News

SBCAN co-executive directors given Founder Award by The Fund for Santa Barbara

 
 
Bread and Roses Community Celebration
The Great Meadow at SBCC
Sunday, October 6, 2024
2:00-6:00 p.m.
 
Announcing our Founder and Firebrand Awardees!
Founder Awardees: Jeanne Sparks and Ken Hough
Firebrand Awardee: Future for Lompoc Youth
 
Our Founder Award is presented to those who have demonstrated a long-term commitment to advancing progressive change by strengthening movements for social, political, economic, and environmental justice and the vision to image a world marked by optimism, joyous struggle, a spirit of problem solving, and a sense of belonging. Our founder, Nancy Alexander, was the first-ever recipient of the Founder Award, which is now named in honor of her legacy at The Fund for Santa Barbara. 

Presented to emerging progressive community leaders for their social change work in our community, the Firebrand Award looks towards those leading the future of progressive movements and is intended to recognize youth at the forefront of social change in our communities.  

2024 Founder Awardees: Jeanne Sparks and Ken Hough
 
Jeanne Sparks and Ken Hough, Photo by Cienna Cornwell
Jeanne Sparks and Ken Hough are a powerhouse couple known for their tireless commitment to community service and advocacy. 

Jeanne has been at the forefront of various impactful initiatives for nearly 40 years, focusing on livable communities, environmental sustainability, and animal protection. She has played a key role in numerous projects, including expanding paramedic, library, and transit services to the Cuyama Valley, and helping to establish the Dunes Center in Guadalupe. She helped establish Santa Maria’s first dog park and the Santa Maria River Levee Trail. She was the first woman elected to serve on the Santa Maria Valley Water Conservation District, among many other achievements.

Ken, with over 30 years of expertise in transportation, housing, and regional planning, is a passionate advocate for sustainable growth and the protection of agricultural land. His hands-on approach, which included walking every street in Santa Maria to better understand the city, reflects his deep commitment to local engagement. Their leadership of Santa Barbara County Action Network (SBCAN) highlights their dedication to improving Santa Barbara County. Together, they form the ultimate two-for-one team, using their combined experience and passion to create lasting positive change in their community.

2024 Firebrand Awardees: Future for Lompoc Youth (FLY) 
 
Future for Lompoc Youth (FLY) has been actively engaging young people in civic participation for three years with impressive results. Partnering with the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, FLY youth gathered over 1,000 surveys to better understand post-pandemic youth experiences. This initiative not only provided valuable insights but also trained the youth in civic activities such as canvassing. Currently, FLY is involved in supporting the passage of a school bond aimed at upgrading local schools, the first in decades. FLY members are registering voters, canvassing, managing social media, and phone banking to build momentum for a potential win in November.
 
Tickets for Bread and Roses are selling out fast!
 
Be sure not to miss out on the largest progressive celebration in the Central Coast and purchase your tickets to Bread and Roses today! 
To ensure that cost is not prohibitive to anyone wanting to attend,
sliding scale tickets are available for purchase. 
For questions, email [email protected]
 
 

The news has also been published by The Santa Barbara Independent and Noozhawk.

  • SBCAN co-executive directors given Founder Award by The Fund for Santa Barbara

     
     
    Bread and Roses Community Celebration
    The Great Meadow at SBCC
    Sunday, October 6, 2024
    2:00-6:00 p.m.
     
    Announcing our Founder and Firebrand Awardees!
    Founder Awardees: Jeanne Sparks and Ken Hough
    Firebrand Awardee: Future for Lompoc Youth
     
    Our Founder Award is presented to those who have demonstrated a long-term commitment to advancing progressive change by strengthening movements for social, political, economic, and environmental justice and the vision to image a world marked by optimism, joyous struggle, a spirit of problem solving, and a sense of belonging. Our founder, Nancy Alexander, was the first-ever recipient of the Founder Award, which is now named in honor of her legacy at The Fund for Santa Barbara. 

    Presented to emerging progressive community leaders for their social change work in our community, the Firebrand Award looks towards those leading the future of progressive movements and is intended to recognize youth at the forefront of social change in our communities.  

    2024 Founder Awardees: Jeanne Sparks and Ken Hough
     
    Jeanne Sparks and Ken Hough, Photo by Cienna Cornwell
    Jeanne Sparks and Ken Hough are a powerhouse couple known for their tireless commitment to community service and advocacy. 

    Jeanne has been at the forefront of various impactful initiatives for nearly 40 years, focusing on livable communities, environmental sustainability, and animal protection. She has played a key role in numerous projects, including expanding paramedic, library, and transit services to the Cuyama Valley, and helping to establish the Dunes Center in Guadalupe. She helped establish Santa Maria’s first dog park and the Santa Maria River Levee Trail. She was the first woman elected to serve on the Santa Maria Valley Water Conservation District, among many other achievements.

    Ken, with over 30 years of expertise in transportation, housing, and regional planning, is a passionate advocate for sustainable growth and the protection of agricultural land. His hands-on approach, which included walking every street in Santa Maria to better understand the city, reflects his deep commitment to local engagement. Their leadership of Santa Barbara County Action Network (SBCAN) highlights their dedication to improving Santa Barbara County. Together, they form the ultimate two-for-one team, using their combined experience and passion to create lasting positive change in their community.

    2024 Firebrand Awardees: Future for Lompoc Youth (FLY) 
     
    Future for Lompoc Youth (FLY) has been actively engaging young people in civic participation for three years with impressive results. Partnering with the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, FLY youth gathered over 1,000 surveys to better understand post-pandemic youth experiences. This initiative not only provided valuable insights but also trained the youth in civic activities such as canvassing. Currently, FLY is involved in supporting the passage of a school bond aimed at upgrading local schools, the first in decades. FLY members are registering voters, canvassing, managing social media, and phone banking to build momentum for a potential win in November.
     
    Tickets for Bread and Roses are selling out fast!
     
    Be sure not to miss out on the largest progressive celebration in the Central Coast and purchase your tickets to Bread and Roses today! 
    To ensure that cost is not prohibitive to anyone wanting to attend,
    sliding scale tickets are available for purchase. 
    For questions, email [email protected]
     
     

    The news has also been published by The Santa Barbara Independent and Noozhawk.

  • Santa Barbara Talks Podcast 89: Dick Flacks talks rent control, affordable housing, activism

    Dick_Flacks_Podcast_2021.png

    Retired UCSB sociology professor Dick Flacks dives into the debate over Santa Barbara's proposal to create a 2 percent cap on rent increases. Flacks offers counterpoints to residential property owners who say that maximizing rent increases would hurt tenants because they would not be able to make repairs or conduct regular maintenance. Flacks makes a case for tenants and talks about ways to increase affordable housing. He says that the city should consider building on parking lots, working with other regions to take a bigger view, and work with the city's Housing Authority to acquire more land to build affordable housing projects. Flacks also explains how he believes nonprofit social housing will help to create more affordable housing.

    Click here to view the podcast: https://youtu.be/2wjqcdjIm54

     

  • 2021 North County "Looking Forward" Award Winners

    NEWS RELEASE - 
    Santa Barbara County Action Network
    Contact: Nadia Abushanab, [email protected], 508.740.8504
    For immediate release: June 23, 2021
    Online link to photos: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17efzpmYIq01wdCmykXbdwYSUUFoz2rT8
    Download news release as Word document: SBCAN_NC_Looking_Forward_Awards_news_release.docx


    Santa Barbara County Action Network (SBCAN) will honor 15 individuals and organizations for their outstanding contributions to the community during its online North County “Looking Forward” Awards Celebration on Sunday, June 27 at 4 p.m.

    Awards will be presented to Yasmin Dawson Selim, Lorraine and Wally Waldau, Larry Bishop, Zulema Aleman Garcia, Pam Gates and Cliff Solomon, Art Hibbits, and Juliana Neel. 

    Because of the extenuating circumstances of the past year and because we didn't have an awards ceremony in 2020, we are also giving special recognitions to Jane Baxter, Dr. Melissa Smith, Dr. Van Do-Reynoso, Santa Barbara County Public Defender's Office Racial Justice Committee, Santa Maria Joint Union High School District, and UFCW Local 770.

  • Santa Barbara County Action Network honors volunteers

    This article by Jeanne Sparks appeared in the Santa Maria Times on June 8, 2018: https://santamariatimes.com/news/local/santa-barbara-county-action-network-honors-volunteers/article_3d3204a8-3ca4-5627-b6a2-0cba1229875e.html

    Dr. Herb Kandel accepted the Environmental Protection and Sustainability Award from Santa Barbara County Action Network during a dinner Sunday at the Radisson, and gave credit to others who worked to protect the environment.

    “I celebrate staff and administrators of all who serve the public,” Kandel said. “We as citizens, organization members, volunteers, board members -- help create the working environment for professionals to do their best work.”

    He also recognized landowners, and called them "heroes" for putting their properties into conservation easements. People need to learn from diverse members of the community, including youth, to move the conservation effort forward, he said.

    Five others were recognized at SBCAN’s North County “Looking Forward” Award Dinner and Fundraiser: Steve Heuring, Patricia “Pati” Cantú, Elsa Velasco, Virginia Perry Souza and Ines Ruiz.

  • SBCAN to honor six during North County 'Looking Forward' awards dinner, fundraiser

    This article by Jeanne Sparks ran in the Santa Maria Times and Lompoc Record on May 25, 2018: https://santamariatimes.com/news/local/sbcan-to-honor-six-during-north-county-looking-forward-awards/article_bcb2e4d1-2e5f-590a-ba9a-cd4179c3ccc3.html

    Santa Barbara County Action Network (SBCAN) will honor six individuals for their outstanding contributions to the community during its North County “Looking Forward” Awards Dinner on June 3 at the Radisson in Santa Maria.

    Awards will be presented to Virginia Perry Souza, Herb Kandel, Elsa Velasco, Steve Heuring, Patricia “Pati” Cantú and Ines Ruiz.

    Perry Souza will receive the “Looking Forward” Award for strong leadership and vision in community building, civic engagement and improving the quality of life in our community.

    Her community activism began when she served as one of Toru Miyoshi’s Women’s Commissioners in 1986. Joining the Rotary Club in 1996 expanded her volunteerism to international horizons.

    In 1996, she founded The Natural History Museum in Santa Maria along with her late mother, Rena Perry. The Natural History Museum has been located in the Historic Hart Home for almost 20 years and the nonprofit encompasses community history as well as natural history.

    In 2013, she co-founded Buena Vista Beautifiers. She brought together and continues to lead a diverse group of people to address neglect, beauty and safety issues surrounding Buena Vista Park, Santa Maria’s oldest park. All the major stakeholders in the park neighborhood as well as residents and property owners have addressed neighborhood needs, common goals and solutions, including bike days, spring celebrations, park and road cleanups, holiday decorations and the city’s renovation of the park.

  • Sunset on Holly: Two years after the Refugio oil spill, Venoco gives up Platform Holly, a move that underscores the debate over local oil industry

    SBCAN members are quoted in this article by Joe Payne that ran in the Santa Maria Sun on May 17, 2017:

    http://www.santamariasun.com/cover/16104/sunset-on-holly-two-years-after-the-refugio-oil-spill-venoco-gives-up-platform-holly-a-move-that-underscores-the-debate-over-local-oil-industry/

    Platform Holly has stood alone in the South Ellwood oil field for decades as the Santa Barbara Channel’s last oil rig in California’s state waters. But it may not stay standing for much longer.

    The platform’s owner, Venoco, announced on April 17 that it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy—which allows the company to reorganize assets—and quitclaimed the South Ellwood oil field, returning the lease to the state. With Venoco abandoning the field and platform Holly, the State Lands Commission will begin decommissioning the platform—a development that illustrates the decades-long debate in Santa Barbara County over oil production, especially offshore drilling.


    ON THE HORIZON
    Venoco announced its quitclaim of the South Ellwood oil field on April 17, which includes turning over Platform Holly for decommissioning by the State Lands Commission. Holly is the last Santa Barbara Channel oil platform in California’s state waters. (Photo source: www.flickr.com/photos/n28307/)
    PHOTO COURTESY OF GLENN BELTZ

     

    Venoco made clear its reason for shutting down Platform Holly: Since Plains All American Pipeline stopped all transport of Venoco’s crude from its Ellwood Onshore Facility after the Refugio oil spill in 2015, the platform was dead in the water. Plains’ Line 901 leaked more than 140,000 gallons of oil into the ocean on May 19, 2015, marring coastline for miles in either direction with black, odorous crude, affecting businesses as small as family-owned fishing boats and as large as Venoco.

    After Venoco failed to petition the State Lands Commission to adjust and expand the lease boundaries of the South Ellwood field earlier this year, the company had no hope for Holly. The move to walk away was due to a number of “unfortunate circumstances impacting the company’s financial strength,” Venoco’s COO Mike Wracher said in the company’s April 17 statement. The statement named Plains’ nonoperational Line 901 as a deciding factor.

    “We have pursued a number of market-based and regulatory solutions to address these challenges during the last year,” Wracher said in the statement. “Despite these considerable efforts, our financial position now compels us to take this action.”

     

  • Solvang forum draws small crowd to oppose more oil wells in county

    This article by Mike Hodgson ran March 28, 2017 in the Santa Maria Times: 

    http://santamariatimes.com/news/local/solvang-forum-draws-small-crowd-to-oppose-more-oil-wells/article_39e4da8e-17e0-56f9-8ad3-ab45049e89e5.html

    About 20 people attended a Monday night forum in Solvang designed to gather support for blocking new oil wells in Santa Barbara County, pushing for full renewable energy sources in the county and state and ending California’s cap-and-trade program.

    The group gathered in the Legion Wing of the Veterans Memorial Building to hear four speakers discuss plans for more than 700 “new” oil wells in the county, the potential for wells to contaminate groundwater, restrictions on developing alternative energy and the failure of the cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

    Speakers were Alena Simon, Santa Barbara County organizer; Adam Scow, California director of the national nonprofit organization Food & Water Watch; Rebecca August, of Safe Energy Now; and Ken Hough, of the Santa Barbara County Action Network.

    Their presentations and audience questions were reserved until Andy Caldwell, executive director of COLAB, the Coalition of Labor, Agriculture and Business, questioned some of the statements and claimed they were misleading scare tactics.

    Then interactions between Caldwell and audience members became contentious and nearly deteriorated into an arguing match before organizers calmed things down and began disbanding the meeting.

  • SLO County supervisors deny Phillips 66 oil-by-train project appeal

    This article ran in the online version of the Santa Maria Times March 14, 2017: http://santamariatimes.com/news/local/slo-county-supervisors-deny-phillips-oil-by-train-project-appeal/article_55572b43-9066-5c36-9b00-fa9d0ee43aba.html

    With a 3-1 vote Tuesday, the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors denied appeals filed after the Planning Commission last year voted down Phillip 66's contentious oil-by-rail proposal. 

    North County Supervisor Debbie Arnold was the lone dissenter in the decision. Chairman John Peschong recused himself from the hearing that began Monday because of his consulting background with the oil industry.

    "My fear is that today's decision puts trucks on the road with highly flammable material," Arnold said in her dissent.

    Phillips 66 has applied for a development plan and coastal development permit to modify its existing rail spur at the refinery and install rail unloading facilities at its Nipomo Mesa refinery in order to bring in unrefined heavy crude oil there via train.

    Project plans also call for extending the facility's existing rail spur, and constructing five parallel tracks and a rack area to allow unloading up to three oil trains per week, not to exceed 150 a year.

    Trains would consist of 80 rail cars carrying approximately 27,300 gallons each, totaling approximately 2.19 million gallons of crude oil. 
  • SLO board chambers packed for Phillips 66 rail spur appeal hearing

    This article ran in the Santa Maria Times on March 14, 2017: http://santamariatimes.com/news/local/slo-board-chambers-packed-for-phillips-rail-spur-appeal-hearing/article_f2c42f00-c286-5324-896e-de401444f542.html

    The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors chambers once again were filled with opponents of a controversial proposal by Phillips 66 to bring crude oil to its Nipomo Mesa refinery via trains.

    About a 160 people turned out Monday in San Luis Obispo for the first day of an appeal hearing of the county Planning Commission's denial late last year of the proposed project. Half of those spoke during the daylong meeting.

    Phillips 66 has applied for a development plan and coastal development permit to modify its existing rail spur at the refinery and install rail unloading facilities at the refinery in order to bring in unrefined heavy crude oil there via train.

    Project plans also call for extending the facility's existing rail spur, and constructing five parallel tracks and a rack area to allow unloading up to three oil trains per week, not to exceed 150 a year.

    Trains would consist of 80 rail cars carrying approximately 27,300 gallons each, totaling approximately 2.19 million gallons of crude oil. 

    The Planning Commission turned down the proposal in a split vote last October after eight public hearings and hours of public testimony. Most speakers voiced opposition to the plans.

    Those voices, which came from far and wide, didn't change during Monday's public comment portion of the appeal hearing, which will continue at 9 a.m. Tuesday at the County Government Center, 1055 Monterey St. in San Luis Obispo.

    "This is the first time in 15 years we have ever spoken outside Santa Barbara County," said Ken Hough, Santa Barbara County Action Network executive director. "We never had the need to ... until now."

    Hough told the four supervisors — Chairman John Peschong recused himself from the hearing because of his consulting background with the oil industry — his organization stands with Santa Barbara County in its opposition to the proposed rail spur project.

  • City dedicates Tom Urbanske Levee Trail

    This article by Logan B. Anderson was published in the Santa Maria Times on June 10, 2016: http://santamariatimes.com/news/local/city-dedicates-tom-urbanske-levee-trail/article_1de607a8-92f2-5642-a2f0-f19302e5f9f2.html

    The Santa Maria River Levee is there to protect city residents from potentially dangerous mountain water runoff and as a place for folks to gather along its trail to exercise and see Santa Maria’s plants and wildlife.

    Earlier this year, some residents reached out to the city with an idea to dedicate the levee’s trail to someone that, like the levee, has worked to protect residents and bring them together.

    Thomas Urbanske served as a city councilman and county supervisor for decades. Before entering into public service, Urbanske touched many lives as an educator in Santa Maria.

    City officials and others gathered Wednesday morning at the Seaward Drive entrance of the multi-use levee trail to rededicate it the Tom Urbanske Levee Trail.

    “Today is a special day for all of us in Santa Maria,” Mayor Alice M. Patino said in a letter read during the ceremony.