Month: August 2026

SANTA MARIA, Calif. (KEYT) – Cal Poly and Allan Hancock College held a kickoff reception in Santa Maria this afternoon.

They celebrated the launch of another of Cal Poly’s bachelor pathway programs — at Hancock college.

The event, held at the Fine Arts upstairs terrace at Allan Hancock College, welcomed the business pathway’s inaugural cohort and recognized the ongoing sociology pathway.

These partnership programs allow students to earn Cal Poly bachelor’s degrees by taking their classes at Allan Hancock College’s Santa Maria campus.

“We’re seeing more students enrolling, and you combine it with radiation technology program that we’re getting from Santa Barbara City College, We’re really seeing students come here and enroll so they can prep for those programs,” says Kevin Walthers, Allan Hancock College President.

Courses are offered in flexible formats structured to support students who are balancing education with work, family and other commitments.

“The most tangible thing about being in this program is that I live in the area. So yes, gas,” says Rachel Lopez, Cal Poly Cohort Sociology Student. “And, like, I can be here in class within 15 minutes from my house.”

Students and faculty from both institutions say this partnership will open a lot of doors for students who live in and around Santa Maria.

“This program has opened the doors, like the floodgates,” says Lopez. “Like, for people, you know, especially like, you know, parents like me, you know, I live here, everything’s here. And so it’s just more convenient.”

Students enrolled in these pathways are classified as Cal Poly students.

“We just started last week,” says Lopez. “It was the first day of transitioning into semester. So I’m a senior at Cal Poly.”

As part of the university, students have access to Cal Poly academic advising, library resources, career support and select resources through Allan Hancock College.

“Everywhere I go in the community, people are really excited about this, especially the idea that we’re getting a business degree in a nursing degree from the Cal State University system,” says Walthers. “This is how we change the odds for everybody in our community.”

The programs aim to prepare participants for careers in business administration, public service and related sectors.

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CARPINTERIA, Calif. (KEYT) – The warming waters this year in the Pacific Ocean are believed to be a component to the rising numbers of stingray encounters in Southern California, including along the Carpinteria coast.

Special signs can be seen at the Carpinteria beaches urging people getting in the water to move their feet back and forth as part of the “stingray shuffle.” That will stir up the stingrays where they are hiding in the sand and move them on.

At the Carpinteria and Santa Claus Lane beaches many people in and out of the water were aware of the stingray issue due to the changing water conditions.   Temperatures in the last few weeks have exceeded 70 degrees. In San Diego some buoys recorded 80 degrees.

Two people who had been stung this summer said they were in high pain and the hot water treatment made a significant difference to reduce the pain. One person had an infection and it took antibiotics to bring it under control.

Theresa Smith said, however, the sting ray was not in the sand but swimming at the time it struck with its venomous barb on the tail.

“I was boogie boarding, I was kicking and I felt it and I knew it, exactly what it was when it happened,” she said. “The worse pain that I have every felt in my life. it was very intense, so intense that when AMR came out they were having a hard time taking my vitals because I was shaking.” Unlike most stings, she had a negative reaction and needed antibiotics. “I hobbled around for a week with a swollen foot and eventually went to urgent care.”

Lifeguards further south in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties have reported a significant rise in stingray encounters, calls for service and on the scene treatments. In some cases lifeguards, fire crews and medics are responding.

Extreme hot water is the first treatment.

Jack Bradbury was playing volleyball and recalling how he was stung. “I wasn’t doing the stingray shuffle and I got hit.  And it hurt.  It hurts alot.”

One visitor John Guthrie said, “one of the few times I didn’t do the shuffle was when  I stepped on one and I was able to quickly lift my foot but it was able to get me a little  bit.”

A mom and former State of California Lifeguard Stephanie  Pimentel was very aware of the risks. “There are a lot of kids here. The vibrations can send them (stingrays) away but they could be anywhere  especially because there is a breeding ground up by the bird  estuary .”

The lifeguards are not always on duty this time of year but you are advised to swim with others for your safety. “We usually stay where people are and sometimes we ask the lifeguard before we go in just to be sure,” said Pimentel.

While there is an increase in stingray incidents, thousands of people on the South Coast are going in the water each week without any encounters, or negative experiences.

Monday, many high school teens were on the beach in Carpinteria enjoying the waves. They were from the Santa Clarita area where they were not in school for the day. One teen said it was “Senior Ditch Day.”

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ORCUTT, Calif. (KEYT) – A months-long project designed to help clean-up and beautify Orcutt is now underway in the community.

Work has been taking place along several Orcutt roadways the past six weeks with the goal to help enhance and improve the overall appearance of the unincorporated Northern Santa Barbara County community.

“I would call it a beautiful project, where we’re making the community look a little bit better, getting rid of some of the blight,” said Santa Barbara County Fourth District Supervisor Bob Nelson. “I’ve been with the County for almost 15 years and we’ve never done anything like this. I’ve lived in Orcutt all my life, and there’s never been somebody pulling it all together to get these types of these projects done. Our office as the county supervisor felt like that was necessary for us to kind of step up, seeing that there was a void there to close that gap.”

Workers have been in action since July, including on Monday at the busy intersection of Union Valley Parkway and South Bradley Road, an area in where several mismatched colored barrier walls could be seen in the past.

“It was really kind of a patchwork of paint throughout the community, where someone would cover up something in the past (with paint), and then somebody else would come use another paint (color) down the line,” said Nelson. “We want to create uniformity because uniformity looks nicer. It’s more esthetically pleasing. If something looks bad, it’s a lot easier for somebody to do some graffiti or to do some type of vandalism. When something looks nice, you typically get a better treatment of that. It’s kind of the broken window theory. If somebody breaks one window, then it’s easier to break the second window and then it goes downhill from there.”

Now, after several weeks of beautification, people who pass along the work-zone areas will notice a much improved look.

“We’ve been pressure washing walls, painting walls, clearing weeds,” said project manager Hunter Hall. “It’s a pretty common sight in Orcutt to see weeds up to the hips, so we’re tackling that and making sure that we’re clearing the right of ways, making sure that our sidewalks are clean, that there is no dirt on them, that the weeds are taken down. We’re painting about five miles of walls. It’s the biggest, in terms of scale painting project, that the North County has seen in a very long time.”

Besides the general esthetics of having one uniform color, Nelson added another key reason to have a same color throughout the town is to make it easier for residents to help provide care in the future.

“It’s going to give us a nice blank palette moving forward so that we can maintain it a lot easier, not only maintain it from our office, but now we have a paint palette that any homeowner can go down to hardware store and buy for themselves and continue to maintain where we started here,” said Nelson.

This current phase of the project is expected to last for at least six more weeks and include many of the busiest roadways in the Orcutt community.

“We’re doing Union Valley (Parkway) all the way from (Highway) 101 to Hummel Road,” said Hall. “We’re doing Bradley (Road) all the way from Santa Maria Way to Rice Ranch Road, and Clark Avenue from the (Highway) 1 to the 101.”

Looking further ahead, Nelson added there are plans to continue the project to include other areas of Orcutt.

“We’re going to start with the rough work here and then we’re going to actually use (Santa Barbara County) Public Works, and we’re going to bring in some landscaping moving forward in our next phase,” said Nelson. “We’re also going to be looking at Orcutt Road and some of the other areas, Foster (Road), potentially Lakeview (Road) in the future, trying to get a little bit more uniformity there.”

Nelson estimated the cost of the project will land between $200,000 to $300,000 and will be paid mostly from a federal grant.

“We’re combining local funds that we have in our district office,” said Nelson. “As a county supervisor, I have funds that come into my office and I’ve been reallocating towards this project. We’ve also been able to pull down a federal FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) grant that was awarded to the county based on past storms. We are also pulling in some of the youth in our community to work these projects. These are students at Hancock (College) and our local colleges. They are getting a chance to get some work study. They’re actually getting out there and developing some skills and making a few dollars.”

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