Nonprofit seizes opportunity to turn hassle into new facility
Columns, Nonprofits, Real EstateQuestion: The city wants to extend a road through your property, right through a corner where several key buildings are located. What do you do? (a) Put up a fight. (b) Sell the city the land, and use the proceeds as seed money to build a new facility on your remaining property. Santa Maria-based VTC Read More →
A greener cleaner: eLabor.com founder now heads Camarillo startup
UncategorizedMichael Edell has gone from software to soap. He is hoping the touch that helped him expand and sell his firms to the likes of Microsoft and ADP will make GrabGreen, a Camarillo-based line of eco-friendly cleaning products, into a household name. Founded by Patricia Spencer, a mother who was concerned about the chemicals in Read More →
Apartments a bright spot in South Coast real estate market
ColumnsThe South Coast apartment market has seen more than $77 million in property sales this year, according to commercial real estate brokers at Radius Group’s Santa Barbara County Real Estate and Economic Outlook on Sept. 16. The largest sale was the $37.4 million purchase of the Fontainebleu apartments in Isla Vista. Chicago-based Blue Vista Capital Read More →
Power-One shows California lacks spark
ColumnsIt’s hard to find a better turnaround story than Power-One. The Camarillo-based company took a secondary product line from an Italian company it had purchased and bet the farm on a new line of business — producing devices called inverters that are crucial to regulating the power output of wind turbines and solar panel arrays. Read More →
Editorial: Jail tax a necessary pain
OpinionIn Santa Barbara County, an unusually broad coalition is backing Measure S, a public safety initiative that would at last give the Santa Maria Valley a viable way to lock up criminals. There is no doubt that Measure S has a hefty price tag. It would increase the sales tax by half a cent for Read More →