In this E-Letter:
Skip the Confetti during Fiesta!
HTO Hires Andrew to Help with Litter During Fiesta
Sheriff Brown thanks HTO for Boat Wreck Removal from Sandyland (watch the movie)!
Remembering SB Community Activist Lee Moldaver
Please Think of our Pets during Fiesta!
Skip the Confetti!
Old Spanish Days, otherwise known as Santa Barbara’s Fiesta is THIS WEEK, August 4-8! And while many are looking forward to getting out there to celebrate with friends, Heal the Ocean sends a friendly reminder to PLEASE help keep our streets, sidewalks, parks, creeks, and ocean clean and safe from litter.
Heal the Ocean has created a social media toolkit to help spread the word to “Skip the Confetti” in honor of the ocean. We hope you will join us and share the information (posts, graphics, images, and flyers) in this toolkit with your team, partners, and supporters in your email campaigns, social platforms, and announcements in the next week. Click here for the toolkit.
Please do not hesitate to contact Heal the Ocean for help with materials or if you have questions (alison@healtheocean.org | 805.965.7570).
Andrew is Working Fiesta
Andrew V at Lake Casitas
Since we reported in our E-letter pages the work of Andrew Velikanje (we just call him Andrew V) in cleaning up the abandoned homeless camp at Haskells Beach, Andrew has gone on to clean up almost six tons of trash from the Rincon underpass, Rincon Bluffs, Carpinteria Bluffs, Rincon Beach, East Beach, Painted Cave, Highway 154, Paradise Road, Lake Cachuma, Lake Casitas, and many other sites. See his “Vroom Vroom” videos that record this work on his Earthcomb website.
Andrew is so good and fast at what he does that Heal the Ocean has hired him to work with the Santa Barbara Downtown Organization to keep the city and Fiesta celebration sites litter-free. Please help him by not throwing litter – bottles, cups, cigarette butts, etc. anywhere but into a trash can!
Sheriff Brown Sends Thanks to HTO
County Sheriff Bill Brown
Heal the Ocean recently received a great letter from Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown, thanking us for our May 27, 2021 coordination of a complicated plan to remove the wrecked trawler off the Padaro/Santa Claus beach and neighboring coastline. It was complicated because of all the agencies involved: Heal the Ocean (who called Union Pacific for permission for using a most difficult access to the beach over railroad tracks) Brian Borgatello of MarBorg Industries, who coordinated a massive removal plan, working with HTO Field Advisor Harry Rabin; Harry Rabin organized access with homeowners through their properties to get at the wreckage.
Here’s a little video HTO put together that shows the situation – the difficulties of getting heavy equipment over the RR tracks, Harry Rabin working with Borgatello to make sure the RR tracks were protected, and finally, that the tracks were clean as a whistle at the end.
Lee Moldaver Passes
The Santa Barbara community was in a bit of shock, and mourning when we found out Saturday, July 31, 2021, through Nick Welsh’s piece published in the Santa Barbara Independent on Saturday, July 31, 2021 that Lee Moldaver has passed away. Lee Moldaver had been battling a difficult gastrointestinal infection, and left us just three days before Nick’s piece was published.
Lee was Santa Barbara’s busiest community activist – everywhere and anywhere, he would show up to offer calm, sage advice, he spoke on all issues environmental, political, social, and especially planning issues. He was a respected voice. He would often call us at Heal the Ocean, to say “You really need to be at this,” and he always said it gently. And more than once we’d give him a ride home – Lee didn’t believe in cars, he walked everywhere and anywhere.
Lee Moldaver, we will miss your gentle presence, and pray that your walking continues in peace. All of us at Heal the Ocean are bereft without you.
A Final Note…
Heal the Ocean shares in everyone’s joy to be out and about, and celebrating with friends. PLEASE have your fun carefully, first, we are not out of the Virus woods yet, please think of others in the community. AND in addition to SKIPPING THE CONFETTI, we implore you to skip the fireworks, too. We ask this out of love and concern for our beloved pets After the 4th of July, the Humane Society was full of dogs who had run away scared!
Thank you,
Love from Heal the Ocean