Watch: Immigration Advocates Bash Sheriff, SBUSD Nixes Teacher Layoffs & SB Council Cuts Pay; First Trump Impacts

As Donald Trump turns up the pressure on immigration, Sheriff Bill Brown says he is acting by the book, amid complex layers of federal, state and local laws that shape the issue

It is a measure of the fear and fury that Donald Trump has cruelly and cynically awakened about immigration that an impassioned crowd this week remonstrated with the Board of Supervisors over a pro forma matter as much in doubt as kabuki dance.

Precisely at issue was whether or not the supes would accept a report from Sheriff' Bill Brown’s office, required by state law, detailing his department’s compliance with the California Values Act, otherwise known as SB 54. The 2017 law, passed early in Trump’s first term, prohibits and restricts local law enforcement from directly enforcing federal immigration law or cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement authorities, with a few narrow exceptions.

The report, duly adopted on a 5-to-0 vote, showed little change year over year in statistics that would indicate the Sheriff is doing anything but following the letter of the law. As Nick Welsh recounts on this week’s edition of Newsmakers TV, however, the immigration advocates and immigrant families at Tuesday’s hearing demanded far more anti-Trump and pro-immigrant action and attitude from county officials, amid an outpouring of emotions and heart-breaking anecdotes of what ICE agents have been up to on the South Coast.

They also weren’t happy that Brown himself was a no-show, sending his deputy to present the report.

A similar public dynamic emerged at the Santa Barbara Unified District, as Callie Fausey reports, where scores of layoff notices sent to teachers in March, which became the focus of angry protests at board meetings by parents and students, were this week ministerially rescinded. The splendidly tone-deaf bureaucratic explanation, which doubtless came as small solace to teachers who spent weeks of sleepless nights worrying about how to pay the rent: the district had “over-noticed” pink slips for budget planning purposes.

Josh Molina adds a more cheery, red-tape yarn to the conversation, as he reprises his reporting on how and why members of the Santa Barbara City Council cut their own salaries this week, because of a recondite city ordinance that could not be further from the Board of Supervisors’ operating manual for regulating their pay.

Plus: how Trump’s first 100 days affected SB non-profits and agencies; a few choice words for UCSB Chancellor Henry Yang over the heart-rending and mysterious campus death of Liz Hamel, Josh’s latest pizza find and another -!- bike crash for Nick.

Check out the latest episode via YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. The podcast is available on Apple, Spotify and 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.