S.B. Corrupt? Say It Aint So

Peter Vandenbelt

BACKING THE WARD SYSTEM: Leo Martinez, pictured here from a visit in February, is a former city councilmember who favors district elections.

Leo Martinez and Barry Cappello Take On City Hall over DistrictElections

NEVER HAPPEN: There are some things that arent going to happen very soon. The Chicago Cubs will not win the pennant. Congress will not vote Vlad the Impaler Putin Mr. WorldDemocracy.

And Santa Barbarans are not going to approve City Council district elections, at least not in my lifetime. Its more likely to rain for amonth.

Never mind that our present at-large voting system is profoundly unfair, undemocratic, and corrupt to boot, according to former city attorney BarryCappello.

BarneyBrantingham

What? The good citizens of St. Barbara, so proud of their imagined good-government nobility, are unheedingly perpetrating some Chicago-ese crime against itscitizenry?

So it seems, and Cappellos preparing the groundwork for a lawsuit against the city, citing the California Voting RightsAct.

Councilmembers, however, are not only opposed to district elections but declined in a recent tie vote to even let the public decide. I had a long phone conversation on the subject the other day with bombastic former councilmember Leo Martinez (its impossible to have a short one withLeo).

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S.B. Corrupt? Say It Aint So