COVER STORY PPLAYING OFFENSE: Roger Aceves has invoked his suppo support for technology companies in Goleta and said the board needs to use “outsidethe-bo the-box thinking” to find ways to save money.
PLAYING DEFENSE: SE: Janet Wolf touts her advocacy vocacy for the county’s emergency operations afe routes center and funding for safe to schools, among otherr issues. “I sor, and am an involved supervisor, rve my I want to continue to serve id. constituents,” she said.
PAUL WELLMAN PHOTOS
THE BATTLE for 2ND DISTRICT B Roger Aceves Tries to Unseat Janet Wolf by Lyz Hoffman
efore March 18, it looked as if the battle for the nd District supervisorial seat would be the battle for Goleta Beach Park. The dispute? Rocks and whether they should stay or go. For years, the citizens of Goleta had been fighting over whether or not to keep a rock wall that protected the park lawns from ocean flooding during a major storm. Environmentalists long argued the rocks were causing sand erosion that would eventually destroy the beach. Seizing this as a popular issue — the most visited county beach — Goleta City Councilmember Roger Aceves, who is challenging Supervisor Janet Wolf for her third term, took a stand in favor of the rocks. He gambled, and it seemed a safe bet that Wolf would ally herself with the environmentalists. The moment of truth arrived on March 1, when a major storm — one of the biggest in years — descended on Goleta Beach. The beach and the park weathered the storm. But before Aceves could gain much momentum from his persistent attacks on Wolf over what he supposed would be her support for the anti-rock crowd, Wolf moved quickly. Taking control of the board meeting on March 18, she convinced the other supervisors to vote in favor of keeping the rocks. Though Aceves charged Wolf with being a flip-flopper, Wolf countered that she had made her decision based on the facts. The battle — at least until the Coastal Commission takes it up many, many months from now —had ended in a draw. That left both candidates facing the truly biggest challenge in the nd District race: voter turnout.
Since this is a non-presidential year, voter interest is typically low. Usually this means that more conservative voters cast ballots, which should favor Aceves, but incumbents usually do well in off years, so that would favor Wolf. Though three important county issues will be decided on June 3 — the nd District, the Sheriff ’s race, and Measure M — most of the ballot concerns primary races, including reelection bids for Governor Jerry Brown and Congressmember Lois Capps. These won’t be finally decided until November. This adds to the worry that voters won’t have been paying attention when the absentee ballots are mailed out on May 5. So Aceves and Wolf will have only a handful of weeks to convince voters in the nd District — which covers most of the City of Goleta, the western part of the City of Santa Barbara, and the unincorporated region in between —that this is an important election and that there are meaningful issues at stake. At first glance, Aceves and Wolf might not seem all that different. Both are Democrats. Both had long careers working in the community. He served as a county deputy sheriff and an officer for the Santa Barbara Police Department; she was a teacher, small-business owner, and Goleta school boardmember. Aceves married his high school sweetheart; Wolf her junior high school sweetheart. They’ve been allies in the past, endorsing each other in previous elections. And they agree on issues beyond Goleta Beach, including opening the North County Jail and preserving More Mesa. But in three highly contested areas — maintenance funding, energy projects, and Chumash development — the
candidates have divergent opinions, opinions that could dramatically change the board’s direction and have major implications not just for the nd District but for the county as a whole.
Candidate in Search of an Issue While Wolf’s campaign has stayed focused on her past record and trying to not make any serious mistakes, Aceves has taken the offensive, calling for managing the budget, spending money on infrastructure, preserving public safety, reforming campaign disclosure rules, and ending the taxsharing deal between the City of Goleta and the county. Wolf charges that Aceves’s proposals are often counterproductive, or unnecessary, and that “he is a candidate in search of an issue.” Like two-time Wolf challenger Dan Secord before him, Aceves claims that the projected $900 million county budget has not been properly handled: “We really didn’t have a good plan going into the recession, and I’m afraid that we don’t really have a good plan coming out of it.” Wolf counters that the county has a strong bond rating and a 17-year plan to pay down its $800 million unfunded pension liability and that going into the next fiscal year, it has an expected slight surplus. Despite his worries about the budget, Aceves has all but endorsed Measure M, an initiative spearCONT’D
may 1, 2014
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THE INDEPENDENt
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