And the Winner Is… Democracy

There were many big winners in Tuesday’s election, most importantly: democracy and grace. It made my heart sing to watch defeated candidates, red and blue, gracefully acknowledge that things had not gone their way, this time. Who knew that we still had the human capacity
for humility?

Beyond that biggest of wins… a few local highlights:

Much is still to be determined, including the almost dead-heat nail-biter that is L.A.’s mayoral race between developer and local hotelier Rick Caruso and Congresswoman Karen Bass. We’ll stay tuned for that one. 

I was personally (beyond) heartened to see that voters around the country got a choice about choice and, like we did in California with Prop 1, universally came down on the side of support for women’s reproductive rights. 

Locally, congratulations to Congressman Salud Carbajal, who has many air miles still ahead of him as he continues to traverse the country between his hometown Santa Barbara and our nation’s capital, fighting the good fight for all of us on the Central Coast and beyond. Why in the world our Forefathers decided that members of Congress would have to run for office every two years, on a perpetual fundraising and campaigning loop, I’ll never know. I suspect if they’d been Foremothers, they’d have had more sense!

In Santa Barbara County, a complicated game of musical chairs has ended with County Supervisor Gregg Hart dancing off to Sacramento to serve in the State Assembly with reelected Governor Gavin Newsom – leaving his BOS District 2 seat in the capable hands of School Board Member Laura Capps. Gabe Escobedo will, in turn, waltz onto Santa Barbara Unified School Board representing District 1, the first ever “minority-majority” district in Santa Barbara Unified’s history. 

As for Montecito, we have a new member on the Santa Barbara City College Board of Trustees in local resident Charlotte Gullap-Moore. Incumbent Marybeth Carty will continue her hard work on the Santa Barbara County Board of Education, and Peter van Duinwyk will return to warm his seat on the Montecito Fire board, joined by self-identified “techie” newcomer Steve Dougherty. Meanwhile, two Cold Spring School District School Board incumbents, Board Chair Michael Marino and Board Member Jennifer Miller, despite years of controversy with some vocal community critics, have been given the nod to keep calm and carry on. They will be joined on the Board by parent and newcomer, Elke Kane. 

Now attention turns back to the looming question facing Georgia, which will likely turn into the most expensive U.S. Senate race in the history of the world. Oh, and to important existential questions like: did we really need to give up the much-loved and lucrative Coast Village Road parklets for just a scant number of parking spaces?