The California Public Utilities Commission has slammed Southern California Edison Co. with a $30 million fine and orders to refund more than $81 million to customers. The record fine was levied at the conclusion of a probe into Edison’s shady practices in winning maximum rewards for customer satisfaction from 1997 through 2003. Those rewards were [...]
Business and political leaders in San Luis Obispo have shown a lot of moxie lately in their battle to restore air service to the county’s regional airport. After flying to Dallas in a vain attempt to get American Airlines to restore commuter service to Los Angeles, they remained undaunted. And their efforts were rewarded in [...]
More than $25 million toward expanding the women’s jail in San Luis Obispo may be on its way, Chief Deputy Rob Reid said Sept. 22. Reid said the grant is a key step toward going forward with the jail, which could cost up to $40 million. If the county meets conditions set by various state [...]
In a letter to officials in Ventura County, federal prison health-care receiver J. Clark Kelso informed them he has decided to proceed with an environmental impact review to build a 1,500-bed adult prison hospital in Camarillo. Kelso said he will file a notice within four weeks that will start the environmental review process, which will [...]
The San Luis Obispo County Air Transportation Alliance announced Sept. 22 that U.S. Airways will soon more than double the service it provides at San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport. Alliance representatives, Economic Vitality Corporation President Mike Manchak, San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce President David Garth and airport manager Klaasje Nairne, met with top [...]
Small-business owners can do many things: create jobs, make payroll and turn a profit, or at least break even, in trying times. But can they do all that while juggling city politics? Two tri-county small-business owners – Don Gilman in Goleta and Sylvia Muñoz Schnopp in Port Hueneme – are betting they can. Both are [...]
Josh Kane, long known as an owner of Santa Barbara-based The Apartment Specialists [now called TAS Commercial], has flown the coop and built a new nest for himself in Ventura, leading a satellite office for national commercial brokerage Sperry Van Ness. Kane’s real estate career was hatched alongside TAS owner and founder Craig Lieberman. While [...]
In 1988, George H.W. Bush was elected president, a first-class postage stamp cost 22 cents and the Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series. That also was the year Northern Trust’s Santa Barbara office received its banking charter. The Chicago-based firm marked two decades in California with a Sept. 25 celebration at its office at [...]
Jim Winsayer has ambitious plans: to create hundreds of jobs and begin building a factory to make wind energy turbines in the Tri-Counties, all within the next year. Winsayer heads Santa Barbara-based Continental Wind Power, which aims to make mid-sized wind turbines for large power consumers such as factories, farms, and county and city governments. [...]
No two bailouts are exactly the same. And when it comes comparing the savings and loan era Resolution Trust Corp. to the $700 billion banking industry rescue now before Congress, there is one difference that really stands out. Back in the stone age of 1988, when we were merely trying to take care of regional [...]
It’s all smiles and sauvignon in Happy Canyon’s vineyards
Towbes Group grabs Goleta with Groupon-like deals at retailers
Social-media IPOs could launch Golden State sustainability fund
Ventura County brokers hold out ’til 2013 for real recovery
Name changes and new faces at SLO and Oxnard law firms
From apartments to industrial spaces, deals close in the region