A new episode of Newsmakers TV premieres this week as the panel takes on two of the most schismatic and intractable policy problems facing Santa Barbara’s cities and county government: housing and cannabis.
Nick Welsh leads off with his own special brand of singular take on the Weed vs Wine conflict in the Santa Ynez Valley, which recently surfaced before the county Planning Commission and resulted three split decisions for the contestants.
Then Delaney Smith updates the complex public and behind-the-scenes machinations over the city’s AUD program, including a new – long overdue? – decision by council members and planners to target State Street as the locus of new rental construction.
And in a case study of the scope of the housing imbroglio, Josh Molina details developer Ed St. George’s fierce battle to build a hotel in a down-at-the-heel Westside neighborhood, the council’s pushback challenge of his private property rights with demands that he build housing and the curious role played in the affair by up-and-coming council member Meagan Harmon.
Then it’s a quick around-the-horn about the Assembly race, the sale of the Montecito Journal and complaints about some Eastsiders being left out of the just-counted voting for council.
And in the control room, we welcome a new member of the crew, as The Real Megan makes her debut as Senior Deputy Assistant to our impeccable director J.P. Montalvo.
It’s all here, right now, on Newsmakers TV.