Between the coronavirus, the chaos caused by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest stay-at-home order, and a terrible accident that took the life of a man who was just driving down the street, this past week provided the full range of reasons why Noozhawk is so important to your everyday life.
Every day, we hear from readers that our reporting truly makes a difference for them, and that no one else covers Santa Barbara County like we do:
» “Noozhawk keeps me feeling connected & up-to-date.”
» “We have really benefited from your updates on local news. It is so important now more than ever!”
» “Noozhawk keeps us informed locally without bias.”
We don’t rest or waver in our commitment to bringing you the news, and we provide it without paywalls because we believe an objective, independent local news source is a vital part of the civic infrastructure of a healthy community.
We can only do that because of the support of our advertisers and sponsors, and the generosity of thousands of readers like you.
You can depend on Noozhawk’s professional journalists to tell you the truth and keep you informed. Can we depend on you to help us with a financial contribution?
Our end-of-year fundraising campaign is always crucial to our ability to continue fulfilling our mission. But, in 2020, it’s absolutely critical.
While not everyone can afford to invest in local journalism right now, we also can’t afford to lose it. Please help us keep Noozhawk soaring, 24/7.
Thank you for your support.
Thank you, too, for your readership. According to our Google Analytics, Noozhawk had an audience of 126,248 of you this past week.
What follows is my weekly Best of Bill column, a compilation of — and my own take on — our Top 5 most-read stories of the past seven days. This week, 11 of our 12 top stories were related to the COVID-19 crisis that just won’t leave us alone.
But the story you made No. 1 cut right through the contagion — no doubt because of the heartbreaking circumstances. Our prayers go out to the victim and his family.
As a reminder, this is my opinion column as Noozhawk’s publisher. It is not a news story.
1. Motorist Declared Dead at Scene of Single-Vehicle Crash in Santa Barbara
A driver who crashed his car into a palm tree on the Santa Barbara waterfront on Dec. 8 apparently suffered a medical emergency moments before. Despite the efforts of paramedics, he died at the scene.
As our Tom Bolton first reported, the crash occurred just after 1 p.m. at the intersection of East Cabrillo Boulevard and South Milpas Street across from the Santa Barbara Inn.
Emergency crews arrived right away but Santa Barbara firefighter James Heidlebaugh said the man had a weak pulse and difficulty breathing before he went into cardiac arrest.
Firefighters and American Medical Response EMTs were unable to revive him, he added.
Heidlebaugh said it appeared that the driver had some kind of a medical problem just before the collision.
The man’s identity was withheld pending notification of relatives.
There were no other vehicles involved and no bystanders were hurt. Santa Barbara police are investigating the circumstances of the crash.
2. Stay-at-Home Restrictions Go Into Effect Sunday Night for Santa Barbara County
As expected, Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed a new stay-at-home order for Santa Barbara County — taking effect just after midnight Dec. 7 — in his latest plan to stem the tide of COVID-19 that has been rising throughout California.
Under his orders, the state is now divided into five regions, and lockdowns of at least three weeks are to be implemented if overall capacity in a region’s hospital intensive-care units dwindles to an alarming 15 percent or less.
As of Dec. 10, our Jade Martinez-Pogue reported, Santa Barbara County’s ICU capacity stood at 49.5 percent.
I may be just a simple journalist but even I can do that math. Why is the county under a stay-at-home order when there’s a 34.5 percent difference in the threshhold?
Our Giana Magnoli explained Dec. 5 that Newsom placed the county into Region 5, an arbitrary collection of counties that encompasses everything south of Monterey County to the Mexican border and then up along the eastern Sierra Nevada.
The region is the geographic size of Ohio and — at 23.2 million people — is more than double the entire Buckeye state’s population. Heck, it contains 62.2 percent of California’s population.
Thanks to some of our new regional partners, notably Imperial and Los Angeles counties, the overall ICU capacity is about 7.7 percent. So even if Santa Barbara County’s ICUs were completely empty, we’d still be languishing in lockdown.
No one — as in absolutely nobody — is arguing against the need to blunt these periodic surges and to protect those most at-risk from the coronavirus. Which is why most of us are faithfully social distancing, wearing masks around others and incessantly washing our hands.
But overreach and unpredictable, inconsistent and ever-changing rules are not a reasonable response. Especially when the guy calling the shots repeatedly has been exposed ignoring or exempting his family and friends from his own orders.
I’ll say again: We are facing down a twin, co-equal crisis. As severe and as lethal as it is, the coronavirus is only half the problem. Eventually, we will beat COVID-19, but the other half is much more dangerous.
The public health and economic impacts of lockdowns and economic shutdowns are far more frightening, catastrophic and long term than anything the coronavirus can throw at us.
But, officially, there’s a disconnected if/then statement: If we conquer COVID-19, then we can turn our attention to the economy.
They go together, however. You can’t tackle one without tackling the other simultaneously — otherwise, both go to dire extremes very, very quickly. I would argue that’s what we’re seeing with the current spike.
3. What’s Open, What’s Closed with Santa Barbara County Stay-at-Home Order
Our Giana Magnoli had a good wrapup of what’s open, what’s closed, and what you can and can’t do under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new stay-at-home order.
The California Public Health Department has been proudly emphasizing that this stay-at-home order is not as restrictive as Newsom’s first, seemingly interminable one.
To use my favorite quote from my old friend, the late Bob Carlson, “Perhaps.”
As near as I can tell, the biggest change is for those of you who have — or had — jobs the state doesn’t think are “essential.” The Public Health Department has retired that condescending description and is now going with “critical infrastructure.”
The California Employment Development Department is considered criticial infrastructure. Click here to apply for state unemployment benefits.
4. Santa Barbara County to Seek Removal from SoCal Region for COVID-19 Restrictions
I know Santa Barbara County officials read my Best of Bill columns so I’d like to think last week’s edition inspired the idea to try to extricate the county from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s absurd Region 5 grouping under his stay-at-home order.
On the other hand, even a fourth-grade California history student would wonder what he was thinking with the unfair size and scope.
Nevertheless, in a Dec. 7 Noozhawk exclusive, our Tom Bolton reported that the Board of Supervisors was planning to do just that. The next day, they did.
On Dec. 8, the board voted unanimously to send Newsom a letter formally requesting that Santa Barbara County be placed in a new, more realistic sub-region with our actual neighbors, San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties.
The sub-region request — approved by the other two counties’ Boards of Supervisors that same day — would not sideline the current stay-at-home order, which is in effect for at least three weeks.
But the three counties have significantly more available ICU beds than the counties that have the current region mired in lockdown, so a subsequent sub-region would be helpful to getting us back on track.
“We’ve had compliance and support by our population, and it’s as if we’re being punished for having behaved well,” Third District Supervisor Joan Hartmann observed.
Frankly, I think our local elected officials have been far too timid in dealing with Newsom, even though he’s throwing around threats to withhold state funding from counties that defy him.
But the Board of Supervisors was elected to represent us, not Newsom. For that matter, so were our local legislators, who largely have been AWOL when it comes to any meaningful relief from Sacramento, but that’s another story.
Santa Barbara County may not be alone in facing an unprecedented public health and economic catastrophe, but as Hartmann says, our county actually has responded admirably and responsibly.
Stand up to Newsom’s bullying. We’re behind you.
The Santa Barbara South Coast and Santa Maria Valley chambers of commerce have launched a petition to support the supervisors’ sub-regional request. Click here to sign the petition.
5. New Stay-at-Home Order Spells Trouble for Local Businesses, Economy
As improbable as it sounds, local small businesses were feeling surprisingly upbeat as December dawned — in spite of a disastrous year that left many on the doorstep of utter ruin.
Leave it to Gov. Gavin Newsom to put an end to that.
As our Josh Molina reported Dec. 6, many local businesses had been hoping for a Christmas rebound to partially offset 2020’s tremendous losses and to finish the year on a positive note.
“The closures will likely be devastating for our local economy,” Peter Rupert, a UC Santa Barbara economics professor and executive director of the UCSB Economic Forecast Project, told Josh.
He added that many local businesses had been “hanging on, hoping the holidays would give them some breathing room, since the summer was lost.”
As I mentioned last week, I was a panelist on a Dec. 7 SCORE Santa Barbara webcast discussing the coronavirus crisis and its public health and economic consequences.
The moderator, SCORE chairman Greg Loosvelt, asked me if I was hearing notes of despair from the business community.
Despair and pessimism are foreign concepts to entrepreneurs and, I think, to most business owners.
“No,” I replied. “They’re angry.”
Like most business owners, I’ve been complaining nonstop about the arbitrary, contradictory and constantly changing parameters of each edict from Sacramento. But Newsom’s latest lockdown is a particularly egregious, one-size-fits-all response that causes the most harm to those with the most to lose economically.
Kathy Janega-Dykes, president and CEO of Visit Santa Barbara, noted the negative impacts on downtown restaurants.
“Their employees will not receive stimulus funds that were available during the first shutdown,” she said. “Many had made costly investments in new infrastructure for outdoor dining along the pedestrian promenade and parklets throughout town.
“It’s difficult if not impossible for many of these businesses to survive on takeout and online orders alone.”
Kristen Miller, president and CEO of the Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce, said businesses have been extremely flexible with all the changing rules and restrictions but their breaking point is at hand.
“To have the rules changed again, at the last minute, before the most important business month of the year, may bring the final blow to our small business community and their energy for hanging on,” she said.
• • •
Last Year on Noozhawk
What was our most-read story this time last year? BizHawk: Lemon & Coriander Restaurant Opens in Old Town Goleta.
• • •
Bill Macfadyen’s Story of the Week
Final flight: Chuck Yeager, American Original.
• • •
Best of Bill’s Instagram
It was a #palmtreesofinstagram kind of week, but how ’bout those skies? They’re both in my Instagram feed.
• • •
Watch It
Small businesses are feeling this.
(AwakenWithJP video)
• • •
How You Can Help Noozhawk
Noozhawk is proud to be the go-to source of news for locals like yourself. You trust and rely on us to provide timely, relevant and thorough coverage of the issues that shape Santa Barbara County.
And we get up early — and stay up late — excited to report what’s going on in our community so we can keep you informed and engaged.
While most of Noozhawk’s revenue comes from advertising and sponsorships, we believe that reader contributions are a vital source of support — financially and fundamentally. We believe that if we ask our readers to contribute what you think we’re worth, we can build a sustainable business model for local news.
Yes, I’ll set up a monthly donation today!
Yes, I’ll set up a monthly donation today!
Yes, I’ll set up a monthly donation today!
Yes, I’ll set up a monthly donation today!
Yes, I’ll set up a monthly donation today!
Yes, I’ll set up a monthly donation today!
Yes, I’ll set up a monthly donation today!
Yes, I’ll set up a monthly donation today!
Yes, I’ll set up a monthly donation today! Yes, I’ll set up a monthly donation today!
Your loyalty membership helps us continue to provide you with unmatched local news and in-depth reporting on the issues that you care about.
Please note that personal contributions to Noozhawk are not deductible as charitable donations.
Thank you for your support.
— 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.
