For the Record

The article about the passing of Jean Blois paid tribute to a wonderful woman. I got to know her well when she was a member of the Goleta Water District Board of Directors. She was the district’s representative on the Cachuma Operation and Maintenance Board and the Cachuma Project Authority when I served as the general manager and executive director, respectively, of those organizations. This was just one of the several important positions she held during her life, to the benefit of our community.

For the record, however, it is not really correct to say that Jean was one of the “founding mothers” of the City of Goleta. Her group’s several attempts at cityhood for Goleta failed at the polls in the 1990s. The 1993 city seal she is holding in the photograph that accompanied the article was from one of those failed attempts.

It was the GoletaNow! group that spearheaded the citizens’ initiative that resulted in voters’ approval of Goleta Cityhood Measure H in November 2001, which led to the establishment of the city in February 2002. The “founding mothers” of the City of Goleta were all members of GoletaNow! They included Margaret Connell, Cynthia Brock, Jonny Wallis, Catherine Bednar, and Patricia English. Connell, Brock, and Wallis were elected to serve on the first City Council along with Jack Hawxhurst, one of the four male members of GoletaNow! (The other male members were Sean Halsey, Jeff Haight, and me.)

Jean Blois was indeed elected to serve on the first City Council, largely based on her name recognition and her well-known standing in the community. But she was never a member of GoletaNow! and she did not participate in any of the efforts of GoletaNow! to petition for or to promote cityhood in the run up to the successful election in 2001.