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The Santa Barbara School Board has decided again to try to get voter support for a parcel tax extension.

The move last night comes in the wake of the failure of efforts during the June primary earlier this month.

More than 60% of those who voted favored the dual proposals June 5th, which would have combined charged each parcel owner $108 dollars to help the financially struggling elementary, and secondary schools. But, the measures didn’t pass the two thirds threshold they needed to pass.

The school board last night agreed to try again in November with a proposal which asks for slightly less money, $48 dollars a year for the elementary, and $45 dollars for secondary schools.

The hope is that by asking for $15 dollars less a year, combined with a ramped up campaign about the need, they will be able to get the aid package passed this fall.

Supporters say if this effort fails, the district may be forced to cut some core classes like math, and science. State funding cuts already mean that the district’s upcoming school year will be five days shorter than the just completed one,

A plan to try to keep one of Ventura County’s two courthouses from closing appears to be picking up steam. Ventura County Supervisors have pledged $50,000 a year for the next two years to help keep the Simi Valley courthouse open.

County Supervisor Peter Foy is leading an effort to get pledges from the county, and city governments for $550,000, which would keep the facilities doors open on a part time basis for the next two years. Simi Valley, and Moorpark have also pledged support, meaning about $300,000 of the $550,000 needed is now committed.

County courts officials say they’ve been forced to look at shuttering the facility, and moving most operations to Ventura because of drastic state funding cuts.

Community leaders say losing the facility would be bad for East County residents, who would have to travel to Ventura to handle court matters. They say it would be even worse for law enforcement, because officers would lose hours of time travelling to and from Ventura to appear for court cases, taking them off the streets from regular patrol duties.

Santa Barbara County has given its support to a plan to try to centralize coordination of homeless services in the county, to try to improve the use of limited resources.

KCLU’s John Palminteri has the story.

Click on link to listen to/download story: Santa Barbara County Supervisors Support Homeless Coalition Effort

A giraffe which was one of the most familar, and popular residents of the Santa Barbara Zoo had to be euthanized, because of her serious health problems.

Sulima lived in Santa Barbara for 20 of her 21 years. She was a Baringo giraffe, and a companion to Gemina, the zoo’s famous crooked necked giraffe which died in 2008.

Sulima’s passing on Monday leaves the Zoo with three Masai giraffes. She lived slightly longer than the average for Baringo giraffes.

The body of a Santa Barbara man who disappeared while on a sea urchin diving trip in the Channel Islands has been recovered.

Andres Martinez was diving with two other men off of Santa Cruz Island Monday morning when he went missing. The divers say they were in an area about 300 years off the island, diving in water about 25 feet deep. The three men went down at around 10:30, but the 64 year old man didn’t turn up when the other two finished their dives at around noon.

They called for help, with the Ventura County Sheriff’s department sending a dive team, and the Coast Guard using a helicopter, and a boat for a surface search. The search team found his dive belt, and some other items at the bottom of the dive location, but found no sign of Martinez on Monday.

Late yesterday afternoon, the Coast Guard found the 64 year old man’s body on a Santa Cruz Island beach. There are no signs of foul play. An autopsy is still pending.

The Port of Hueneme has received a major grant to help deal with pollution coming from docked ships.

The $250,000 grant from the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District will allow the installation of dockside electrical plug-in system for ships, so vessels will no longer have to idle their diesel engines to provide onboard power.

It’s part of a statewide effort by the California Air Resources Board to reduce vessel emissions by 2014.

Cleanup crews were busy today cleaning up some tarballs from a beach just south of Santa Barbara, but officials say they don’t think the problem was man-made.

The tarballs were discovered at around 10 a.m. Monday at Butterfly Beach.

U.S. Coast Guard, and State Fish and Game spill prevention experts say the tarballs are consistent with what would be expected from a natural seep in the area.

Pacific Operators Offshore, which operates an offshore oil platform off of Carpinteria where a spill occurred last week, volunteered to clean it up.

On Friday morning, a problem at Platform Houchin caused a small spill. Cleanup crews using a half dozen boats, and helicopters removed about a thousand gallons of crude oil, and oil contaminated water from the ocean.
No wildlife damage was reported as a result of that spill.

Ventura County has certified the results of the June 5th primary, with officials noting that the official voter turnout was 32.9%

Clerk/Recorder Registrar of Voters Mark Lunn notes that just over 133,000 ballots were cast in the election, including almost 81,000 by mail, and close to 53,000 ballots completed at 361 polling places.

A Santa Barbara man is missing, after disappearing while on a sea urchin diving trip in the Channel Islands.

Andres Martinez was diving with two other men off of Santa Cruz Island yesterday morning when he went missing. The divers say they were in an area about 300 years off the island, diving in water about 25 feet deep. The three men went down at around 10:30, but the 64 year old man didn’t turn up when the other two finished their dives at around noon.

They called for help, with the Ventura County Sheriff’s department sending a dive team, and the Coast Guard using a helicopter, and a boat for a surface search.

The search team found his dive belt, and some other items at the bottom of the dive location, but found no sign of Martinez. Rough seas made it unsafe for divers to search the area again today, but plan to pick up the effort again tomorrow.

Cancer can be a burden for anyone to deal with, but it can often pose an especially difficult problem in the non-English speaking Latino community. People often don’t have insurance for basic checkups like mammograms, or prostate exams, and as a consequence, they are often diagnosed much later into the disease.

More than two dozen health care specialists involved in cancer education, and support therapy gathered in Ventura County for a two day summit, to look at strategies to reach more Latinos.

KCLU’s Lance Orozco was there, and has the story.

Click on link to listen to/download story:Latino Cancer Summit