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Santa.Barbara City Council member Mike Jordan shattered all known land speed records for the Grumpy Old White Guy Politician class this week, as he moved swiftly to help threatened tenants in yet another episode of "renovictions." In the latest example of a growing national trend, rich investors recently bought a 52-unit apartment building near City College and began delivering eviction notices to tenants, keen on getting them out in order to spruce the place up, the better to raise rents and shoehorn student renters back in, packed to the rafters. When Jordan got wind of the scheme from a whistleblower, he immediately mobilized the City Attorney's office to help him produce leaflets for distribution to tenants in the "Little I.V." neighborhood building, informing them of their rights under the city's Just Eviction law. While Jordan acted with great alacrity, at least one knowledgeable source -- former City Attorney Ariel Callone -- thought he acted with a little too much alacrity, viewing his actions as an over-the-line political flex. Nick Welsh returns to Newsmakers TV this week to hash it all out with Josh Molina and the genial host, as the intrepid trio also assess the latest performance of political ju-jitsu by council member Meagan Harmon, who made a determined, if failed, bid to raid the city's emergency reserve fund on behalf of her no-doubt-appreciative patrons in the SEIU and other public employee unions. Plus: Planning Commissioner Sheila Lodge stuns the Central Coast by calling for a height increase on a building project; the Board of Supervisors confronts a scandal over mental health services at the county jail; and paeans to legendary sportswriter John Zant, upon his well-earned induction into the Santa Barbara Athletic Roundtable's Hall of Fame. And don't miss Jerry's head exploding as Nick once again peddles electric bike lunacy. All this and more, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV. JR You can watch the latest episode via YouTube below or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here., TVSB, Cox Cable Channel 17, airs the show at 8 p.m. on weeknights, and at 9 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. KCSB, 91-9 FM, broadcasts the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. DON'T FORGET TO RSVP FOR FREE TICKETS TO... RSVP below to free showing of "Citizen McCaw" and discussion on September 27, at 7 p.m. at the Marjorie Luke Theater. Click here to learn more. CARTOON OF THE WEEK: Call for Edward Hopper... New Yorker cartoon by Bob Mankoff.

Jane Hulse grew up in an 18th century New Hampshire house filled with Revolutionary Era furniture and trappings, listening to family tales of ancestors who fought on both sides of the War of Independence. Her childhood was infused with history, thanks largely to her father, who took her on hikes to explore caves where British Loyalists hid out from the Continental Army. A real estate man with a passion for homes from Revolutionary times, he had a zeal for collecting antiques of the period, from cabinets, clocks and rugs to muskets, blankets and beds, which formed the backdrop for Jane’s youth. Now Hulse has transformed her lifelong fascination with Revolutionary times into a work of historical fiction: “Prisoner of Wallabout Bay,” set in British-controlled New York in 1776, follows the dramatic, imaginary adventures of a teenage girl with a rebellious streak, while also telling a tale about a true, little-known aspect of the Revolution – British atrocities committed against many thousands of colonial rebels held captive on Tory prison ships. A graduate of Syracuse, Hulse is a longtime journalist who built a career in newspapers, including the Rocky Mountain News, the L.A. Times, the Ventura County Star and Santa Barbara’s now-defunct, historic morning daily (where she not only served as its indefatigable City Editor but also authored the most famous single line of the infamous News-Press Mess: “F--- you Travis!” -- a story for another day).** On this week’s “SB Authors” episode of Newsmakers TV, she talks about the four-year journey of writing her first book – which followed her deposit into a desk drawer of several earlier years of work on another volume. It may have been a necessary, if painful, warmup - after finishing “Wallabout Bay,” she realized the failed novel now may be adapted as a prequel to the newly-published one The ghastly story of the prison ships, which drives the plot, is an extraordinary and surprising one: at least 11,500 American captives died amid the execrable conditions in more than a dozen such ships the British positioned in the waters around New York. Along with educating herself about this forgotten episode of American history, Hulse also conducted extensive and painstaking research on even the smallest of considerations, required for verisimilitude for the tricky task of melding historically accurate detail into the lives of fictitious characters. At one point, for example, she had written a scene describing her protagonist, 17-year old Sarah Barrett, “buttoning up” her dress – only to learn belatedly that women’s clothing of the time did not have buttons, which were reserved as ornamental doodahs for rich men’s garments; As we say in the newspaper business: Get me rewrite! Jane’s Sarah is a kind of proto-feminist who works as a dogsbody at a Tory newspaper, and struggles with social pressures from family, friends and mansplaining men of all stripes to quit working, lose her ink-stained dresses, fix her hair, get married, have children and fit into every other gender pigeonhole of the time. As the fast-paced novel proceeds, Sarah’s personal turmoil and rebellion become deeply interwoven with the real-life rebellion wracking the colonies, and the patriotic and political decisions it forces on her and a cast of other layered characters. Our interview with the Ventura-based Hulse is a wide-ranging conversation packed with hard-won practical information about wordsmithing, editing, sifting the past, seeking an agent, searching for a publisher, writing at home, writing in coffee shops, writing at work, and other chapters in the arduous odyssey of becoming a first-time author. Jane will be talking about, reading from, and signing copies of her new book at Chaucer’s (shout-out Mike Takeuchi) on Monday, Sept. 11, at 6 p.m. Plenty of free parking, JR You can watch Newsmakers’ discussion with Jane Hulse via YouTube below or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Cox Cable Channel 17, airs the program at 8 p.m. every weeknight, and at 9 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the show at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. **Newsmakers is sponsoring a free screening of "Citizen McCaw," the 2008 documentary chronicling the meltdown of the historic Santa Barbara News-Press, on Wednesday, Sept. 27, at 7 p.m. at the Marjorie Luke Theatre. Tickets are free and seating is first-come, first-sit. Please RSVP (below) so we can get an accurate crowd count. RSVP below to free showing of "Citizen McCaw" and discussion on September 27, at 7 p.m. at the Marjorie Luke Theater. Click here to learn more. CARTOON OF THE WEEK New Yorker cartoon by Paul Noth.

By Melinda Burns A contempt of court ruling could be in the cards for Wendy McCaw, the Santa Barbara News-Press owner and co-publisher who shamelessly filed for bankruptcy earlier this summer. She owes nearly $3.5 million to her former newsroom employees and a former unit of the Teamsters in recompense for flagrant violations of labor law dating back 16 years. Since last November, the National Labor Relations Board has been petitioning the Washington D.C. District Court to issue a contempt of court ruling against Ampersand Publishing LLC, the company set up by McCaw to run the News-Press, for its “inexcusable neglect … indeed its willful refusal” to comply with a 2012 board order that was upheld in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017. “Orders are not issued by courts for parties to obey at their leisure,” the board states. The petition was automatically put on hold after Ampersand filed for bankruptcy this July 21. In a memorandum dated Aug. 21, however, the board asked the district court to lift the hold and proceed with a contempt of court finding, including “prospective fines” and attorneys fees. In the past, some employers found in contempt have been slapped with daily fines until they complied with board orders. “The NLRB’s primary purpose in seeking a contempt finding is to vindicate the integrity of its own authority as well as that of the D.C. Circuit …,” the board stated. “Contempt proceedings … have the primary purpose of upholding the dignity and authority of the court.” Ampersand has until Sept. 12 to file a response, and the board has until Sept. 19 to reply. Soon after that, the district court is expected to rule on the question of whether to lift the bankruptcy hold and proceed with deliberations on a finding of contempt against Ampersand or McCaw. McCaw, obey the law. On behalf of dozens of my former colleagues, the union we organized and the community we served; and as a reporter and union leader who was unfairly fired by McCaw, I fervently hope the judges will do the right thing. Perhaps the courts will finally catch up to our local plutocrat, ensure that my colleagues are paid what they’re owed, and -- for once -- collect some meaningful penalties. How can you be found guilty of breaking labor law for years on end and get away with never making your employees whole? Ampersand’s Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing for liquidation is not an ordinary case. Everybody in town knows that McCaw, a Hope Ranch resident, bought the paper in 2000 as a billionaire and could pay off her debts without blinking an eye. McCaw’s 2014 transfer of the News-Press building in De la Guerra Plaza and the printing press on Kellogg Avenue in Goleta (total assessed value: $27 million) to other companies that she set up, apparently so they wouldn’t be on the books or on the hook at Ampersand, should be viewed with considerable skepticism. (Personal disclosure: I don’t stand to get a cent from McCaw, by the way, although I believe she fired me and seven other reporters illegally in retaliation for union activism, just months after we voted to join the Teamsters in September 2006. We lost our case to a panel of anti-union appellate judges in 2012). McCaw finally was found guilty of breaking the law after, in the NLRB's words, committing a host of “flagrant unfair labor practices” beginning in 2007. In the saga of the News-Press Mess, as it is locally known, it took a decade, amid a thicket of appeals by McCaw’s union-busting lawyers and Republican politicking against the labor board in Congress -- but in 2017, the D.C. Court of Appeals ordered McCaw to bargain with her employees in good faith, sign a union contract with her newsroom and stop “interfering with, restraining or coercing” employees who were simply exercising their rights as union members. Specifically, the court found, McCaw illegally gave the Teamsters the runaround in contract negotiations, fired two more workers, suspended merit pay after the union vote and hired temporary employees to displace reporters. She did not comply with the court order. Then, in 2019, an appellate court upheld a board ruling requiring her to pay $2.2 million to make her employees whole and compensate the Teamsters for expenses incurred during years of bad-faith bargaining at the News-Press. The Teamsters unit we joined, the Graphic Communications Conference, recently split off from the Teamsters to form the Printing Packaging & Production Workers Union of North America. With interest, the amount McCaw owes her employees and the Printing Packaging & Production union has grown to nearly $3.5 million. $532.96 in the bank... In bankruptcy court documents, McCaw claims that Ampersand has only $532.96 in the bank, plus $116,000 in assets, including accounts receivable, office furniture, vehicles and artwork. The News-Press historical archive, saved on microfiche and in newsprint clippings, is listed in court documents as an asset with an “unknown” value. The total amount that McCaw owes to 818 creditors, including former subscribers, employees, businesses, nonprofits, schools and government agencies, is $5.1 million, the record shows. Also included in the total is a $1.5 million loan that McCaw made to the News-Press in 2014. The total apparently leaves out nearly $1.3 million in interest that McCaw owes to her former employees and the union. On Thursday (Sept 7), an initial meeting of McCaw’s creditors is scheduled to be held at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court: Central District of California, by phone, beginning at 9 a.m. But at that time, because of the public’s interest in the case, Jerry Namba, the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee, says he will announce a postponement to 1 p.m. Namba will run Thursday’s meeting, at which McCaw’s creditors can question a representative of Ampersand about McCaw’s assets. Creditors are not required to attend, and no decision in the case will be made. The meeting is public. The call-in number is 866-918-7970, using the code 5723963. Melinda Burns is an award-winning investigative journalist with 40 years of experience in the business, including 21 at the News-Press. As a community service, she offers her reports to multiple publications in Santa Barbara County, at the same time, for free. RSVP below to free showing of "Citizen McCaw" and discussion on September 27, at 7 p.m. at the Marjorie Luke Theater. Click here to learn more. Image: Commentary (mormondiscussionpodcast.org).

Labor Day seems an apt occasion to celebrate the life well lived of Marilyn McMahon, who died last month at 93, after suffering complications from a bad fall. Marilyn worked as a feature writer at the Santa Barbara News-Press for nearly half-a-century. Melding craft, industry and caring, she wove a tapestry of words, via some 6,000 published pieces, that told the over-arching story of her community and the people, ordinary and exceptional, who made it singularly special. As a journalist, Marilyn was a graceful writer and a conscientious reporter who reliably brought curiosity, energy, and solicitude to her work. For her, there was no such thing as an insignificant assignment; she was a skilled and self-respecting wordsmith, and she never mailed it in. In the newsroom she was a supportive and sympathetic colleague and, when bad trouble came to the paper where she spent her entire career, she also was a steadfast and loyal comrade to her coworkers. On that hot July day in 2006, when the bitter conflict between employees and owner broke into public view, she stood front and center in a trademark straw hat, as the besieged staff emerged from the News-Press Building with duct tape stuck across their mouths to demonstrate their workplace plight. The iconic image shot around the globe as the most vivid symbol of one of the most bitter struggles in American journalism history. A special salute. The story of the newspaper’s meltdown has been well-told elsewhere* but Marilyn deserves a special salute and appreciation for the unsung hero’s role she played in this sad and deplorable episode of local history. She began working at the paper in 1975, not long after the historic reign of Thomas M. Storke, and plied her trade throughout the following years of first-rate ownership under the New York Times. She truly cared about it as an institution that served, and helped hold together, her community, and she modeled the belief that each person who worked there had a duty of stewardship, to protect its legacy and longevity. In the 17 years that followed the famed duct tape demonstration, every single one of those newsroom colleagues was fired, forced out or resigned. Over the years, as the staff got smaller and smaller, as the National Labor Relations Board issued repeated rulings of unfair labor practices, and as the paper declined in circulation and influence, Marilyn kept going to work. She certainly had the means to quit the forsaken paper, to escape the toxic atmosphere and mean-spiritedness, but she endured, in part to keep faith with her departed colleagues. Marilyn told friends that she was “Teflon,” an implausible target for union-busting taunts and tactics, because her age, long experience and standing in the community would protect her. And as long as she stayed, the union, which the employees had voted for overwhelmingly, could not definitively be broken. In the end, she was the last one standing. As Melinda Burns wrote in her lovely obituary of Marilyn: "Amid the meltdown, McMahon threw her support behind the newsroom effort to join the Teamsters and fight for a union contract. She was not afraid to represent the Teamsters at the negotiating table (and) would roll into the room in a wheelchair. “'I don’t care if it’s the f—ing Mineworkers of America, we are going to have a union,'” she said. ...Dozens of reporters and editors quit or were fired under her punitive regime. But Marilyn stayed on, declaring herself to be the face of the resistance in what was left of the newsroom. After 2006, she never got a raise. When she died on August 24, she had outlasted the paper by five weeks." Now it can be told. On July 23, Marilyn got her final revenge when she became the original, secret source for the breaking news that the paper had filed for bankruptcy. Lawyers for the owners had quietly and cowardly filed the documents with the Bankruptcy Court the day before. This motif, by which the wealthy, governments and corporations seek to lowball bad news, burying it at the start of the weekend, is so commonplace that it has its own locution in newsrooms across the nation: It's called The Friday Night News Dump. It was not until the next day that Marilyn and the paper's handful of other employees were sent a short and shameful email that served as their first and only notice that the paper was officially out of business,– and that the wages they had earned in the previous pay period would not be forthcoming, at least outside of future bankruptcy finagling. Determined to thwart the stealthy effort to shroud the news, Marilyn soon delivered a copy of the offending email to a gossip-sodden local talk show host (we name no names), ensuring it would swiftly be forwarded to local reporters – and beyond. It didn’t take long for Noozhawk scoop artist Josh Molina, followed by the Independent’s Jean Yamamura and KEYT’s Tracy Lehrer to blast out the sad but important news – with the LA Times, and the Washington Post. and others weighing in soon after. Thank you Marilyn, and Godspeed. JR * What may be the last-ever, big screen, public showing of "Citizen McCaw," the 2008 documentary that chronicles the meltdown of Santa Barbara's historic daily newspaper, will take place on Wednesday, Sept. 27, at the Marjorie Luke Theatre at 7 p.m. Tickets are free, A panel discussion on "The Future of Local News" will follow the film RSVP below to free showing of "Citizen McCaw" and discussion on September 27, at 7 p.m. at the Marjorie Luke Theater. Click here to learn more. Images: Marilyn on a 2020 Zoom call; Marilyn in her trademark straw hat stands front and center at the July 2006 Duct Tape Demonstration (Santa Barbara Independent); Poster for Sept. 27 showing of "Citizen McCaw" (Rod Lathim).

We haven’t actually asked him this, but Newsmakers feels safe speculating that there are days – a lot of days – when Santa Barbara Mayor Randy Rowse keeps asking himself, “Now why did I want to come back to this, again?” To his credit, Hizzoner, who walked away from City Hall in 2019 only to return two years later, endured yet another ape dance City Council meeting this week: His colleagues frittered away four hours which, alas, none of us will ever recover, yammering about the apparently impenetrable cosmic mystery of how to move the 97 per cent of the population bereft of an electric bike up and down long stretches of State Street. “I am sitting here listening to us spin ourselves into a tizzy, trying our best not to do the simplest thing on the planet,” said Rowse, an advocate of re-opening to traffic at least some of the nine blocks closed as an emergency Covid measure in (checks notes) 2020. On this week’s edition of Newsmakers TV, Josh Molina recounts the hijinks and low drama in the latest chapter of Santa Barbara’s longest running civic soap opera, in which our elected worthies did manage to come to at least one actual decision -- painting bike lanes on the street, at the low-low cost of only $10K per block, in a modest bid to protect pedestrians who cheat death, inflicted by the two-wheel mafia, each time they successfully venture onto State Street. Melinda Burns joins the gang to set the stage for next week’s first meeting in the controversial bankruptcy proceedings of the city’s defunct historic daily paper, which owes at least $5 million to a long list of creditors, not least a host of former employees. Among those on the list of those owed (more than $75,000) was longtime features writer Marilyn McMahon, the grande dame of local journalism, who died last week at 93, a great Santa Barbara character and community treasure, about whom the panel shares some fond remembrances. The trio also recall the life and times of David Pritchett, a hard-charging environmental activist, who also passed away in recent days, and whom former Community Development Director Dave Davis aptly recalled as a “brilliant bumblebee underneath your shirt.” All this and more, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV. JR You can watch the latest episode via YouTube below or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Cox Cable Channel 17, airs the show at 8 p.m. on weeknights, and at 9 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. KCSB, 91-9 FM, broadcasts the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. Image: Separated at birth? Booking mug shot of the 45th President of the United States and Vigo, aka Prince Vigo Von Homburg Deutschendorf, Scourge of Carpathia, Sorrow of Moldavia, Vigo the Carpathian, Vigo the Cruel, Vigo the Torturer, Vigo the Despised and Vigo the Unholy Carpathian, the main antagonist of Ghostbusters II (Twitter).

In a prospective glimpse of Santa Barbara's next mayor's race, Eric Friedman on Friday jabbed at City Council confrere Kristen Sneddon's widely-publicized complaints about the opacity of Santa Barbara's $667 million budget, saying city finances are "more transparent" than ever. In this week's edition of Newsmakers TV, the District 5 councilman also said that he may revive a version of a proposed moratorium on hotel construction, amid increasing political conflicts between housing and hotel development, which he previously tried and failed to pass. He also indicated that he expects to resurrect his controversial, once-defeated bid to reduce the number of blocks closed to traffic by State Street's alleged Promenade. First elected in 2017, and re-elected to a five-year term in 2021, Friedman performed sturdy terpsichorean exertions in dancing around questions from political writer Josh Molina and the genial host about widespread speculation that he plans to run for mayor four years hence, insisting he is solely focused on his current policy and political duties. Although Mayor Randy Rowse is only in the second year of his term in the most prominent office at City Hall, and the only one elected citywide, odds makers, insiders and troublemakers already are laying prop bets about potential future challengers, with council member Sneddon topping the Most Likely Contenders list. Sneddon recently attracted considerable attention for her pointed questioning of city staff over what she perceived as a lack of transparency during budget deliberations; friends of City Administrator Rebecca Bjork subsequently pointed to Sneddon's public calling out of staff as one factor in Bjork's recent decision abruptly to announce her resignation. In our conversation, Friedman opined that the episode was not a significant consideration in the administrator's retirement, while also criticizing the tone and tenor of Sneddon's budget inquiries. Chair of the council's Finance Committee, Friedman not only praised Finance Director Keith DeMartini,but also noted that several online budget transparency tools have been added to the city website in recent years, providing more accurate, real-time visibility into public finances. "It's so transparent that it can become confusing," he said, in discussing Sneddon's comments. JR You can watch our conversation with Eric Friedman via YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Cox Cable Channel 17, broadcasts the program at 8 p.m. every weeknight, and at 9 a.m. on weekends. KCSB, 91.9 FM, airs it at 5:30 p.m. on Mondays. CARTOON OF THE WEEK New Yorker cartoon by Brendan Loper. A reminder that “Citizen McCaw,” the prescient and acclaimed 2008 documentary chronicling the heartbreaking and heedless destruction of Santa Barbara’s historic daily newspaper, will return for a free, one-time public screening at the Marjorie Luke Theatre, Wednesday, Sept. 27 at 7 p.m. The film focuses on the dramatic events of 2006-07 that stunned the community and set in motion the slow decline and inexorable death of the once-vibrant Santa Barbara News-Press, now in bankruptcy proceedings. While presaging an era of vast economic disruption for the newspaper industry, the documentary most importantly tells the sad, shameful and uniquely local story of how an enterprise was destroyed, after serving Santa Barbara, for a century-and-a-half, as a town square of shared and trusted public interest news and information. RSVP, via the blue button below, to reserve space to see this essential account of a far-reaching episode of local history, P.S. We’re also assembling an all-star panel for a conversation about the future of local news, to follow the main feature. Please send your thoughts and questions on the subject which you’d like to hear addressed, to newsmakerswithjr@gmail.com. RSVP below to free showing of "Citizen McCaw" and discussion on September 27, at 7 p.m. at the Marjorie Luke Theater. Click here to learn more.

“Citizen McCaw,” the prescient and acclaimed 2008 documentary that chronicles the heartbreaking and heedless destruction of Santa Barbara’s historic daily newspaper, will return for a free, one-time public screening at the Marjorie Luke Theatre, Wednesday, Sept. 27 at 7 p.m. The film focuses on the dramatic events of 2006-07 that stunned the community and set in motion the slow decline and inexorable death of the once-vibrant Santa Barbara News-Press, now in bankruptcy proceedings. While presaging an era of vast economic disruption for the newspaper industry, the documentary most importantly tells the sad, shameful and uniquely local story of how an enterprise was destroyed, after serving Santa Barbara, for a century-and-a-half, as a town square of shared and trusted public interest news and information. Next month's free showing is underwritten by Newsmakers, with support and permission from the film’s co-producers – Rod Lathim, Charles Minsky, Peter Seaman, Brent Sumner, and Sam Tyler. As a newsletter subscriber and loyal reader, you are among the first to hear about this limited seating event. We invite you to RSVP, via the blue button below, to reserve space to see this essential account of a far-reaching episode of local history, We’ll have more information in coming weeks about the panel we’re assembling for a conversation about the future of local news. In the meantime, please send us your thoughts and questions on the subject which you’d like to hear addressed. Thanks as always for your support of Newsmakers – see you on Sept. 27. -- JR and Hap RSVP below to free showing of "Citizen McCaw" and discussion on September 27, at 7 p.m. at the Marjorie Luke Theater. Image: Poster for March 7, 2008 premiere of "Citizen McCaw" at the Arlington Theater,

Less than two years after accepting the job, Santa Barbara City Administrator Rebecca Bjork surprised her City Council bosses this week, abruptly giving notice that she’s bailing out at the end of the year. Bjork and everyone else at City Hall tried to put a happy face on her retirement announcement after 37 years on the city payroll. Her no-nonsense personal style and impatience with pettier political aspects of her $324,180.48-a-year post coruscated, however, amid some recent public scrapes and scrums with several council members; friends say that Rebecca returned from a four-week vacation in a who-needs-this-aggravation state of mind. Josh Molina and Ryan P. Cruz return to Newsmakers TV this week to break down the behind-the-scenes story of Bjork’s impending departure, and what it portends for city government moving forward. Callie Fausey, education reporter for the Independent, joins the gang with an update on a big financial boost for the dual enrollment partnership between City College and the high schools of the SB Unified School District, plus the warmhearted tale of the Housing Authority providing free back-to-school supplies for kids living in public dwellings. She also reprises her reporting on efforts to protect the health and well-being of seniors at a time when Santa Barbara and Ventura are the two most rapidly warming counties in the U.S. as climate scientists declare the “era of global boiling” has begun. Plus: How Alejandra and (no relation) Oscar Gutierrez are battling to offset cuts in the Parks and Recreation department budget by contriving to open Eastside and Westside school grounds to the community; the latest on a century of controversy about what to do with De La Guerra Plaza; who's left holding the bag in the bankruptcy of the morning paper; and Dodger fan boys Josh and Ryan confront the unfeeling meanness of their team’s management in the wake of a tragic fatal accident at the ballpark. All this and more, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV. JR You can watch the new show via YouTube below or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Cox Cable Channel 17, airs the program at 8 p.m. Monday-Friday, and at 9 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. =, 91.9 FM, broadcasts it on Monday at 5:30 p.m. CARTOON OF THE WEEK Images: Shocker - Spider Man Marvel Legend Series (Hasbropulse.com); The New Yorker cartoon b Teresa Burns Parkhurst (h/t Kate Ford).

On August 23, the first debate among the Republican wannabes for President will take place in Wisconsin. Amazing but true, next year’s campaign is already upon us (a mere 451 days before the Nov. 5, 2024 election, for those keeping score at home) as eight GOP candidates have qualified for the Fox News-sponsored debate at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum in less than two weeks. Don’t bet on Donald Trump showing up. Bill Carrick, one of the nation’s most experienced, talented and well-regarded Democratic political practitioners, explains why Trump is a near-certain no-show – and also answers a host of other key questions about the upcoming campaign, on a new edition of Newsmakers TV. It's the first in an occasional “State of Play” series aimed at mapping the 2024 political landscape. Carrick began his career more than 40 years ago, as political director for the late Senator Ted Kennedy. Since then, he's managed or consulted on multiple presidential campaigns and, for the last three decades, served as a chief campaign adviser for Senator Dianne Feinstein, while directing media strategy on scores of candidate and ballot measure races in California. In our extended conversation, Carrick offers smart and well-informed insights about: The hugely consequential stakes of the 2024 race, which boils down to a contest between those embracing the norms of liberal democracy and right-wing forces pushing the nation towards authoritarianism. The reasons why Trump’s strength grows within the Republican Party with each criminal indictment brought against him - and some possible cracks in the near-monolithic support which current public polls show for him among GOP voters. The ill-advised strategic mistake shared by nearly all Republican challengers of Trump, with rundowns on the campaigns of Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Chris Christie, and other alleged rivals in the party. The considerable political dangers that old age pose for octogenarian President Joe Biden – and the opportunities they present for the GOP to run directly at unpopular Vice President Kamala Harris. The disruptive threat posed by third party candidates, from "No Labels" to Green aspirant Cornel West, if the election follows recent trends of being decided by mere tens of thousands of total votes in a few key states. Carrick also offers his take on embattled Senator Feinstein, his longtime client, and why progressive Democrats should watch out for what they wish in calling for the resignation of the 90-year old incumbent before her term ends at the end of next year. Plus: an assessment of the three-way Democratic race to succeed Feinstein; the party's intertwined problems of the primary calendar and the barking mad candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; and professional punditry about the 2024 battles for House and Senate control. All this and more, right here, right now, on Newsmakers TV. JR You can watch our conversation with Bill Carrick via YouTube below, or by clicking through this link, or listen to the podcast version here. TVSB, Cox Channel 17, airs the show on weekday evenings at 8 p.m. and at 9 a,m. on Saturdays and Sundays. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. If you received this newsletter as a forward from a friend, please sign up for a free email subscription via the link at the top of our website, www.newsmakerswithjr.com. CARTOON OF THE WEEK New Yorker cartoon by Will McPhail.

Except for that whole Donald Trump indictment thing, August so far aligns with its journalistic reputation as a slow news month, yielding a Newsmakers TV lineup featuring UFOs and peyote, as well as Fiesta -- Santa Barbara's own annual contribution to News of the Weird, On this week's edition, SB Independent staff writer Callie Fausey not only recounts the testimony of former Navy pilot Ryan Graves, to a House committee investigating UFOs (now properly called UAPs, for those keeping score at home, or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena), about his sighting in 2003 of a bizarre, red object over Vandenberg, but also reprises her reporting on the effort to legalize plant-based psychedelics within Santa Barbara city limits. And that's before she delves into what's behind the abrupt, mysterious departure of Santa Barbara High School Principal Elise Simmons about 12 minutes before school starts. KEYT’s Lily Dallow also returns to the show, going behind-the-scenes about her best-in-class coverage of this year’s Fiesta, featuring terrific multi-media storytelling about the life and times of parade Grand Marshal Ernestine Ygnacio-De Soto, the first Chumash elder to be so honored in the 99-year history of the event. And Josh Molina is on hand to offer analysis, commentary, context, insight and snark, along with an update on how and why the City Council decided to spend $11 million on a redesign of the State Street underpass to serve as a (checks notes) whimsical gateway to the living hell that is downtown SB. All this and more, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV. JR You can watch the new episode via YouTube below or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Cox Cable Channel 17, broadcasts the show at 8 p.m. on weeknights and at 9 a.m. on weekends. KCSB, 91.9 FM, airs the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. CARTOON OF THE WEEK Images: News dog (Shuitterstock); New Yorker cartoon by Mads Horwath and Evan Lian.

Supervisor Laura Capps said on Friday that "it's time to look at" making anti-odor, carbon scrubber technology mandatory, to address longstanding and widespread complaints by neighbors who live near cannabis grows in Santa Barbara County. With typical terpsichorean talent, however, Capps quickly added that she still is assessing the prospects of assembling a majority vote for such a regulation. The five-member Board of Supervisors, until her recent arrival, has reliably, staunchly, and often unanimously, favored the economic interests of the pot industry over its consequences and impacts on the living conditions of nearby residents. "I know how to count," Capps said, during a conversation with Josh Molina and the genial host on this week's edition of Newsmakers TV. "I'm open to a lot of options," she added, "but I'm looking where I can five votes, or at least three." Past due taxes. During her first months as 2nd District supervisor, Capps succeeded in steering through one the first significant changes to the county cannabis ordinance, which has caused deep community fissures and raised serious ethical questions about its key sponsors in its five years of existence. The board voted 5-to-0 last month to crack down on scofflaw growers who don't pay their taxes on time, or fail to report their revenues at all. Responding to a question, she said that the possibility of requiring growers to install carbon scrubbers -- considered the best current anti-odor technology -- now "seems like a smart way to go from my perspective.” "I think it’s time to look at it," she said. "If that’s the one that's working the best, why aren’t we using it?” Before her election last year, Capps in 2020 gathered considerable support from voters adversely affected by the cannabis industry in District 1, for a challenge to Supervisor Das Williams, to whom she lost narrowly. Williams is the chief architect of the cannabis ordinance, and has repeatedly expressed disdain for the distress of neighbors whose health and quality of life have been damaged amid his aggressive effort to transform Santa Barbara County into the cannabis capital of California. As a new board member, and now colleague of Williams, she has toned down her rhetoric on the issue considerably, while still moving cautiously to offset the external effects of the controversial, pro-industry pot law. In our conversation, she expressed optimism about putting a measure before voters next year that would change the taxation system for cannabis, from a self-reporting gross receipts method to a more transparent approach based on acreage under cultivation. She also did not rule out reduction of the county's acreage caps on weed cultivation, given the glut of product throughout the state and the county, which has deeply downgraded revenues, which Williams and his chief ally, Supervisor Steve Lavagnino, famously promised in trumpeting the law. A question of ethics. In the 2020 race, Capps pointed to Williams' tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from pot growers, much of it channeled to him during the very time he was crafting the law, as a prime example of why county government needs sweeping ethical reforms. As in the case of the cannabis ordinance, Capps has taken a more modest approach to this issue since coming into office. However, she pointed to the board's recent approval of a new requirement that the chiefs of staff and other aides to supervisors for the first time file financial disclosure forms as evidence of progress; she also said county staff is formulating policies and procedures to implement a new state law that requires supervisors, not only to disclose publicly any contributions of $250 or more from individuals or organizations with a financial stake in certain matters before the board, but also to recuse themselves from voting on them. In a wide-ranging discussion of other key issues, Capps also spoke in detail about the state-mandated push to build more housing; the controversy over new facilities for homeless people in her district; questions about the recently approved new ambulance contract and a new, blistering grand jury report about the deaths of mentally ill people in county jail. Plus: some walk down memory lane reflections about her sponsorship of SB Unified School District Superintendent Hilda Maldonado's hiring during Capps' days on the school board. All this and more, right here, right on Newsmakers TV. JR You can watch our conversation with Supervisor Laura Capps via YouTube below or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here: ttps://soundcloud.com/user-915471161/laura-capps-july-28-2023 TVSB, Cox Cable Channel 17 airs the show at 8 p.m. every weeknight and at 9 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. CARTOON OF THE WEEK Cartoon credit: The New Yorker.

Mega-kudos to E.J. Borah -- the blue-collar beating heart of political efforts and energy that advance the interests of progressive women in Santa Barbara -- who was celebrated over the weekend as a congressional “Woman of the Year.” “E.J.’s passion for political activism has spanned her career as far back as her graduation from UCSB in 1958,” said Rep. Salud Carbajal. Salud presented Borah with the award at a lively reception on Friday evening hosted by philanthropist and community advocate Claudette Roehrig. A retired teacher, Borah is a longtime, indefatigable volunteer for nearly every Democratic cause, campaign, and candidate, especially those that further the policies, prospects, and political fortunes of, and for, women on the Central Coast and beyond. The embodiment of old-school, out-of-fashion character virtues and values like civility, respecting others and basic human decency, she is a board member of Democratic Women of Santa Barbara County, with a seat on the local party’s central committee, her political commitment displayed most visibly through leadership of the Democratic Service Club whose members, she says, are “the people who do the grunt work.” “We do the mailings, the precinct walking, the phone calls, staff events,” she said, in an interview several years ago with the “beyondthecontract” website. “When a project needs to be done, we send out an email, and we provide the volunteers. We do the work.” Borah started at UCSB in 1954, the first year it moved from the Riviera to its present iconic location. After graduation, she departed for what became a 44-year teaching career in Fullerton, in then-deep-red Orange County: “It was extremely conservative and I was an active Democrat in politics, but it wore me out,” she recalled. E.J. returned to SB in 2003, along with daughter Farfalla, an attorney who’s now president of the Goleta Water District board, and then-infant granddaughter, Rosalind, now a junior at Smith College. “When I got to Santa Barbara, I was stunned to see how many Democrats there were,” E.J. Borah recalled. Talk about your understatements. Borah is one six Central Coast women Salud honored this year: Other honorees include former county Public Health Director Van Do-Reynoso, Franklin Elementary School principal Casie Killgore, and Laura Selken, president of the Santa Maria chapter of American Association of University Women, as well as Kathleen Minck and Janna Nichols from SLO County. Count on Our Man in Washington to count in every outpost of his district. Here's hoping the fix ain't in. If you blinked you may have missed Nick Welsh’s least-noticed scoop in memory, the news that the California Auditor’s Office has singled out Santa Barbara as one of six counties in the state for a close examination of how they handed out cannabis licenses. The Legislature’s Joint Audit Committee requested the audits in the wake of “Legal Weed, Broken Promises,” a boffo L.A. Times series that included an investigation into “How Legal Weed Unleashed Corruption in California.” Long-suffering residents of Carpinteria, who’ve borne the brunt of the Das Williams-designed, pay-to-play effort to make Santa Barbara the epicenter of cannabis cultivation in California, led a strong local lobbying effort to get SB included among the Hophead Half-Dozen. Which counties are being audited was supposed to be a hush-hush state secret, given the state auditor’s preference for keeping things under the radar; the Board of Supervisors was informed, apparently in confidence but Steve Lavignino, Das's wing man in spreading the wonders of weed everywhere, except perhaps the Botanic Garden, confirmed it to the Angry Poodle anyway. "Dave's not here!" “I look forward to someone who knows something about it looking at what we’re doing and letting us know what we can do better,” he told Nick. As if. It’s intriguing to see how Das and Steve, long the pot industry’s most reliable lap dogs, suddenly modulated their hardline stance after Laura Capps showed up at the board and started highlighting some of the absurdities of the county ordinance. Noting, for example, not only that the promised bonanza of tax revenues the Doobie Brothers used to sell their appalling policy has not materialized, but also that the county barely breaks even, given the nearly two dozen public employees now singularly devoted to cannabis. Advocating a seemingly modest reform, which apparently had not previously occurred to the other supes, she also recently pushed through a new policy to hold growers accountable for not paying their taxes. Quel outrage! Capps will be this week's guest on Newsmakers TV. . Press Clips. Those who passed out drunk in 2006 and just woke up (as well as Gen Z-ers and other recent arrivals), and who wish to understand better All the Fuss this week over the bankruptcy of the town's sole daily newspaper are urged to eyeball the documentary "Citizen McCaw" for insight into the origins of the lamentable, 17 year (!) civic tragedy that inexorably led to it. Of more recent vintage, Josh Molina’s new podcast interview with Craig Smith, professor at The Colleges of Law in SB and Ventura, is also worth checking out. When the deal went down, at the crack of dawn of the social media era, Craig’s blog was the go-to-must-read on the latest developments and inside scoop about the story, and his reporting archive represents the only day-by-day, contemporaneous recounting of the drama (farce? -ed.). The widely covered, but not-very-surprising, bankruptcy filing by Southern California’s oldest paper appears to be, at least, the beginning of the end of the last chapter of this sorrowful tale. Newsmakers will have more to say about it in coming weeks, but for now we have just three words: Sad, sad, sad. JR Images: E.J. Borah (foreground) surrounded, left, by daughter Farfalla and granddaughter Rob, and unidentified man on the right (Marian Shapiro); Stoned Agin (R. Crumb); "Citizen McCaw" DVD cover (Rod Lathim).