A Los Olivos business owner has announced he’ll go up against Doreen Farr again for the 3rd District seat on the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors.
Steve Pappas, 52, sent a press release on Dec. 28 stating that he’s in the running for the coveted “swing” seat in the upcoming November 2012 election.
“I am running for 3rd District supervisor because I firmly believe in the public’s right to participate in the decision-making that impacts all of us in the 3rd District,” Pappas said in a prepared statement. “The purpose of our government is to represent the people and to do so honestly, ethically, and with sound principles. The more involved I continue to be with community and political issues, the more I see a growing need to change how our government works or in fact doesn’t work.”
Pappas currently owns two Santa Ynez-based businesses and is a past Los Olivos School District Board trustee. A registered non-partisan, Pappas said in his press release that he believes his lack of party affiliation will best serve the district, as it’s often the swing vote between the North and South County representatives.
Pappas’ candidacy announcement comes just three months after a Santa Barbara County Superior Court judge determined Pappas had to pay current supervisor Farr $700,000 in legal fees for a prolonged legal battle Pappas waged following his unsuccessful bid to succeed former supervisor Brooks Firestone in 2008.
In his lawsuit, Pappas alleged that volunteers collecting voter registration cards in the South County didn’t submit them in the required amount of time. In a process that dragged out for almost three years, Pappas contended that Farr wasn’t entitled to attorney fees and that members of Farr’s campaign effort had committed voter fraud.
In 2010, a state appeals court disagreed and handed the case back to Santa Barbara County to calculate the appropriate compensation, determined in August 2011 to rest at $700,000.
“Transparency in the way the 3rd District and the county is run is something that every voter should be concerned with,” Pappas said in the release. “After more than a dozen years of careful research and involvement in the community, I clearly understand the issues that this district and county faces and that changes that need to take place to have effective policy and decision-making in an open and lawful environment.”
Pappas couldn’t be reached by the Sun for comment as of press time.
His campaign spokesperson, Laura Edens, said Pappas recently decided to campaign for the position after being asked to run by “quite a few people” from all over the district.
When a reporter posed the question whether Pappas’ legal woes against Farr could possibly sour his relationship with voters this time around, Edens replied, “I can’t really speak for [Pappas], but he’s obviously thought that out, and I don’t think it’s deterred him at all.”
She said Pappas planned to file the necessary paperwork to run for office as soon as he returned from vacation.
This article appears in Jan 5-12, 2012.