Comments by Carmelo
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Posted on September 29 at 9:51 a.m.
Interesting stories. You don't have to go as far at the Davidson Library to check out Isla Vista's history because you can go to www.islavistahistory.com, which has had over 1.6 million hits since its launch in 2002.
Carmen Lodise
Posted on August 6 at 10:33 a.m.
A sad story very nicely written, D.J.
Don't forget Jeff Levy who used to staff the I.V. store.
Carmen Lodise
Posted on June 25 at 5:31 a.m.
Nice start.
Isla Vista, excluding the UCSB campus, is only 1/2-square mile in six, not one square mile.
Carmen Lodise
Posted on June 6 at 8:48 a.m.
Allow me to express my gratitude to Mayor Sheila Lodge for her moving eulogy to her husband, Superior Court Judge Joe Lodge.
In it she mentions the time he ordered the release of some 350 people who had been arrested in a peaceful sit-in in Isla Vista‘s Perfect Park on June 10, 1970. Those of us active in Isla Vista politics and community affairs during the Vietnam War era will forever honor Joe for his brave and principled rulings in that case.
As Sheila notes, he could well have lost the job that he loved when he said, in effect, that the offense of torching the Bank of America three months earlier could not be used to restrict the entire community’s right to free speech and assembly. The demonstrators who made that point in Perfect Park were amazed to come before a judge willing to stand firm in the face of overwhelming pressure from the sheriff, the DA and a large swath of public opinion.
By the time he was an institution on the bench, Joe was even more forthright in publicly discussing that case when he appeared as the featured speaker at a reception launching the website "http://www.islavista.org/" on Feb. 25, 2000, the 30th anniversary of the night the bank burned. That he actually showed up to address about fifty people gathered at the Isla Vista Medical Clinic was a surprise; what he had to say was downright astonishing.
“I looked out at those young people who had been arrested in Perfect Park, and in letting them go I felt I was taking sides in a revolution,” he said to gasps from the audience.
In 2002, hundreds of people attended the anti-retirement party Mayor Lodge threw for Joe at the Montecito Country Club. I found it remarkable that four of the six speakers mentioned that his releasing the demonstrators back in 1970 was the ruling that most impressed them about the judge in his nearly 50 years on the bench.
I think of Joe’s words and example each time I visit the monument to the international anti-war movement in Perfect Park.
Carmen Lodise
Barra de Navidad, Mexico
Posted on March 8 at 8:16 a.m.
Your article is incorrect in the sense that Isla Vista residents also elect the five members of the board of directors of the Isla Vista Recreation & Park District, an organization that is far more substantial in its reach and impact than a a small city's council and/or school board.
Carmen Lodise
I.V. Park Board, 1976-80
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Posted on October 17 at 9 a.m.
Isla Vista, that rectangular box within the UCSB campus, is only one-HALF square mile in size, not a FULL square mile. 0.55 sq. mile, to be more exact.
Fun column.
Carmen Lodise
On Remembrance of Isla Vista Eateries Past