Well, I don’t like to say, “I told you so,” but it’s a a bit difficult to keep those words in my beak this week. Thanks to the Santa Barbara County Citizens Independent Redistricting Commission, change is in the air. The commission finalized its preferred map on Dec. 4, planned to make some tweaks early in the week, and will approve said tweaks on Dec. 8.
I can’t wait to see what happens next, especially as much change would happen in the middle district—and I did say as much was needed just a few weeks ago (“Representation,” Nov. 11).
“Santa Barbara County’s 3rd District doesn’t make sense, and something needs to change!” The district as it’s been for the past decade looked like one of those puzzles you get in the back of kids magazines: What do Lake Cachuma, the Santa Ynez Valley, Isla Vista, Lompoc, Vandenberg Space Force Base, and Guadalupe have in common? Not much of anything apart from their countysupervisor, Joan Hartmann.
Those are majorly different communities, and now it looks like they’re breaking up.
Hartmann’s 3rd District would go only as far north as Lompoc, and its southern border stops short of Isla Vista—which, if approved, will now be in the 2nd District with part of Goleta and part of Santa Barbara.
From this bird’s eye view, the new map makes sense. It looks to me like we actually have three North County districts. Right? For the next decade—again, ifthe redistricting commission gives its give their approval during a Wednesday night meeting, a day after our press time—Guadalupe and part of Santa Maria would be in the 5th District.
In the 4th District, Los Alamos will be separated from its Santa Ynez area step-siblings, but it gets to share representation with Vandenberg, Orcutt, and the southern part of Santa Maria.
Naturally, not everyone was totally pleased with the map, but it sounded like the effort was widely acknowledged and at least some public commenters said they felt community voices were heard.
“I’m happy we came up with a compromise and have everyone’s voices heard and represented in Santa Barbara County. We stuck communities of interest together, we may not have made everyone happy, but it’s a damn good compromise,” said county resident Amy Blair.
On the other hand, Lompoc Mayor Jenelle Osborne expressed concern about being labeled “all ag” and being separated from her city’s Space Force neighbor.
“I do appreciate keeping Lompoc whole, but [I’m] disappointed that we were not lumped in with the Vandenberg area. Instead, we were considered all ag. We’re not all ag, we’re not all retirees, we are a town of 44,000,” Osborne said.
Like I said last week (“Hard to ignore,” Dec. 2): It’s a tough task to reconcile the difference in wealth and needs between one side of the county and the other. The Citizens Independent Redistricting Commission’s hard task—which largely ended after a nine-hour meeting on a Saturday—was to create boundaries that keep like-minded communities of interest together so they can advocate for what they need.
Looks like mission accomplished, but we’ll just have to see.
The Canary is drawing in the sand. Send boundaries to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 9-16, 2021.
