To steal a line from Mark Twain, the many, varied, and breathless accounts of our demise have been much exaggerated. By that, I am referring to reports that we received a “cease-and-desist” letter from News-Press owner Wendy P. McCaw‘s attorney David Millstein, promptly wet our pants, and then cravenly caved. Please! Give me a break. These are the facts.
READ AND WEEP: In a perverse way, I’d like to thank embattled News-Press owner Wendy P. McCaw and her bilious right-hand man Travis K. Armstrong for all the uproar now engulfing the News-Press and the whole town. The sad soap opera unfolding at the De la Guerra Plaza digs of Santa Barbara’s oldest paper has succeeded in diverting our attention-if only a little bit-from the gathering storm clouds of World War III now spreading from Lebanon and Israel. Even for the most defiantly chirpy among us, these are scary times indeed.
Negotiators with the Police Officers Association declared an impasse in their contract negotiations with Santa Barbara city administrators late last week, and by Sunday, had unleashed a new “robo-call” campaign designed to generate public support for their cause. City residents, including City Councilmember Roger Horton, received recorded phone messages from police Sergeant Dave Gonzales contending that without a pay increase, turnover of experienced officers would increase and public safety would be compromised.
Those hoping to see the City of Santa Barbara provide public financing for political candidates as part of a package of campaign finance reforms suffered a significant setback last week, when Santa Barbara City Councilmember Roger Horton (pictured)-who serves on the council’s ad hoc reform committee-voiced strong opposition to the idea.
This year’s long, hot, crazy summer just got a lot hotter and crazier, and promises only to get hotter still. This Thursday morning, News-Press reporter Scott Hadly, a well-respected and well-liked eight-year veteran of the embattled newsroom, announced his resignation.
After much hand-wringing and second-guessing, the county Board of Supervisors agreed to allow as many as 150 dump trucks per day to rumble through Guadalupe to the Santa Maria landfill, where they will dump as many as one million cubic yards of polluted soil from the nation’s biggest oil spill. Critics were on-hand in large measure to decry the lack of public process and to warn that if the soil is too contaminated to remain on the Guadalupe Dunes-where it now is-then it’s also too polluted to dump in Santa Maria’s unlined landfill.
A chronicle of the events which proceed the July 6, 2006 walkout of six senior News-Press editors and longtime columnist Barney Brantingham, and the fallout in the following week.
For those waiting for the other shoe to fall at the Santa Barbara News Press, it has. But in this case, it’s more like all the shoes from Imelda Marcos’s closet. As of today, Thursday July 6, every senior editor in the paper’s news department had quit, five in all. Resignation tendered.
Even with the chill of Santa Barbara’s May gray and June gloom, it’s been an especially hot six weeks for Santa Barbara Police Chief Cam Sanchez. High-profile gang violence captures headlines; the police department lost a $500,000 jury verdict to an ex-cop who claimed he was retaliated against for blowing the whistle on homophobic remarks; and what appeared to be a nasty bar-time street fight three weeks ago erupted into a scary showdown between officers and about 300 angry, inebriated onlookers, some of whom showed up before the City Council last Tuesday to allege police misconduct.
GET ME REWRITE, GUT THE PRESS: Back when I was still a recovering Catholic, the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden used to infuriate me beyond belief. It seemed incredibly unfair that every human born since those two would come into the world indelibly stained with Original Sin just because Adam and Eve disobeyed the Almighty and ate the apple. Under this scenario, we’re all born with three strikes against us; we don’t even get a chance to screw up. But now that I am a fully recovered Catholic and these matters no longer get under my skin, I see the wisdom in such theological pessimism. Its basis – from which all else follows – is the infinite perversity of the human species. The original-sin scenario recognizes that even if we have within our grasp everything we need to be perfectly happy, we’ll mess it all up the very first chance we get.
