It’s election season, y’all. And in Solvang, you’ve got two choices for mayor: Santa Barbara County Deputy Sheriff Charlie Uhrig or sitting City Councilmember Karen Waite.
While Solvang’s elected officials are fleeing from the dais, Waite isn’t—which should probably tell you something.
“I believe the residents of Solvang really deserve to have the choice to elect a qualified, experienced candidate, which would be me,” she told the Sun.
It’s a natural progression for me, Waite said. Solvang deserves me, and I deserve Solvang! That guy, my opponent, has only been serving the community for almost two decades. Channeling Bobby Newport from Parks and Rec, who ran against Leslie Knope for Pawnee City Council, Waite might as well say: “I want it. Come on, give me it. Give me it. Give me it. Come on, give me it. Just give me the election.”
Uhrig, for his part, is accusing the current iteration of the City Council of Brown Act violations (which are most definitely illegal)—and although he may not be wrong (or right), he says he doesn’t have proof. But, hey, it could have happened, you know what I’m saying?
Meanwhile in Santa Maria, we’ve got some insinuations about Santa Maria District 1 candidate Carlos Escobedo coming from CAUSE. Wait, it’s not from CAUSE, a nonprofit 501c3 organization that can’t legally make political statements. It’s from CAUSE Action Fund, a 501c4 organization, which has endorsed Escobedo’s opponent, Osvaldo Sotelo.
Oh. OK. No affiliation between the two nonprofits, right? Well there is at least one: Hazel Davalos, who happens to be the CAUSE Action Fund’s organizing director and CAUSE’s community organizing director.
Seems a little too close for my comfort.
But what do I know? I’m just a bird.
Escobedo accepted a $2,000 campaign donation from Bonita Packing, aka Bonipak, the farming company that had a big COVID-19 outbreak among its H-2A workers in July that resulted in one death. And CAUSE, err, I mean the CAUSE Action Fund, is questioning what it would mean if Escobedo got elected. It’s a good question.
Another one is: Does the city of Santa Maria do much agricultural oversight? Or is that more of a county thing? Asking for a friend, because CAUSE’s big push for more H-2A housing oversight was made at the county level.
Speaking of county level: Andy Caldwell, Coalition of Labor Agriculture and Business (COLAB) founder and 24th Congressional District candidate, was wondering what something like “language justice” has to do with the task force that Santa Barbara County put together to do outreach to farmworkers who have potentially been exposed to COVID-19. I know, so weird that people who don’t speak English would need to know about a virus that’s basically changed the way we do everything.
I mean, it is couched in terms that most conservatives love to hate: You know, things like environmental justice and racial justice. But it does makes sense, as would having agricultural industry representatives serve on said task force.
Caldwell asked the Board of Supervisors on Sept. 28 whether that was a thing. Task force Interim Director Melissa Smith listed off a number of “cross-sectoral partners” (whatever that means), but not one of them had anything to do with the industry that the task force is meant to be task forcing.
The Canary’s questioning everything. Send help to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 1-8, 2020.
