Santa Marians So Ready for Jackson Trial’s End

Carl Travis counts himself among the many locals here who are relieved that Michael Jackson and the hordes of international media and shouting fans will all soon beat it -- right out of town.

“At first it was neat, but now it’s just getting disgusting,” the 39-year-old construction worker said over the weekend. “Now we just want to get on with our lives.”

The most notorious celebrity courtroom drama of the moment is reaching its conclusion in downtown Santa Maria, with a jury due to resume its deliberations today in the pop star’s child-molestation case.

But for many residents of this laid-back farming town, the biggest news was the weekend’s annual rodeo.

Travis, a father of three, was at the rodeo parade Saturday morning, admiring the handsome horses and old guys in funny hats buzzing around in little cars.

“See, this is what’s really exciting for our town,” Travis said with a grin.

The hubbub and high weirdness of the Jackson trial, which began Jan. 31, has mostly been confined to a couple of blocks near the Santa Barbara County courthouse. And it is the residents of the modest neighborhood nearby who are most eager to see the circus pack up and leave.

Stephenie Gallas lives a few feet from the courthouse and the sprawling media tent city that has grown up around it.

Her proximity makes her a convenient person to interview, and she has been happy to oblige the seven news organizations who have asked her to comment on the case.

She didn’t seem to mind an eighth interview. But she said her family had been awakened as early as 6 a.m. by the cries of Jackson’s supporters playing to the cameras and screaming “Michael’s innocent!”

“It’s insane, it really is,” she said. “A lot of the fans are out there just to get on TV. I think it’s sad that people have the time and money to waste on that sort of thing.”

Across the street, Julia and Mark Townsend can’t stand the noise either. And they are sick of the traffic.

They have a 14-year-old daughter, Sherrie, who says Jackson’s celebrity hasn’t done much to spice up a town that can be pretty boring for teenagers.

Sherrie likes Jackson’s songs OK, she says, when she hears them “on the oldies station.”

“Trust me, if Usher was down there, I’d have a hard time keeping her away,” her mother said.

For city officials, the madness hasn’t been as unbearable as they thought it would be. The crowd of screaming fans averaged 30 or 40 per day -- far fewer than officials originally predicted, Mayor Larry Lavagnino said.

And the city was able to rent out buildings and other space around the courtroom to visiting media outlets, which helped defray the costs of keeping the peace.

A few businesses, especially hotels and restaurants, have been happy to have a captive pool of journalists to see them through the slow winter tourist season.

But as the camera crews prepare to report the verdict and leave town, some locals are concerned that an “ick factor” will mar the city’s good name.

To them, Santa Maria is better exemplified by Saturday’s friendly, flag-waving parade and the roping and riding that took place at the rodeo.

Bob Melena fears that when the trial ends, Santa Maria, where the population is just under 90,000, will be known more for the Jackson trial than for its easygoing, country-tinged culture.

“If they declare him innocent or guilty, it’s not going to be anything good for our kids or anything like that,” said Melena, a 53-year-old roofing contractor.

Parents Anthony and Melinda Diaz said the city is generally a good place to raise children. And, they said, the Jackson case, with its widely reported details of graphic sex acts, was not a good fit.

“Kids ask questions,” said Anthony Diaz, a 36-year-old car salesman. “They want to know what’s going on.”

Melinda Diaz was offended when a TV station covering the trial tried to tape her son’s baseball game to show how “normal” things were in other parts of town. “You don’t have to come interrupt a child’s Little League game because a freak show is going on next door,” she said.

At Pappy’s 101 Diner on Sunday morning, waitress Rajeana Rudolph said the trial had been fun to follow in the paper.

Plus, lead defense attorney Thomas A. Mesereau Jr. comes in on weekends and is a pretty good tipper.

But John Van Spyk, 64, a retired farmer, said the case has had no bearing on his life so far. He didn’t expect its conclusion to be any different.

“I couldn’t care less, and a lot of the locals are the same as I am,” Spyk said.

Robert Hatch, president of the Chamber of Commerce, sounded a little proud that so many locals have been blase about the trial.

“We’re not in awe of politicians, not in awe of Michael Jackson, not in awe of anybody,” he said. “It’s a slower-paced community, and we sort of mind our own business, if you will.”

The real beneficiaries of the trial have been hotels such as the Santa Maria Inn. Jeff Reed, the front office manager, said the media presence helped the quaint 1917 hotel stay in the black through a winter season when business tapers off compared with the tour bus-rich summer months.

The most obvious entrepreneurs have been those near the courthouse who have catered to the media. Gallas’ father-in-law is one of two attorneys charging TV crews for prime camera spots across the street. Nearby, Coffee Diem is reportedly doing a booming business, thanks in part to its wireless Internet connection.

The mini-industry has also helped the bottom line at Chef Rick’s, a fine-dining restaurant outside town in the unincorporated township of Orcutt.

Owner Rick Manson said word of his Southern-inflected cooking found its way early to hungry journalists living off expense accounts.

News vans, he said, have been crowding his parking lot since Day 1 of the trial.

Mayor Lavagnino believes those kinds of positive experiences, combined with all of the worldwide publicity, could boost Santa Maria’s image. He said some of his friends traveled to Europe recently and were surprised to find that people there actually knew where Santa Maria is.

Indeed, Saturday afternoon found British tourist Graham Jones, 56, taking a few digital snapshots of the media’s big tent city. He and Pauline Thomas, 49, had been touring California by car and figured they would stop and check out the scene as they headed north from Santa Barbara.

Jones was disappointed, however. The tent city was largely empty for the weekend and didn’t make for a very good picture.

The couple said they wouldn’t be staying in Santa Maria for lunch. They were planning to stop in Morro Bay.