Universities Expanding Into Downtown Santa Barbara

••• At a Downtown Santa Barbara awards ceremony, Hutton Parker Foundation president Tom Parker said that “UC Santa Barbara is bringing its AlloSphere [above] to the Paseo Nuevo mall in July [….] The AlloSphere, currently at the main UCSB campus, is a three-story virtual reality chamber hooked up to a supercomputer that lets scientists interpret data through computer-generated imagery and sounds.” He also said that “CSU Channel Islands is also looking to launch a campus downtown,” and that Westmont “will have 300 students at its downtown location [26 W. Anapamu] in the fall.” —Pacific Coast Business Times

••• “With the number of flights in and out of Santa Barbara Airport up by 36 percent over the last year for the month of January, complaints about commercial planes flying over residential neighborhoods have also risen. Traditionally, such flights have sought to avoid residential airspace, Santa Barbara’s City Council was told this Tuesday, but this practice has been strictly voluntary and not mandated.” Might be time to change that. —Independent

••• “Over the last two centuries, some 300 ships have met their fate among the rocks and reefs of the Santa Barbara Channel Islands. Stately four-masted steamships ferrying gold and lumber, nimble rumrunners dodging the Coast Guard, rustbucket harpooners hunting seal and otter—all done in by the tricky currents and erratic weather that churn through the crossing. […] Among the scores of wrecks out there, historians have identified just 25.” The Independent looks at 11 notable ones.

••• Newsmakers with Jerry Roberts explains why Republican Assembly candidate Charles Cole will likely do well in Tuesday’s primary, if not necessarily in the subsequent general election. P.S. “Climate change is not that a big a deal to me,” he said in the recent debate.

••• “Some Carpinteria residents are so frustrated with the smell of cannabis in their homes and backyards, they have decided to sue nearby marijuana growers. The class-action lawsuit was filed by a Santa Barbara attorney on Thursday morning.” —KEYT

••• There’s an amusing letter from Danny Eades in the Montecito Journal about people’s inability to comprehend the lane markings on Hot Springs at the intersection of Middle Road and Sycamore Canyon Road. You’re allowed—encouraged!—to use the right lane to go straight.

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