Swastika graffiti at Dos Pueblos High. Holocaust denial leaflets strewn around IV. Slogans denying Israel's right to exist defacing a UCSB classroom.
Those were displays of anti-Semitism and twisted hate that surfaced in Santa Barbara this week, concurrent with International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
On this week's edition of Newsmakers TV, SB Independent staff writers Callie Fausey and Ryan P. Cruz, who reported on the incidents, break down the similarities and differences among the trio of episodes, which followed the door-to-door distribution on the Mesa of flyers carrying similar abhorrent messages on the first day of Hanukkah last December.
Next, Josh Molina recounts an interview he conducted this week with county Planning Director Lisa Plowman; attempting a bit of damage control in the wake of recent embarrassing reports about her departments' flailing efforts to produce a new, state-required Housing Element, the director said the quiet part out loud, acknowledging that a batch of potential new sites for housing was selected solely by asking landowners if they'd be interested in developing their property for housing.
Neighbors? We don't need no stinking neighbors.
Then Nick Welsh, expanding on his indefatigable reporting about the intractable predicaments of mentally ill people on the streets, details a pilot program that for the first time provides law enforcement officers in the county some limited authority to wield so-called "5150 holds," to transfer folks who may pose a threat to themselves or others to psychiatric facilities.
Plus: the city's latest bid to ease permitting for "granny flat" Accessory Dwelling Units as part of its policy to provide more affordable housing; the latest twist in the bizarre tale of chronic oil spills in Toro Canyon; SB city council member Kristen Sneddon throws her influence behind the need for a comprehensive Specific Plan at La Cumbre Plaza; UCSB and other UC campuses are left holding the bag as they search for dollars to finance new raises granted after that big strike by academic workers last year; and what happened at the first meeting of the Fire and Police Commission after it was granted new police department oversight powers.
Plus: Nick's epic rant about criticism of the SBPD's deficit of transparency in the horrifying Rob Gutierrez murder case.
All this and more, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV. Watch the show via YouTube below or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here.
The program also is scheduled to air on TVSB, channel 17, at at 8 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and at 9 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays, and is broadcast on KCSB 91.9FM at 5:30 p.m. on Mondays. P.S. Don't miss KCSB's annual fund drive, which runs Feb. 15-24.
JR
Lead image: This 1938 photograph, part of a digital education campaign called "It Started with Words," about events leading to the Holocaust, shows the windows of a Jewish-run shop in Berlin smeared with the German language word for "Jew." (Associated Press).