Foundation puts cash to work in soft commercial real estate market
ColumnsIn a typical week, I get about a dozen real estate deals in my inbox. Most of them are pretty forgettable, and some are only buzzworthy because, well … there’s nothing else to buzz about. Leases are few and sales are far between. So you can imagine my surprise when I heard from Ron Gallo, Read More →
Business tax violates Sol
ColumnsFirst, a disclosure. My late father, Sol Dubroff, spent much of his career as a tax systems architect, working for the U.S. Treasury and later for the IMF and other development agencies. He absolutely detested the value added tax, or VAT. He accepted the fact that taxes are the price we pay for liberty and Read More →
Rejecting Measure B is crucial to city
OpinionWe’ll go ahead and put the Business Times officially on the record as opposing so-called Measure B height limits for the city of Santa Barbara. We’ve generally been opposed to the more onerous of these measures, whether they cropped up in Ventura or San Luis Obispo. And there are really sound business reasons why unreasonable Read More →
Rivals, regulators wait for PCBC results
Personal FinanceAs the end of the third quarter approaches, Wall Street is focused on one number in Pacific Capital Bancorp’s results: tier one capital. After Sept. 30, the region’s largest independent banking company and parent of Santa Barbara Bank & Trust will have to show federal regulators that it’s raised its all-important tier one leverage ratio, Read More →
Your right to know
OpinionThe Business Times Web site received quite a bit of flak from our recent story on a bankruptcy filing involving Montecito’s Klink family. We’ll take a minute to state something that should be obvious — a bankruptcy filing is a public document, which provides any media outlet with an absolute privilege to publish the information Read More →
Let them eat cupcakes
Small BusinessCall it comfort food if you will, but cupcakes may just be the perfect recession-proof little indulgences. In the Tri-Counties, cupcake bakeries – or cupcakeries – have proliferated over the past two years, and their owners say they’re only getting more popular. Maybe it’s because the HBO series “Sex and the City” shows its characters Read More →
Death penalty sought for Aguilar
UncategorizedVentura County District Attorney Greg Totten announced Sept. 22 that his office will seek the death penalty against an Oxnard man accused of shooting and killing a businessman who was leaving a U.S. Bank branch in Oxnard the morning Aug. 16. According to a news release, prosecutors will seek a death sentence for Jeffrey Aguilar, Read More →
