Edhat Staff
Laura Capps and Das Williams (file photo)
By edhat staff
Laura Capps has conceded to Das Williams in the strenuous race to win the First District seat of Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors.
On Monday evening Capps took to Facebook to address her supporters stated she called to congratulate Williams and his team on their win.
“I first decided to run for supervisor because I am dedicated to making life better for all children and families in our County, and that remains as true today as it ever has been. When we do right by our children, we do right by everyone,” wrote Capps.
She went on to state that she’s proud of her campaign and the honest conversations about important issues. “I hope those issues – and their strong desire to reduce the role of special interests in our local government – will remain part of our civic conversation,” she said.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Williams tallied 12,634 votes while Capps brought in 11,235.
Williams also took to Facebook to thank his supporters and the voters for re-electing him to serve the First District.
“I want folks who voted for my opponent to know that I will work hard to represent all the people of SB County, and that I welcome all ideas and feedback to become a better public servant and to more effectively find solutions to the challenges our community faces,” wrote Williams.
The Democratic Women of SB endorsed Laura, Capps but the SB Democratic party endorsed Das Williams, obviously helping him to win. If we are to help women win and rise in politics, party endorsement can and should factor in gender if both candidates are well qualified. Boo on the Dems for enabling a 4 male to 1 women majority on the BOS. Dems can be proud of encouraging gender inequality through their endorsement.
Take partisan politics out of non-partisan races.
The Santa Barbara Women’s Political Committee endorsed Das. So some women preferred Capps and some women preferrred Williams … what a surprise. “Dems can be proud of encouraging gender inequality through their endorsement” — no such thing happened.
I can’t believe this. So sad that we are stuck with Das.
The Machine won. But only because there is a critical mass in this town fed by the machine. You created the self-licking ice-cream, voters. Your services are no longer needed. Enough voters in this town now have a direct interest keeping tax dollars flowing into their own pockets, they don’t even need sham elections any longer. Travis Armstrong and the NewsPress warned you years ago, but you mocked them and ran them out of town.
The people have spoken and Das won, Congratulations Das…
Come on. What’s your big issue? Pot? it will get sorted out and regulated appropriately and you’ll be fine.
At least Porter went down hard and will need to tell his HUGE, out of the area donors what happened. The Supes will be able to fend off fracking & drilling everywhere even if the Doobie Brother votes to approve. Knowing Porter, he’ll spin it all UCSB! Hah! He spent the majority of his time & resources there right down to handing out 1 pint beer glasses to the kids. They played him! Love it
and now, a week later, he might consider taking down all his illegally posted signs that are on public easements. Caldwell is even worse. His stooges came in the night and lined our public roads and intersections with his signs. I read he has plenty of illegal signs in Montecito also. He could care less about ordinances and regulations. Andy does what he wants…………and what the oil companies want. Hope those big signs come down on the ag. properties….what blight on our beautiful countryside.
“The Supes will be able to fend off fracking & drilling everywhere even if the Doobie Brother votes to approve.” — This is such a strange statement. Presumably Das Williams and Steve Lavagnino are your “doobie brothers”, but Das has always been strongly endorsed by the Sierra Club and introduced Measure P to halt fracking, whereas Lavagnino strongly opposed the measure. One’s a liberal Democrat representing a liberal district and the other is a conservative Republican representing a conservative district. Treating the two of them as if they have similar views on the environment or much of anything else (other than cannabis ordinances) is completely contrary to the facts.
No, pot was not the big issue for why I voted for Laura Capps. Campaign finance reform and ethics were. Sadly, she lost, perhaps because she fell in his trap and focused too much on pot, so it will be business as usual with our 1st district supe. raking in the cash for his next run to wherever.
“ethics” — LOL. “raking in the cash for his next run to wherever” — Ethics starts with being honest.
It’s not like that person actually believes in endorsements based on gender; it’s an obviously disingenuous argument. Had the Democratic Party based their endorsement on gender, the same person would be attacking them for that.
Capps lost when she made “climate change” her fall back second issue. Clueless. She demonstrated she would be no improvement over the same addled person she was trying to replace. We need change, no more of the same but with a different gender and political pedigree. I wonder if the Capps machine knows what hit them – the lost backing Hal Conklin against Cathy Murillo and they now lost yet again to machine politics. Surely Team Capps is not naive about the grip of Democrat machine and public sector union politics in this town that led to their two recent defeats in a row. Happened on your watch Ms Former Congresswoman. The viper in the nest came from your good offices.
JQB: That was my statement, not Laura Capps’; but “raking in the cash” is not an inaccurate description of Williams’ campaign fundraising prowess. He started the campaign with about $250K in his campaign account and built it up. It will be interesting to see the final accounts of both candidates and also how much money comes in _after_ the election. This was a very expensive race, especially for a job that pays a little more than $100K/year plus benefits.
“That was my statement, not Laura Capps” — Yes, I know. (Funny though that you still don’t say who you are.)
“but “raking in the cash” is not an inaccurate description of Williams’ campaign fundraising prowess” — again, ethics starts with honesty. Sloganeering is not honesty, and now you’ve moved from various smears to “accusing” him of “prowess”. Oh dear, what a crime. “This was a very expensive race” — it would not have been if Capps hadn’t gone up against Das, pitting one liberal against another, funded by anti-cannabis forces. But hey, she just didn’t have enough “prowess”, I guess. Anyway, I’m done here … need to go wash my hands.
“The comment was Doobie Brother, singular.” — So who is it, Williams or Lavagnino? I took it as a typo because it only makes sense in the plural and the same author, or someone with the same style, has repeatedly used the plural phrase to refer to both of them.
Yes, the problem is that the ethical well was poisoned from the start–the argument that you need to benefit from traditional campaign financing so that you can win and promise that you will change it once you’re in power….how about just starting with campaign finance reform from the start and sticking with it regardless of the outcome. That would be truly ethical. If she’d done that, I would have voted for her.
Bunch of Losers. Ask my 13 year old daughter. Das is here to stay and if you don’t like it, run against him or move. Capps made her move and at least for the rest of my Life, she will never win a General Election on the South Coast except for the School Board and all her supporters are gone as successful local candidates. Bye, bye all of you!
I’ve watched Das over many years — His goal has always been to increase tax revenue for whoever he is representing; City, State, or Country. Higher property tax, sales tax, single use bag tax, marijuana tax — whatever brings in more money to feed the machine.
Does he care about the citizens? Not really.
Yet another completely counterfactual claim about Das Williams … this one isn’t even based on bizarre claims about his “body language”. The election is over, Das got more votes–the people spoke. Time to move on.
Das acts like his s@%# doesn’t stink, but it sure stunk up Carp…
Travis Armstrong need to be ran out of town is he still running?
SBReader: Nice tone you are setting for local politics. One wonders why.
Plenty of illegal Das Williams signs in the road ways, ironically many near fire stations.
Compare and contrast – the state our city finances are in today versus where we would be had the city listened to Travis Armstrong warnings about the fiscal stranglehold we were heading into under a very weak mayor and the grasping new political special interest employee union control that was rapidly emerging. The numbers don’t lie. This city is now in a financial straight jacket – the tail is now wagging the dog and every revenue dollar is committed now to this internal public debt, benefiting those very same employee groups Travis Armstrong warned against.
Das isn’t my favorite, but I’m sick of people (Capps etc) using our local school board as a stepping stone.
Ms. Capps is bright, capable, and has excellent potential to continue on with her political career. I hope she continues with her efforts to serve in public office.
I voted for Laura Capps. The SB Local Democratic Machine: “You don’t know the power of the Dark Side of the Force”!
I wonder how many Das supporters have actually attended or watched a BOS meeting? Or better yet, had a face to face meeting? He exudes arrogance and a condescending attitude. His body language alone while sitting there speaks volumes about how he really feels in this non partisan elected position. It’s as if he has way better things to do than play with the children of Santa Barbara. Yesterday he had the nerve to accuse a local well respected environmental attorney of wrongdoing. A champion of the environment Das is not… He listens to the people when it’s convenient for him. But no one else will ever have a chance because the machine puts all the pawns in place.
I’ve talked to Das many times … he’s a great guy. ” he had the nerve to accuse a local well respected environmental attorney of wrongdoing.” — here you are, accusing an environmental champion of wrongdoing. “A champion of the environment Das is not… ” — Who to believe, the Sierra Club and every other environmental organization in SB, not to mention Das’s established record, or an anonymous person slurring him on the internet? It’s obvious to me. Over and out.
Yep, the stoners won. Again. But that doesn’t mean that it’s good.
But then Laura’s mom Lois promised to only be a two term congress person and promised that she would fix it from within the halls of power. Once she got in her promise to fix the system became null and void and she ran repeatedly.