Author: KEYT

Jarrod Zinn

SANTA MARIA, Calif. – A railway corporation has entered into its first partnership with a company that owns the Santa Maria Valley Railroad.

They want to revitalize and expand rail deliveries.

The Santa Maria Valley Railroad (S.M.V.R.R.) has been in operation for well over a century, and is a key component to the functioning of our local economy.

From fertilizers for our farmers to produce, rail transport can be significantly more cost effective than highway transport in diesel-powered trucks.

“We’re able to buy contracts as a savings to us and then as a savings to our, to our customers also,” says David Iliff, with Santa Maria Valley Crop Service.

Two companies, Omni-Trax and Coast Belle Rail Corporation, are now looking to get Santa Maria rail services back on track, with a new partnership.

“This is Omni-Trax’s 29th Railroad, and they own railroads across the country. Of the 29 railroads, we are the first to go in partnership. That’s usually an acquisition. And so this is their very first partnership,” says S.M.V.R.R. president Rob Himoto. 

Coast Belle is the local company, owned by the Himoto family.

Rob Himoto is the president of the Santa Maria Valley Railroad.

They hope to revitalize existing railways, and even reactivate a currently-inactive line.

“Locally owned, you still have the same staff, they won’t bring their staff in. They really like how we run the railroad. So we will continue to run the railroad as is, with just more resources,” says Himoto.

This abides by the wishes of the rail system’s founder, Captain George Allan Hancock, who purchased the railroad out of receivership one hundred years ago, and built industries based upon it.

“Been working with the railroad since the eighties. They’re really good to work with. Tanker cars are pretty expensive just to sit and not be moving. So the supplier, they want them emptied as quickly as possible and then shipped back to them. And Santa Maria Valley Railroad’s been very helpful in that regard,” says Iliff.

As gas prices remain high at this time, Himoto says rail delivery is a viable alternative, as one rail car can handle the equivalent of 3-5 truck loads, removing those trucks from the highways, in effect.

Andrew Gillies

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, Calif. – On Thursday, a severe public censure and an irrevocable resignation was issued to Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Michael Carrozzo regarding ten acts of willful misconduct and nine acts of prejudicial misconduct.

Judge Carrozo will take approved leave from the bench beginning June 2, 2025, and formally resign from his position on the Santa Barbara County Superior Court effective Sep. 9, 2025, stated a press release Thursday from the California Commission on Judicial Performance.

According to the six-member Commission, the decision resolves the pending formal proceedings against Judge Carrozzo and includes an agreement that Carrozzo will not serve as a judicial officer anywhere in California after Sep. 9, 2025.

From 2017 to 2018, Judge Carrozzo served as the Assistant Presiding Judge and from 2019 to 2020, he served as the Presiding Judge for the Santa Barbara County Superior Court.

Over a two year period, Judge Carrozzo drafted correspondences with letterhead indicating that he was an attorney at law and stating he represented his judicial secretary in a variety of legal contestations including an insurance claim, a housing dispute, and a mattress purchase detailed the Commission.

For example, the Commission on Judicial Performance’s Notice of Formal Proceedings noted that on Aug. 15, 2019, then-Presiding Judge Carrozzo sent an email that had an attached document that was a letter from “attorney” Michael Carrozzo to an insurance company about subrogation of insurance claims and used the letterhead below:

The Commission on Judicial Performance explained that judges are technically not an active licensee of the California State Bar and are not permitted to practice law while serving as a judge.

Judge Carrozzo “misrepresented material and intentionally conveyed the false representation that he was entitled to practice law” stated the Commission’s press release.

Additionally, Judge Carrozzo was found to have made representations to the Commission about the correspondences that, “he knew or should have known were false” added the Commission.

In October of 2018, Judge Carrozzo personally requested and received an unredacted copy of a California Highway Patrol (CHP) collision report for a 2018 traffic accident involving his judicial secretary for her “use and benefit” explained the Commission in its initial report.

The Commission noted that the CHP Officer’s first emailed response to Judge Carrozzo’s request referred to Judge Carrozzo as “your honor”.

“You had no legal authority to obtain or possess the confidential law enforcement report relating to Ms. Eklund’s October 2018 traffic accident,” stated the Commission. “You obtained a copy of the report without completing the required CHP form, signing the required declaration under penalty of perjury, or paying the statutorily mandated fee, as is required of members of the public. Your conduct constituted an abuse of authority and violated canons 2, 2A, 2B(1), and 2B(2) of the Code of Judicial Ethics.”

The Commission shared that in 2020, Judge Carrozzo attempted to secure future admission for the child he had fathered with his judicial secretary at a school thats name was redacted in the Commission’s Notice by sending the following email directly to the school’s Director:

As shown above, Judge Carrozzo sent the email from his official judicial email address and emailed the response from the school’s Director confirming that his unborn child was on the waitlist to Eklund’s court email address added the Commission.

The Commission concluded in its initial report that:

You took such actions when you and Ms. Eklund were “good friends,” when you were in a romantic dating relationship with Ms. Eklund, and when Ms. Eklund was pregnant with your child. As a superior court judge, and particularly while serving as Assistant Presiding Judge and Presiding Judge, you had a supervisory role over Ms. Eklund, and you exercised direction and control over her, while maintaining a close friendship with her and while engaging in an intimate personal relationship with her.

With respect to Ms. Eklund, your conduct in 2018, 2019, and 2020, reflected favoritism or created an appearance thereof. You did not avoid favoritism, or the appearance of favoritism, by initiating a reassignment, relocation, or transfer of yourself or Ms. Eklund. You also failed to take sufficient steps to minimize potential issues with supervision, court morale, and conflict(s) of interest.

Your conduct violated canons 2, 2A, 2B(1), 3C(1), 3C(5), and 4A of the Code of Judicial Ethics.

Mike Klan

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Two of the top athletes at Santa Barbara High School Luke Zuffelato and Kai Mault were part of nine student-athletes that were celebrated at signing ceremony at Peabody Stadium.

Zuffelato signs with UC Santa Barbara after setting the career scoring and rebounding records for the Dons boys basketball program.

Mault signs with UC Davis for baseball.

He was a game-breaker for the Dons football team and his speed is a major weapon on the bases for Santa Barbara baseball.

Here is a full list of the student-athletes that signed:

Kai Mault – Baseball – UC Davis

Eric Anthony – Baseball – University of Puget Sound

Zeke Adderley – Baseball – University of Maryland Eastern Shore

Luca Villano – Baseball – North Central University

Luke Zuffelato – Basketball – UC Santa Barbara

Jasper Larsson – Lacrosse – Dominican University of California

Matthias Everest – Cross Country & Track – Wheaton College

Belen Catalan Jaimes – Cross Country & Track – Cal Lutheran Universityy

Keenan Engebretson – Beach Volleyball – UNC Wilmington

Mike Klan

GOLETA, Calif. – Dos Pueblos slugged three home runs and scored runs in every inning as they routed San Marcos 12-2 in a Channel League softball game that was shortened to five innings due to the Mercy Rule.

Anna Gray, Kacey Hurley and Julianna Brunner all drilled home runs as the Chargers improve to 8-2 in the Channel League.

Kayla Aguilar homered for San Marcos who dropped to 2-7 in league.

Mike Klan

GOLETA, Calif. – Four girls water polo players headlined a group of 11 Dos Pueblos student-athletes that signed to play their chosen sport at 4-year colleges.

Kaleb Williams – University of Redlands (football)Addison Parrish- Stanford University (water polo)Hanalora Abel- UC Davis (Water polo)Megan Garner- UC Davis (water polo)Francesca Court- California Lutheran University (water polo)Dan Finneran – Northwood (lacrosse)Jack Finneran. – Concordia (lacrosse)Anna Gray- Smith College (softball)Ellie Triplett – Westmont (tennis)Arthur Bonifield – UCSD (fencing)Teddy Vigna – University of Oregon (golf)

Tracy Lehr

VENTURA COUNTY, Calif. – A memorial is growing at the site near Oxnard where a teenager’s body was found.

Oscar Omar Hernandez’s remains were discovered near Mcgrath State Beach Park, two weeks ago.

The 13-year-old had taken a Metrolink train from his family’s home in the San Fernando Valley on March 28th to help out a soccer Coach in Lancaster.

That coach, Mario Edgardo Garcia Aquino, 43, has been charged with the teen’s murder during the commission of lewd acts on a child.

Aquino faces additional charges of felony sexual crimes involving two other teens.

The memorial along the road and down the embankment honoring Hernandez includes balloons, photos, letters, flowers, a soccer ball and a jersey.

Andie Lopez Bornet

GOLETA, Calif. – A family in a quiet neighborhood in Goleta woke up early Tuesday morning to an alert that their ring camera was detecting some motion. What they saw, was completely unexpected.

“My mom came into my room and woke me up and said there was a bear outside,” said Atalia Finley. “I thought it was a dream, but then I got up out of bed and my dad was pacing around the house and said that he got a notification on his ring camera.”

The bear went right up to the front door of their home on Pinetree Place, a neighborhood with families with kids and just a couple blocks away from an elementary school.

“There are a lot of kids walking and passing by and our neighbors have a lot of kids,” said Finley.

In a video from another viewer’s ring camera, captured a couple houses down from Finley’s home, you can see someone walking in the distance, as the bear starts to get frightened, which Finley says is worrisome for people who come home late and may have run into the bear.

“I also come home at around that time sometimes, especially on weekends or even later and just imagining me walking up that walkway and seeing the bear right there definitely would freak me out.”

About 20 minutes earlier from when the bear was first spotted on Pinetree Place, a driver in his Tesla swerved to avoid a bear on Cathedral Oaks in Goleta not far from the sighting.

It’s unclear if it’s the same bear, but the timeline matches up.

Finley has lived in that neighborhood for most of her life, but says she’s never seen a bear before and says she was surprised the bear wasn’t rummaging through trash.

On Wednesday morning at UCSB a bear sighting occurred at the Santa Ynez apartment complex located on the corner of Los Carneros and El Colegio road.

Patricia Martellotti

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Shall we dance? That’s what locals including senior citizens got to do with world renowned dancers in Santa Barbara this week.

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater offered dancing lessons to the community.

They are in town for performances at the Granada Theatre on Tuesday and Wednesday.

These performances are part of a two-night event presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures. 

Visitors came from all over the region to get to learn a step or two from these professional dances.

“There’s great dancing there … but the dancing here being with world class dancers and we get to take a workshop with them as it is really quite special and I’m hoping to uncover a lot more about my own sort of dance style through going to workshops like these,” said participant Kyle Alves.

The company is performing two different programs, including one night featuring Alvin Ailey’s iconic work “Revelations.”

C.J. Ward

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Our NewsChannel Tipline investigation delves into the dark world of hackers and thieves. We all deal with passwords, two-factor authentication, security questions, multi-step whatevers, it’s maddening. We do all of that to stop or at least slow down the crooks. However, sometimes, even that’s not enough.

Michael Epley’s nightmare began last year. He was driving home from vacation in Mammoth Lakes when his son’s phone rang.

“It was Verizon and they were asking if I had just changed the administrator on my account and I told them, ’No, I hadn’t,’” said Epley.

A couple hours later, Epley arrived home.

“My friend was there house sitting and he said he had just called me and that somebody else answered the phone,” said Epley.

That’s when Epley realized something was wrong. He hadn’t received any text messages or phone calls for a while. So, he drove straight to the Verizon store in Santa Barbara.

“And they said, yea that two administrators were added to my account and they went ahead and changed it back to me and then they let me know that my SIM card number had been changed,” said Epley.

A SIM card identifies a phone, its mobile number, controls security features and access. Essentially whoever controls the SIM controls the phone and everything in it including access to bank accounts. Epley says his next stop was Union Bank where he had his business account. He spoke with a manager.

“And he kinda laughed and said, ’Ah, there’s no way that that’s happening. Nobody’s in your account.’ And I said, ‘just take a look and let me know.’ And sure enough, pretty much everything was being transferred out of my account.”

And it was happening right before their eyes. Epley said the bank immediately put a freeze on the account and hoped that would be enough to stop the transfers. However, days later all of the money disappeared from his small business account, about $35,000.

“So, it got transferred to Zelle, and then it got transferred to Chase and alsogot transferred to Wells Fargo,” said Epley.

Right after that, Epley also discovered the crooks stole all of his 401k retirement savings. He filed police reports with Santa Barbara Police and tried to figure out how this happened. Epley said, at first, Verizon was helpful and admitted the crooks called the wireless carrier posing as Epley and convinced a live Verizon agent to give them access to Epley’s account.

“And as soon as they did that, they were able to change passwords and once theychanged the passwords they could login and do whatever they want,” said Epley.

Epley believes Verizon gave the crooks the keys to his phone allowing them to steal everything. That’s when he called our Tipline looking for help. We contacted Verizon hoping to get more information. Forexample, when the hackers called Verizon trying to get access to Epley’saccount did the Verizon representative ask for the password, did they use twofactor authentication or ask any of the secret security questions?

However, Verizon responded with a different version of events. Verizon wrote, “OurFraud team determined that no unauthorized users were able to access thiscustomer’s Verizon account” and there was no direct fraud associated withEpley’s account. Verizon also insinuates the crooks possibly hacked Epley’spersonal email to get in and steal everything.

Epley told us that’s news to him.

“They won’t tell me anything without a subpoena,” said Epley.

The NewsChannel also contacted Wells Fargo, Chase and Union Banks. Union Bank was the only one willing to help Epley by agreeing to do a more thorough investigation. About two months later, Union bank agreed that Epley is a victim and offered to help.  We don’t know the details, but we do know that Epley is happy with the way it ended.

“Obviously, you guys have done me a huge, huge favor and I don’t know how to goabout it any other way, that is obviously something that couldn’t have happenedwithout you,” said Epley.

We want to extend a huge thank you to Union Bank for helping Epley. As for Verizon, we asked if it’s disputing Epley’s version of events and so far, Verizon is not disputing it.

Epley also got all of his retirement money back because it was insured. That means the crooks got away with almost $300,000.

Santa Barbara police officials said they are still investigating.

John Palminteri

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – It’s an uncertain future, but it needs a roadmap. That’s what Santa Barbara County is doing now with its preliminary budget workshops.

Currently, the preliminary budget is projected to be $1.69 billion.

The county report says, department heads are presenting preliminary budgets, significant operational changes, anticipated accomplishments, future goals, proposed service level reductions, and budget expansion requests.

Earlier this week, the first set of departments came forward including the Sheriff, Fire Department, District Attorney and Public Defender.

Today, the County Health Department and Public Works are among the agencies speaking to the board.

The outlook has no expanded staff sizes except from the Sheriff’s Office.

Financial adjustments include the increased use of salary savings, and in the case of Social Services, significant deletion of vacant positions. The county says this does not mean that departments have no additional needs or wants.

For the Social Service Department, there was a $14.2 million projected gap identified during budget development a few months ago. The department closed $10.8 million of that gap by un-funding vacant positions; deferring capital projects, maintenance and hardware replacements; and eliminating external trainings.

A $3.4 million funding gap for Social Services remains heading into budget workshops, which the CEO recommends funding with one-time funding from the General Fund to allow the department time to reduce operating costs over the next fiscal year.

There still may be staff cuts ahead depending on solutions found in the meetings and also other funding resource options, if any.

The county is also planning to streamline housing-related permitting and processes.

That includes:

• Development of a local preference housing program

• Collaborating with employers and developers on the development of workforce and farmworker housing • Identifying financial incentives for the creation of affordable housing

• Creating pre-approved plans for accessory dwelling units to reduce permitting timelines and fees for those who use them

• Completion of zoning ordinance amendment updates to facilitate housing in multi-family and commercial zone districts

In Public Works, Director Chris Sneddon said they want to take on the back log of work as cost effectively as possible. “Once we do get funding, being really efficient at getting them delivered and getting them out into the construction, we place a huge emphasis on that because we want to see the actual projects getting built as quickly as possible.”

Santa Barbara County Supervisor Bob Nelson said, there are many hidden needs, and “it is kind of a balanced budget, but it really is a future debt that we’re going to need to resolve in the county.”

“One are the mysteries in the public works budget is money expected to come in from the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA, from past disasters. Some of it dates back eight years. Sneddon said, “the bulk of our expenses in this that we’re talking about for this budget are from the ’23 and ’24 storms, but we do have open FEMA projects going back as far as 2017 that haven’t been fully reimbursed.”

While the design phase for the Northern Branch Jail expansion has been fully funded in prior fiscal years, construction costs are anticipated to be over $178.8 million and will need to be funded through a debt issuance, expected in FY 2026-27, with anticipated annual debt service of $12.4 million over 30 years.

The preliminary budget includes appropriations that advance countywide initiatives, such as improving access to inpatient mental health care treatment.

The Community Services Department has budgeted for variety of updates across parks, campgrounds, trails, and open spaces, including pavement repairs at Goleta Beach Park, initiation of development at Vandenberg Village Park, ballfield lighting at Orcutt Community Park, waterline upgrades and amphitheater renovations at Cachuma Lake, bridge replacement at Tuckers Grove Park (Santa Antonio Creek), and restroom and infrastructure improvements at Rincon Park.

(more details, photos and video will be added here later today.)