COVID-19 appears to be spiking again, and so was Noozhawk’s readership this past week. It’s close, but the former isn’t the main reason for the latter.
These Best of Bill columns are my weekly recaps of the Top 5 stories you were reading over the last seven days, according to our Google Analytics.
It’s purely about news and numbers, sometimes with insights on how our journalists tackled a story and often with my own brand of opinionated observations as Noozhawk’s publisher.
This time, the tragic death of UC Santa Barbara employee Geoff Jewel riveted our readers’ attention like few stories have in a very long time.
Google Analytics recorded an audience of 131,266 readers for the week, and all four of our Tom Bolton’s stories about the case ended up in our Top 5.
That kind of thing rarely happens, but I suspect it’s a result of the unusual circumstances, the high-profile location and, most important, the impact the victim had in his vast network of family, friends and colleagues.
Rest in peace.
1. Victim in ‘Suspicious Death’ at UCSB Campus Point Reportedly Was Pushed Off Cliff
It’s one of the saddest and strangest stories we’ve covered in a while.
As our Tom Bolton was first to report, a UC Santa Barbara employee was walking with his wife, their dog and some friends at Campus Point just before dusk Nov. 12 when he got into some kind of an altercation with a man over the dog. He reportedly told his companions to go ahead while he stayed behind.
Responding to a report of a fight, UCSB police converged on the area and, at around 5:15 p.m., found the employee unconscious on the beach about 25 feet below the blufftop. In spite of efforts to revive him, he was declared dead at the scene.
It’s what happened in between those paragraphs that’s the mystery.
The dead man was identified as 52-year-old Geoff Jewel, a help desk manager in computing services at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management.
Sources told Noozhawk that Jewel may have been pushed off the cliff during the altercation, but UCSB police have not confirmed that scenario. Other sources have told Noozhawk that Jewell may have suffered a health issue.
What is known is that UCSB police are calling the death “suspicious” and that a “person of interest” was detained later on the night of Nov. 12. Authorities say that individual was released after questioning and no charges have been filed.
UCSB police have been tight-lipped about the case, although a sergeant and Santa Barbara County District Attorney Joyce Dudley walked the Campus Point bluffs area — top and bottom — on Nov. 15. Neither provided any details about their visit.
The next day, police Lt. David Millard said the Coroner’s Bureau had completed an autopsy on Jewel but he declined to reveal any information, noting that the investigation is ongoing.
“UCPD will continue working closely with the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office and Santa Barbara County sheriff/coroner in this suspicious death,” he said.
Bren School Dean Steve Gaines described Jewel as a beloved employee and “an enthusiastic naturalist.”
“Geoff’s tragic death is a devastating loss to all of us who had the joy of working with him for over a decade at the Bren School,” he said in a statement for Noozhawk. “He was a gracious soul who was a key member of our computing team.
“He was also an enthusiastic naturalist who was active in so many efforts in Santa Barbara and the Channel Islands to promote the conservation of native species. Geoff’s tragic death is a devastating loss, and we will miss him immensely.”
Funeral arrangements are pending.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact UCSB police at 805.893.3446.
2. State Moves Santa Barbara County to Most-Restrictive ‘Purple’ Reopening Tier
With coronavirus cases resurgent in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Nov. 16 ordered Santa Barbara County — and most of the rest of the state — into the most-restrictive tier of his magnificently misnamed “reopening” plan.
What does this mean? Who freaking knows?!
You can get some of the details from our Brooke Holland’s report and more from Jade Martinez-Pogue’s follow-up story. You also can click here for the latest health officer orders from the county Public Health Department.
And that’s precisely the problem with this whole rat’s nest of rules and directives. It triggers days of questions, confusion and rumors on the part of citizens and businesses trying desperately to get their lives and livelihoods back on track — responsibly.
Just as important, it exacerbates already sky-high anxiety over a contagion that has infected at least 10,702 locals and killed 133 of them. And then there’s the companion economic catastrophe that’s behind the county’s current 7.4 percent unemployment rate.
Three days later, Newsom hit the Golden State with even more restrictions in the form of a month-long “limited stay-at-home order” that, based on its own have-it-both-ways title, is likely to reassure no one.
I’m not sure Newsom even believes his own ever-shifting decrees anymore. He certainly can’t keep them straight, having been exposed just last week with a French Laundry list of hypocrisy.
Which reminds me … you really must read the Nov. 17 Newsmakers column by my friend, Jerry Roberts: “Do As I Say, Not As I Do.” Then for cringes, you can watch the nervously dissembling Newsom’s wildy detailed forced apology for getting caught.
But enough about him. There is hope on the horizon with several encouraging announcements about the seeming imminence of COVID-19 vaccines.
Until those are widely available, of course, the most effective defense remains social distancing, wearing masks around others, and frequent handwashing and santizing. In other words, common sense.
The effectiveness of that message is in its simplicity, which is what’s missing with all the rules.
As with the flu and its varying levels of severity, the coronavirus is going to spike and surge, probably more so in winter when transmission risks are greater. Like now.
That’s why it is imperative that we craft a roadmap to recovery that provides parameters of nearly unalterable expectations. At any given stage, citizens and businesses must be able to understand not just what it means for them but that life will not be encased in amber until the danger passes.
Lockdowns and uncertainty destroy small businesses and jobs, and they make it difficult for families to put food on the table and provide for their loved ones. We’re going about this all wrong.
3. Pedestrian Struck and Killed by Vehicle on Cathedral Oaks Road in Goleta
A Santa Barbara man walking on a darkened Cathedral Oaks Road in Goleta was struck by a car and killed the night of Nov. 13.
According to Santa Barbara County sheriff’s Lt. Erik Raney, the collision occurred just after 8:30 p.m. in the 6600 block of Cathedral Oaks Road, between Los Carneros and Glen Annie roads.
He said 45-year-old Travis Gottlob was walking in the westbound lane when a Mazda sports car driven by 23-year-old Kyler Tanowitz of Goleta came up behind him.
“Tanowitz saw him a split second prior to colliding with the decedent,” Raney told our Tom Bolton. “Immediately following the collision, Tanowitz exited his vehicle, found the decedent lying in the middle of the roadway, unresponsive, and called 9-1-1.”
Raney said alcohol or drugs are not suspected on Tanowitz’s part, but the Coroner’s Bureau will be running toxicology tests on Gottlob.
4. Shed Being Transported Through Santa Barbara Slams Into Freeway Overpass
A Highway 101 overcrossing cut a shed down to size as a flat-bed truck was carting the structure under the Las Positas Road bridge in Santa Barbara.
According to the California Highway Patrol, a truck driver was traveling northbound on the freeway just after 5 p.m. Nov. 16 when the cab went under the bridge with a 15-foot-5-inch clearance.
The shed was too tall to make it, however, and much its roof was sheared off, smashed to smithereens and strewn about the roadway as the truck came to a halt in the middle lane.
There were no injuries in the one-sided collision, but traffic from the evening commute was snarled for more than an hour through the crash scene and on nearby surface streets.
5. Authorities Release Name of Man Who Jumped to Death from Highway 101 Overpass
The man who leaped to his death from the La Cumbre Road bridge over Highway 101 on Nov. 5 has been identified by Santa Barbara police as 44-year-old Chancellor Ralph Bernard of Amarillo, Texas.
According to his obituary, Bernard was a journeyman auto mechanic and car enthusiast who loved fast cars and jet skiing. It was not known why he was in Santa Barbara.
A memorial service was held Nov. 17 in Amarillo.
Click here for suicide prevention information and resources that are available 24/7.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24/7 at 800.273.8255, and the Santa Barbara County 24-hour, toll-free hotline is 800.400.1572.
• • •
Last Year on Noozhawk
What was our most-read story this time last year? Driver Killed in Rollover Crash on Highway 101 on Gaviota Coast.
• • •
Bill Macfadyen’s Story of the Week
Between breakaway roping and polo, teenage rodeo star Madison Outhier had herself quite a ride in the span of just a few hours Nov. 15: Madison Outhier’s Championship Sunday Is One to Ride Home About.
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Best of Bill’s Instagram
The Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce filmed its Goleta State of the City webcast on the bluffs of the beautiful Ritz-Carlton Bacara. A few pix are in my Instagram feed, but you can click here to catch my remarks as chamber co-chairman and Noozhawk’s publisher.
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Watch It
I respect the redneck ingenuity, but enough of my blubbering. See this whale of a tale for yourself.
(ashtraytv video)
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— Bill Macfadyen is Noozhawk’s founder and publisher. Contact him at wmacfadyen@noozhawk.com, follow him on Twitter: @noozhawk and Instagram: @bill.macfadyen, or click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
