Can you clarify if Google isn't providing support here who has access to review / merge changes besides folks from Google or if the Google folks will continue to provide that role?

Can you clarify ... who has access to review / merge changes besides folks from Google

Seconded, when I read this:

This repository is maintained by the Bazel community.

A "maintainer" is to my mind someone who has reviewer and push permissions to the repo, and also participates in or owns the release process. As far as I know currently only Google employees are "maintainers" under this definition, which if true means this repository isn't really maintained by the community.

If this PR is indication that rules_python is moving to a model similar to rules_scala, where invested companies like Stripe and Wix have employees that are maintainers, that's good 🙂.

Thanks for the feedback. My goal is indeed to move to a model like rules_scala, and change the set of maintainers.