Tech firms get a boost from small business
The economic slump has many small businesses scrambling to cut costs, but as a direct result one group of businesses is getting a boost: information technology firms. As small businesses look for ways to streamline their budgets, tri-county IT firms are seeing a wave of new clients — if they offer the right products and Read More →
ValueClick moves could point to acquisition
Despite turning in a $25 million profit last quarter, Westlake Village-based online marketing firm ValueClick disappointed Wall Street analysts with a gloomy revenue forecast for the fourth quarter. But the company has quietly signed more than 70,000 square feet of new lease agreements and stockpiled hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and untapped credit Read More →
Bailing out the party crowd
Each year on Halloween, tens of thousands of partiers descend on Isla Vista near the University of California, Santa Barbara, and most stores within a 10-mile radius stock up on booze to meet the swell in demand. The results this year: 25,000 revelers, 311 arrests and 701 citations, according to the Santa Barbara County Sherriff’s Read More →
PG&E asks for 20 more years at Diablo Canyon
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said Nov. 24 that it will seek federal approval to keep its Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant running until 2045. The plant’s two reactors produce enough electricity to power about 3 million California homes each year, the company said in a release. The reactors’ current federal operating licenses are set Read More →
Landscaper wins in suit against producer
When a powerful Hollywood producer tried to stiff Santa Barbara small-business owner Arturo Gonzalez on half a million dollars of work, the landscaper stood up to the producer in court. And he won. Gonzalez’s landscaping firm, Progressive Environmental Industries, sued two entities controlled by Jon Peters, Barbara Streisand’s ex-husband, producer of “Rain Man” and Read More →
Forecast: hope for SB tourism
Santa Barbara County’s tourism industry has reached bottom, and the slow crawl out will mean reaching out to markets both close to home and across the Pacific. That’s the message industry experts delivered to hoteliers and restaurateurs at a tourism and travel outlook forecast for the county on Nov. 17. Particular bright spots are continued Read More →
Mixed signals from the top ruin strong economic foundations
As an awful year for business heads for the history books, we’re going to sound a couple of warning notes about 2010. What troubles us more than anything else are what economists like to call “externalities” — events clearly beyond control of those of us who operate in the Tri-Counties. Here’s a look at two Read More →
