GOINGS ON SANTA BARBARA : Treats and Tricks : Halloween events for young people are planned at De La Guerra and La Cumbre plazas.

If you don’t already have any trick-or-treating plans for today and tonight here are a couple of Halloween options you might want to consider--assuming you have young children.

The Santa Barbara Parks and Recreation Department is inviting children 12 and younger to De La Guerra Plaza between 4 and 8 p.m. for some Halloween action. There will be food booths, game booths, a fortune teller, storyteller, music, a pumpkin carving contest (at 6) and a costume parade (at 7). Admission is free, game tickets are 25 cents. For more information call the 24-hour information hot line at 564-5418.

Meanwhile, the Children’s Museum of Santa Barbara, located at La Cumbre Plaza, will be in Halloween mode throughout the day, with decorations, ghost stories and the like. Neighboring retail merchants will give out candy from 6 to 8 p.m. Admission is free to children in costume. Regular admission is $2 (adults) and $1 (children). The museum opens at 10 a.m. For more information call 682-0845.

One of the victims of last year’s Painted Cave Fire in Santa Barbara was the Alpha Training Center (ATC), a facility run by the Assn. for Retarded Citizens-Santa Barbara Council. It was a center where clients were trained in independent living skills and participated in social and recreational activities. Since the fire, the program has been operating out of several temporary locations.

Beginning Tuesday, the Frances Puccinelli Gallery in Carpinteria will show an exhibit titled “Things on My Mind,” a compilation of work by 12 artists involved in the ATC Art Studio program. All proceeds from the sale of these works will go to help rebuild a permanent center.

The show will run through Nov. 30, with an artists reception on Nov. 8.

Puccinelli Gallery is located at 888 Linden Ave., second floor. It is open Tuesday to Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and by appointment. For more information call 684-6301.

Speaking of art, the University Art Museum at UC Santa Barbara will present three new exhibits beginning Wednesday: “The Enduring Arts of Tibet,” “Roman Vishniac: Photographs from the Vanished World of the Shtetl,” and “David Bunn: Ruminations on a Stone.”

In conjunction with the Tibetan art display, artist Lobsang Samten will spend five weeks at the museum making a mandala out of sand. A mandala is a circular work made up of geometric designs, images of deities and other elements. The art is a Hindu or Buddhist symbol of the universe, or totality.

All three shows will run through Dec. 15.

The museum is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m. For more information call 893-2951.

Folks at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art continue to celebrate the museum’s 50th anniversary. And in a big way.

On Saturday they are holding the sixth annual Celebration Ball.

Proceeds from the $175-per-person affair will wrap up a three-year, $100,000 fund-raising effort enabling them to purchase commissioned work by Los Angeles native Matt Mullican.

Mullican’s work is still in the design stage, so it’s not known exactly what form it will take.

But one thing is certain--it will consist of several pieces focusing on Santa Barbara and the museum. Installation is scheduled for May, 1992.

As for the ball, it will have a 1940s New York theme, complete with a handmade skyline, a subway, Central Park and a Broadway night spot. Big band musician Ray Anthony, who began his career with the Glenn Miller Orchestra in the 1940s, will provide the musical entertainment.

The party will begin at 7:30 p.m.

For tickets or more information call 963-4364.