Watch: All-Star Panel Grapples with the St. Joan-Sable Oil Mystery; How Coverage of ICE Raid Came Together

As masked immigration rozzers staged a military assault on Carp pot plant, top local journos scrambled to make sense of the secretive bust; Plus: Sup. Hartmann's shocking flip flop on pipeline voting

A sudden and surprising scoop, centered on Supervisor Joan Hartmann’s key role in the raging battle over Sable Oil’s bid to re-open a failed pipeline, triggered big buzz amid SB pols, hacks, flacks and other loyal viewers of Newsmakers TV this week - more below.

But Topics A, B and C on Santa Barbara’s local news front remained the many unanswered questions that emerged from last week’s militarized assault by federal immigration agents on two legal, Central Coast cannabis operations.

On this week’s edition of Newsmakers TV, Josh Molina and Ryan P. Cruz join the genial host for a deep dive into the fall-out from the immigration raids, including the extraordinary community response and resilience in rallying around the families and neighbors whose lives Donald Trump’s internal security police brutally upended.

As local reporters scrambled to make sense of the incursion of heavily armed, masked thugs with badges, much remained uncertain:

• Were the raids primarily aimed at arresting undocumented workers, or were they actions targeted against alleged workplace violations, including the use of child labor, that caught many migrants up as collateral damage?

• Where are the warrants, or any other official documents, that form the predicate for the outrageous, militarized takedown of local businesses, or that stand up the claims ICE made about who was arrested in the raids?

• Why did ICE almost immediately attack and smear the fact-finding effort by Rep. Salud Carbajal, who came to witness and support constituents and protesters as federal agents behaved like an invading army?

• Did ICE target the Glass House Farms facilities in Carp and Camarillo because their co-founder Graham Farrar has financially backed both Carbajal and Gov. Gavin Newsom — information that conveniently found its way onto Fox News within hours of the raid?

• Was the macho performative display deliberately meant to terrorize civilians, harbinger of an internal security apparatus sprawled across the country, loyal foremost to Trump, and financed with $170 billion in new spending, making the Department of Homeland Security, the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the U.S. government?

For starters.

While many unanswered questions about the raids remain, one thing is for certain: the cruelty is the point.

What did Joan know and when did she know it? Speaking of unanswered questions, Nick Welsh was AWOL from this week’s show, leaving his three colleagues to sort through the major political and policy implications of his latest big scoop.

The Angry Poodle on Wednesday disclosed that Sup. Hartmann had just quietly informed County Building denizens that, based on “reevaluated” legal advice, she now is free to weigh in on matters pertaining to the white-hot controversy over the Sable Offshore oil company’s push to reopen the ruptured pipeline that caused the disastrous Refugio spill in 2015. Hartmann for years has claimed she could not vote on the matter because of her ownership of property near the pipeline.

Nick writes:

That’s a big deal because with Hartmann recusing herself, the supervisors had been deadlocked in a perpetual 2-2 tie when voting on issues concerning Sable Offshore. That hadn’t stopped Hartmann from objecting forcefully to Sable’s efforts to restart Exxon’s long-sidelined facility up the Gaviota Coast, when speaking off the dais. The oil operation has been shut down since 2015 when the pipeline ruptured, causing a major spill.

With Hartmann now allowed back in the fray, the supervisors, at least on paper, would appear to tilt solidly against Sable. Hartmann has called climate change the existential crisis of our time, noting that if Sable is allowed to restart Exxon’s facility — which it purchased in February 2024 — it would account for roughly half the greenhouse gases emitted in Santa Barbara County. Sable and Exxon both sued the county supervisors when they deadlocked 2-2 over approving the transfer of Exxon’s title and permits to the new company.

As a political matter, Hartmann’s sudden flip flop on recusing herself outraged some of those involved in the county’s biggest environmental battle of the century, who quickly concluded that she’s simply been taking a duck on taking hard votes for years, leaving her colleagues to take the political hits for standing up to Big Oil, all the while holding forth from a great rhetorical height about the dangers of climate change.

“They can’t take away my voice,” she told a Washington Post reporter writing about the Sable pipeline not long ago, a self-dramatizing portrayal of bravely speaking truth to power, despite legal shackles imposed by conflict of interest law. Um, okay.

Actual Facts. Simmering anger in some enviro precincts at her oh-never-mind announcement that conflict of interest concerns went “poof” was not assuaged by documentary evidence that strongly suggests she never had to recuse herself, as a legal matter, but instead may have done so merely in defense of personal, political interests.

Newsmakers, in a rare bit of Actual Reporting, tracked down the original, legal advisory letter on which Hartmann has long hung her hat on the need for recusal; the 2017 missive from California’s Fair Political Practices Commission addressed questions from the County Counsel’s office about whether her property ownership constitutes a potential conflict of interest.

The answer hardly could have been clearer:

“Notwithstanding property approximately 50 feet from a company’s underground oil pipelines, Supervisor Hartmann is not prohibited from taking part in decisions in question…The effect of a decision concerning repair or maintenance of the pipeline is not material under applicable conflict regulations, and…the Supervisor does not have a financial interest in the potential contracts” (emphasis ours).

Well.

This one is just getting started, and it will be interesting, if not downright entertaining, to watch St. Joan display her terpsichorean talents in attempting to appease upset allies — particularly because Sable has sued the county over the controversial 2-to-2 tie vote, one strand in a tangle of litigation surrounding the conflict. Given Hartmann’s sudden reversal about her legal status, political pressure is already building for a re-vote to bolster the supervisors’ legal case.

Pass the popcorn.

Check out Episode 508 of Newsmakers TV via YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. The podcast is on Apple, Spotify and available on Soundcloud here. TVSB, Channel 17, airs the show every weeknight at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on weekends. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday.

Image: Supervisor Joan Hartmann (The Daily Nexus).