The Battle To Control Short-Term Rentals Continues. Sterve Williamson and Karen McClelland welcome Sedona Mayor Scott Jablow and former City Councilor Jessica Williamson to discuss the primary issue facing the city.
They begin by reporting on a recent meeting of eight Northern Arizona mayors who came together to discuss the growing problem of short-term rentals that destroy neighborhoods and create housing shortages. Unfortunately, the cities have little to no control over short-term rentals and Republican leaders in the Arizona State Legislature still refuse to even consider bills intended to address the issue.
In Sedona, one of the latest examples of the problem is a company’s plan to evict renters from mobile home parks, replace the mobile homes, and turn them into short-term rentals.
Yavapai College’s Astonishing Lack Of Transparency. Democratic Perspective welcomes Sedona City Council Member, Jessica Williamson, and retired law professor and author, Bob Oliphant, to discuss the latest developments at Yavapai College.
Actually, according to our guests, it’s increasingly difficult to know what the college is up to given that the college president refuses to meet with the Sedona City Council and that she has threatened staff with termination for speaking to members of the college’s Governing Board or the media. In addition, they detail many other actions by the president and the Governing Board that have been shrouded in secrecy.
The Felon-in-Chief’s First 20 Days In Office. Steve Williamson, Karen McClelland and Gary LaMaster review the actions of the new Trump Regime and Project 2025. We begin by reminding listeners that many psychologists have diagnosed Trump as a sociopath and malignant narcissist. And how that sociopath is now disassembling our constitutional democracy with the help of the world’s richest man.
We note that, although Trump was elected on the promise of lowering prices in the grocery store, he now says that he can’t. Indeed, his new tariffs and threats of tariffs to come have negatively impacted our economy and will likely raise prices.
Worse, Trump’s many executive orders and Elon Musk’s invasion of federal databases have created a constitutional crisis and compromised the privacy of millions of Americans.
Making Representative Government Work. Steve Williamson welcomes Sedona City Councilor Kathy Kinsella back to the show.
Whoever said that you can’t fight City Hall never met Kinsella who claims she actually likes listening to constituents. “I’m a people person,” she says, “So I really like people and knowing what they think.” To that end, she says that she is trying to create additional opportunities for the council to have more dialogue with residents.
Kinsella describes many of the initiatives within the city, ranging from the underpass at Tlaquepaque, which was recently finished, the changes to improve traffic flow, short-term rentals, and emergency evacuation plans.
Regarding traffic, she explains there are not a lot of ways to get around traffic because of the topography, noting that improvements must be incremental. “It’s project after project,” she says. Kinsella also says that new roads require a lot of intergovernmental cooperation. “We have to see ourselves regionally. Not just what happens in Sedona.”
As for short-term rentals, she says that they now comprise more than 17 percent of the city’s housing stock, but she notes, it’s not all bad. “Some of the short-term rentals have taken some depressed properties and improved those properties thereby improving the property values for their neighbors. But at the same time, as those properties go up and up and up, it’s spiraling, and people can’t keep up with the price of housing.”
The City Council is doing what it can to address the issue. But as Kinsella explains. “We’re not a state that allows a lot of local control to municipalities. And, in the case of regulating short-term rentals, we do not have the authorities. I’m a believer in local control. I think the local communities are the most responsive to the people…I would like to see more local control.”
The Southwest’s Increasingly Stressed Water Resources. Steve Williamson and Karen McClelland welcome Jacqueline Vaughn, a retired Northern Arizona University Political Science professor and community activist. She just published a reference book entitled Water In The West.
Vaughn begins by explaining details about the Colorado River Compact. She describes as “an old, old agreement among the seven states that draw water off of the Colorado.” She continues, “Unfortunately, they were willing to divide up the Colorado with more water than there actually is in the Colorado. And subsequently, the water levels have even drawn down more. And so, what’s happening is the agreement itself will expire at the end of 2026.”
Vaughn continues, “This document is so essential to understanding who’s going to get water. Who’s going to get what share? It’s divided up by state. And, what’s new this time that didn’t happen when the Compact was originally signed is that tribal entities will have a seat at the table.” She adds that’s critical, especially for some of the communities in southern Arizona and the Four Corners region. “This is going to be one of the major water stories of, not only the decade, but probably the next 50 years.”
Of course, the Compact is just the beginning as the Southwest, including Arizona, is facing numerous critical water issues, not the least of which is this year’s low snowpack.
“Trying To Destroy Gaza. Not Just Hamas.” Steve Williamson and guest host Mik Jordahl welcome Feroze Sidhwa to the show. Sidhwa is a trauma surgeon who has served in some of the world’s most extreme trouble spots and situations, most recently, Gaza. He talks about the atrocities he saw during that time as part of the Israeli reprisals, including 13 preteen children as young as two who had been shot in the head – 13 kids in the 14 days he was there.
Sidhwa says, “When I got back, I started talking to other people…we saw some pretty unusual stuff over there. I really wanted to know: Was I the only person who saw these things?”
After reaching out to other physicians who had seen atrocities, he and 44 others signed an open letter to President Biden stating that, based on what they had seen, the Israelis are trying to destroy Gaza. Not just Hamas. He says, “I really thought that there would be media interest in that letter…but there was no corporate media interest whatsoever.” The exception was the New York Times opinion team who wanted to know who exactly saw what. So, they conducted a poll, and 65 volunteer healthcare workers responded.
They were asked: Did you see small children shot in the head or chest? Did you observe severe malnutrition in the population and among their healthcare coworkers and severe psychiatric stress among children, including those who were suicidal? Did you see babies born healthy and returned to the hospital dehydrated and starving? The answers were almost universally yes.
Islamophobia: “The Last Bastion of Tolerable Hate.” Steve Williamson and guest host Mik Jordahl welcome Azza Abuseif, CAIR Arizona’s Executive Director. She came to the U.S. as a refugee in 1999 from Sudan via Egypt. Though CAIR’s focus is clearly on the Muslim community in the United States, she says, “We cooperate with any community fighting injustice and stand against any injustice that occurs regardless of religion.”
Abuseif notes, “The presence of Muslims in the United States pre-dates the Twentieth Century immigration wave. And it has deep historical roots tied to the African diaspora.” (Islam in the U.S. can be traced to the first arrival of African slaves in the 16th Century.)
In reference to the notion that Islamophobia began following 9/11, she says, “It’s not true. Islamophobia has been present way before that…but the history is just not taught.”
Taking The Fight To Billionaires And Big Corporations. Steve Williamson and Karen McClelland welcome Mitzi Epstein, Arizona State Senator, computer analyst and education activist.
Asked to explain the results of the 2024 election, Epstein notes that the Arizona House and Senate were both two seats away from a Democratic majority. Unfortunately, they are now three seats away.
She says, “I was particularly saddened when I would hear things like, well, the Democrats don’t care about working people anymore. And I thought that’s just so not true. Every single day at the legislature, every one of us is working on some project or another that will directly help people who work. But we need to do a better job of getting our message out. And we need to do a better job of helping people recognize what the real problems are.
“The real power that we’re facing at this point is the power of billionaires and big corporations. [Their] profits have increased so much more than inflation has increased that we can see…we can measure…economists can measure that inflation has in large part been caused by the greed of corporations and they are profiting mightily. And then from them our billionaires are becoming super billionaires…Elon Musk over four hundred billion dollars.”
Israel’s Ongoing Cycle Of Violence. Steve Williamson welcomes Mik Jordahl to discuss the history of Israel and current events in Gaza. Currently, internationally-accepted figures set the number of Palestinian deaths at about 45 thousand from the ongoing war in Gaza – most of them civilian women and children. According to Jordahl, others put the number much higher. He adds that other casualties and non-combat-related deaths are almost incalculable.
Jordahl reports that many children have been shot by snipers and that some Israeli soldiers have shared videos of what appear to be war crimes. As a result, South Africa and now Ireland have accused Israel of genocide.
Regarding Israel’s success with exploding pagers and the assassination of Hezbollah’s leader, Jordahl says, “After that happens, we usually see even more extremist measures. So, I just don’t see the cycle of violence as preventing anything. And Israel’s violence is occurring on the West Bank, too, in terms of fifty villages of Palestinians have been ethnically cleansed during the whole Gaza problem in the last year and a half.”
He says, “There’s a different path that could be done, which is urging for non-violence and equality. Israelis have chosen land over peace.”
The United States’ First Openly Criminal Administration. Beginning on January 20, 2025, a convicted felon, adjudicated sexual assaulter, indicted seditionist, indicted thief of classified information, convicted tax cheat, and accused rapist will assume power as president of the United States of America.
As if that’s not bad enough, it gets worse.
The Criminal-in-Chief has also nominated and appointed an impressive array of other criminals, grifters, incompetents, and ne’er-do-wells to manage our government. These include his first nominee for Attorney General Matt Gaetz who, according to the House ethics report, committed statutory rape with 17-year-old and paid tens of thousands of dollars for prostitutes and illegal drugs.
In this show, Steve, Karen and Gary offer the highlights – err, lowlights – of the incoming administration.
