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Mega-kudos to Callie Fausey for her terrific, affecting and intriguing cover story in this week's SB Independent, a deep dive down the rabbit hole on the promising usefulness of ketamine in counteracting treatment-resistant depression. Framed around her recent first-person therapy session with ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic with psychedelic properties now used legally for mental health treatments, Callie's piece is vulnerable without becoming treacly, laudatory without being rapturous, and thought-provoking without slipping into evangelizing -- all of it wrapped in solid reporting and evocative, insightful writing. Newsmakers says check it out. Speaking of depression, Josh Molina checks in with the latest in the slow-moving train wreck that is the state of labor relations at the Santa Barbara Unified School District, as Superintendent Hilda Maldonado and the school board chose National Teachers' Appreciation Day to announce $2 million in personnel cuts, amid ongoing toxic negotiations with the teacher's union that increasingly seem to be pointing to a possible strike at the start of next school year. Playing against type, Nick Welsh provides this week's supply of good news, reprising his reporting on the positive impact three "tiny homes" projects appear to be making on the scourge of homelessness throughout the county, operations that address both the housing and treatment aspects of the crisis. The gang also has the latest on the head-scratching controversy and conflict swirling around the downtown Boys and Girls Club and the 879th iteration of the promise by locomotive heads to institute commuter rail service between Ventura County and Santa Barbara and Goleta, any day now Plus: don't miss Nick rhapsodizing about the Board of Supervisors proclamation of National Bike Month in the county. All this and more, right here, right now, on Newsmakers TV. Check out the latest episode via YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Channel 17, broadcasts the show Monday-Friday at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. KCSB, 91.9 FM, airs the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. Image: NewScientist.com

An unexpected decline in funds flowing from Washington to local victims' service groups threatens operations of rape crisis centers, domestic violence shelters and child abuse programs in Santa Barbara County. Callie Fausey returns to Newsmakers TV this week, to reprise her reporting that examines how reductions in a special U.S. Victims of Crime Act fund, financed by penalties in white collar cases, has set the stage for nearly half-a-million dollars in cuts for the North County Rape Crisis Center and Standing Together to End Sexual Assault. The decreases come at the same time as demand for the intervention and counseling services of the organizations increases. Josh Molina and Ryan P. Cruz join the panel to update all the latest in the fast-moving and complex story about the push to build more housing on the South Coast, especially the political and policy cross-currents that swirl around two blockbuster projects in Goleta -- The Orchard and the Glen Annie Golf Course site. The gang also looks at the state of play for proposals to build affordable housing for teachers and other employees of the Santa Barbara Unified School District; a surprise, 11th hour objection from the fire department about the new location for the city's Farmer's Market; and an unusual new alliance between environmentalists and professional fishing outfits to clean up local beaches. Plus: A report from the front about City Hall's Vacation Rental Strike Force -- could a Hollywood movie be next? All this and more, right here, right now, on Newsmakers TV. JR Check out the new episode via YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Channel 17, airs the program every weeknight at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on weekends. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the show at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. Image: Center for Media Engagement.

By Melinda Burns On the heels of a report from the state Auditor’s office, county officials announced some minor steps this month to strengthen impartiality and public safety in cannabis permitting and licensing. The state released its report on March 28, following a yearlong study into how cannabis zoning permits and business licenses were being handled in six California jurisdictions — the counties of Santa Barbara and Monterey and the cities of Fresno, Sacramento, San Diego and South Lake Tahoe. The auditors urged all six areas to consistently follow their own policies in granting cannabis permits; document and review criminal background checks, and require employees involved in the review of cannabis applications to sign impartiality statements. “All of the local jurisdictions we reviewed did not always take reasonable steps to ensure fairness and prevent conflicts of interest, abuse and favoritism,” the auditors said, adding that Fresno and Santa Barbara County could benefit from implementing “blind scoring” as an additional safeguard in reviewing competitive cannabis retail applications. The auditors also found that the six jurisdictions did not always follow their own local policies and procedures for granting cannabis permits. Of the six jurisdictions studied, Santa Barbara County had by far the largest number of active state cannabis licenses — 2,052 as December 2022. Monterey County was a distant second, with 532 licenses. The six represented a small sample of nearly 240 jurisdictions in California that allow at least one type of cannabis business to operate, such as retail, cultivation and manufacturing. (More than half of California jurisdictions do not allow cannabis businesses within their boundaries.) On April 17, in response to the state report, the Santa Barbara County Executive Office announced that from now on, all county employees who sign off on a cannabis business license, including law enforcement, firefighters and planners, will sign impartiality statements, asserting that they do not have personal or financial interest that might affect their decisions. In the past, such statements have been made verbally to a supervisor. “This will enhance public confidence,” said Deputy CEO Brittany Odermann, adding that the county’s cannabis permit review already includes many checks and balances. “One person can’t influence this process,” she said. The CEO’s office also will implement blind scoring on future applications for cannabis retail operations, in which the operator’s name, business name and address are redacted from application materials to avoid improperly influencing government employees. Six cannabis retail shops are allowed in unincorporated areas of the county, and three have received zoning permits. Two have been granted business licenses and are operating in Santa Ynez and Isla Vista. “While there are no specific recommendations required of us and the audit found no financial or legal deficiencies, we acknowledge the value in assessing and enhancing processes related to issuing local permits,” said Nancy Anderson, the county’s Chief Assistant CEO. Years of review. State auditors also looked at the permitting process for a sample of 20 cannabis applications in each of the six jurisdictions under study. In Santa Barbara County, they found that cannabis applications in Santa Barbara County underwent an average 3.4 years of review before zoning permits were approved, compared to 2.6 years for the six jurisdictions overall. Other cannabis applications in the county had been pending for 4.4 years, on average, compared to an average 3.2 years for all six jurisdictions, the auditors found. Since late 2021, Santa Barbara County has required cannabis applicants to apply for county business licenses within 30 days of their zoning permit approvals; but some were given much more time, according to the state report. Of seven cannabis applicants who obtained zoning permits and were reviewed by auditors, four were allowed to apply for their business licenses after the 30-day window had closed, including one who was allowed an extra 183 days to apply. “Required time frames in local ordinances may not shorten the amount of time taken to process applications if local jurisdictions do not consistently enforce these requirements,” the report said. With regard to the time cannabis projects spend under review in Santa Barbara County, Anderson said, “infrastructure improvements, environmental mitigations and safety upgrades … require time to implement inspect and approve,” and project appeals have added “significant delays.” “The program continues to evolve, and processing times have improved in the last two years,” she said. In the Carpinteria Valley, dilapidated flower greenhouses from the 1970s and 80s were converted to cannabis and had to be brought into compliance with modern zoning regulations, causing lengthy delays in permitting. A number of structures had been built without permits and had to be demolished or brought into compliance. Also, roughly half of the 33 cannabis projects in the valley were appealed by citizens’ groups seeking stronger regulation of the industry. The state report showed that as of 2022, Santa Barbara County had some of the lowest fees for cannabis zoning and business permits, estimated at $14,275. Permit fees in Monterey County were $13,530. In contrast, permit fees for cannabis applicants in Fresno were estimated at $41,710; in South Lake Tahoe, $40,855; in San Diego, $29,590, and in Sacramento, $27,940. Background checks. State auditors found that none of the six jurisdictions “was able to demonstrate that it consistently reviewed or documented” the results of the criminal background checks for cannabis applicants and their associates, calling into question “whether that local jurisdiction adequately addressed public safety concerns.” In Santa Barbara County, all cannabis owners, supervisors, employees and people with a 20 percent financial interest or more in a cannabis operation must undergo a background check. The Sheriff’s Department conducts the checks and keeps them on file. To date, no Santa Barbara County cannabis applicants have been disqualified because of their background checks. But the auditors noted that of 13 applicants they reviewed, 11 were granted permits without the CEO’s office “first verifying and documenting that the Sheriff’s Department performed background checks on each owner.” The Sheriff’s Department will now provide documentation to the CEO certifying that cannabis applicants have passed their background checks, county officials said. Finally, the state report noted that only one of the six jurisdictions — the City of Sacramento — had an ongoing equity program that waives fees and provides technical support to cannabis business owners from populations that have been negatively impacted by cannabis-related crime, such as African-Americans and Latinos. Monterey County and the cities of Fresno and San Diego are in the early stages of implementing equity programs, though local jurisdictions are not required to do so. Santa Barbara County and South Lake Tahoe currently have no plans to develop such programs. Melinda Burns is an investigative journalist with 40 years of experience covering immigration, water, science, and the environment. As a community service, she offers her reports to multiple publications in Santa Barbara County, at the same time, for free. Image: healthypawspetinsurance.com

California's homeless population has increased by 50,000 people since Gavin Newsom became governor -- during a period when the state spent $24 billion to address the issue. Now, nobody is quite sure how, or how effectively, many of those billions in public funds have been used Those are the top line conclusions of a new audit released in Sacramento this week, which detailed a wholesale lack of accountability for massive state spending on Newsom's signature program: As the homelessness crisis has intensified, California under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s leadership allocated an unprecedented $24 billion to address homelessness and housing during the last five fiscal years, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office Nine state agencies administered more than 30 programs aimed at preventing or reducing homelessness. Some of those programs did such a poor job tracking their outcomes that it’s impossible to tell if they’ve been successful, according to the audit, which marks the first such large-scale accounting of the state’s homelessness spending. The stunning audit forms the backdrop of the discussion on this week's episode of Newsmakers TV, as Nick Welsh and Josh Molina join the genial host for a high-spirited conversation about the bizarre calculus of homeless program financing, in which steady growth in the number of people living on the street or in their cars, while government outlays directed at the problem skyrocket, somehow equates to success. Or something. The three amigos also drill down in detail on the politics and policies behind the conflicts swirling over a controversial housing development planned for Upper State Street, and a blockbuster project in Goleta, as county and city elected officials scramble to respond to state housing mandates that seriously have eroded local control over planning and zoning powers. Plus: City Council banned cars downtown and now is shocked -- shocked! - to find parking revenues drying up; a new Grand Jury report dings the Sheriff for shoddy administration of health services at the County Jail; and we join in celebrating the 25th anniversary re-commitment ceremony of one of Newsmakers' favorite couples. All this and more, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV. JR Check out our latest edition on YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Channel 17, airs the show at 8 p.m. M-F, and at 9 a.m. on weekends. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. Image: From "Homelessness in California" audit, Auditor of the State of California.

By Melinda Burns A long-awaited county Board of Supervisors hearing on cannabis odor control ended in a split vote this week, as three board members voted for more study, and two said they were frustrated by the delay. Dutch-made carbon filters, called “scrubbers,” have been shown to dramatically reduce the smell of cannabis in Carpinteria Valley greenhouses before it can escape into the outside air; but at $22,000 each and a recommended density of 10 per acre, they’re expensive. In addition, electrical upgrades for the scrubbers could cost tens of thousands of dollars more, a “potentially prohibitive expense,” county planners told the board on Tuesday. Board Chair Steve Lavagnino of Santa Maria and Supervisor Das Williams of Carpinteria, co-architects of the county’s permissive 2018 cannabis ordinance, said it would not be advisable or fair to mandate a single clean-air technology such as scrubbers to get rid of the “skunky” smell of pot that persists in hot spots around the Carpinteria Valley, from the foothills to the beach. Together with Supervisor Joan Hartmann, who represents the Santa Ynez Valley, they voted to commission a six-month study of the power upgrades that may be necessary in advance of scrubber installations. To date, only five of 20 active greenhouse operations in the valley are fully equipped with scrubbers, county records show. Hartmann said she supported requiring state-of-the-art clean-air technology in cannabis greenhouses, but she wanted her colleagues to address the smell from outdoor “grows” in the North County as well. The stench of cannabis along Highway 246 and Santa Rosa Road blows eastward into Buellton and as far as Solvang on the prevailing winds and “must be dealt with,” Hartmann said. “It’s really a disservice to our public not to regulate cannabis odor for the most sensitive people,” she said. “We need to find out where we’re measuring odor, what tool we’re measuring it with and what’s the limit.” Supervisors Laura Capps and Bob Nelson objected to any further study of cannabis odor control, saying they favored mandating scrubbers in valley greenhouses across the board. “My frustration level is coming to a place where I feel we just need to push forward with something,” said Supervisor Nelson, who represents Orcutt, Los Alamos and a portion of the Sta. Rita Hills west of Buellton. “… Sometimes, we do too much planning.” Many Carpinterians claim that the smell of pot has caused them to suffer headaches, runny noses, sore throats and respiratory problems; Capps, who represents portions of Santa Barbara and the Goleta Valley, said she did not support doing more studies “as people continue to suffer.” “Is it our role to be deciding what a business can afford to do?” Capps said, referencing the staff's concern about the cost of power upgrades to the industry. “I don’t think we’re doing our job if we kick the can down the road longer,” she added. “Who are we trying to serve? I don’t know what more studies are going to get us, other than more frustration from the neighbors.” Lavagnino said: “There’s a lot of people who are also our constituents who work at these places. That’s why when we talk about the cost of these facilities, it matters. People could lose their jobs.” “Wildly unsuccessful.” As part of Tuesday’s vote, the board majority asked county planners to return to the board with recommendations on how to control the smell of outdoor cannabis and how and where to set a maximum threshold for the smell. In the Carpinteria Valley, planners said, that might be at the property lines of cannabis operations, or around clusters of greenhouses where the smell of pot consistently pervades surrounding neighborhoods. Under current ordinances, growers are required to “prevent odors from being experienced in residential zones,” a standard that’s been difficult to enforce. The staff report for the board, six months in the making, identified three hot spots in the valley, based on inspections by county planners armed with Nasal Rangers, an odor detection technology: They were the 3500 block and 4400-4500 blocks of Foothill Road, and the 5600-5700 blocks of Casitas Pass Road. Nelson noted that not a single one of 3,700 odor complaints filed by Carpinteria Valley residents with the county since mid-2018 has ever been “verified” or enforced by county staff, who've said it’s impossible to pinpoint which operation within the clusters of valley greenhouses is to blame for the smell. And without verification, the county cannot require any one operation to install better odor control technology. “This isn’t working,” Nelson said. “… It’s wildly unsuccessful … Zero verified complaints is really alarming. Additional planning or studies is not the solution.” Echoing an idea that has the support of the City of Carpinteria, Nelson said the county should start requiring scrubbers when the growers’ business licenses come up for annual renewal. As things stand now, licenses are renewed even for operations that have long been a focus of odor complaints. “We could solve this problem and it would no longer exist, and we could stop having these hearings and these issues,” Nelson said. About 116 acres of cannabis are currently under cultivation in the Carpinteria Valley, out of 170 acres approved for permits there. Maps in the staff report showed that inspectors hired by the county detected the smell of cannabis around the perimeter of 19 greenhouse operations in the Carpinteria Valley — and along a section of Highway 246 west of Buellton in the North County. In six years, though, the county has issued only one notice of odor violation to a cannabis operator (at Valley Crest Farms, 5980 Casitas Pass Road). Quarterly inspections during the past 15 months have found that the growers’ “misting” systems, the odor control technology most widely in use in the Carpinteria Valley, are largely working, the report showed. These systems set up a curtain of plant oils that is supposed to “mask” the smell of pot. The problem is, the technology doesn’t fully neutralize it; and residents complain about the “laundromat” smell of the mist itself. Growers weigh in. At Tuesday’s hearing, a number of Carpinteria Valley growers, in writing and in person, urged the board not to mandate a “one-size-fits-all” solution for all greenhouse operations. Tadd McKenzie, co-president of the Pacific Dutch Group, said his company had switched to “non-odorous” nursery plants overall at International, five acres of cannabis at 4532 Foothill, and was nearly finished installing Dutch scrubbers there. At Rincon Point Farms, a 2.5-acre “grow” at 5775 Casitas Pass, 30 percent of the cannabis cultivation area is being eliminated, McKenzie said. Improvements to odor control “have already been made and will continue to be made by operators,” he said. “… Using valuable county resources on costly regulatory updates instead of improving ongoing compliance will only make market conditions more favorable to non-tax-paying black market competitors.” Autumn Shelton, a co-owner of Autumn Brands, six acres of cannabis at 3615 Foothill, said she recently learned that a power upgrade for her greenhouse operation would require running utility lines under Highway 192 and likely cost more than $1 million, “rendering it financially infeasible.” Noting that the price of cannabis has plummeted in recent years, Shelton urged the board to provide tax rebates or some other financial incentive for growers to improve their odor control systems. “While scrubbers is a really great idea, when the market crashes only two years ago, it’s really hard to come back from that and continue to spend and spend and spend,” she said. Nonetheless, as the hearing ended, Nelson and Williams both urged growers to start investing in better odor control technologies now. “The longer anybody delays, the more burdensome the final result will be,” said Williams, who lost his bid for re-election to Supervisor-elect Roy Lee, who was buoyed by overwhelming support from voters in Carpinteria, and who will replace the loser next January. “I hope there’s a clear warning sign that progress needs to be made," the defeated supervisor said, Nelson put it more bluntly: “This is an issue I see coming. I want to say again to this industry: Get ahead of it. At some point, if you’re not ahead of it, you’re going to get run over by it.” Melinda Burns is an investigative journalist with 40 years of experience covering immigration, water, science and the environment. As a community service, she offers her reports to multiple publications in Santa Barbara County, at the same time, for free.

By Randy Alcorn Imagine how much housing could have been built on Shoreline Park, The Douglas Family Preserve, and Elings Park. I suspect that most of us are grateful for the generosity, foresight, and determination of the people who rescued those places from housing developments. Yet, there are those who would castigate these folks as "NIMBYs" -- Not in My Backyard -- for foiling the planned people-packing projects. The reality for a place like Santa Barbara is that there will never be enough housing for everyone who wants to live here. In that respect, Santa Barbara is no different than many of the other highly desirable places on the planet that the vast majority of people can only visit. Attempting to accommodate the endless demand for housing here can only result in the degradation of what makes the place so desirable — sadly, a process well underway. The state's power grab. Santa Barbara’s superlative singularity is being steadily diminished by the persistent packing-in of more residents, a calamity intensified by the state’s ham-fisted housing mandates that override local zoning ordinances, impose must-build quotas on communities, essentially outlaw single-family neighborhoods, and allow developers to build without local approval. The consequences of such misbegotten policies are evident in California communities already overrun with population and plagued with all the soul-sucking tribulations of urban mass. There are, of course, critical and consequential environmental concerns to consider. Chief among these are limited water resources and increased susceptibility to wildfires, landslides, and flooding — all growing more severe with climate change. Several major insurance companies are now refusing to offer coverage for homes in California because of these increasing risks. Historically, one’s home has been considered sacrosanct; trespass is not only unlawful but also a grievous violation of a fundamental personal right. Our concept of home expands outward to include neighborhood and town. Whatever affects the outer rings, especially the neighborhood, eventually affects the very center — one’s home. There are certain expectations, sometimes firmed up with written covenants, but more often maintained by comity among neighbors, that foster the character of a neighborhood. Local zoning and building ordinances assure essential elements of ambience. People buy or rent homes in particular neighborhoods because of that ambience — often paying a premium for it. Now, however, the fundamental right to secure enjoyment of home and neighborhood is under attack in California by the barrage of state legislation that tramples over local zoning and building ordinances, forcing communities to accommodate more housing and to increase density, even in existing neighborhoods. This overweening, even brutal onslaught against neighborhoods and towns is not only a futile attempt to provide enough housing for everyone who wants to live in California but also a threat to transmogrify existing neighborhoods into crowded, cheek-to-jowl, favelas. Even if your home is in a single-family neighborhood, your next-door neighbors are now allowed to build multiple units of housing, right up close to your property line, and without providing off street parking. Did you have a view? Too bad. Imagine what becomes of your quiet, uncrowded neighborhood. Imagine the lines of cars parked up and down your street every day. Myopic confiscation. There can be no greater trespass than confiscation. What the state’s myopic, misguided, politicians are attempting to pull off with their housing mandates and usurping legislation is just that — effectively confiscating neighborhoods and communities. If you chose to reside in a neighborhood of single-family homes, the state can take that away from you. If you chose to reside in a small town, the state can take that away from you. And for what? To cram ever more people into a state that is already populated well beyond safe carrying capacity. Why do people who are not residents of a community, but want to be, have greater priority and superior rights than those who are? What is the rational and moral justification for destroying towns and neighborhoods of existing residents to provide homes for would-be residents? Not everyone can or should live in California. There are other places in the nation where housing is more available and more affordable. And just what is “affordable housing”? A flawed theory of social engineering, By “affordable”, people-packing politicians and social justice advocates mean anyone who wants a home, even in places like Santa Barbara, should be able to have one. They wrongly expect that more supply will lower prices — just keep building more, higher, infill every nook and cranny even if it means disregarding current residents and ravaging existing neighborhoods. If that worked, places like Manhattan would have some of the most affordable housing in the country. Some places have demand so great that supply can never be adequate. Prices never come down because the housing is always affordable for someone. If it were not, homes would not sell and rentals would stand vacant. No one is entitled to a home wherever they wish to have one. Trying to accommodate everyone who wants to live in a particular place results in no one really having that place ever again because what makes it so desirable is ultimately destroyed. It gets loved to death—and once it’s gone, it’s gone for everyone, forever. A green shoot of opposition. Some places are worth preserving. That is why we establish parks, preserves, and historical districts—to prevent the ravages of human activity from destroying them. Small towns are worth preserving too. Must every town in California become another Los Angeles? Your neighborhoods and singularly beautiful places like Santa Barbara are on the verge of abolition by misguided politicians and the insatiable forces of greed. If you are a current resident – either homeowner or renter—and you like where you live, you like your neighborhood, your town, your state, you need to push back against the people-packers in Sacramento and in your local community. Support the Your Neighborhood Voices ballot initiative that would rein in the state’s people-packers. Making the case for protecting a place from the ravages of over-population invariably elicits indictments of selfish NIMBYism. But such indictments aren’t a cogent refutation of the case being made against people-packing. They are rather a feeble attempt to dismiss the argument by besmirching those making it. Who is actually being selfish, those who conflate desire with deserve, and would force others to give up their homes, neighborhoods, and towns, or those whom they vilify as NIMBYs for resisting the taking? NIMBY is not a pejorative; it is an honorific. Randy Alcorn, a Santa Barbara resident for 52 years, has written commentary and analysis about local public affairs since 2000.

By Cheri Rae and Monie de Wit The Santa Barbara County Education Office has taken an important step forward in the battle for literacy in public schools, even as powerful political forces in Sacramento appear to have derailed hopes for statewide reading reforms. On April 11, Ellen Barger, Associate Superintendent, Curriculum and Instruction. made a comprehensive presentation to county school board members about the Science of Reading. . Although the county education office does not formally control curricula, Superintendent Susan Salcido's embrace of the policy sends a strong message to the county's 20 school districts—stretching from Carpinteria to Guadalupe—about the need for change. With less than 40 percent of students countywide demonstrating literacy proficiency, a shake-up in instructional approaches is clearly the direction to go. And following the scientific research about reading clearly is the pathway to follow. On the very same day, however, came major bad news from Sacramento. Local literacy leadership was offset when the chair of the Assembly Education Committee, Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance), refused to schedule a hearing for AB2222, a key legislative bill that would have required the science of reading taught in California classrooms. Authored by Assemblymember Blanca Rubio (D-Baldwin Park), the bill would have placed California in the company of some 37 other states that have adopted similar legislation. It also included provisions for teacher training, and requirements for textbooks purchased from a list approved by the State Board of Education. The bill had the support of 16 bi-partisan co-authors; more than 1,000 letters from individuals and 41 from school district leaders; and 69 organizations, including co-sponsors Decoding Dyslexia, EdVoice, and Families in Schools. The California Reading Coalition, the California State Parent Teacher Association and our own Santa Barbara Reading Coalition and The Dyslexia Project, along with the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and the NAACP California Hawaii Conference, also sent letters of support. The demise of AB2222. Unmoved by this large coalition, Assembly member Muratsuchi was persuaded instead by the opposition of the California Teachers Association, considered the most powerful lobbying organization in the Capitol. The union’s opposition was based on claims that the needs of English language learners would not be met, as well as concerns about losing local control, undermining other literacy efforts,, as well as cost. They were joined by the California Association for Bilingual Education, Californians Together, an advocacy group for English Language Learners, and Loyola Marymount University Center for Equity for English Learners. Such domination of the democratic process is not new by the CTA. Senate Bill 237, co-sponsored by Sen. Monique Limon in 2021-2022, addressed the need for universal screening for dyslexia, which affects one-in-five students, It passed unanimously in the Senate, but like AB 2222, was held up in the Assembly Education Committee and never even brought to the floor. These are the latest developments in the long-running conflict about literacy instruction at the state level. While powerful union lobbyists and politicians mouth platitudes about engaging stakeholders and serving the needs of a diverse community, and taking time to study the issue, California kids continue to lag behind their counterparts in dozens of states -- including Mississippi. That perpetually low-scoring, high-poverty state has moved up from 49th to 22nd in literacy proficiency, leading many to call it the “Mississippi Miracle.” But it was no miracle, simply an example of what can happen when informed decision-makers transcend personal beliefs and political positions to work together, developing public policies that are aligned and committed to problem-solving. The Magnolia State combined leadership, science-based curricula, and emphasis on high-quality professional development and support of teachers to achieve results. It is Happening Here. Barger’s recent presentation to the school board about the Science of Reading was the most hopeful sign that the students of Santa Barbara County have a better chance at reaching their full potential by attaining the right to read, and the latest evidence of a notable evolution in thinking about literacy here. There was a clear signal of significant progress in literacy leadership last fall, when we were invited to participate in a workshop hosted by the County Office of Education. It featured the brilliant researcher, Dr. Maryanne Wolf, to share her insights at an in-person session for local educators. Wolf’s international prominence in literacy and neuroscience has led to her election as one of just 80 permanent members of the Pontifical Academy of Science. She also is the founder and director of the UCLA Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice. Her presence in Santa Barbara is about as good as it gets when it comes to bringing settled science into classroom practices. And the follow-up online study sessions of her book, The Reading Brain, simply reinforced our realization that the science of reading is taking hold at the county level. As longtime advocates in this space, we commend Dr. Salcido and her team for their study, understanding of and commitment to evidence-based instruction, professional training, and support of educators. While Sacramento continues to play politics at the expense of our children, our county leadership has made clear that there is no need to wait for opposing forces to settle their differences; the children of our county have no more time to wait. This example serves to empower school district officials, board members, parents, and community members throughout the county to take another look at their literacy instruction practices and how science makes sense. Find more articles about the Science of Reading here. Here is a link to Ellen Barger's presentation. Literacy advocates Cheri Rae and Monie de Wit write frequently about the right to read. They do community outreach through The Dyslexia Project and their initiative, Literacy is For Everyone. Contact them at TheDyslexiaProject@gmail.com

On a new edition of Newsmakers TV (and podcast/YouTube/radio broadcast) our all-star panel of Santa Barbara's top journalists breaks down the week's leading local news stories: Callie Fausey has the latest (bad) developments in the ever-more rancorous contract talks between teachers and district administrators in the Santa Barbara Unified School District, as state-mandated mediation sessions failed to bring any agreement. Next step is a formal fact-finding process, in which the core issue of the dispute -- the teachers' demand for a 23 percent pay increase and the district's insistence that the money just isn't there -- will be tested. If the two sides don't settle their differences in that process - which can take three to six months, the district will be permitted to impose a new contract and the teachers will be legally allowed to strike. Time's running out on this school year, but the start of 2024-25 classes already is cloudy, Nick Welsh reprises his reporting on the push by City Council members for downtown business owners to tax themselves for amenities like private security guards, extra street clean-up and special events via a so-called Community Benefit Improvement District. The problem is, approval of a SEE-bid, for all you acronym fans out there, requires approval by 50 percent of property owners, and City Hall was able to wrangle to 30 percent threshold needed to put it to a vote only by putting its thumb on the scale and counting city-owned properties in the tally of eligible voters. Not to mention the somewhat intractable challenge of actually locating all the downtown property owners, many of whom are absentees hidden within a web of LLC obscurity. Josh Molina recounts a recent stormy session of the (all rise) Montecito Association, where residents were in a fine lather over a proposal by L.A. über-developer and erstwhile mayoral candidate Rick Caruso to expand the Rosewood Miramar Beach by adding some luxury apartments for long-term guests, a raft of boutiques for bored Rodeo Drive fans visiting our sleepy burg, as well as the now-requisite workforce housing units for a few lucky hotel housekeepers and bellhops who win the lottery. Amid the tumult, who should make a surprise cameo but the Great Man himself, whose silky-sleek style and dulcet tones did little to calm the waters among denizens of the village. No word yet from Harry and Meghan. The gang also offers hot takes on City Hall's latest looming budget shortfall, the city's latest plan to cure climate change via electric bikes, more recycling and a batch of cool and colorful charts and graphs, and the Grand Jury's proposal to stop letting the Sheriff investigate himself in the matter of the deaths of inmates in the county jail. Plus: Daraka goes scorched earth on Josh's podcast, Nick has absolutely no recollection of one of his better columns written two years ago, and Callie finally has a date for her long-awaited first-person ketamine piece. All this and more, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV. JR Check out our new episode via YouTube below or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Channel 17, airs the show M-F at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program at 5:30 on Monday. For those who celebrate: This week marked the 41st anniversary of the greatest tabloid headline in the history of American journalism. Read all about it here. Political must-read of the week: "Why Biden Has a Narrower Path to the Presidency than Trump, in 11 Maps." Oy.

Santa Barbara Mayor Randy Rowse says he views the cost overruns and long delays in the troubled Library Plaza project as "the poster child" for the city's Project Labor Agreement with construction unions. The project, scheduled for completion last fall at a cost of $9.3 million, now is not expected to be finished until July at the earliest, with a price tag approaching $11 million, a fiasco which the mayor ascribes largely to the PLA. That agreement, passed by City Council in 2018 and also known as a Community Workforce Agreement, requires the city to hire only union contractors for major public works projects. The result for the library project, Rowse said, was that only two contractors, both from out of town, bid on the complex job, which has been beset by problems from ground-breaking two years ago. In a special "Ask the Mayor" episode of Newsmakers TV, Rowse expressed hope that the debacle might be enough to convince some of his colleagues to join his opposition to the agreement, and revisit it at a time when the city has several upcoming major building projects, including a new police station. That seems like a long shot, however, in a year when three council members will be looking for support for re-election bids from the Democratic Party, which pushed the PLA onto the city and county government agendas. In his appearance, an hour before he was scheduled to deliver a "State of the City" address at an annual South Coast Chamber of Commerce event, Rowse also discussed other key issues that now confront City Hall, stating that: The city faces a "three or four percent" projected deficit for the fiscal year that begins July 1, indicating it will be manageable with cost controls, despite recent declines in local sales and transient occupancy tax revenues; The council vote this week imposing a 20-visit-a-year cap, and other new regulations, on the cruise ship industry, was the latest example of the lefty social engineering affliction of the council's majority, with only the mayor opposing the new measure; The State Street "promenade," the lamentable result of council clinging for five years to the pandemic-era closure to traffic of nine blocks of SB's downtown corridor, is a failed policy that continues to damage business activity; The ongoing, behind-the-scenes negotiations over a major new housing project at the Paseo Nuevo mall have been complicated by inflation and ongoing uncertainty about interest rates, and should not be made even more complex by a priori council efforts to make starry-eyed demands about affordable housing before there is even an actual deal; He will not be endorsing in any of this year's City Council races, as incumbents Alejandra Gutierrez, Mike Jordan, and Oscar Gutierrez seek re-election, not because he opposes any of them but because of a personal desire to avoid unforeseen political entanglements. Plus: Don't miss Josh pressing Randy to reveal the double-secret identity of his favorite colleague. All this and more, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV. JR Check out "Ask the Mayor" via YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Channel 17, airs the show M-F at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on weekends. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. CARTOON OF THE WEEK Cartoon by Jack Ziegler for The New Yorker. PODCASTS OF THE WEEK On with Kara Swisher. Swisher interviews historian Timothy Ryback about his new book, "Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power," a meticulously detailed look at the political and cultural events and atmosphere of the final six months before Adolf Hitler dissolved the Weimar government in March 1933. Trigger warning: Do not listen right before bedtime. The Bulwark Podcast. Tim Miller interviews triple smart political analyst Ron Brownstein about the fundamental political realignment that Trumpism has brought to America politics, why Michigan is the most crucial state for Joe Biden to win in November, and the possible impacts of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s candidacy on the election. Political junkie must-listen. The LRB Podcast. Thomas Jones interviews British scholar and writer Mary Wellesley about her London Review of Books essay on "Mother Tongue," a new book about the linguistics of women's sexuality, work and lives, a fascinating and fun conversation between two brilliant Brits that examines how words shape cultural ideas about gender.

By Melinda Burns In the March 5 election, First District county Supervisor Das Williams lost every precinct in the City of Carpinteria to his challenger, City Council member Roy Lee, garnering only 33 percent of the vote in the town they both call home. In 2020, by contrast, Williamswon every precinct, and 56 percent of the vote in the city of Carpinterita, when he defeated Laura Capps, then-president of the Santa Barbara Unified School District board, in his successful bid for a second term. The city’s 2-to-1 flip for Lee last month gave the new supervisor-elect a decisive boost of 3,497 votes toward his narrow win district-wide, final election results show. Lee won the district by only 565 votes, garnering 12,745, or 51 percent of the total, to Williams’ 12,180, or 49 percent. Besides Carpinteria, the First District includes the eastern portion of Santa Barbara; and unincorporated Summerland, Montecito and Cuyama and Carpinteria valleys. As an architect of the county’s 2018 cannabis ordinance; Williams paved the way for the conversion of 33 flower greenhouse operations on unincorporated land, ringing the urban boundary of Carpinteria with cannabis. To date, 170 acres of pot — about 129 football fields’ worth — have been approved for zoning permits just beyond the city limits. Of these, 116 acres are under cultivation, all in greenhouses with open roof vents that release the “skunky” smell of pot into the outside air. “It’s like a black eye,” Lee said during a recent interview at the Uncle Chen Restaurant on Casitas Pass Road, where he is a chef and co-owner. “Carpinteria is known for our strong community values, our hospitality, our beaches, our mountains, our avocados and lemons. "Now it’s ‘the land of weed,’ and we’re known for the highest density of cannabis ‘grows’ in the state, if not the county," he added. "How did that happen? It happened so fast, we were blindsided. Nobody from the council ever supported this.” Many Carpinteria Valley residents view what’s been dubbed the “cannabis industrial complex” as a menace to their health and quality of life. Since mid-2018, records show, they have filed 3,687 odor complaints with the county, including 71 this year. The stench of pot, they say, has caused them to suffer headaches, sore throats and respiratory problems. Williams, however, claimed in a recent interview that cannabis didn’t have much to do with his defeat at the polls. Issue No. 1, he said, was Lee’s popularity; No. 2 was his own support for affordable housing. “Cannabis didn’t come up a whole lot,” going door-to-door during the campaign, Williams said. “People who were incensed about it were incensed about it, but that was not the dominant dynamic by any stretch of the imagination, though it contributed to who gave money to Roy," he added. "There are vastly more people in Carpinteria who are worried about how housing shapes our little town than are concerned about cannabis.” A political earthquake. But Concerned Carpinterians, a loosely knit group with an email list of 350 people; and the Santa Barbara Coalition for Responsible Cannabis, a countywide group of 200 people, have been seeking stronger odor control for the cannabis industry since 2018. So has the Carpinteria council with Lee on board, and many residents of The Polo Condos, Padaro Lane, La Mirada Drive, Sandy Cove, Shepard Mesa, Cate School and other neighborhoods. “We didn’t think that Roy could win, but the groundswell from Carpinteria was the engine for it all,” said Ann Louise Bardach, a national journalist and a backer of Concerned Carpinterians. “Das can say what he wants to say, but the cannabis movement set the momentum," Bardach said. "Everybody knows this. It was a political earthquake, a political miracle and hope against hope; and I give all of us a lot of credit. We made a lot of noise for six years.” Williams said he’s tried and will keep trying to clear the air. “I wish I was able to effect change more rapidly on cannabis,” he said. “I was always trying to do the right thing, even if it was more unpopular, but I think I should have been more inclusive in the deliberation of how to get to the right thing.” As for his lackluster showing in town, Williams said, “Roy’s popularity in Carpinteria really helped him. I get that. He’s lived here longer than me. There were a lot of people who were potentially normally Das voters but still supported Roy because of those relationships. Lots of people who liked both of us had a hard time choosing. Walking doors, I still got a lot of positivity.” Williams said his support for building more rental housing in Carpinteria for working people hurt him at the polls, too. “People want young people to be able to live there, but they’re afraid of losing some of the charm,” he said, asserting that he has always sought to tell his constituents what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. “I really think there are some things that need to be discussed truthfully. We have an inconsistency between the things we want and how we get there.” Williams also blamed low turnout for his defeat, noting that it was only 47 percent, district-wide, on March 5, compared to 65 percent in 2020. According to a statement from Williams’ office, this year’s turnout in Carpinteria was down by 15 points, and “preliminary data shows that the drop-off appears even larger among under-45-year-old voters, Democrats and Hispanic/Latino voters.” “There’s many authors of any campaign victory, but the biggest issue is turnout,” Williams said. “I hope people walk away from this knowing that it shows clearly how important it is to vote in a local election.” A boatload of yard signs. Lee, a Taiwanese immigrant who has been a council member for six years, will take office as supervisor next January. He was such a long shot to beat Williams, a politician with 20 years of experience in local and state government, that some Carpinterians figured they were playing the lottery when they cast their votes for him on March 5. Yard signs were the first indication that Lee might pull it off, said Wade Cowper, Lee’s campaign manager and a longtime communications consultant for the Coalition for Responsible Cannabis. “It was pretty apparent, early on, that we were going to be running up the score in Carpinteria rather than changing minds,” he said. “You could tell, driving around Carpinteria, that we had a boatload of yard signs — like, ten to one for Lee is an understatement, by far.” Back in 2018, residents such as Bardach were hiring exterminators to look for skunks under their homes — until it dawned on them where the stench was coming from. Outraged cannabis critics began packing into board hearing rooms and flooding the board with letters. Furious about a cluster of cannabis “grows” around the high school, they asked the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles to investigate (to there has been no public response). In the 2020 elections, they backed Capps for supervisor, but she failed to unseat Williams. The coalition has spent more than $1 million appealing cannabis projects (and losing); signing an odor control pact with growers (it fell through); suing the county (and losing); and filing two lawsuits against Carpinteria Valley growers (one was settled and one is pending). From the dais, Williams sometimes upbraided his Carpinteria critics. He told them he was “enormously jaded” by their actions. He said they had “gotten angrier the more we tried to accommodate them.” He lectured them on “the moral bankruptcy of NIMBYism.” “We voted for Roy because he will be a better listener,” said Anna Carrillo, a retired teacher who keeps close tabs on cannabis permits as a coalition member and a board member of Concerned Carpinterians. No going back. Most growers in the valley have installed piping systems that set up a curtain of mist around the greenhouses to neutralize the smell of pot after it escapes outside. But the “skunky” smell persists in a number of hot spots around the valley, from the foothills to the beach, and the “laundromat” smell of the mist can be just as bad, residents say. A key part of Lee’s campaign in Carpinteria was his support for the installation of state-of-the art filters, called carbon “scrubbers,” in every valley greenhouse; and a complete phase-out of the misting systems. A scrubber developed for the valley by the Envinity Group, a Dutch air purification firm, was shown 15 months ago to eliminate 84 percent of the smell of pot before it escapes from the greenhouse roof vents and into the outside air. The owners of Ever-Bloom, 11 acres of cannabis greenhouses at 4701 Foothill Road, installed 110 Envinity scrubbers in 2022 for about $2.2 million to settle a coalition lawsuit. But Williams has long opposed any requirements for scrubbers across-the-board, insisting he can get faster results by persuading growers to do the right thing. Santa Barbara County is second only to Humboldt County for the number of active state licenses for cannabis cultivation — 710 compared to 1,207. And Santa Barbara County has approved 1,966 acres for cultivation to date — 170 acres in Carpinteria Valley greenhouses and 1,797 acres in outdoor grows, chiefly in the North County. The outdoor grows are capped at 1,575 acres. So, no one is talking about turning back the clock on the industry here. “The horse is out of the barn,” said Jill Stassinos, a teacher, a Concerned Carpinterians board member and an appellant on several cannabis projects. She said she went door-to-door for Lee, phoned eligible voters on his behalf and donated to his campaign. “There’s no way they could go back, but they could remedy the ordinance they put in place,” Stassinos said. “We all felt Roy was a long shot and were so thrilled he won. It was like a beacon of hope. Roy unified people.” “The solution is there.” In 2020, the Santa Barbara County Grand Jury concluded that the supervisors, led by Williams and Supervisor Steve Lavignino, “simply opened the floodgates” to the industry, with “some supervisors aggressively pushing their own agendas.” Williams stands by the cannabis ordinance, however, calling it “very strong in terms of accountability and standards on growers.” He notes that it is more expensive for growers to comply with standards here than elsewhere in the state. For example, greenhouse operators in this county must submit “odor abatement plans” as part of their permit applications. “Mandatory odor control is a totally new thing, and Carpinteria is the only place that got it,” Williams said. Even without Williams’ vote, the board could tighten odor control regulations before Lee takes office next Jan. 1. Late last year, Supervisor Bob Nelson, who represents the 4th District in Orcutt, Los Alamos, Vandenberg Village, Mission Hills and eastern portions of Santa Maria, requested a board hearing on the matter, saying a “shift to best available control technology” was needed. That hearing is now scheduled for April 23. County officials will present information on the findings of Geosyntec Consultants, an engineering firm that has been inspecting misting systems at cannabis operations in the valley; and county planners, who have been using Nasal Rangers, an odor detection technology, to survey hot spots throughout the valley. Supervisor Laura Capps, who was elected in the 2nd District in 2022, representing the eastern Goleta Valley, Isla Vista, UC Santa Barbara and portions of Goleta and Santa Barbara, says Carpinteria Valley growers who are creating an odor problem should be required to install scrubbers. “I believe the Coastal Commission will be a motivated partner in fixing our ordinance,” she said this month. “I’m looking forward to a new chapter … one that is less divisive and more conducive to how we can all live together.” Supervisor Joan Hartmann, who was re-elected on March 5 in the 3rd District, representing the Santa Ynez Valley, Lompoc, western Goleta and the Gaviota Coast, has said she supports banning any detectable odor beyond the property lines at both Carpinteria Valley greenhouses and outdoor North County operations. Currently, the county requires growers only to "prevent odors from being experienced within residential zones," which leaves out parks, schools, roads and farms and has been difficult to enforce. But at $22,000 each and a recommended density of 10 per acre, Envinity scrubbers are expensive. To date, only five of 20 active greenhouse operations in the Carpinteria Valley are fully equipped with them, county records show. Another six are slated to install them this year. That leaves no requirement for scrubbers in two-thirds of the 170 acres of greenhouse cannabis approved by the county so far. “We thought the board would immediately institute them, but they just kind of shrugged,” said Lionel Neff, a retired attorney, coalition director and a donor to Lee’s campaign. “The solution is there. It’s accessible, and yet the county doesn’t support it yet.” Meanwhile, Ever-Bloom is in the final stages of testing an odor sensor developed by Envinity for permanent use inside valley greenhouses Such a technology, providing detailed, time-based data, would be a breakthrough: it could help county inspectors identify which cannabis operations are responsible for the smell of pot in surrounding neighborhoods — a goal that so far has largely eluded them. The sensor is expected to be on the market this summer. “That’s the kind of thing I want to see,” Williams said. “That’s very exciting.” “Hard for Roy.” Besides scrubbers in every greenhouse, Lee’s supporters would like the board to require stricter zoning permits called “conditional use permits” for all new cannabis operations in the valley. For years, the city, Concerned Carpinterians and the coalition tried but failed to persuade the board to require these permits, which they believed could have limited the size, concentration and proximity of the greenhouse “grows.” Under a conditional use permit, which automatically requires a county Planning Commission hearing, a project must be “compatible with” and “not detrimental to” the surrounding neighborhood. In addition, Lee’s supporters want the board to ban detectable odors beyond greenhouse property lines; enforce odor regulations; install cannabis sensors around the high school; stop renewing the annual business licenses of growers whose greenhouses are a focus of odor complaints; reduce the overall acreage in valley cannabis through attrition or other means; and implement a complaint system that puts the burden on growers, not residents, to monitor the smell of pot. “Those demands are going to be really hard for Roy to execute,” according to Williams. Williams believes it would be a “bad idea” to require scrubbers in all greenhouse operations because better technologies could emerge in the future: “No serious environmental law is drafted tying yourself to a status quo technology, even if it’s cutting edge," he said. Besides, he says, any amendment to the cannabis ordinance to require scrubbers would have to be approved by the state Coastal Commission, a process that could take two years. At his request, Williams said, Graham Farrar, owner of the Glass House Farms at 5601 Casitas Pass Road, three acres of greenhouses that have been a frequent target of odor complaints, has recently installed the first of 12 Envinity scrubbers. Also, Williams said, he spoke to Tadd McKenzie, co-president of the Pacific Dutch Group, regardingInternational, a five-acre cannabis greenhouse operation at 4532 Foothill Road near Carpinteria High School. International has installed four Envinity scrubbers and converted to all-nursery marijuana plants. Nursery plants do not give off the odor of mature plants. Concerned Carpinterians says it was the group’s appeal to the county Planning Commission that resulted in a requirement for scrubbers at this operation. Finally, Williams said, Autumn Shelton and Hans Brand of Autumn Brands, six acres of cannabis at 3615 Foothill — another address that has triggered odor complaints — “will be one of the next ones” to install scrubbers, “and that’s because I asked them to.” “Some of them agreeing to change now is better than waiting years for all of them to change,” Williams said of valley growers. “I think there is going to be a lot of improvement this year, while I’m still in office. Anything that Roy initiates is going to take years.” Last fall, however, tired of waiting, the coalition sued Case and Alex Van Wingerden — whom Williams said he had persuaded to install scrubbers at Ceres Farms, a nine-acre cannabis greenhouse operation at 6030 Casitas Pass Road. The lawsuit alleges that the Van Wingerdens’ operations at both Ceres and the Valley Crest Farm, an additional nine acres of cannabis at 5980 Casitas Pass, are creating an “ever-present noxious odor” in the neighborhood. The lawsuit has been on pause this spring while the Van Wingerdens conduct a test of a scrubber called CleanLeaf. These scrubbers cost about $4,500 each. “We’re not going to stand in the way of experimenting, but it’s our belief they will have to purchase Envinity scrubbers,” Neff said. Members of the Van Wingerden family have been among dozens of industry sources who have donated nearly $150,000 to Williams' various campaigns for supervisor. One of the plaintiffs in the coalition’s lawsuit against them is Chonnie Bliss Jacobson, who lives on Casitas Pass Road. Campaign statements show that four members of the Bliss family, not including Chonnie, donated $22,000 to Lee’s campaign on Feb. 23, 10 days before the vote. “Mistakes were made.” Lee took office as a Carpinteria city councilman in early 2018, just as Williams was drafting the cannabis ordinance behind closed doors, consulting with growers and industry lobbyists. Carpinteria residents were not paying much attention; the community was reeling from the shock of the catastrophic debris flow of Jan. 9 that year. The city council, though, was already expressing its “deep concern,” firing off letters urging the board not to rush things, with Highway 101 buried in mud and Carpinterians unable to get to the board hearings. “Virtually no revisions to the cannabis regulations … have been made to address the issues raised by the city,” a Jan. 29, 2018 letter from the city said. In fact, since late 2017, Lee said, the council has sent 24 letters to the board, trying to rein in the burgeoning industry at its doorstep. The council urged the board, without success, to require conditional use permits for cannabis; create 1,000-foot buffers between cannabis greenhouses and homes and schools; require separation zones between greenhouse operations; cap the size of individual grows; set a standard so that odors “may not be detectable at the property line”; and share tax revenues with the city to address the increase in greenhouse traffic. “We got minimal to no response at all,” Lee said. “I feel like they just threw the letters in the trash," he added. "It’s frustrating, because a lot of neighborhoods were affected so gravely. We spent a lot of our staff time working on those letters. That took a lot of energy and money, and nothing ever came of it. "The county disregarded our experience," he said. In its most recent letter, dated Nov. 13, the city reminded the board that, “dating back to at least 2017, the City has advocated for the most stringent odor control regulations possible …” The letter “strongly urges” the board to designate carbon scrubbers as the “sole best available control technology” for “nuisance cannabis odors.” Lee said that his son, a student at Carpinteria High School, located just outside the city boundary near five cannabis operations, used to come home smelling like pot. Lee said he hears that students still sometimes get an overpowering whiff of the stuff when they open their classroom doors. “The school is what really bothered me,” he said. “How can kids concentrate in the classroom? Imagine if it were next to San Marcos High School [in Goleta] or Santa Barbara High School. People would be incredibly angry. Yet it’s next to Carpinteria High. It feels like we get treated so unfairly … “Many mistakes were made, and I won’t let that happen. That’s not how you run a business, that’s not how government is done. It has to be transparent," Lee said. "It has to be transparent. Now we’ve got loss of trust in our government. I will take this negative and turn it positive. I want to serve the people’s needs and wants. I’ll try to do it from my heart.” Williams said that, taken together, what the city and the citizens’ groups were asking for was “legislating cannabis out of existence, and I think that would be a real mistake … I think the black market has far worse effects on society than marijuana grown by your neighbor at a greenhouse that pays a good wage to local people.” During a campaign forum at Girls Inc. on Feb. 20, when Lee brought up the city’s multiple letters to the board, Williams responded:  “We have to treat each other like neighbors. If there is something we need to talk about, we need to have discussions. "I don’t think sending a strongly worded letter to the county is the way to solve a problem," he added. "It's to have a conversation together about something.” Melinda Burns is an investigative journalist with 40 years of experience covering immigration, water, science and the environment. As a community service, she offers her reports to multiple publications in Santa Barbara County, at the same time, for free. Images: Roy Lee and his wife, Tina, at their Uncle Chen restaurant (Carl Perry photo); Map shows county-approved zoning permits for 33 cannabis greenhouse operations around the city of Carpinteria, as red and orange dots. Ten operations are awaiting county business licenses (Santa Barbara County Planning & Development).

There's a growing phenomenon at Santa Barbara City Hall, wherein highly-influential executives suddenly disappear without a trace. For years, highly-influential, highly-paid suits hold forth, issue decrees and quell the local populace, and then one day...they're gone. Such was the case with the authoritative, long-serving city budget director Bob Samario, followed by magisterial City Attorney Ariel Calonne, not to mention the abrupt resignation of City Administrator Paul Casey, who at least offered an enigmatic, if circular, brief explanation: "Sometimes it's just time." Now come the peculiar cases of city Library Director Jessica Cadiente and her top deputy, Molly Wetta, who simply stopped showing up for work last month, without a word of explanation from their betters at City Hall except that they'd been "placed on leave." On this week's edition of Newsmakers TV, Josh Molina reprises his recent reporting in digging into the Case of the Missing Bibliophiles, which now appears to be related to the loud caviling and chronic kvetching they'd understandably set forth about the endlessly delayed, hideously expensive and enormously loud Library Plaza project. Callie Fausey returns to discuss her latest scoop, the revelation that the U.S. Department of Education has opened an investigation of UCSB, following several shameful on-campus episodes in of anti-Semitic targeting of the Associated Students president, daughter of Russian-Jewish immigrants, who had the temerity to speak out on behalf of Israel amid the vehement conflicts surrounding the war in Gaza, triggered by Oct., 7 Hamas terrorist attack. The journo duo and the genial host also examine the cart-before-the-horse decision by the Parks and Recreation Commission to authorize the removal of 49 trees from De La Guerra Plaza for the plaza renovation project -- before the plaza renovation project has been approved; the latest from the grinding labor negotiations at the Santa Barbara Unified School District; grim findings from a study of how the pandemic affected the mental health of teens; and Das's revenge in the battle over parking near the Hot Springs Trail. Plus: Callie's pelagic field trip to witness the start of the revitalization of the kelp forest. All this and more, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV. JR Check out our latest edition via YouTube below or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Channel 17, airs the show every weeknight at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on weekends. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday.

The good news -- for Democrats and others predisposed to favor small “d” democracy over autocratic authoritarianism -- is that President Joe Biden this week took a slight lead over Former Guy Donald Trump, in at least one poll of a head-to-head matchup. The bad news: the 2024 election won’t be a head-to-head matchup. ** At least three high-profile third-party candidates are aiming for ballot access in key electoral states, shifting the political calculus, slightly but meaningfully, in Trump’s favor, according to the latest Quinnipiac University Poll, considered among the ranks of reputable national polls. Seven months before the Nov. 5 election, the survey, like virtually every national poll, shows the race within the margin of statistical error; and like virtually every other poll, it shows Trump overtaking Biden when Green Party candidate Jill Stein, left-wing progressive Cornel West, and anti-vax independent Robert F. Kennedy are factored in: Head-to-head percentages: Biden 48 Trump 45 Biden-Trump percentages, with Third Party candidates: Trump 39 Biden. 38 Kennedy 13 Stein 4 West. 3 So there's that. Barabak explains. Influential political columnist Mark Z. Barabak of the Los Angeles Times returned to Newsmakers this week, to help cut through the permutations, expectations, and confrontations of the numbers, in a conversation about the state of play of what may be the most consequential presidential election since 1860, Not a fan of horserace polls, Barabak did identify one key factor to watch for in the endless deluge of media surveys of the race: the attitudes and leanings of what political professionals call “double haters” – voters who can’t stand either Biden or Trump -- and whether they a) break strongly for the Democratic grandpa or the Republican grifter; c) support one of the impracticable third way candidacies; or c) sit out the election on the couch. These pox-on-both-their-house citizens were important in Biden’s defeat of Trump four years ago, when he won them by 15 percent. Such voters represented only about 3 percent of the 2020 electorate, while multiple surveys this time out show that about one in five voters is a “double hater,” a finding which aligns with the sharp decline in popular regard for Biden, who now ranks as the most unpopular president seeking re-election in recent history. The 2024 "double hater" portion of the electorate closely resembles that of 2016, when many voters disliked both Trump and Hillary Clinton. That year, they broke late and overwhelmingly for Trump, as reported in a Politico analysis of the phenomenon: "Back then, Trump won a bigger share of the double haters than Hilary Clinton, outperforming her by about 17 percentage points amongst the group that made up 18 percent of the electorate. Biden turned the tables in 2020 and won the group by 15 percentage points (granted, they only made up about 3 percent of the electorate then, according to exit polling), and he continues to have a 45 percent to 33 percent advantage. This year, however, a third-party candidate seems to be a far more popular option — at least for now." Born on third base. Although Kennedy is the third-party possibility who currently polls strongest, he faces a big challenge in navigating the byzantine byways of gaining ballot access, a chore that is both complex and expensive - one big reason why he announced this week that his running mate is Nicole Shanahan, a wealthy Silicon Valley philanthropist and political donor once married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Much of Kennedy's current standing is, of course, based on his iconic Democratic Party family name, which on the natural hurts Biden; however, as voters get to know more about his anti-tax and conspiratorial views, he could end up pulling voters from Trump. The reason, according to Barabak: the "horseshoe" dynamic, by which the views of extremists from the left and the right tend to move ever closer to each other, obscuring traditional ideological differences in a meeting of whack job minds. As for Stein, whose previous campaigns have received support from Russian intelligence and media outlets, she won only 1 percent of the national vote in 2016, but the support she captured in the three the battleground states that decided the election – Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania – was greater than the tiny differences between Trump and Clinton; Democrats fear she could have a similar determinative effect in 2024. Because the Green Party has a guaranteed ballot line in many states, Stein faces fewer obstacles to access than West, a Harvard professor who has formed a new party, called Justice for All, which has qualified only in a handful of states. Bottom line. As a practical matter, Barabak emphasizes, the outcome of presidential balloting is a foregone conclusion in more than 40 states, at a time when the nation is entrenched in an increasingly toxic and hostile divide between Red and Blue states. So once again, the result will be determined in the three aforementioned Midwestern states, along with Arizona. Georgia and Nevada. One other political matters, the LAT's ace columnist: Deconstructed the just-completed primary voting in California’s U.S. Senate race for the seat long held by the late Dianne Feinstein. Explained how Rep. Adam Schiff, whose victory in November is all-but-certain, represents a political shift in California, in which geography now matters far less than a candidate’s personal brand on cable and social media. Analyzed the dubious Senate candidacy of Republican nominee Steve Garvey, noted womanizer and former Dodgers first baseman, who seems to be running for the exercise. Discussed the sore loser behavior of Rep, Katie Porter, who got stomped by Schiff and immediately complained the election was “rigged” against her. Reprised his reporting on the key Senate race in Arizona, where election denier Kari Lake is locked in a struggle with normie Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallegos for the seat being given up by centrist Kristen Sinema. Offered a tongue-in-cheek, three-dimensional chess scenario in which Trump selects as a vice-presidential running mate someone who is even more objectionable to Democrats than him, if you can imagine that, as a form of impeachment insurance. All this, right here, right now, on Newsmakers TV. JR You can listen to a podcast of our conversation with Mark via this link and watch the YouTube version below or by clicking through this link. TVSB, Channel 17, airs the show every weeknight at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program on Monday at 5:30 p.m. ** (Update 4-1-24: After this post was sent out to newsletter subscribers, a highly-informed reader noted that we had overstated the reliability of the Quinnipiac Poll. Two paragraphs referring to the poll generally, and to its specific findings about the presidential race, have been revised to be more accurate).