Of the three people running for the 4th District Santa Barbara County seat, Joni Gray, the incumbent, is the only qualified candidate in terms of leadership and the ability to bridge the often tumultuous relationship between North and South County.
If you want a fourth South County supervisor, elect Joyce Howerton. If you look at her past elections, a lot of her funding and endorsements came from South County, not from the very folks that she wanted to lead. If Joyce wins, the only North County supervisor we will have is Supervisor Lavagnino.
The litmus test of your leadership and ability to represent your constituency is your track record; Joyce has not won since the ’90s. She lost to Tim Staffel in 1996; twice to Mayor DeWees, and twice to Joni—and when she ran a surrogate against Joni in 2008, she lost again for a total of six times.
With the fiscal challenges the county faces, we need leaders that are willing to break with the past and form new alliances across ideological and political boundaries: Joyce’s time has passed. She was part of the past leadership generation that, with flush budgets, gave away the farm to the unions and government; basically these leaders set the framework for the very problems, such as unfunded pension liabilities, bloated government, and lack of economic development that we confront today.
What are Peter Adam’s leadership qualifications other than wanting to take on the South County? The South County supervisors may not always agree with Joni, but they respect and can work with her. We don’t need Howerton as the fourth South County supervisor, nor Adam as the guy who is going to try to set the South County majority straight; only Joni has the qualifications to lead and will truly represent the north.
This article appears in Apr 26 – May 3, 2012.
