It's a full-house, all-star edition of Newsmakers TV, as six - 6, count 'em, 6 - of Santa Barbara's top journalists chew over, assay and dissect this week's top local news stories.
Ugh! Wait -- no, not like that.
First we check in on Gov. Gavin Newsom's latest decree, a declaration that he's rescinding the decree he issued three years ago (how time flies in a pandemic), declaring the spread of the Covid-19 virus to be a public health emergency: Does this mean the pandemic is over? It's a tricky question, but fortunately Noozhawk's Grace Kitayama is on to explain the finer points of the answer,.
Next up, Callie Fausey provides her take on Rep. Adam Schiff, D-L.A --, top Trump prosecutor in Congress, Nancy Pelosi ally and current leader in early polling in the 2024 race to replace long-serving U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein -- who made a brief but very busy stop in Santa Barbara this week.
Then Ryan P. Cruz, Callie's colleague at the Indy, reprises his coverage of the not guilty pleas of the four SB men arrested in the alleged gang-related shootout at Stearns Wharf that killed Camarillo visitor Rob Gutierrez, who was in town celebrating his anniversary with his wife, and sets forth the early hints of what the defense, and the evidence, may look like in that case.
Nick Welsh, the Angry Poodle his own self, breaks down the implications of a new state law that requires members of the Board of Supervisors to recuse themselves from voting on certain kinds of financial matters involving individuals or businesses who have contributed $250 or more to the supes' campaign, and illuminates the politics at play in Supervisor Laura Capps calling for some answers about how it will be applied, monitored and enforced locally (sigh, if only it had been in effect when a certain supervisor, we name no names, Das Williams, was ramming through the county's ruinous, pay-to-play cannabis ordinance. But we digress).
And Josh Molina, the hardest working man in show business, has the latest on the multiple political and policy conflicts rippling down the south coast, from Goleta to SB to Carp, over the state's one-size-fits-all housing mandate, as he points to a new proposed project from über developer Ed St. George as a possible test case of whether the city's historic and exacting design standards and processes can stand up to the build-baby-build juggernaut unleashed by Prince Gavin and the insufferable Scott Wiener, the self-regarding housing bully and state senator from San Francisco.
Plus: SBUSD's plans for Learning Loss Summer; new hope for the homeless in Santa Maria and Nick's not-so-fond farewell to the bad actor oil company formerly known as Greka.
Extra, extra: The genial host blows the lid off the Indy's big, special burger issue.
All this and more, right here, right now, on Newsmakers TV. You can watch the show via YouTube below, or by clicking through on this link. The podcast version is here.
JR