Primary season might have come and gone, but I still have voting on the brain. Mostly this is because it’s Best Of season here at the Sun. As I type this column, our staffers are counting the last few hardcopy ballots and adding them to our online stash. (Sorry, dear readers, you’re going to have to wait until the Best Of issue comes out on Aug. 14 to find out who won.)
But, because I’m not a total tease, I will give you some of the best of Best Of, but don’t tell the editors because they don’t know you know I know you know … about Best Of? Sorry, I’m starting to confuse myself.
Every year, Northern Santa Barbara County residents vote for their favorite local—and sometimes not so local—restaurants, bars, shops, stores, musicians, and more. We’ve always assumed our readers understand that their nominees for categories like best breakfast and best video game selection are supposed to be actual brick-and-mortar businesses. Apparently, we were wrong.
This year, some voters thought we were asking for their eating preferences. For example, we’ve learned some of our readers think the best seafood is shrimp and the best smoothie is strawberry-banana. And, for those of you who are wondering, the best video game selection is Call of Duty.
After I got over my initial shock/amusement at these votes, I realized something I think I always intrinsically knew: Sun readers have good taste. Also, I need to go check out Call of Duty.
The other reason I have voting on the brain is that I’ve been following the legal circus surrounding the Central Coast Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE) petition to let Santa Maria voters decide how they want to elect their City Council members. The petition, which city officials denied because of some alleged formatting issues, proposes that the city be divided into four districts and that the voters in each district pick their council representative.
Superior Court Judge James Rigali threw out the city’s bad formatting claim, and instead ended up finding fault with the affidavits signed by the petition’s signature collectors, which failed to confirm that the signees were at least 18 years old.
“[The] petitioner attempted to correct the circulator’s affidavits and re-file the initiative petition last week. The City Clerk rejected it,” the tentative ruling said. “That rejection is not before this court.”
Now city officials are touting their apparent win—which they had nothing to do with—because, according to City Attorney Gil Trujillo, “There is an appellate decision that ruled that a city clerk does not have statutory authority to accept supplemental affidavits from petitions circulators to correct a defect in the original affidavit.”
All I can say is that the city sure was lucky.
And why are our officials so opposed to placing an initiative, anyway? God forbid that voters get to vote on how they want to vote. But they don’t know we know they know we … never mind.
The Canary is confused. Send an explanation or tips to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 26 – Jul 3, 2014.