In the middle of Black History Month — with 16 days left in the campaign for Santa Barbara County First District Supervisor, Saturday, incumbent Das Williams and challenger Laura Capps sat down to have a very specific conversation about their vision for the Black/African-American community. A dialogue that was the first of its kind in the region was held in the Black History Month Culture House, presented by the Black Rock Coalition, which is nestled in the State Street location of Youth Interactive, a space that would otherwise sit unused. And instead of trading barbs, which has become more common in the closing weeks of the million-dollar race, each candidate sat down with Santa Barbara resident Warren Ritter who plucked from prepared questions on a variety of topics ranging from housing, child care, the economy and of course, cannabis.
“I came because of the specific topic and perspective,” said Charlotte Gullap-Moore, a 9-year resident of Montecito. “I want to vote for people who are aware of my issues. How are you going to know about it if you are not around us?” she added as she pointed out the absence of other elected officials or candidates for other offices.
According to US Census data from 2010, Santa Barbara County is made up of 446,000 residents of which 2.4 percent are African American or Black. This number has declined over the decades. Local estimates indicate that it takes just over 9,000 votes to win the first Supervisorial District seat. If the district evenly reflects the demographics of the county, the first district has about 2,140 Black residents (just over 10,700 countywide). Given this numerical breakdown, the Black vote could easily be a deciding voting block in this election.
During Capps’ introduction at the discussion, she touted her local rearing in Santa Barbara’s upper east side and leaned on the perspective she would bring to the County’s governing body based on her broad experience in public service outside of the area, as well as locally. That includes stints working in the Clinton White House and in the U.S. Senate as Communications Director for Sen. Ted Kennedy, as well as being raised in a politically active home, the daughter of Lois and the late Walter Capps, who both served in Congress. The younger Capps highlighted that she has been an ardent supporter of advancing implicit bias training as a member and current President of the Santa Barbara Unified School District Board of Directors, a move that is being challenged in court by a local community group as being discriminatory against white, Christian and conservative students.
“In fact, I led the renewal of that contract,” Capps boasted.
In the opening of his portion of the discussion, Williams also pointed to his local ties, but with a much more diverse experience admitting that as a child being raised by a single mother he attended 8 different elementary schools. His plunge into public service, he says, is driven by a burning need to help make the world look more like it ought to be. Idealistically, for Williams that means more housing production to increase available housing stock, which in turn would help more people afford to live locally as opposed to living in neighboring counties and commuting into the Santa Barbara area, which he said nearly 35,000 people do daily.
Williams frequently referenced his experience serving in the State Assembly prior to being elected to the county board of supervisors as an asset for his representation of votes. He specifically pointed to his support of the Local Control Funding Formula, while in the assembly, as a way to make the funding formula for schools more equitable and in fact double the per pupil spending for the previously lowest funded schools.
“What’s at stake is income inequality,” Williams said. “Education is the key to wealth equity.”
Despite the fact that the Santa Barbara area is ranked among the wealthiest communities in the country, the county has the second highest poverty rate in the state, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Capps explained her understanding of what that means by pointing out the crippling impact of a $400 expense on a struggling family. That is why she says it’s important as a public servant to help bridge the information gap on programs that would most benefit our community’s impoverished residents, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit.
“Our housing and homelessness issue is a dignity issue,” Capps said to the intimate crowd of community members.
Cannabis, however, has emerged as the hot button issue of the campaign, with Capps disciplined on the claim that Williams’ acceptance of $62,000 in campaign donations from individuals connected with the industry is unethical. But for this conversation the topic veered into the idea of social equity programs similar to those implemented in cities like Los Angeles, Oakland and Chicago where licensing entities offer priority applications and support to individuals who have been disproportionately impacted by previous criminal cannabis activity.
Capps said that it is worth exploring such programs and that disparities in enforcement and sentencing of black and brown communities was among the top reasons why she supported Proposition 64 that have been implemented in Los Angeles, Oakland and Chicago. She said it was the disparity in cannabis sentencing as the reason why she supported Prop. 64 of 2016, which legalized and regulate recreational cannabis.
Williams on the other hand said that by prioritizing such criteria during the “community benefit” public portion of the permitting process, communities of color could have more say over inclusion and equity issues. He also boasted about the number of good paying jobs, that start at a $15 minimum wage with benefits, provided by the cannabis industry and pointed to the positive impact the regulated industry is having on decreasing the structural budget deficit of Carpinteria Unified Schools.
Both candidates had their own unique approach to answering a question about privilege and their understanding of racial difference and indifference. Reluctantly, Capps a mother of a third-grader at Roosevelt Elementary, noted that her son has biracial heritage. His father, Capps’ ex-husband Bill Burton, is part African-American and served as Deputy White House Press Secretary for President Barack Obama.
Williams, who is of Dutch-Indonesian background, pointed out that he is among the several local elected officials of color that have been elected by a majority white electorate. He adds that the significance of that is not lost on him, but it is not worth much celebration, because more can be done.
“Black history here is powerful and something that is not just legacy, but one that is part of the future,” Williams said in closing. “We need to maintain a vibrant African American community in Santa Barbara in a way that is beyond symbolic, but in economics as well.”
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