ELECTION AFTERMATH

The final tally for the Goleta City Council race still remains
too close to call two weeks after the election. While challengers
Michael Bennett and Eric Onnen have secured their seats as the top
two vote-getters, Roger Aceves has only a 16-vote edge over
incumbent Cynthia Brock for the third and final seat. Three
thousand provisional ballots have yet to be counted. Regardless of
whether Aceves or Brock wins, the slow-growth majority that’s
dominated the Goleta City Council since the city incorporated five
years ago has been eliminated.

Sheriff Jim Anderson has yet to concede defeat, even though his
margin of defeat has steadily expanded as the 27,000 absentee and
provisional ballots that remained uncounted election night two
weeks ago have been tabulated. At last count, Anderson trailed his
opponent Lompoc Police Chief Bill Brown by 8,114 votes, with only
3,000 provisional votes left to be counted. Anderson’s campaign
consultant Richard Cochrane indicated Anderson is investigating an
issue that might upend the election results, but would not
elaborate. “It might be a moot point or it might be an
earthquake – with a magnitude of 8.4,” said Cochrane.

Members of the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments
(SBCAG) voted not to spend $20,000 to find out why Measure D fell
shy of the two-thirds supermajority required by 12 percent.
Supervisor Brooks Firestone said the money should not be spent to
poll voters about what went wrong; instead, SBCAG should redouble
its efforts to win the next election. But Mayor Marty Blum and
other South Coast officials seemed more interested in pursuing a
plan to deal with traffic problems specific to South Coast voters
and paid for with South Coast dollars. Measure D won 54 percent of
the vote countywide, and fared much better in the south than in the
north. Fifth District Supervisor Joe Centeno – who helped broker
the compromise that put Measure D on the ballot – asked his fellow
elected officials to “allow the corpse to cool” before taking any
more steps.