Episode 035... Citizen McCaw World Premiere

"What Happened to the Public Trust?"

_To complement the film Citizen McCaw showing on SB Channels TV-21 starting 01 March 2009 (as CraigSmithsBlog reported), Off-Leash Public Affairs is please to be showing our own related production often scheduled for replay on TV-17 just before or after Citizen McCaw replays on TV-21.
_This OLPA episode, Citizen McCaw World Premiere, features interviews about the News-Press-Mess from the crowds ready to see the premiere of Citizen McCaw when that local documentary debuted 07 March 2008 at Arlington Theater and 05 April 2008 at Marjorie Luke Theatre in Santa Barbara.
_To about 15 different interview subjects, OLPA co-Producer David Pritchett asked:
1. What do you think of The Mess?
2. Where do you get your local news?
3. If you could ask the News-Press publisher any question, what would it be?

_The various responses were compelling, insightful, and/or amusing. Edhat was a popular and enthusiastic response as the source of local news, while others like Santa Barbara Daily Sound often were mentioned even though its readers often could not recall its name. That was in March 2008, though.
_People interviewed for this video include: Rod Lathim (Citizen McCaw co-Producer and local community arts magnate), Sara Miller McCune (who reminded assertive OLPA co-Producer Cathy Murillo that a newspaper buyer first needs a willing seller), Al Bonowitz, Josh Molina, Roy Regester, Starshine Roshell, Brian Barnwell, Sander Vanocur, Ann Moore, the unknown comic's brother, the emphatic Shirley, and quite a few others who spoke eloquently but did not state their name or whose name (more likely) was lost in editing.
_ OLPA episode 014 also covered an earlier chapter in the News-Press-Mess when the Teamsters Union prevailed in Federal court, twice. Encore replays of that video from January 2008 also is showing on TV-17 in March 2009, to pile on our Citizen News-Mess Fest.

Watch the Video of this show!!
45:00 minutes, including bonus content (not in the TV 28:30 version) of journalism tutorials from the Citizen McCaw website and the full interview with Rod Lathim)
For an alternative video host via The Google, select the Episode title atop this post.

TV-17 Replay Schedule (irregular times for this Episode)

March/01/2009 Sunday 06:00 AM

March/01/2009 Sunday 08:00 PM

March/03/2009 Tuesday 11:30 AM

March/05/2009 Thurs. 11:30 AM

March/07/2009 Sat. 01:00 PM

March/07/2009 Sat. 07:30 PM

March/08/2009 Sunday 06:00 AM

March/08/2009 Sunday 09:00 PM

March/10/2009 Tues. 11:30 AM

March/12/2009 Thurs. 11:30 AM

March/14/2009 Sat. 01:00 PM

March/14/2009 Sat. 07:30 PM

March/15/2009 Sat. 06:00 PM

Episode 034... Nicholas Cavalier: a Story of Hope

In Conversation with Nick's Mother, Faith Magdalena
As the KEYT news story led:

Nick Cavalier, 21, of Santa Barbara seemed to have everything he needed for his young life, plenty of friends, good parents, and a job at the beach. But all of that changed in an instant during a fight on Chapala Street in Santa Barbara six months ago. Cavalier sustained serious brain injuries that night when he tried to break-up a fight between his friend and group of young men.

_This episode of Off-Leash Public Affairs features an interview by OLPA co-Producer Cathy Murillo with Faith Magdalena, determined mother of Nick Cavalier. They discuss what Nick is going through and her hopes for her son.
_This video was recorded 11 Jan. 2009 by co-Producer David Pritchett, on the creaky side deck of Magdalena's home in the Mesa Alta West neighborhood of Santa Barbara.

_Another casualty of the American Health Care Crisis, Nick Cavalier needs some long and expensive specialty therapy. On 05 Feb., his old and new friends held a fundraiser event, with a Facebook page. A fund for contributions under his name has been set up by Santa Barbara Bank and Trust (PO Box 60839, Santa Barbara 93160-0839).
_SB Daily Sound reported on his plight, in addition to opinion essays by Paul Rivas at his Goleta blog and an Independent Voice by Faith Magdalena, which includes some highly lively and illuminating comments there.

UPDATE (10Feb.2009) by Faith Magdalena: "The fundraiser was a great success. So much love and support! We will be planning another one at Deano's hopefully and then a homecoming BBQ at Ledbetter Beach. Nicholas will be entering Sylmar Health and Rehab Center [in Santa Clarita] instead of CNS in Bakersfield. I am very happy with what Sylmar has to offer in that they can help him with his learning how to maneuver with the lack of sight."

Watch the Video of this show!! (28:30 minutes)
For an alternative video host via The Google, select the Episode title atop this post.

TV-17 Replay Schedule

02/07/2009	Sat. 10:00 AM
02/08/2009	Sun. 08:00 PM
02/10/2009	Tue. 12:00 AM
02/11/2009	Wed. 01:00 AM
02/14/2009	Sat. 10:00 AM
02/15/2009	Sun. 08:00 PM
02/16/2009	Mon. 12:30 PM
02/17/2009	Tue. 12:00 AM
02/21/2009	Sat. 10:00 AM
02/22/2009	Sun. 08:00 PM

Episode 033... Fiddlers' Convention by Rotary Club, Santa Barbara Sunrise

Service above Self
Rotary Club Sunrise grants funds to local non-profit organizations and puts on a great Fiddlers' Convention!
_Since 2001, Rotary Club Santa Barbara Sunrise has put on the annual Old-Time Fiddlers Convention and Festival, held in recent years at Stow House park in Goleta the Good Land. The event is a fundraiser for the separate Foundation for this local Rotary Club, which raises about $10 thousand per year for several small grants to local non-profit organizations doing good work in the Santa Barbara community. They also support international projects, as also shown in this video.
_In this video, between scenes of musical acts and jam sessions during the 37th annual Fiddler's Convention, Off-Leash Public Affairs (OLPA) co-Producer David Pritchett interviews Rotarians Bill Boyd, Dennis Johns, and Gary Jensen, who describe their fun Club and some community grant projects, including the picnic area at lower Elings Park.
_David Pritchett interviewed other grantees, including Joan Esposito and Les Esposito of Dyslexia Awareness & Resource Center; Sara Templeton and high-achiever Girl Scout Sara(h) __ of Girl Scouts of California Central Coast; and Christine Bowman of St. Vincent's, who described their services to local mothers and children.
_Fiddle purveyor Steve Joynes also informs about the brain-building value of school music education and the beer-worthiness of fiddles versus violins. The family of Okie Adams also is honored on the stage for his lifetime of contributions to old-timey music and banjo-making.
_In addition to various pick-up jam sessions shown close up, this video also feature a solo of Danny Boy; Old Time Fiddler Band from Meiners Oaks (Ojai); and homeboys Tom Murray and Rod Rolle of Stiff Pickle Orchestra, who play out the show through the end titles. The lead sponsor for the Fiddler's Convention this year was Duncan-Turner Acoustic Research of Goleta.
_As a companion video, a Short-Leash Subject also was produced and posted at YouTube. This 10:30 minute video features the long version of the interview with the 3 Sunrise Rotarians and some additional Fiddlers' Convention music jams not included in the full-length OLPA video episode.

Watch the Video of this show!!
34:15 minutes (including bonus content of stage remarks from the Okie Adams family and extra music jams).
For this video hosted by The Google, select the Episode title atop this post.

TV-17 Replay Schedule

01/24/2009	10:00 AM Saturday
01/25/2009	08:00 PM Sunday
01/27/2009	12:00 AM Tuesday
01/27/2009	04:00 AM Tuesday
01/28/2009	10:30 PM Wed.
01/30/2009	07:30 PM Friday
01/31/2009	10:00 AM Saturday
02/01/2009	08:00 PM Sunday
02/03/2009	12:00 AM Tuesday

02/04/2009

01:30 PM Wed.

Episode 032... Conversation with Helene Schneider

Helene Schneider Talks City
In the OLPA bamboo studio, Off-Leash Public Affairs co-Producer Cathy Murillo interviews Santa Barbara City Councilmember Helene Schneider regarding current issues in the City, including responses to Tea Fire Incident, Police Department funding and facilities, 10-year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness, upcoming dueling ballot measures about a limitation to downtown building heights, De la Vina Street free right turn, midnight releases from County jail, Casa Esperanza and aggressive begging, Veronica Meadows del Burro, UCSB basketball, Bohnett Park new kids area, winter weather, and other stuff.
_Shortly after this video was recorded (03 Dec. 2008) by OLPA co-Producer David Pritchett, Schneider softly announced that she is a candidate for Mayor of Santa Barbara. (See KEYT news videos.) Her new election committee was noted as the funding source on the reverse side of a December holiday greetings card mailed out to 1000+ Santa Barbara locals. With that as a tip, KEYT-TV3 news made a story of it and proclaimed that KEYT was the first to announce that Schneider was a candidate for Mayor in the November 2009 election.
_Off-Leash Public Affairs is eager and willing to interview ALL candidates for Santa Barbara Mayor!! Just contact us.

Watch the Video of this show!!
28:30 minutes (with some extra blank space at end).
For the video hosted by The Google, select the Episode title atop this post.
TV-17 Replay Schedule

12/20/2008	10:00 AM
12/21/2008	08:00 PM
12/24/2008	11:30 PM
12/25/2008	08:00 PM
12/27/2008	10:00 AM
12/28/2008	08:00 PM
12/30/2008	12:00 AM
01/01/2009	08:00 PM
01/03/2009	10:00 AM
01/04/2009	08:00 PM

01/06/2009	12:00 AM
01/08/2009	08:00 PM
01/10/2009	10:00 AM
01/11/2009	08:00 PM
01/13/2009	12:00 AM
01/17/2009	10:00 AM
01/18/2009	08:00 PM
01/20/2009	12:00 AM

Episode 031... Tea Fire Citizen Videography

Community rises to overcome wildfire disaster
The Tea Fire ignited the early evening of Thursday, 13th Nov. 2008.
_ This episode of Off-Leash Public Affairs (OLPA) features 15 amateur and semi-pro short videos (of nearly 100 published) that document the first few hours of the Tea Fire Incident and its near-term aftermath. Some of these featured 15 short videos are edited quite well and all were posted at YouTube within a few days or hours following the peak of the fire incident. The video producer or YouTube user name is indicated for each.
_ Although an earlier report put the total at 231 homes, as cited in this video, this wildfire destroyed 230 homes in the foothills of northeast Santa Barbara and northwest Montecito, and more than 5000 people evacuated during the most active phase of the fire that Thursday night.
_ In this video, OLPA co-Producer David Pritchett also includes excerpts from the multi-agency news conference held at Santa Barbara City Hall Friday afternoon, 22 hours after the wildfire ignition. By then, the wildfire had not expanded much because the winds stayed calm, and officials were cautiously optimistic that fire containment would be soon.
_ Approximately 70 people participated in that Friday news conference. County Supervisors Salud Carbajal and Janet Wolf noted then how the community rose to the occasion with aid to Tea Fire evacuees, firefighters, and support staff. Janet Wolf concludes the video with remarks about her personal experience when her home and 426 others burned during the Paint Fire in 1990.

Watch the Video of this show!!
28:30 minutes. For the video hosted by The Google, select the Episode title atop this post.
TV-17 Replay Schedule

11/29/2008	10:00 AM Saturday
11/30/2008	08:00 PM Sunday
12/04/2008	08:00 AM Thursday
12/05/2008	12:30 AM Friday
12/06/2008	10:00 AM Saturday
12/07/2008	08:00 PM Sunday
12/12/2008	07:00 PM Friday
12/13/2008	10:00 AM Saturday
12/14/2008 12/15/2008	08:00 PM Sunday 03:00 PM Monday

Episode 030... Will the New President Restore Our Liberties?

Change We Can Believe In?
Let's hope so.
__Remember the War on Iraq? With more than 4200 American military deaths so far, the war is still raging despite nationwide attention focused on the economic implosion. Remember how civil libe rties have eroded under the guise of national security that stretches or breaks even the new laws, including the USA PATRIOT Act? Those hasty laws still exist, but leadership from a new President could update them, or at least direct Federal officials to comply with the actual law about privacy for American citizens.
__This video was edited shortly before the election of Barack Obama, so it maintains a somewhat fake uncertainty about who will be the new American President. Recorded during the annual Santa Barbara Spirit of '76 Parade on Independence Day 2008, Bob Potter of Veterans for Peace and Ron St. John of American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) remind us about the Iraq War and how the U.S. Government seems to be violating its own Constitution. These patriots are interviewed under the backdrop of the parade happenings.
__Playing often on TV-17 on the Santa Barbara Channels GreenScreen show of video shorts playing weekdays in the 6 pm hour, a 9-minute Short-Leash Subject from the parade also was produced, sans interviews and only featuring some music, WWII U.S. Army re-enactors, and a few climate-changing noisy cars.
__As a reminder of Our Liberties, this OLPA episode concludes with low-res video from the March 2007 Peace March held in downtown Santa Barbara to commemorate the 4th Anniversary of the start of Iraq War. Several additional short video files from that Peace March up State Street were recorded by OLPA Producer David Pritchett.

Watch the Video of this show!!
36 minutes. Includes bonus content (not in the TV replay version) of the ABC news story about illegal Government telephone surveillance of American military personnel, plus more video from the March 2007 Peace March in Santa Barbara. For the video hosted by The Google, select the Episode title atop this post.
TV-17 Replay Schedule
11/10/2008 Mon. 10:00 AM

11/12/2008 Wed.	10:30 PM
11/15/2008 Sat.	10:00 AM
11/16/2008 Sun.	08:00 PM
11/18/2008 Tue.	04:00 AM
11/22/2008 Sat.	10:00 AM
11/23/2008 Sun.	08:00 PM

Episode 029... YES WE CAN Change Goleta Politics

Goleta Poised for Greatness after Nov. 2008 Election
With a nod to Goleta as neighbor to Santa Barbara, this episode of Off-Leash Public Affairs (OLPA) features the candidates for Goleta City Council, Third District County Supervisor, and Goleta Water Board. If elected Nov. 2008, they will be the Change We Can Believe In for The Good Land.
_ A politically progressive majority can be attained if Ed Easton and Margaret Connell were elected to Goleta City Council, if Bill Rosen and Lauren Hanson were elected to Goleta Water Board, if Doreen Farr were elected to County Board of Supervisors, and if Hannah-Beth Jackson were elected California State Senate (to attain a two-thirds Democratic majority to be able to pass a different kind of State budget and to overturn Gubernatorial vetoes of bills).
_ Recorded at the annual Democrats Labor Day celebration event held 01 Sept. 2008 at Oak Park in Santa Barbara, this OLPA episode features remarks by Santa Barbara County Democratic Party Chair Daraka Larimore-Hall, California State Controller John Chiang, Goleta City Council candidates Ed Easton and Margaret Connell, Goleta Water Board candidates Lauren Hanson and (remarks one step removed) Bill Rosen, Third District County Supervisor candidate Doreen Farr, State Senate candidate Hannah-Beth Jackson, State Assemblymember and re-election candidate Pedro Nava, and U.S. Congressional Member and re-election candidate Lois Capps, all describing the issues and why they would be the best legislative Decider if elected.
_ OLPA co-Producer Cathy Murillo recorded the video and conducted the interviews, with most editing by co-Producer David Pritchett, along with a snazzy "GreenScreen" introduction featuring some fantastic photos by MisterGoleta (aka Matthew E. Cohen).
_ Bonus Content: The last 10:30 minutes of this video is the Short-Leash Subject Proposition 4: What Part of NO Don't They Understand? Also on the Nov. 2008 ballot in Goleta and all of California, this issue about reproductive choice and safety for teenage girls was recorded from a rally held at Santa Barbara County Courthouse on 05 Sept. 2008. Speakers include Mark Asman (Trinity Episcopal Church), Linda Phillips (League of Women Voters), Joel Rodriguez-Flores (Community Organizer for PUEBLO and SEIU), Mary O'Gorman (SB Women's Political Committee) and Helene Schneider (Santa Barbara City Councilmember).

Watch the Video of this show!!
58:30 minutes. For the video hosted by Google, select the Episode title atop this post.

TV-17 Replay Schedule (irregular times)
10/08/2008 Wed. 9:00 PM

10/12/2008 Sun.	10:00 AM
10/20/2008 Mon.	09:30 AM
10/22/2008 Wed.	09:00 PM
10/24/2008 Fri.	09:30 AM
10/25/2008 Sat.	01:00 PM
10/27/2008 Mon.	09:30 AM
10/28/2008 Tue.	10:30 PM
10/31/2008 Fri.	12:10 PM
11/01/2008 Sat. 11/02/2008 Sun.	01:00 PM 03:00 PM
11/03/2008 Mon.	10:30 AM

Episode 028... Democrats FIRED UP for Change

FIRED UP and Ready To Go!!
Democratic Party stalwarts of Santa Barbara rallied during the re-election campaign kick-off event for Congressional Representative Lois Capps, held 06Sep.2006 at Capps Campaign Headquarters, 1920 De la Vina Street in downtown Santa Barbara.
__Politico speakers included (1) County Supervisor Salud Carbajal pitching for Measure A-2008 on the November County ballot, (2) plus a separate interview about MTD and Measure A with Santa Barbara City Councilmember Helene Schneider, (3) State Assemblymember Pedro Nava describing the State Budget tardiness woes, (4) and former Assemblymember and State Senate candidate Hannah-Beth Jackson urging all to vote their pockets by supporting Barack Obama for President. The video concludes with (5) Naomi Schwartz introducing (6) Lois Capps who speaks about her vision for the nation when Obama gets elected.
__Fresh from the Democratic National Convention as a delegate, (7) local Obama campaign leader Tim Allison also spoke and went to bat for Barack while (8) his 5.75-year-old son TJ Allison led the cheers for the crowd of about 150. Jerry Roberts wrote up a report of the event in his Capital Letters report at Independent website.

Watch the Video of this show!!
28:30 minutes.
For the video hosted by Vimeo, select the Episode title atop this post.

www.SBdemocrats.org

TV-17 Replay Schedule

10/07/2008 Tue.	04:30 AM
10/11/2008 Sat.	10:00 AM
10/12/2008 Sun.	08:00 PM
10/14/2008 Tue.	01:00 AM
10/16/2008 Thu.	07:30 AM
10/18/2008 Sat.	10:00 AM
10/19/2008 Sun.	08:00 PM
10/25/2008 Sat.	10:00 AM
10/26/2008 Sun.	08:00 PM

09/18/2008 09/20/2008	Thursday 07:13 PM Saturday 10:00 AM
09/21/2008	Sunday 08:00 PM
09/27/2008	Saturday 10:00 AM
09/28/2008	Sunday 01:00 AM
09/28/2008	Sunday 08:00 PM
09/29/2008	Monday 06:00 AM

10/01/2008	Wednesday 11:00 PM
10/04/2008	Saturday 10:00 AM
10/05/2008	Sunday 06:00 AM

Episode 027... Let Santa Barbara Ring

Marriage for All
__Affirming the right of same-gender couples to marry under the law, the California Supreme Court eliminated this vestige of discrimination by its ruling on 15th May 2008. The Court ruling overturned a ballot initiative 8 years earlier (Proposition 22-2000) that attempted to ingrain discrimination into the California Constitution.
__In this video, the people of Santa Barbara celebrate this Supreme Court ruling with a spontaneous rally held the same day and at the County Courthouse. Overshadowing the joyous mood, though, was yet another State ballot initiative (Proposition 8-2008 during the November election) that, again, intends to mess with the California Constitution by eliminating this affirmed civil right. Speakers during this rally mentioned an earlier event the prior February to commemorate the murder of Lawrence King, a high school student from Oxnard.
__When this right to marriage went in effect locally on 17th May, the video includes interviews with local clergy and covers some ceremonies held in the Santa Barbara County Courthouse tower.
__Hosted and produced by David Pritchett, this video episode of Off-Leash Public Affairs features interviews with and/or remarks by Helene Schneider, Mark Asman, Teena Grant, Hillary Blackerby, David Selberg, Jarrod Schwartz, Marty Blum, Iya Falcone, Mary O'Gorman, Salud Carbajal, Lauren Wyeth, Karen Quimby, Kim Summerfield, Sue Van Horsen, Andy Edgar-Beltran, Manny Edgar-Beltran, Melissa Mecija, Ross Beardsley, Percy Sales, Lauren Mancuso, and Ken Collier.
__As featured in the video, some organizations advocating to keep the existing legal right for same-gender couples to marry include Pacific Pride Foundation in Santa Barbara and the statewide organization Let California Ring.

Watch the Video of this show!!
45 minutes, with bonus content (in addition to the 28-minute TV-17 version) of the famous Garden Wedding video ad, a found montage of political hypocrisy about the marriage rights of Ellen DeGeneres, and the long-version outreach video by Let California Ring.
For an alternative video host via Google, select the Episode title atop this post.

TV-17 Replay Schedule
Second Replay Run:

09/30/2008	Tue. 11:30 AM
10/01/2008	Wed. 01:30 PM
10/05/2008 10/06/2008	Sun. 08:30 PM Mon. 1100 AM

10/07/2008 Tue. 2230

10/12/2008	Sat. 05:00 AM
10/13/2008	Sun. 03:00 PM
10/16/2008	Thu. 11:00 AM
10/22/2008	Wed. 02:30 PM
10/24/2008	Fri. 07:00 PM
10/29/2008 11/01/2008	Wed. 12:30 PM Sat. 11:30 AM
11/02/2008	Sun. 08:00 PM

First Replay Run:

08/30/2008 Sat.	10:00 AM
08/31/2008 Sun.	08:00 PM
09/06/2008 Sat.	10:00 AM
09/13/2008 Sat.	10:00 AM
09/14/2008 Sun.	08:00 PM
09/20/2008 Sat.	10:00 AM
9/21/2008 Sun.	08:00 PM

Episode 026... SB Women's Political Committee: 20 Years of Feminists Making a Difference

More Access, Voice, Power.
This episode covers the 20th Anniversary Celebration Dinner by Santa Barbara Women's Political Committee (SBWPC), held 18 March 2008 with an attendance of about 230. U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer was the keynote speaker and her full remarkes are featured in OLPA episode 019, produced shortly after the event.
This video captures the feel of the event and OLPA co-Host David Pritchett interviews various SBWPC members about the state of local feminism since the SBWPC Founding Mothers launched the organization 20 years earlier. Interviews are with SBWPC members and friends Lori Schneider, Margaret Connell, Willie Rowan, David Landecker, County Supervisor Janet Wolf, Susie Dumpis, Vijaya Jammalamadaka, Patty Monroy, Liz Camacho, SBWPC Board President Mary O'Gorman, and Lisa Guravitz. Additional speakers include County Supervisor Salud Carbajal, State Senate candidate Hannah-Beth Jackson, and Susan Rose receiving the annual Roses Award.__Replay Schedule on TV-17__

Saturday, Aug./02/2008	10:00 AM
Sunday, Aug./03/2008	08:00 PM
Wed., Aug./06/2008	03:30 AM
Saturday, Aug./09/2008	10:00 AM
Sunday, Aug./10/2008	02:00 PM
Sunday, Aug./10/2008	08:00 PM
Tuesday, Aug./12/2008	02:00 AM
Wed., Aug./13/2008	05:30 AM
Saturday, Aug./16/2008	10:00 AM
Sunday, Aug./17/2008	08:00 PM

Friday, Aug. 22, 0630 am

Episode 025... How Santa Barbara Welcomes John McCain

Vote the Dinosaur for President!
Encore TV replays:
Saturday, 23 Aug. at 10 am
Sunday, 24 Aug., at 8 pm
Monday, 25 Aug. at 5:30 am

Republican Presidential nominee John McCain should be careful about whom he invites to speak during his own campaign events.
__Invited by the McCain campaign to be a local speaker during a panel discussion (held 24 June 2008) about a national energy policy, local land conservationist Michael Feeney seemed to grab more attention than either McCain or Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Or so it seemed, considering that this was a Presidential election campaign event where usually the speakers and audience are selected to stay on message, lest the headlines become, as they did, more about the dissent instead of the political sales pitch the campaign event is intended to be.
__The event filled the house at Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, although many political watchers wondered (not really) why such a small venue was selected, having a capacity of only about 300. With school out for summer, Santa Barbara City College was highly available for a crowd of 8 thousand that worked for Barack Obama, or even a UCSB gym that could hold 1000 as it did for Hillary Clinton.
__During this campaign event-discussion, Feeney "lambasted" and "excoriated" McCain (or so wrote ABC News) about relying upon and expanding nuclear power generation to solve the national energy crisis. Feeney also cautioned that storing and transporting all that radioactive waste still remains a severe problem with no solution. McCain's answer to that --to emulate the French-- really means shipping off the radioactive waste to somewhere else regardless if the Americans there did or did not want that nuke waste, the gift that keeps giving for millennia.
__More offshore oil development and drilling also did not go over so well with the crowd of about 150 people who came to welcome McCain to Santa Barbara that Tuesday morning. John Abraham Powell of Get Oil Out (GOO) spoke about that and a rumoured choice for McCain's Veep selection. Santa Barbara City Councilmember Das Williams and local Democratic champion Barbie Deutsch also piled on about the irony of McCain promoting more offshore oil development here in Santa Barbara.
__And another crowd dis-pleaser: McCain's opposition to reproductive choice for women. Brianna Eardley of Planned Parenthood Federation described McCain's desire to appoint anti-choice Supreme Court Justices, while Santa Barbara City Councilmember Helene Schneider told of McCain's less-than-zero voting record about women's health issues.

__See the whole spectacle in this video episode of Off-Leash Public Affairs, which started the TV-17 replays on Saturday, 12 July 2008.

excerpted photo by Lauren Hanson or Mary Jones via Edhat

Watch the Video of this show!! (32 minutes, including bonus content of photo montage from the 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara) For an alternative video host via Vimeo, select the Episode title atop this post.

Episode 024... Take Back The Park

Carpe Parcem
Few people know or appreciate that the park-like lawn area in front of Fess Parker DoubleTree Resort (DoubleTree Hotel) actually is public open space with no restrictions on access. This site lies along Cabrillo Bl. at East Beach in Santa Barbara. The hotel cannot exclude people from passive recreation and picnicking there, as a legal condition of approval from when the hotel project was planned 1979-1981 and approved by the City and California Coastal Commission.
__This history and the joys of the public open space are explained in this video by David Stone, the Founder and Visionary of Take Back The Park, an annual event celebrated there during an afternoon each July since 1987. This video was recorded from Take Back The Park XX (held 07 July 2007), with additional content from a June 2008 interview with Dave Davis, the Santa Barbara City Planner for the hotel project at the time.
__An OLPA Short-Leash Subject (3 minutes) on this also is available via this link. This full OLPA episode debuted 23 June 2008, and replayed 9 times on local cable TV-17.

Watch the Video of this show!! (44 minutes, including bonus content of Park Party Animals, Rotunda ruckus, and the full interview with Dave Davis) For the video host at Vimeo, select the Episode title atop this post.

Episode 023... Shane Stark Looking Forward with SBCAN

Shane Stark DOES know and he CAN say... and then he joins the Cabal.
___Tri-Tip, Public Records Requests, Planning Nuts, Philly Cheesesteak, Shame-Based Statutes, La Graciosa, Streaming Web Stuff, and the entertainment-only value of News-Press InfoTorials are all part of the hit parade of topics about local culture and politics dished by Shane Stark, the recently retired County Counsel attorney representing the Santa Barbara County government.
___Speaking to perhaps his largest off-the-job crowd since his belly-laughing remarks during the retirement party for County Supervisor Susan Rose, Shane Stark is featured dishing as only he can during the annual Looking Forward North County awards event held by SBCAN (Santa Barbara County Action Network) and its non-profit sister organization, Santa Barbara County Organization for Research and Education (SBCORE). Stark retired from 20 years in County government service on 25 January 2008.
___This episode started playing on TV-17 Monday, 09th June. The bonus video content here after 28:30 minutes includes remarks by award recipients Joan Leon, John Buttny, and Eric Cardenas, and SBCAN Directors Vibiana Saavedra and Joann Marmolejo.

photo by Paul Wellman, SB Independent

TV-17 Replay Schedule

06/09/2008, Mon.	06:30 PM
06/11/2008, Wed.	04:30 AM
06/12/2008, Thu.	11:30 AM
06/14/2008, Sat.	09:30 AM
06/15/2008, Sun.	08:00 PM
06/16/2008, Mon.	06:30 PM
06/18/2008, Wed.	05:30 AM
06/21/2008, Sat.	09:30 AM
06/22/2008, Sun.	08:00 PM

Watch the Video of this show!! (28 minutes, plus bonus content of award recipients) For an alternative video host via Google Video, select the Episode title atop this post.

Episode 022... Doreen Farr for County Supervisor

UPDATE: Doreen Farr takes first place by 10% spread!!
Election results link here.
Another Important Election is Happening on June 3rd!!
_____The second of three elections this year will be held June 3rd. FIVE, yes 5, candidates are running for the Third District Supervisor of Santa Barbara County. In the likely event no candidate attains more than 50% of the votes, the top 2 vote recipients will fight it out during the November runoff election, on the same ballot where Obama beats McCain for USA President.
_____As we OLPA Co-Producers like her the best by farr, this video episode highlights Supervisorial candidate Doreen Farr, a resident of Santa Ynez with decades of experience also residing and working in Goleta, as described well at her campaign website.
_____This video features the remarks by Doreen Farr during a candidates forum held 30th April at Goleta Valley Community Center and sponsored by League of Women Voters (LWV) and Citizens Planning Foundation. This video also features an interview with insightful and frank-talking Goleta political watcher and Vector Management District Trustee John Olson. The absolute end of the video includes an outtake homage to a Santa Barbara City political watcher and productive gadfly.
_____Responding to the questions from the moderator and the audience, Doreen speaks about State housing mandates, regional transportation, County budget and fiscalization of land use, Gaviota Coast protection, and the record of outgoing Third District Supervisor Brooks Firestone.
_____Other community-access videos were produced from this forum. LWV hired our pal Larry Nimmer again this election cycle to produce his famous Touring With the Candidates videos, and Lar also produced a straight documentary of the entire candidates forum. Both of these productions can be found by searching on "touring" or "forum"at the Santa Barbara Channels, TV-17 schedule up through election day. KCSB radio also recorded and broad- and web-cast it twice.
Schedule Note: Starting 24th May, this episode replayed on TV-17 10 times until 08th June, per the usual schedule noted above, except that it was an hour later on 28th May.Watch the Video of this show!! (28 minutes including the outtake content at the end) For an alternative video host via Google Video, select the Episode title atop this post.

Episode 021... YES on Measure V for SBCC

ELECTION UPDATE: Blowout Victory at 70% YES vote!!
Another Important Election is Happening on June 3rd!!
___ Election no. 2 of 3 in 2008 is coming up on June 3rd. This episode highlights Measure V on the June 2008 ballot, to benefit Santa Barbara City College (SBCC), a public institution governed by an elected Board of Trustees as a Special District agency.
___ Measure V asks South Coast (Santa Barbara County) voters to approve a $77.2 million bond that will qualify SBCC for up to $92 million in State matching funds for 11 critical projects. As described in the extensive outreach materials, the need is for renovation of existing physical facilities --many more than 30 years old-- and upgrades throughout the campus to meet 21st Century standards for collegiate education. The only new construction project is to provide the required SBCC funding share for the new School of Media Arts facility (SoMA) to house existing high tech career programs scattered and crammed inefficiently around the campus.
___ The Measure V campaign website includes descriptions of all these projects and lists the broad-based endorsing organizations, from all over the socio-political map of Santa Barbara County. The ballot has no argument filed against Measure V, indicating a lack of any organized or credible opposition.
___ Video locations in this OLPA episode include the main SBCC campus with its many maintenance-deferred buildings, Schott Center for Adult Education, a news conference held 25 April 2008 at SBCC, a forum of the YES-on-V presentation held 16 April at a meeting of League of Women Voters of Santa Barbara (at Davis Recreation Center), and the Measure V election campaign office opener held 12 April.
___ Subjects interviewed and featured speaking in this video include SBCC President John Romo, SBCC Board of Trustees Chair Desmond O'Neill, SB Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Board Treasurer Luis Villegas, County Supervisor Janet Wolf, League of Women Voters (LWV) local Board President Linda Phillips, SB County Democratic Party Secretary Hillary Blackerby, SB County Republican Party Committeemember Scott Burns, former SB City Councilmember Dan Secord, and current City Councilmember Grant House. (Apologies for mis-spelling the Villegas name in the video text.)
___ A lengthy radio interview by Paul Berenson is here with SBCC President John Romo, and an article by SB Independent is here.
___ Bonus video is included in this version posted here at the OLPA website, about a half-hour of additional content following the first 28:30 minutes version edited for the TV-17 replay. This roughly edited bonus video includes: (1) a KEYT TV news story; (2) campaign staff Emily Allen and Mary Rose briefing the volunteer workers; (3) interviews with John Romo about the State matching funds and how SBCC staff can do voter outreach on their personal time; (4) SBCC Vice Prez Pablo Buckelew describing the various Adult Education programs during the LWV forum; (5) SBCC Vice Prez Joe Sullivan pointing out the decaying infrastructure and the SoMA building site; (6) and extensive unedited remarks, facts, and figures described by Romo and O'Neill responding to the common questions and perception about how SBCC does or does not have too many students from distant areas.
___ This episode debuted on TV-17 Wednesday, 07 May 2008, and replayed 8+ times, ending on 19 May (or later to be posted soon), per this schedule mostly at the usual timeslots.

Replay Schedule on TV-17

Wed. May/07/2008	05:30 AM
Sat. May/10/2008	09:30 AM
Sun. May/11/2008	08:00 PM
Tue. May/13/2008	11:30 PM
Wed. May/14/2008	11:30 AM
Sat. May/17/2008	09:30 AM
Sun. May/18/2008	08:00 PM
Mon. May/19/2008	06:30 PM

Watch the Video of this show!! (59 minutes including the bonus video content as the latter half) For an alternative video host via Google Video, select the Episode title atop this post.

Episode 020... Girls Inc.: Divas for a Cause

Strong, Smart, and Bold.
This episode features a profile of Girls Inc. of Greater Santa Barbara with an emphasis on their upcoming event Divas for a Cause, to be held on Thursday night, 22 May, from 7 to 10 pm (details at the link).
____The guide from Girls Inc. is Librarian and Diva Mari Martin, who tells OLPA co-producers Cathy Murillo and David Pritchett what the fantastic Girls Inc. is all about in Santa Barbara and in Goleta. Lauren Fleming is one of the smart and bold girls interviewed and she is depicted in the video excerpt image.
____This episode started playing Monday, 21 April 2008, and replayed 11 times on cable TV-17 until 05 May, per the regular OLPA schedule plus a couple of additional replays later in May.

Watch the Video of this show!!
(31 minutes, including at the end a reprise of the Diva blues singing and the competitive musical chairs, in addition to the 28:30 version for TV.) If the video stalls, try linking on the title of this website post to go directly to Vimeo.

Episode 019... Senator Barbara Boxer at SB Women's Political Committee

Access. Voice. Power.

U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer joined Santa Barbara Women's Political Committee on the occasion of the the 20th Anniversary celebration for this political powerhouse organization. This annual dinner event with about 230 attendees was held 18th March 2008 at a hotel overlooking East Beach in Santa Barbara.

Besides the keynote address by Senator Boxer, the event featured the annual SBWPC Board President Message (Mary O'Gorman, starting this year), reports on recently endorsed candidates for elected office, awards to high achievers, and the silent and loud auctions. This episode of Off-Leash Public Affairs features the full remarks by Senator Boxer, with a future OLPA episode (summerish 2008) to highlight the other speakers and interviews within the crowd about the state of modern feminism.

In her remarks, Barbara Boxer naturally was projecting forward to a Democrat being elected to USA President, with plenty of commentary about the disaster of the GWBush administration. To hoots from the crowd, the Senator even self-joined the growing Santa Barbara Cabal, when she encouraged all the activists in the room to become the news media and if necessary also raise money for a new local newspaper.

Schedule. This episode debuted 05 April 2008 and replayed a total of 11 times, ending on 20 April 2008, per the replay schedule above, plus a bonus replay at 0730 Friday, 11 April.

Production Technical Note. This video was our first try at the multi-clip editing feature in Final Cut Pro, where Co-Producer Cathy Murillo --with a little help from SBChannels staff genius Josh Figatner-- synced the audio and melded the video recorded from 2 separate cameras into one video clip segment for the overall production. SBChannels Uuber-Volunteer (and another Feminist Man) Tyler Geck helped out as our Crew for the second camera to record the Barbara Boxer remarks.

Watch the Video of this show!!
(30 minutes, including KEYT news story as bonus content in addition to the 28:30 version for TV.) If the video stalls and impairs your computer memory, try linking on the title of this website post to go directly to Vimeo.

Episode 018... U Plan SB: The Listening Tour

This episode of Off-Leash Public Affairs highlights the range, diversity, and passion of public comments during a couple of the "Grassroots Community Workshops, Round 1" outreach meetings held in June 2007 for the Santa Barbara City General Plan Update, called Plan Santa Barbara. The Plan SB website includes reports from the 60+ public meetings held so far for community workshops, individual groups, and City boards.

Most of the content in this video is from the public meeting held at Westside Community Center on 28 June 2007. The opening introduction by OLPA co-Producer David Pritchett also gives an update on the Process Timeline that illustrates how this complex and iterative process eventually will yield a Programmatic Environmental Impact Report that analyzes various alternative planning scenarios for the final General Plan adopted by Santa Barbara City Council.
Viewers may disagree with some of the statements and allegations said by various people in this video, so comments can be entered here (to this blog post) as a response and factual correction. The video file here includes an extra 10 minutes of group discussions and even more explanation by Pritchett about the planning process. That extra content could not fit into the 28-minute version edited for the TV replay.

Replay Schedule

03/23/2008	02:00 PM
03/24/2008	06:30 PM
03/26/2008	05:30 AM
03/29/2008	09:30 AM
03/30/2008	08:00 PM
03/31/2008	06:30 PM

04/02/2008 5:00 AM Wednesday
04/04/2008 8:30 PM Friday
This OLPA episode played 11 times on TV-17, starting Friday 21 March and ending 04 April, per the general schedule atop this website and the specific dates above for the latter replays.


Watch the Video of this show!!
(38 minutes, including bonus content in addition to the 28:30 version for TV.) If the video stalls and impairs your computer memory, try linking on the title of this website post to go directly to Vimeo.

Episode 017... Jefferson-Jackson Dinner 2008

This Santa Barbara County Jefferson-Jackson Dinner was held Saturday, 23 February 2008, at Earl Warren Showgrounds (Warren Hall) in Santa Barbara. Jefferson-Jackson Dinners are annual events and celebrations by Democratic groups nationwide, commemorating some of the founders of the Democratic Party.

The crowd was approximately 450 for this sold-out, capacity-filling event, drawing Democrats from throughout Santa Barbara County and some of their DTS friends. A few Obamicans might have slipped in too. The event was primarily organized by Barbie Deutsch and Ellen Dana Nagler, a duo of Democrat dynamos who run the local political action organization BE for Change. The local, formal arm of the Democratic Party is Santa Barbara County Democratic Central Committee, with local Dem activities noted at the Dem Central website.

The keynote speaker at this Jefferson-Jackson Dinner was John Dean, famous White House Counsel who sang to the Senate about the Nixon Watergate scandal. Most of this 28-minute video features remarks by Dean, who puts current Presidential politics in perspective about Republican nominee John McCain and his history with Republican stalwart Barry Goldwater. A prodigious author about the corrupt and incompetent Mess of the GW Bush administration, John Dean further speaks about how national politics in Washington really work, or not, for democracy, with grave implications for the Nov. 2008 Presidential election. Some of Dean's recent books are Broken Government, Blind Ambition, Worse than Watergate, Pure Goldwater, and Conservatives without Conscience. His latest book, of course, was for sale at the event.

Other speakers and musical performers at this 2008 Santa Barbara Jefferson-Jackson Dinner included Sam Negrao on gentle guitar, Carol Ann Manzi (soprano) and Thomas Heck (classic guitar) performing America the Beautiful, singer-songeditor Marian Shapiro, and Henry Vandermeir of California Democratic Council with a Statewide perspective for this election season. The Selma Rubin Outstanding Grassroots Activist Awards --presented by Selma herself-- were bestowed to Santa Maria Valley Democratic Club and Jill and Mark Brouillard of Fresco! restaurant.

Technical Note: Yep, the audio is out of sync for the remarks by John Dean. For the wide views, though, it does not look too bad, especially with the other video of the event and still pictures overlaid. OLPA co-producer David Pritchett erred Big Time in setting the transmitter level too high for the wireless microphone, so the audio linked with the video was way, way over-modulated and unusable. The audio file used in this final production actually was from a separate recording by Cathy Murillo near the speaker in the back of the room.

Schedule: This OLPA episode started playing on cable TV-17 on 05 March 2008, per the replay schedule above (more or less), including scheduled replays on the 3 consecutive days Saturday to Monday. It replayed about 10 times between 05 and 20 March.

Watch the Video of this show!! (28 minutes, although file length is 41 min.)
For a FULL SCREEN option, link on the Google label and select the lower right arrow icon for the Smooth Video option.

Episode 016... Hannah-Beth Jackson: State Senate Candidate

This episode features interviews with State Senate Candidate Hannah-Beth Jackson, talking with OLPA co-Producers Cathy Murillo and David Pritchett.

Since Proposition 93 failed on the Feb. 2008 State ballot, which would have allowed the incumbent State Senator (Tom McClintock) to run for even more terms in office, this legislative seat for State Senate District 19 will have no incumbent defending it during the Nov. 2008 election. Accordingly, the race is open and is expected to be one of the most expensive and contentious State Senate elections then, with Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson battling Republican Tony Strickland. They both are expected to have no difficulty in securing their respective Party nominations during the State Primary election in June 2008.

In this video, interview topics discussed with Jackson include health care insurance reform, off-shore oil development, sustainable urban planning, health care insurance reform, State budget crisis, Ventura County issues (including Rocketdyne), health care insurance reform, water quality legislation, her 6-year record in the State Assembly, health care insurance reform, and her expected Republican opponent.

The interview was recorded 27Nov.2007 at downtown Santa Barbara and 01Dec.2007 at Arroyo Burro Beach in Santa Barbara. The TV-17 replays of this video started 06Feb.2008 and replayed 18 times until 03Mar.2008.

SCHEDULE of the extra replays in addition to usual 4x per week replays
Friday, 02/08/2008, 08:30 PM --extra timeslot
Wednesday, 02/13/2008, 11:30 AM --extra timeslot
Wednesday, 02/13/2008, 9:30 PM --extra timeslot

Watch the Video of this show!! (28 minutes)
For a FULL SCREEN option, link on the Google label and be sure to select the lower right arrow icon for the Smooth Video option.

Episode 015... Hillary Clinton at UCSB

When does a Town-Hall Meeting become a Raucous Rally??
The appearance at UCSB by a leading Presidential candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton, was a little of both Thursday night, 17 January 2008. (The deliberately limited crowd of about 1100 was loud, but actually not that raucous.)

Although Team Hill called the event a "Town-Hall Meeting", the blaring Big Head Todd and screaming student supporters made this event a true rally with a few questions from the audience during the latter half. One up-close video post even called the event "town hall-esque" and local news coverage plainly called the event a true rally in their headlines.

HRC spoke for about 1:10 hours total for her stump-speechy remarks, honed a bit for a college audience with a theme looking forward 25 years about how great America would be if HRC were elected as President now.

photo by Paul Wellman

Perhaps as a counterpoint to OLPA episode 013 covering Barack Obama at SBCC, this regularly scheduled OLPA episode Hillary Clinton at UCSB debuted most quickly on Santa Barbara Channels (cable TV-17), less than a week after the HRC rally occurred at UCSB Pavilion Gymnasium at the newish campus Recreation Center.

This regular (28:30 minutes) Off-Leash Public Affairs (OLPA) episode only had time for about 2/3 of her introduction and initial remarks, but if HRC garners the Democratic party nomination another OLPA video certainly will be produced to include the audience questions and the HRC responses that expanded well into new topics not covered in her initial remarks.

An additional, future OLPA video production also would feature the comments, candidate preferences, and the spectacle of the crowd of at least 3000 people waiting outside to get into the gym, most of whom later were disappointed to highly irked that they did not gain admission. The Hillary campaign later apologized in a letter to Daily Nexus.

This OLPA episode Hillary Clinton at UCSB concludes with a short interview with former County Supervisor Susan Rose, who is a lead organizer for Santa Barbarans for Hillary, the local Clinton campaign organization. OLPA Co-Producer David Pritchett also interviews Kathleen Modugno, recent Board chair of Democratic Women of Santa Barbara County. OLPA episode 003 featured interviews with local Democrats on their wide preferences for Prez during July 2007.

This Hillary at UCSB video started playing on TV-17 on Wednesday (23Jan.) for 9 replays ending Monday (04Feb.), the eve of Super-Duper Tuesday. The TV-17 schedule for Hillary included an extra replay at 1100 on 25Jan. The Obama at SBCC episode also is replaying on TV-17, per the schedule outlined in its website entry.

As more than half the people in the gym that night seemed to have a camera, some other interesting videos up close from the floor are posted on the Internets, such as here and here and here.

Watch the Video of this show!! (29 minutes)
For a FULL SCREEN option, link on the Google label and once there be sure to select the lower right arrow icon for the Smooth Video option.

Episode 014... SB News-Mess: Teamsters Endzone Dance

Encore Replays are Scheduled for TV-17 in February and March 2009!!
This scheduling compliments OLPA episode 035: Citizen McCaw World Premiere, showing concurrently on TV-17 and the original "film"production Citizen McCaw, showing on TV-21.
Encore Replay Schedule

02/24/2009	00:00 AM

02/28/2009	10:00 AM
03/03/2009	12:00 AM
03/10/2009	12:00 AM
03/14/2009	10:00 AM
03/15/2009	08:00 PM

------------------------
ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION FROM JANUARY 2008:
_In what may become the first in a saga series about the Santa Barbara News-Press-Mess, this episode of Off-Leash Public Affairs (OLPA) helps to explain what the latest Decision by Federal Administrative Law Judge William Kocol really means in this saga that will not end.
_Journalistic ethics and standards ARE workplace conditions for newspaper employees and, therefore, are fully eligible to be subject to negotiations in a labor contract. Once that premise was confirmed by the Judge, everything else fell into place for how the Teamsters won, big time, and the News-Press lost in the 75-page Decision by the Federal Administrative Law Judge.
_To describe what is next for the Teamsters and to celebrate a bit with the community, 75 or so people were present on 02Jan.2008 for an impromptu news announcement and rally at Plaza de la Guerra, all announced on less than one day notice for the middle of a workday. As shown in this OLPA video, John Zant, News-Press writer for 38 years, likened the news announcement and impromptu rally to an endzone dance in the middle of a long game.
_This video includes snippets of the various speakers to the crowd and extensive interviews with legal experts and Teamsters unionists, including news writer Melinda Burns, Teamsters attorney Ira Gottleib, legal analyst Craig Smith, and Teamsters organizer Marty Keegan. Journalistic legend Lou Cannon also remarks to the crowd about how News-Press owner Wendy McCaw reminds him of the last days of the Nixon Presidency, when a simple apology could have reversed an impending institutional implosion.
_On 26Dec.2007, Judge Kocol released his legal Decision about the claim by the Teamsters labor union that 8 union members were illegally terminated from their positions as writers for the beleaguered and continually disgraced Santa Barbara News-Press. In this Decision, the Teamsters won, and Ampersand and its News-Press lost big. The prospects for an appeal by News-Press, and an appeal of what (actual or imagined), also are described in several interviews in this OLPA episode video.
_This latest chapter in the whole News-Mess is reported in many news accounts, such as by Santa Barbara Independent, Los Angeles Times, KEYT-TV, KSBY-TV, Santa Maria Times, KCLU-FM, and others. The rally and full remarks to the crowd by all the speakers are available in a video by local videographer Larry Nimmer in the latest installment in his ongoing series on News-Press-Mess. For those who prefer audio only, KCSB-FM radio news also broadcast the event, as recorded by KCSB News Director and OLPA Co-Producer Cathy Murillo.
_This video episode concludes with OLPA Co-Host David Pritchett reviewing the two Federal legal hearings where the Federal Judges found that testimony by News-Press editorialist Travis Armstrong and other News-Press representatives was --ahem-- less than candid and extremely embellished. Pritchett reads from the Decisions by the 2 Federal Judges and also calls out editorialist Travis Armstrong for his selectively peevish, repeated, and imagined allegations of ethical wrongdoing by some Santa Barbara City Councilmembers. Pritchett even researched the fabricated "Helene-Gate" with a 5-minute phone call and wrote up the actual facts in a news note at Edhat on 06Nov. 2007, which received more than 1000 reads with numerous comments posted in agreement. Despite that factual illumination, Travis Armstrong repeated his truthiness innuendo about that at least 3 subsequent times, most recently in an editorial column published 07Jan.2008, a full 2 months after his truthiness-laden scandal was exposed as the fiction it is.
_Of course, the faux-journalism practiced by Travis Armstrong is that if a lie is repeated enough it must therefore become true. Notwithstanding that, Armstrong and any other representative of what is left of the News-Press have an open invitation for a full, un-edited interview to be recorded on video for a future episode of Off-Leash Public Affairs.
_The TV-17 debut of this OLPA episode was on 09Jan.2008, and it replayed 9 times until 22Jan.2008, with an extra showing at 2330 hrs. on that 22Jan.
Watch the Video of this show!! (28:30 minutes)
For a FULL SCREEN option, link on the Google label in the embed video above.

Episode 013... Barack Obama at SBCC

photo by Paul Wellman

Hope. Action. Change.
Per the TV replay schedule listed below, this Special one-hour episode of Off-Leash Public Affairs (OLPA) features nearly all of the Barack Obama rally and campaign stop at Santa Barbara City College, held Saturday, 08 September 2007. This was earlier in the day before Obama's famous cash-raising garden party with The Oprah in Montecito.

In late December 2007, Obama was leading or tied in polling for the Iowa and New Hampshire Presidential Primary elections. Many analysts believe the Democratic and Republican nominations will be decided on Super-Duper Tuesday, 05 February 2008, the date that also includes the Presidential Primary Election for California.

At SBCC, the FIRED UP! crowd ultimately was estimated at 6000 to 8000 in size by several observers. This was the largest event in Santa Barbara for a political candidate since then-President Bill Clinton spoke at SBCC on 01 November 1996.

This OLPA episode also includes interviews with several participants in the Obama rally, including Mike Hackett, Casey Rivers, SBCC Prez John Romo, die-hard Kucinich supporter Gilberto Robledo, and punchy Carpinterians Margaret Bernal and Chris Bernal (spelling uncertain).

For the latter part of the video, 14 weeks after the rally at SBCC, OLPA host-producer-director-videographer-editor (for this episode) David Pritchett interviewed 6 enthusiastic and optimistic leaders with Santa Barbarians for Barack, the local Obama campaign in the Santa Barbara area. Interviewed were: Dana Martin, Anthony Rock, Robert Potter, Tania Israel, Brent Robinson, and Sherry Holland, all describing why they back Barack and what the local campaign is doing. Volunteer hotline is tel. 805-684-5431

The interview occurred while the Barbarians for Barack stood under Fish Named Sue, a steelhead trout sculpture featured in a recent prior OLPA episode. (The faint background noise during this interview is not static, but the welcome rainfall outside.) Long before the Barack Barbarians formed, OLPA episode 003 featured interviews with local Democrats on their wide preferences for Prez during July 2007.

For local cable TV-17, this episode will debut at 9 pm on Friday, 28 December, to replay often up through Election Day (05 February), per the schedule below. For the TV replays, it is an hour-long Special that is shown in addition to the usual half-hour episodes of Off-Leash Public Affairs replaying 4x per week.

As shown by a couple of charts as cutaway images in this video, a mid December Field Poll of California voters shows that Obama is catching up quickly with Hillary Clinton as the preferred candidate among California Democrats, with a bigger boost if Edwards gets out of the race by February and his supporters likely switch to Obama. That poll also shows for the General Election in November 2008 that California Republicans are far more likely to vote for Obama than Clinton.Several photos in this video episode are courtesy of local guy Robert Bernstein, from his broader photo collection of the event. Link there to his other great photos of Santa Barbaraland happenings. Other Santa Barbarian photographers with photos in this video are listed in the outtro of this episode.


Watch the Video of this show!! (59 minutes)
For a FULL SCREEN option, link on the Google label and once there be sure to select the lower right arrow icon for the Smooth Video option.

Replay Schedule on TV-17
(Also see the SB Channels TV-17 schedule and search on "Obama"...)
Sunday, 03 February, 2100 hrs. (9 pm, shortly after the usual OLPA episode at 8 pm!!)
Saturday, 02 February, 2000 hrs. (8 pm)
Thursday, 31 January, 1400 hrs. (2 pm)
Tuesday, 29 January, 1200 hrs. (12 pm, although same time as the riveting replay on TV-18 of Santa Barbara City Transport & Circulation Committee meeting)
Saturday, 26 January, 1700 hrs. (5 pm)
Thursday, 24 January, 1400 hrs. (2 pm)
Sunday, 20 January, 2200 hrs. (10 pm, shortly after the usual OLPA episode at 8 pm!!)
Thursday, 17 January, 2100 hrs. (9 pm)
Thursday, 17 January, 1400 hrs. (2 pm)
Tuesday, 15 January, 0500 hrs. (5 am)
Sunday, 13 January, 2200 hrs. (10 pm, shortly after the usual OLPA episode at 8 pm!!)
Friday, 11 January, 0200 hrs. (2 am, great to see after late-night partying!!)
Thursday, 10 January, 0600 hrs. (6 am)
Monday, 07 January, 2100 hrs. (9 pm)
Sunday, 06 January, 2100 hrs. (9 pm, a half-hour after the usual OLPA episode at 8 pm!!)
Friday, 04 January, 1900 hrs. (7 pm)
Friday, 04 January, 1100 hrs. (11 am)
Tuesday, 01 January, 0300 hrs. (3 am, perfect to watch immediately after those New Years Eve parties!!)
Monday, 31 December, 0800 hrs. (8 am)
Sunday, 30 December, 2100 hrs. (9 pm, after the usual OLPA episode at 8 pm!!)
Friday, 28 December, 2100 hrs. (9 pm)

Episode 012... SB City Elections: Looking Back, Looking Ahead

Santa Barbara City Elections: Looking Back, Looking Ahead
Through a chat to the camera at the in-house Bamboo Studio, in this episode Cathy and David analyze the Santa Barbara City election held a month prior (06Nov.2007). David reports on the past 13 years of voter turnout in Santa Barbara, with a quantitative analysis posted at a separate website.

Short answer: based upon the past 13 years of data for Santa Barbara city elections, voter turnout during odd-year November elections continues to be low, now an average of 40.5% turnout rate compared with an average of 66.8% turnout during even-year elections. For the long answer, see this prior report as Edhat Local News. Turnout in 2007 was 37.1%, the lowest since 2001.

During this deconstructive discussion of the Nov. 2007 City election, OLPA co-host Cathy Murillo also looks back at the unsuccessful outcome of Measure A-2007 on that City ballot, and she speculates why some voters did and did not support it. She then calls out and challenges the recent advocates for district elections for Santa Barbara City Council, considering that such district elections were touted as a better systemic change to increase voter turnout instead of shifting the election cycle year, as Measure A-2007 would have done.

And to pile on, Murillo then seriously questions how politically groovy and progressive the Santa Barbara Independent really is in its editorial positions. She cites several highly un-groovy and politically backwards editorial positions by the Independent during the past few years.

Santa Barbara Clean Elections Working Group is planning to sponsor a public forum in mid to late February 2008 about various options that could increase voter turnout, such as a potential mandatory vote-by-mail system that would be as if the entire election were all by permanent absentee ballots with no actual election "day". Naturally, that forum in February 2008 will be the subject of a future OLPA episode.

As Cathy describes in this OLPA video episode (no. 012) she produced and edited, the advocates of district elections for City Council will be invited to present their best arguments during this forum, especially focused on how voting by districts (each potentially 1/6th of the City) supposedly would increase voter turnout. So far, we neither found nor heard of any evidence that voter turnout increases with district elections. The list of credible advantages and disadvantages is long, for and against this perpetual proposal.

The last part of this OLPA video episode features a public forum about "clean elections" and municipal election finance reform, held in Santa Maria on 17 Nov. 2007 and sponsored by SBCAN, League of Women Voters of Santa Maria Valley, Santa Maria Valley Democratic Club, and other civic groups. Speakers included San Luis Obispo City Councilmember Christine Mulholland, San Luis Obispo City Clerk Audrey Hooper, and Susan Lerner of California Clean Money Campaign, all ably moderated by Vibiana Saavedra from Santa Maria. Saavedra continues to be one of our favorite interview subjects, now featured in her second OLPA episode after Plaza del PUEBLO.

This forum served as a taste for options that Santa Barbara City Council could consider from the San Luis Obispo examples, where their ordinance from 1974 successfully has limited City election contributions to $200 from each individual, corporation, or organization. As a result, the price to run a City Council campaign in San Luis Obispo has been fairly attainable for regular folks not beholden to special interest money.

A future OLPA episode will feature longer excerpts from this same forum, with more details about municipal election reform options that could apply to Santa Barbara, based upon examples of municipal ordinances from San Luis Obispo and San Buenaventura.

This episode debuted on TV-17 in the predawn timeslot on 05 December 2007, and it replayed until 19 December.

Watch the Video of this show!!
For a FULL SCREEN option, link on the Google label and once there be sure to select the lower right arrow icon for the Smooth Video option.

Episode 011... Steelhead Festival 2007

As something completely different from the past 4 OLPA episodes about the Santa Barbara City election, this one features the Second Annual Santa Barbara Steelhead Festival and a few bonus items about the latest status of endangered Steelhead Trout recovery planning and a visit from one of their salmon sisters.

The Festival is organized by Community Environmental Council (CEC) and was held 20th May 2007 at Stearns Wharf. A central event of the Festival was the 8 Steelhead Trout sculptures painted and adorned and displayed for a couple of months along State Street in downtown Santa Barbara. The Unveiling Party to debut these 6-foot fish sculptures happened the prior, perfect spring night.

Steelhead Recovery Plan Outline. To project forward in the southern California Steelhead universe, the first interview in this OLPA episode is with Craig Fusaro, who describes the Steelhead Recovery Plan Outline, which was recently released by National Marine Fisheries Service as a major step towards defining how many Steelhead and where are necessary so this fish legally can be considered recovered from the brink of extinct. Fusaro is a member of the Technical Recovery Team of scientists working on the scientific basis of the southern California Steelhead Recovery Plan Outline (http://swr.nmfs.noaa.gov/recovery/Steelhead_SCS.htm). Santa Barbara Independent wrote about the recovery planning for the newspaper issue of 29Nov.2007.

During her interview, Suzanne Feldman describes details of the Festival and its prospects for a third one next year. Feldman is CEC Watershed Program Associate and principal organizer of the Steelhead Festival.

This episode includes an cameo appearances by Iya Falcone, Mike Marzolla, and Ed Robinson, in addition to the throngs of Beautiful People at the Unveiling Party on the wharf.

photo by Suzanne Feldman of Vision Quest

Artists in this video describing their fish sculptures include (in this order): Rebecca Stebbins, Rick Tontz, Tara Fadenrecht, Barbara McIntyre, Susan LeVine, and Michael Irwin.

Towards the end of this video, Fin the Chinook Salmon and her human driver Jeremy Nickel went shopping at Paseo Nuevo on 12 July 2007, while telling all about their public outreach for Columbia River salmon habitat improvements.

As a bonus not included in the TV replay version of this OLPA episode, the video at this website posting (below) includes an extra 20 minutes showing Steelhead trout in Mission Creek, recorded in May 2006 in downtown Santa Barbara.

This episode made its TV-17 debut on 10Nov.2007 and it ended on 02Dec.2007. It enjoyed a few extra replays during the Thanksgiving holiday week and following the time-consuming agony and ecstasy of the City election earlier in the month.

Production Notes. This episode was the first solo video production by David Pritchett, who learned video editing mainly by watching Cathy Murillo while she edited the past 10 OLPA episodes. Except for Fusaro recording him for the opening introduction, Pritchett recorded all the video in this episode. The video from the Steelhead Unveiling Party was recorded with a still camera (Panasonic FZ-20) having a secondary function for low-res video recording, and it shows. Special bonus included with slightly out-of-sync audio in one clip. Longer clips of this video from the Unveiling Party were posted at Google Video shortly after the event.

Watch the Video of this show!
For a FULL SCREEN option, link on the Google label and once there be sure to select the lower right arrow icon for the Smooth Video option.

Episode 010... More Measure A-2007

Measure A is on the Santa Barbara City ballot right now. For these final days prior to Election Day, this video features poignant interviews with a variety of Measure A supporters, where they explain what voting means to them and the myriad benefits of increasing voter turnout and saving taxpayer money. They also respond to some of the flavor-of-the-week criticisms that opponents of Measure A keep tossing out to see what sticks.

Interviewees include: Hal Conklin, Jon Williams, Emily Allen, Ken Pettit, George Delmerico, Paul Berenson, Barbara Sachs, Neal Rosenthal, and Mayor Marty Blum.

The public comment by David Pritchett at a City Council meeting was a pre-rebuttal to a later comment by an opponent that day, which inspired a KEYT-TV3 news story on 02 October.

For full details about Measure A, see the YES-on-Measure-A website, which includes lists of endorsements, recent news coverage, upcoming events, and 30 Frequently Asked Questions.

This Episode 010 (More Measure A) played 8 times starting 22nd October and ending on Election Eve, 05th November 2007.
(Random image from the video opening)
Watch the Video of this show!
For a FULL SCREEN option, link on the Google label and once there be sure to select the lower right arrow icon for the Smooth Video option.

Episode 009... Chewing on the Candidates, Part Two

Chewing on the Candidates Takes a Bite out of Santa Barbara Politics

Compare and contrast the candidates. Discuss. That is what Santa Barbara City voters and everyone watching will be able to do through the 5 standard questions asked of the 8 City Council candidates. The questions to each candidate (listed below) were the same, but the answers varied highly for the voters to evaluate.

These interviews played on TV-17 in 2 separate, one-hour video productions entitled Chewing on the Candidates, parts One and Two as Special Episodes of the show. Per the schedule below, these episodes will be (were) shown until Election Day on cable TV-17 and forever at this website.

Each of the 2 video productions features different questions, with all of the City Council candidates answering sequentially, starting in random order. The interviews were recorded in 3 different Santa Barbara City parks and atop Garage Lot 10, with its fantastic cityscape views and nearby examples of current City planning issues. Locations are noted in the videos, along with the candidate age, occupation, and home neighborhood.

OLPA asked the candidates the 5 hot-topic questions with up to 2:30 minutes allowed as a primary response to each question, with short follow-up questions also included in available time. We then conclude with a bit of our own political analysis and commentary about the candidates during the last 5 or so minutes of each episode. Time was highly limited, with plenty to talk about that easily could have filled up another hour just on the analysis and commentary.

Question nos. 1 and 2 are asked in the Chewing Part One episode, while Questions 3 and 4 are asked in Part Two. Question no. 5 is asked of half the candidates in each episode, to balance the time available. The 5 Questions:

1. Why are you a candidate for City Council?
2. What should the City do to preserve and establish more affordable rental housing?
3. How should the City provide services to vulnerable populations, such as youth and the homeless?
4. How should the City maintain or increase its water supply, while also improving habitat for endangered fish?
5. Do you support or oppose Measure A on the upcoming City ballot, and why or why not?

The more structured format of these Chewing on the Candidates interviews complements the open-ended interviews of the concurrently showing Touring with the Candidates video production by Larry Nimmer, produced for League of Women Voters and playing often on cable TV-21. Larry Nimmer toured with the candidates, while Off-Leash Public Affairs chewed on the candidates.


Watch the Video of PART ONE here!
For a FULL SCREEN option, link on the Google label and once there be sure to select the lower right arrow icon for the Smooth Video option.


Watch the Video of PART TWO here!

SCHEDULE on cable TV-17 for Chewing on the Candidates
Part Two-- Wed. 17 Oct., 2300 hrs. (11 pm)
Part One-- Thu. 18 Oct., 1300 hrs. (1 pm)
Part One-- Fri. 19 Oct., 2100 hrs. (9 pm)
Part Two-- Sat. 20 Oct., 2000 hrs. (8 pm, still okay to watch TV while Lights Out)
Part One-- Sun. 21 Oct., 2100 hrs. (9 pm)
Part Two-- Sun. 21 Oct., 2200 hrs. (10 pm)
Part One-- Tue. 23 Oct., 1900 hrs. (7 pm)
Part One-- Wed. 24 Oct., 0900 hrs. (9 am)
Part Two-- Wed. 24 Oct., 1000 hrs. (10 am)
Part Two-- Wed. 24 Oct., 1900 hrs. (7 pm)
Part One-- Wed. 24 Oct., 2000 hrs. (8 pm)
Part One-- Thu. 25 Oct., 0300 hrs. (3 am, this is the late-night showing where the candidates are naked!)
Part One-- Thu. 25 Oct., 1300 hrs. (1 pm)
Part Two-- Thu. 25 Oct., 1500 hrs. (3 pm)
Part Two-- Fri. 26 Oct., 0500 hrs. (5 am)
Part One-- Fri. 26 Oct., 2100 hrs. (9 pm)
Part One-- Sat. 27 Oct., 1000 hrs. (10 am)
Part One-- Sun. 28 Oct., 2100 hrs. (9 pm, OLPA More Measure A plays an hour prior!)
Part Two-- Sun. 28 Oct., 2200 hrs. (10 pm)
Part One-- Tue. 30 Oct., 1900 hrs. (7 pm)
Part One-- Wed. 31 Oct., 0900 hrs. (9 am)
Part Two-- Wed. 31 Oct., 1000 hrs. (10 am)
Part One-- Thu. 01 Nov., 0300 hrs. (3 am, this is the late-night showing where the candidates are naked!)
Part One-- Thu. 01 Nov., 1300 hrs. (1 pm)
Part Two-- Thu. 01 Nov., 1500 hrs. (3 pm)
Part Two-- Fri. 02 Nov., 0500 hrs. (5 am)
Part One-- Fri. 02 Nov., 2100 hrs. (9 pm)
Part One-- Sun., 04 Nov., 2100 hrs. (9 pm, OLPA More Measure A plays an hour prior!)
Part Two-- Sun. 04 Nov., 2200 hrs. (10 pm)

The Regular half-hour episodes of Off-Leash Public Affairs also will be played 4 times per week in October and November during the usual timeslots on TV-17, per the schedule shown atop this website. Those would be Episode 007 (Hinge of History) playing through 21st October, and Episode 010 (More Measure A) playing from 22nd October and ending on Election Eve, 05th November 2007.

Episode 008... Chewing on the Candidates, Part One

See the description above for Episode 009:
Chewing on the Candidates, Part Two.

Episode 007... U Plan SB: Santa Barbara as the Hinge of History

This second installment in the U Plan SB saga applies to the Santa Barbara City General Plan Update, now occurring with a series of public meetings and staff reports and associated studies. Considering where Santa Barbara has been can help with good decisions about where Santa Barbara should go in its General Plan Update, called Plan Santa Barbara. The first OLPA episode was about some of these public meetings, and so will be future episodes.

Accordingly, this OLPA episode features a lecture by Harvey Molotch entitled Santa Barbara as the Hinge of History. The lecture was the main event at the annual meeting of SBCAN (Santa Barbara County Action Network), held 18 July 2007 at Karpeles Manuscript Museum in downtown Santa Barbara. In 2 of her Looking Forward commentary columns in Santa Maria Times, SBCAN Executive Director Deborah Brasket wrote about this meeting and its applicability to what can be learned for Santa Maria.

Molotch is Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University, but for 35 years between 1968 and 2003 he was Professor of Sociology at UCSB, when he was quite active in local Santa Barbara planning affairs, as he describes in his remarks.

The TV-17 cablecast started Monday, 08 October, and ended its 8 replays on Sunday, 21 October, pending any schedule adjustments for the 2 Special hour-long OLPA episodes in October about the upcoming Santa Barbara City Council election, entitled Chewing on the Candidates.

Watch the Video of this show!!
For a FULL SCREEN option, link on the Google label and once there be sure to select the lower right arrow icon for the Smooth Video option.

Episode 006... Santa Barbara Measure A-2007

This episode is all about Measure A on the Santa Barbara City ballot for the upcoming November election. This ballot Measure would lead to nearly doubling of the voter turnout, based upon the past 12 years of voting data. The City taxpayers also would save a net $245 thousand each election, based upon financial reports provided by the City and County.

For full details about Measure A, see the YES-on-Measure-A website, which includes lists of endorsements, recent news coverage, upcoming events, and 30 Frequently Asked Questions.

OLPA Co-Producers Cathy Murillo and David Pritchett are 2 of the 5 signatories on the Ballot Argument in Favor of Measure A. The other signatories are former Mayor Hal Conklin, former Registrar of Voters Ken Pettit, and local civil rights attorney Joseph Allen.
www.YesOnMeasureA.blogspot.com

This OLPA episode debuted on 19 September 2007 and played on Santa Barbara Channels (cable TV-17) a total of 11 times through 07 October.
Watch the Video of this show!!
For a FULL SCREEN option, link on the Google label and once there be sure to select the lower right arrow icon for the Smooth Video option.

Episode 005... Plaza del PUEBLO

This OLPA episode profiles PUEBLO, a grassrootsy "non-profit economic and environmental justice organization dedicated to building the political power and leadership of low-income residents throughout Santa Barbara County".

An obvious acronym, PUEBLO means People United for Economic justice Building Leadership through Organizing.

Cathy Murillo interviews Vibiana Saavedra about the need for transit programs and political reform in Santa Maria (courtesy photo).


OLPA met up with PUEBLO staff, Directors, members, and supporters during their annual benefit event held at Rockwood Woman's Center on Sunday, 08 July 2007. Modeled closely after the Bread and Roses annual event by The Fund for Santa Barbara, this Plaza del PUEBLO event featured a silent auction of donated goodies, a sumptuous supper, fiery speeches, and hot salsa dancers, all announced by the Moustache of Ceremonies, John "The Palm" Palminteri.

OLPA Co-Producer Cathy Murillo interviewed 7 PUEBLOan women about their organization and its activities:

1. Esther Aguilera, PUEBLO Board Chair, spoke about their organization model and membership recruitment.
2. Vibiana Saavedra outlined public transit needs in Santa Maria and the tremendous potential for political reform there.
3. Miriam Aliarez-Pintnor from the PUEBLO Youth Council described local schools and needs for computers and equity among all students.
4. Hazel Putney, also from Youth Council, highlighted youth programs and her recent experience with the Community Leadership Institute operated by Just Communities.
5. Zoila Cabrera discussed needs of local working families and youth.
6. Marisela Marquez, Board Chair for La Casa de la Raza and staff Director for UCSB Associated Students, described coalation building to achieve successful community partnerships.
7. Karena Jew talked about inspirations for political involvement and enthusiasm for voting by naturalized immigrants.

Happy Plaza del PUEBLO participants included Doreen Farr, the next Third District County Supervisor; Janet Wolf, the current Second District Supervisor; and Deborah Brasket, Executive Director for SBCAN, Santa Barbara County Action Network (courtesy photo).


Watch the Video of this show!!
For a FULL SCREEN option, link on the Google label and also be sure to select arrow icon there for the Smooth Video option.
Schedule Notes. This event happened on 08 July 2007. The video debuted on SB Channels (cable TV-17) on 03 September 2007, for 8 replays during a 2-week period ending on 16 September. The schedule of showings is atop this website.
Production Notes. The recording ("burning") of the original DVD rendered a technical error where the closing graphic image stepped over the OLPA outtro credits and supplanted that audio.

Episode 004... Independence Day 2007

As an alternative to the usual Independence Day events of parades, concerts, and fireworks, this episode of the show covers local Democrats talking about their favorite Presidential candidates, the Eyes Wide Open display by Veterans for Peace, and a memorial to Virginia Delgadillo Wootan.

This 4th OLPA episode debuted on Saturday, 18 Aug. 2007, on cable TV-17 (Santa Barbara Channels, community-access TV). That date followed a scheduling hiccup that allowed the prior OLPA episode (Scrubs for SiCKO) a couple of extra showings earlier in the week.

Synopsis. This episode covers 2 events held on Independence Day 2007, plus a short memorial tribute at the end of the video for Virginia Delgadillo Wootan, the recently deceased mother of OLPA Co-Producer Cathy Murillo. The first Independence Day event was recorded during the annual barbecue sponsored by the local Democratic Service Club, a partisan but equal-opportunity group that supports the full spectrum of Democratic party and club activities in the Santa Barbara area. Local Dems were interviewed about their current preferences for the Presidential nomination, including interviews with Barbie Deutsch, Peggy Jo Love House, ej Borah, Ron Perry, and others, each with a different preference for President.

Later that afternoon, Cathy and David visited the Eyes Wide Open display to honor the nearly 300 California fatalities in the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sponsored by Veterans for Peace and American Friends Service Committee, that event was held on the pubic-access lawn along Cabrillo Bl. in front of DoubleTree hotel. That display also was covered by Santa Barbara Daily Sound.

Production Notes. Fun with additional types of video transitions in Final Cut Pro was a new learning exercise in the editing for this episode. Look for dissolves, wipes, irises, ripples, and other effects that transition from image to image instead of a hard edit break. Also, the interviews of the Democrats featured severe exposure compensation so the subject was not underexposed from the bright sunlight in the background.


Watch the Video of this show!!
For a FULL SCREEN option, link on the Google label and also be sure to select arrow icon there for the Smooth Video option.

Episode 003... Scrubs for SiCKO

This third episode of Off-Leash Public Affairs (OLPA) debuted Monday, 30 July 2007, on cable TV channel 17. The episode covers a demonstration held on Friday, 29 June 2007, to raise awareness about the health care insurance crisis in California. The demonstration was part of a coordinated effort throughout California that was scheduled to coincide with the premiere date of SiCKO, the latest film by Michael Moore.

Held during the early evening in front of the famed Arlington Theater in downtown Santa Barbara, the demonstration was organized primarily by the Santa Barbara chapter of Health Care for All, as part of its statewide issues campaign called One Care Now. This campaign is boosting public and political support for California Senate Bill 840, sponsored by State Senator Sheila Kuehl.

The demonstration featured clever signs and street theater about the plight of people with no or insufficient health care insurance. This OLPA video includes remarks by the demonstrators and people buying tickets for the SiCKO documentary film, called a "reality show" by one of the theatergoers in this video. A crisis of reality indeed, the theatric trailer for SiCKO is embedded within this OLPA video, along with an excerpt of the OneCareNow video that describes SB 840.

Some critics of Michael Moore refer to his films as SHOCK-UMENTARIES, as if that is such a bad thing "to shock and possibly anger the audience" for raising awareness and enacting social change.

The health care demonstration held on the sidewalk in front of Arlington Theater occurred only 31 days prior to the TV debut of this OLPA episode, a fast turn-around time for the OLPA production schedule, essentially bumping everything else in queue for the video recording and producing schedule. We are glad to feature this topic on an expedited schedule while SB 840 still is under deliberation in the State legislature and facing an expected veto by Governor Schwarzenegger, the self-declared Man of the People. Apparently, by "of the People" Arnold only meant the rapidly shrinking number of people who have adequate health care insurance that will never fail them for coverage.

A large rally to mark the end of 365 consecutive days of events that support SB 840 and health care reform is planned for Saturday, 11 August, at Los Angeles City Hall. OLPA will be there to cover this event and interview people from Santa Barbara who participate, including Peter Conn and Paulina Conn, the local leaders with Health Care for All.


Health Care Reform march down State Street, 07June2007.
Photo by Paul Wellman for Santa Barbara Independent

Our title Scrubs for SiCKO for this OLPA episode refers to the name of the statewide outreach campaign organized by California Nurses Association. The CNA events were large and prominent elsewhere, but for this event in Santa Barbara only one nurse was there in her commemorative scrubs garb, along with many other medical colleagues in traditional scrubs who were interviewed for the video.

As Peter Conn notes in his concluding interview, local news coverage was disappointingly skimpy for this event held that beautiful summer evening. However, KCSB covered the event well with an audio news story by Harry Lawton, a retired UCSB professor who deftly melds news reporting, political analyzing, and film reviewing all in one 8-minute story.


Watch the Video of this show!!
For a FULL SCREEN option, link on the Google label and also be sure to select arrow icon there for the Smooth Video option.
As a technical note, this video includes too much time (15 seconds) for the still image at the beginning before the intro, intended as a solution to accommodate a glitch that no longer applies because the clunky video playback system has been replaced at Santa Barbara Channels TV. The end of the video includes 8 minutes of blank black space because the DVD recorder stopped too late.

Episode 002... Douglas Family Preserve: People, Dogs, Birds, and Bees

This second OLPA episode debuted on Monday, 16 July 2007, and showed for 2 weeks on Santa Barbara Channels, cable TV-17, under the schedule atop this website.

Synopsis

This episode features Douglas Family Preserve (DFP), a 70-acre open-space "wild" park owned and managed by City of Santa Barbara. The timeliness of this episode showing during the last half of July 2007 coincides with an art exhibit and fundraiser by SCAPE, Southern California Artists Painting for the Environment, to be held 28-29 July at La Arcada Court, the breezy paseo-arcade space between the downtown Library and Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Called City Parks: Domestic & Wild, proceeds from this exhibit will benefit Friends of Douglas Family Preserve and PARC Foundation.

The video features interviews with representatives of these organizations, including a discussion with Nancy Rapp about development and funding of the Management Plan for this parkland.

• Rosalind Amorteguy, Board President of PARC Foundation
• Jean Schuyler, PARC Board member
• Susan Belloni, Friend of DFP and SCAPE member and painter
• Nancy Rapp, Director of Santa Barbara City Parks and Recreation Dept.

Editorial Notes

Often known as the Wilcox Property because of the prior property owners before the site became public land, the DFP Management Plan, completed in 2004, was one of the most lively and contentious public planning processes in the recent history of Santa Barbara. Dogs --either on- or off-leash-- dominated the public debate and environmental review, but other issues of invasive exotic plants, trail placement and access, and blufftop erosion also are substantial elements of the Plan; however, so far the City has not advanced too fast on implementing those provisions of the Plan, mainly because of a lack of funding. That is discussed in the interview by David with Nancy Rapp.

While this OLPA episode seems heavy on friendly promotion for the SCAPE art exhibit, opening reception, and art sale (for a non-profit organization, of course), this subject for a video production at this time coincided nicely with our long-standing goal for highlighting DFP and the SCAPE and PARC Foundation efforts.

A future OLPA episode will feature the Community Planting Day held in January 2006, when a demonstration plot of native plants was installed by volunteer ecological restorationists. Nearly 1.5 years later, a field interview with Brad Taggart (a leader of Friends of Douglas Family Preserve) will be included in that episode to see how the native plantings have grown after 2 seasons.

Production Notes

The video was recorded 23 June 2007, on location at DFP. Lighting was soft, thanks to the ubiquitous fog most summer mornings, but the ocean horizon was all gray. During the beginning of the show, the hemispheric mapping video that zoomed in to DFP was from the free software application Google Earth, where "Douglas Preserve" already is entered into the database of places. Future OLPA episodes with a place-based theme will feature more of such video geographic orientations, such as the episode in production, Take Back The Park XX, about the little-known public park-like space in front of Fess Parker DoubleTree Resort on Cabrillo Bl.

Video editing skills advanced in complexity for this second episode of the show, this time including cut-away still photos and video clips that were introduced over the main video timeline. Aligning the boundaries of these cut-away images had a few foibles where the top and bottom edges sometimes extended too far, but that is all part of the editing learning curve, which is flattening fast with the fine work by Cathy.


Watch the Video of this show!!
For a FULL SCREEN option, link on the Google label and also be sure to select arrow icon there for the Smooth Video option.

Episode 001... U Plan SB: A New Hope

This first episode of Off-Leash Public Affairs debuted on Monday, 02 July 2007 !!
UPDATE: This episode also was an encore replay starting Saturday, 22 Dec. 2007, as background to the Santa Barbara City Planning Commission meeting about the status of the Plan Santa Barbara (General Plan Update), meeting held 03 January 2008. Full video below or link above as the title. The replay started 22Dec.2007 and ended 07Jan.2008
MORE: A second video about other of these community input meetings also will be forthcoming in early 2008 as a future episode entitled U Plan SB: the Listening Tour.

Synopsis

This OLPA debut episode is about the Santa Barbara City General Plan Update. Called Plan Santa Barbara, the public outreach and review process should be completed during nearly a year of various public meetings, with a final General Plan Update to be adopted by the City Council by 2009 (more or less, probably more). Expect more episodes on this topic as the public review process continues.

This OLPA episode highlights the second in a series of 4 public workshop meetings, where all City residents are encouraged to state their vision and suggestions on how Santa Barbara can be a better place to live, work, play, etc. The meeting featured in this video was held on 16 June 2007 at La Casa de la Raza, a community facility in the City's Eastside neighborhood. Approximately 50 people were present, including City staff and consultants, along with Mayor Marty Blum and City Councilmember Helene Schneider.

Editorial Notes

The public comments and remarks in this video and the other 2 public workshop meetings attended reveal a deep understanding by many participants about the highly complex issues the City is facing in its land use and other planning during the upcoming decades. Many people are quite worried and feeling pain about the price of housing and myriad social challenges growing in Santa Barbara. Gangs and conspicuous homelessness were mentioned frequently.

An understanding about global climate change and sea level rise also is steadily becoming a concern of people of all stripes, who wonder about how the City will adjust and how by much. Those topics and more will be explored in future OLPA episodes in the U Plan SB saga.

Production Notes

The video recording was by David (as usual), who had not run the camera for several months prior. Accordingly, the audio was a bit inconsistent and often was overblown as too loud until the manual adjustment with the left finger on the camera became more proficient after a few minutes of recording. Fortunately, in the post-production editing Cathy was able to boost or diminish the audio where needed.

Editing this was the first time Cathy had produced a full video using Apple Final Cut Pro video editing application. Skills are growing, and for this episode the graphic inserts of names and labels etc., called lower thirds (even though really a fifth), were inserted for the first time on a video timeline. Naturally, the colours are the blue and gold motif that is most soothing and trustworthy.

City planning staffer Beatriz Ramirez was leading the Spanish-speaking small group discussion depicted in this video, and she should have been identified by name in the lower third label.

OLPA episode 002... Douglas Family Preserve: People, Dogs, Birds, and Bees will debut on cable channel 17 on Monday, 16 July 2007, per the schedule atop this blog.


Full video above for this OLPA episode
U Plan SB: A New Hope.
Following the outtro and closing credits, this video also includes 5 bonus video segments that could not fit into the TV show time, 28:30 minutes.
For a FULL SCREEN option, link on the Google label and also be sure to select arrow icon there for the Smooth Video option.

OLPA debuts July 2007... Future OLPA episodes

Just a wee bit later than first anticipated, OLPA will debut in July 2007 on SBChannels, cable TV 17. The schedule will be posted here, and eventually the whole video via Google-Video.

The second OLPA episode will be about Friends of Douglas Family Preserve (a City park) and an associated artistic fundraiser event by SCAPE to occur 28-29 July 2007.
++++++++++++++++++++

UPDATE, 14 July 2007
OLPA show schedule and future episodes
Each episode will show 6 to 8 times during a 2-week period starting on these debut dates.

16 July... Douglas Family Preserve: People, Dogs, Birds, and Bees
30 July... Scrubs for SiCKO
13 August... Independence Day 2007
27 August... U Plan SB: The Listening Tour (possible date for debut, but may change)

Other future OLPA episodes and working titles (dates uncertain), most with video already recorded (this all is about 40 separate episodes and more than 1.5 YEARS of shows if a new episode debuts every 2 weeks!!):

• Plaza del Pueblo 2007
• 5 Questions for 3 City Council Candidates
• Even-Year Elections Are Better Than Odd-Year Elections
• Santa Barbara Steelhead Festival 2007
• Take Back The Park XX
• Douglas Family Preserve: Community Planting Day 2006
• U Plan SB: The Public Strikes Back
• U Plan SB: Return of the City
• Santa Barbara ChannelKeepers
• Santa Barbara as the Hinge of History, by Harvey Molotch
• SBCAN Oscars Party 2007
  
• Marching for Peace in March 2007
• Plan to End Homelessness
• Shape of Voice
• Ormond Beach Wetlands Restoration Project
• Halaco Hell
• Citizens Planning Sand Sculptures
• Citizens Planning and Talking about Housing
• Mission Creek Fish Passage (multiple episodes)
• Veterans Clinic Moves
• May Day March(es) for Immigrants
• News-Press-Mess (multiple episodes)
• Veronica Meadows Mess, the Arroyo Burro Blues
• Mosquito and Vector Management District: What's That?
• Tour de California 2006
• Santa Barbara Steelhead Festival 2006
• E-Cycling, or E-Waste Exporting
• California Ocean Protection Council
• Mission County Meltdown
• Santa Barbara 93111
• Measure D-2008
• CAUSE vs. BSA: Bigotry is not in the Scout Law
• Social Justice of Streetsweeping

Potential subjects for additional OLPA episodes are listed below under a subject posting from January 2006.

ideas for show episodes and topics

No particular order of priority, and certainly not a complete list:

• Goleta Slough projects
• the F-word: FEMINISM
• Santa Ynez River issues, local water etc.
• water supply and conservation
• Vets for Peace, profiles and programs
• elected officials and their pet projects
• candidates for election
• Walking With The Incumbents
• Coastal Housing Partnership, March seminars
• Special Districts, what and why
• retail neighborhood law enforcement for shopping carts strewn about, how and why, who pays, sidewalk blockers, encroaching hedges, tagging, real estate signs, etc.
• Sycamore Creek flooding per PUEBLO, CalTrans delayed
• SRF conference presentations from late Feb.2006
  
• LNG (liquid natural gas) proposals in Ventura County, Santa Barbara nexi
  
• Ormond Beach project, nexi to South Coast
• Santa Cruz Island management, TNC and friends
• Ventura River history by Jenkin
• Ventura River projects, Matilija Dam
• Channels TV, what and why
• neighborhood group profiles
• traffic calming, roundabouts, and neighbor opinions
• "alternative" transportation profiles
• Citizens Police Academy
• What to learn from Buenaventura City
• what to learn from Ventura County
• street sweeping zones, results, finances
• dog park management
• San Marcos Foothills
• Heal The Ocean projects
• ChannelKeeper projects (existing 5-min. vid on kelp)
• local neighborhood group profiles
• CAUSE vs. "Friends of the Boy Scouts", County policy issues late 2001
  
• freeway funding and lane filling
• guest pundits who are not candidates
• Walk Santa Barbara, by Cheri Rae
• steelhead component for Los Marineros program SBMNH
• CEC watershed programs, project complexities
• local schools funding and tiers
• SB Museum of Art, migrant workers exhibit 22Apr.-06Aug.
• CBER at UCSB, campus projects, seminars
• Fossil Free by '33

Journalism with a bit of a gonzo edge

Off-Leash Public Affairs will be (or is) non-commercial journalism with a bit of a gonzo edge. The tenets and responsibilities of journalism still apply, although OLPA may be considered New Media with its Internet blog and video downloads, and a show on community-access cable TV. Printed and "published" newspapers definitely are Old Media, although community-access TV might be considered Middle-Aged Media since it started only in the early 1970s (see http://www.geocities.com/iconostar/history-public-access-TV.html).

Addendum, 25June2007:
Interview in Salon (web magazine) with Josh Wolf, a video blog journalist (and one-time UCSB Daily Nexus writer) once imprisoned by The Government for 7.5 months through April 2007, because he did not give up, on demand, his unpublished video about a riot. This and many other stories about him explore the rapidly evolving definition about what is journalism and who is a journalist. Here is the Colbert Report interview from 13June2007.

Addendum, May 2007:
news article on California legal status to define journalists and a shield law

Original posting...
Some definitions of Journalism:
* a style of writing for presenting bare facts to describe news events www.iclasses.org/assets/literature/literary_glossary.cfm
* Journalism is a discipline of collecting, verifying, reporting, and analyzing information gathered regarding current events, including trends, issues and people. Those who practice journalism are known as journalists. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism
* also see: http://www.bloggercon.org/2004/04/06#a1063
and especially the traditional definitions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics_and_standards

In a shield law proposed in 2004, legislation attempted in Texas (!) defined a journalist as:
“a person, or an employee, independent contractor, or agent of that person, engaged in the business of gathering, compiling, writing, editing, photographing, recording, or processing information for dissemination by any news medium”;
and a news medium as:
"a person who in the ordinary course of business publishes, broadcasts, or otherwise disseminates news by print, television, radio, or other electronic means accessible to the public”.

Who is a Journalist definitely is evolving in modern culture, but what is Journalism should not be. Journalism is a craft and method, not necessarily just a profession paid by a certain organization http://medialit.med.sc.edu/bloggers_journalism.htm

Following a nationwide trend, California Highway Patrol has been challenged successfully many times, so CHP no longer serves as the statewide umbrella agency, or defacto gatekeeper, for defining who is or is not a journalist. But the CHP definition still includes employment status as part of its apparent policy.
See also this summary from November 2004: http://www.kqed.org/weblog/capitalnotes/2004/11/chp-no-more-press-passes.jsp

The CHP policy from their own Media Guide (http://www.chp.ca.gov/html/media.html):
"The CHP no longer issues press cards. Any existing cards are not valid and should be destroyed or returned to the CHP. CHP officers will recognize permanent employees of bona fide news gathering agencies if shown a business card or other item which identifies the individual in association with the news gathering organization."

The Producers of Off-Leash Public Affairs carry identification cards that indicate their status as journalists with this TV show. Whether OLPA is "bona fide" or not will be judged by history.