On the Beat
When Women Couldn’t Be Deputies
And Then Along Came Louise
The year was 1969. Louise Russell and six other sheriff’s “matron-clerks” were outraged that they were doing the same work as deputies assigned to the old Courthouse jail but paid half as much. Read story.
Our Dueling Mayors
They Know Which Fork to Use
Boss Daley didn't need fancy-dancy cheating mailers to run Chicago for 21 years. He cheated the old-fashioned way. Read story.
A Room of Her Own Now
An Extreme Case of Mental Exhaustion
Three months ago, you might have seen Sheila pushing her mountain of belongings on a cart downtown, heading for a cold, dark corner to find solitude and sleep. Read story.
Bank Flipping
Value Added?
I have a yen to know why the Japanese-owned Union Bank didn't buy SBB&T themselves 18 months earlier and save themselves a billion bucks. Read story.
Danger Lurks on Upper State
Unfit for Pedestrians
A friend noticed that while a man with a neck brace and cane was negotiating upper State Street, a guy was leaning on the horn, impatient to barrel through. Read story.
Take Your Seasons and Shove ’em
One 12-Month, 75-degree Season is Good Enough for Me.
One day a few years ago, Non Sequitur cartoonist Wiley Miller decamped from Santa Barbara to Kennebunkport, Maine. Why? Because our days are just too perfect. Read story.
‘Dirty 30’ Tax Dodgers
Have a Loophole
I know a Santa Barbara guy I’m pretty sure has never filed a tax return in his life. Read story.
Eccentric Multimillionaires Living in Poverty
John Figg-Hoblyn and His Sister and Faithful Companion Margaret Were Often Seen Walking the Downtown Streets
The Figg-Hoblyns' has been one of the most novel and long-running conservatorship cases in Santa Barbara Superior Court history. Read story.
Michael Stephen Murdy
July 7, 1947 – March 28, 2002
“Has it really been 10 years since Mike Murdy took that leap of faith off the Micheltorena Street bridge?” asks his widow, Patricia. Read story.
Case of the Stolen $10-Million Painting
A Degas Ballerina Shows Up on Wall of H&R Block Founder's Home
Even the FBI couldn’t solve the mystery: How did a $10 million Degas masterpiece apparently stolen from Huguette Clark’s Manhattan apartment get to a wall in an H&R Block founder’s home in Kansas? Read story.
He’d Rather Be in Prison
Longest County Jail Term Yet
I decided to drop in on Sheriff Bill Brown’s jail to visit his most talked-about new guest: 23-year man Jose Reyes Aceves. Read story.
Santa Barbara vs. Palm Springs
Two "Utopias of a Sort"
The jury is still out on whether the Golden State is headed downhill, but the Springs doesn’t seem to have changed much except to become more so. Read story.
Our King of the $uperPACs
Funding Rove's Attack Ads
Montecitan Harold Simmons is top moneyman in the race to shovel money into the GOP marathon of reactionaries. Read story.
The DA Who Loved Headlines
David Minier's New Book
The Ararat Illusion is based on the 1973 assassination of two Turkish diplomats at the Santa Barbara Biltmore. Minier prosecuted the killer, Armenian immigrant Gourgen Yanikian. Read story.
Car 2GFZ180, Where Are You?
DMV Gone Wild
Somewhere, there’s a 1971 Volvo, or maybe just its bones, sitting around rusting. Read story.
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