rally they would be in the clear, but entering the capitol with the other seditionists makes their anti- democracy intent pretty clear. What a pair of (sore) losers.

Reply
Brad

Christine!
Would it be OK with you if I followed a crowd who broke into her business and stood by as they attacked her employees and trashed the place?
What ever happened to the concept of personal responsibility for those on the “right”?

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christine!

I missed the part if the article where they did anything but show up- can you show me where they were arrested and why?

I’ll be waiting right here while you find that info,

☕️

Reply
Brad

“Videos Show Karen Jones and Husband Inside Capitol Building During Attack”
How could any reasonable person have thought that it is was a good idea to enter the Capitol, past police barricades and Capitol Police in riot gear?
Willful ignorance of the facts doesn’t make you right. It shows your stubbornness, cristine.
Secondly, why would those who claim to want a smaller government take the cowardly way out and wait for the FBI to use their resources to find them and charge them. Patriots would admit to their crimes and suffer the consequences willingly.

That was my first response.
My second:
Errr, I’m with Kyle…

Reply