Trick or...Vote? Tonight around 5pm we're going to be walking a neighborhood - in our Halloween costumes! It's going to be a blast. If you want in, give Stephanie or Das a call, we'll be leaving from campaign HQ (1019 Quinientos #2, one and a half blocks east of Milpas).

I'm at campaign HQ now and Das just brought around a plate of crackers, brie and sausages. Kind of a weird breakfast, but yum. Kim is doing some data scanning and getting ready to go deliver some more lawn signs with Patrick, Brinn is sorting through a pile of press clippings, and I just resurrected the ancient Compaq that I'm typing this on (Windows 95...it's allllivvve!).

Make sure you pick up a copy of this week's Independent. Das gained their endorsement, and their coverage of the importance of this election was as good a summary as I've seen.
- posted by Unknown @ 10:33 AM -

 
We had yet another good phoning session last night, and this morning's story is about last night's Brotherhood of Santa Barbara forum. Sorry we didn't post that here - we meant to but heard about it too late. The focus of the story was on the two candidates that didn't show up, but here's part of the story regarding what Das had to say:

Mr. Williams talked about his time in South Africa, where he joined Nelson Mandela's African National Congress to fight apartheid, about 10 years ago. He pointed to his background, describing himself as a poor kid who grew up in Isla Vista and who understands the challenges of those who are underrepresented.

"I am not afraid to be a person who says I want to change the way this city is run," Mr. Williams said.

There was also an excellent letter signed by the Director and Co-Chair of the Central Coast National Conference for Community and Justice office (it's in the letters section, about halfway down the page). Here's an excerpt:

Institutional inequality doesn't have to be enforced by laws or come in the guise of extremists in white robes. As white, anti-racism activist Peggy McIntosh states: "I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group."

This invisible system includes the "right" of wealthier, adult, white people (usually men) to determine what kind of leadership experiences and qualifications are valid (Planning Commission) and what kinds of experiences and qualifications are not valid (human services, grass-roots activism). We need only examine the current Planning Commission roster to determine the imbalances in our community. A seven-member board comprised of six white males and one white female hardly represents our city's diversity.

This letter makes an excellent and important point about the necessity of diversity on our city council. If there's one thing that the people I've talked to on the phone and out in the neighborhoods and in forums and meetings can agree on (and there may be only one thing!), it's that the council needs to be shaken up a bit. There is no better way to do that than to bring in some fresh and diverse voices.
- posted by Unknown @ 8:32 AM -

 
Eight days and counting. I've been keeping an eye on our statistics page, where I see that we've been linked to from this super cool and beautifully designed local blog that I had no idea existed before. We're getting a lot of hits today - welcome to all of you, and please post any comments or feedback you have via the "comments" link below this or any post. Das is knocking on so many doors because he wants to know what's on your mind, but this is a good place to let us know too!
- posted by Unknown @ 2:27 PM -

 
Nine days left!. We've had a fun couple of days, keeping the campaign going for the final push into the home stretch. There's going to be a lot going on this week and next weekend but today and yesterday have been fun too. Here's a few pictures:


Pat, Chad & Brinn take a break from calling


Patrick, Das, Christine, Stephanie & Chad


A few of Saturday morning's herd o' walkers


Das explaining the intricacies of the city's sewer system. "Lemme 'splain. No, no time. Lemme sum up." (that will only really make sense to Princess Bride fans).

The turnout we've had has been terrific. Walking neighborhoods is something that can seem a little overwhelming if only a few people show up, but with a big group like we had this morning it doesn't seem nearly as daunting. We'll be at it again tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon, starting around 4pm.
- posted by Unknown @ 8:19 PM -

 
Things have been a little quiet in the News-Press over the past couple of days in terms of the city council race, but there was one really amazing letter the other day that I'm going to take the liberty of posting in its entirety here since the whole thing is so darn good:

Williams' concern, vision offer hope

Of all the candidates running for City Council, only Das Williams has walked on my street and listened -- patiently -- to my concerns.

Only Mr. Williams showed up at the meeting at St. Francis Medical Center between Cottage Health Systems and local neighbors where executives discussed their plans for building up to 181 housing units on the site of the former hospital. And when he and another candidate spoke to our neighborhood association, only Mr. Williams seemed to understand the concerns of residents living in an historic neighborhood increasingly threatened by luxury-condo development. He has certainly earned my vote.

If his impressive energy, vision and grasp of the issues facing this city are an indication of the ability of the up-and-coming generation to tackle -- and solve -- the formidable challenges ahead, there may be some hope for Santa Barbara to become something other than a real-estate developer's dream come true.

Cheri Rae McKinney
Santa Barbara

Our humble little blog here got a mention on Doc Searl's weblog sometime yesterday! Doc is a techie with soul and a blogger from way back, he's been at it about as long as anyone. He moved here to Santa Barbara from the Bay Area a few years ago (around when I did). Hello to all of you coming in from Doc's site, and everyone, do let us know what you think with the comment links found below every post!
- posted by Unknown @ 12:33 PM -

 
It's a little late for this, but check out Eric Cardenas & Geoff Green's morning radio show, Grassroots Radio, on KCSB tomorrow morning from 8-9am. (that's 91.9 AM here in Santa Barbara, but you can also tune in on their webcast.) And of course you can use the comments feature here to discuss it, if anyone is up and listening.
- posted by Unknown @ 10:25 PM -

 
Pictures! We've got some pictures from Friday night's Dialing for Das session...




The pictures are of Das, Jen and Kim (in that order). Things were cut short a bit because Das suprised us by giving away some free theater tickets! Kim, her boyfriend and Jen and I snapped them up. The play was Arthur Miller's The Ride Down Mt. Morgan - it was funny and smart and well acted and exactly the break I think we all needed.

This weekend's neighborhood walks are continuing. Jen and I talked to a bunch of people down in the Funk Zone yesterday since that's part of our precinct. The main worry that came up from a couple of different people was that what they've got down there is going to be gentrified into oblivion after La Entrada is built. This is yet another situation where the Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance that Das supports could be really helpful. That's a great area, and we should fight to keep it that way. Sunday afternoon is a great time to walk and we'll be heading out again today, so give Das or Stephanie a call if you'd like to join in.
- posted by Unknown @ 11:48 AM -

 
Also, the topic of the budget came up this week a couple of times, both in the News Press and on here. You can decide for yourself: the city has the whole thing up on the city website. Feel free to use the comments link (just below this post) to discuss it.
- posted by Unknown @ 8:19 AM -

 
This weekend's schedule. It's a bit late notice but there is some walking going on this weekend. Meet at Campaign HQ (aka Das's house, 1019 Quinientos #2, a block and a half east of Milpas) this morning around 9 and grab a few hours worth of neighbors to go out and talk to. We'll also be going out tomorrow afternoon and will announce the time here later today. Next week, we'll start at 5:30 AM Saturday and Sunday with calisthenics. Just kidding, although we did talk about it!
- posted by Unknown @ 7:38 AM -

 
Friday News Roundup. Yesterday in the News Press' ongoing editorial page coverage of Monday's Planning Forum, they came out against the very idea of the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance that the current city council and staff are working on. Their stated reason for opposing it is on the grounds that it "may turn off builders from our market and ultimately serve to increase home prices for those not lucky enough to get the special units."

Taking this one argument at a time: what, really, does it take to discourage builders from a market where they can build small townhouses next to a freeway and turn them around before they're even built for $900,000 a pop? The housing problem here is absolutely not a result of our inability to attract homebuilders if we want to; it's that we've intentionally limited development to protect this beautiful place. This is as it ought to be; it means that unlike practically everywhere else in California, the people are truly in charge of development here, not the developers.

Their second argument would be true if we had any hope of building our way out of this problem. This isn't going to be possible if we're truly serious about preserving the character of our neighborhoods. The market is failing to deliver the South Coast the housing we need - intentionally. So we must consider other solutions and we need some new thinking on the Council to effectively do that.

The combination of the Neighborhood Preservation and Inclusionary Housing ordinances could very well be the solution here. The city could use this opportunity to design market-based solutions, such as revenue-neutral incentives, paid for by differential mitigation fees applied to the market rate housing that is being built. (that's a little jargony maybe, but if you're curious, give Das a call - he loves explaining this!) Getting these two pieces of legislation right is going to require vision and a lot of hard work. Das is uniquely suited for this difficult task.

A few weeks ago, the Economic Community Project released its report that included six scenarios for the future of the South Coast. In all of them, the middle class (that's any family earning under about $150k in this case) gets booted unceremoniously out of Santa Barbara and traffic on the 101 goes through the roof as we transition further towads what the Independent recently called a "plantation economy." Das believes that these scenarios symbolize a failure of the political imagination. We absolutely can do better, and it's the job of the city leadership to investigate alternative solutions. Rigid thinking and blind adherence to how things have always worked isn't going to solve our problems, but the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance might. We should elect a Council that would be willing to continue to study this with open minds.
- posted by Unknown @ 3:00 PM -

 
We had a terrific phone session last night! Unfortunately I forgot the camera, but we had most of the lines in the office lit up the whole time - Except when we were eating Thai food from Your Place. (easily the best Thai place in town) I talked to a bunch of nice folks up in Samarkand. Got a couple of hangups of course, too, but when you call people like this most of them realize pretty quickly you're not selling anything and are happy to talk to you. We're doing it again tonight, so come by if you've got a chance! 130 E. Carillo from 5:30 to 9 or so.
- posted by Unknown @ 8:33 AM -

 
Das, along with Helene and Babatunde, picked up the endorsement of an armada of nine progressive-minded groups today. We'll pick up the story and post the details tomorrow but it's exciting stuff.

Here's a couple of pictures from this evening...

Das speaking at the tonight's planning forum, and...


Stephanie, Patrick and Das at the ensuing strategy session a few hours later. Note the ratio of three empty salad containers to one empty pizza box - we eat healthy!
- posted by Unknown @ 11:42 PM -

 
Morning news roundup. No post from yesterday because we were running around as usual. Das walked a neighborhood in the afternoon and then swung by the terrific Bread & Roses fundraiser for the Fund for Santa Barbara before heading off to a phone session.

But the big news this morning is in the News-Press, with a story by Josh Molina headlined "Young candidate wants to shake up City Hall." It's a great article and you should go read it, but these two clips sum it up pretty well...

"There's that old adage that wisdom and youth are seldom wedded together," said Dr. John Kay, a Santa Barbara City College political science professor who is also a former teacher of Mr. Williams. "But you could argue in some cases that wisdom is experience. And Das Williams has a lot of experience." ...

"[Mr. Folayemi] said the candidate is a bright young man and that ultimately the voters -- "not the few naysayers at City Hall" -- are going to decide if they want him in office."

Today's Schedule. Tonight is another City Council candidate's forum in the Faulkner Room at the library (40 E. Anapamu St.), from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. If the forum sounds a little boring and you'd rather pitch in with a phone session, that's happening too tonight. Give us a call if you want to come by!
- posted by Unknown @ 10:06 AM -

 
We didn't get any pictures from the walk this morning, but we do have a couple from tabling at today's pride festival downtown...


Jen, Charles (a friend visiting from Oakland) and Das enjoying some kind of BBQ chicken sandwich.


Das and fellow candidate Helene Schneider, locked into mortal combat in front of the Democratic Service Club's voter registration and information table.
- posted by Unknown @ 6:26 PM -

 
Good morning! It's almost 9 am here at campaign HQ west (also known as Dan & Jen's apartment in West Beach) and we're tearing around the house getting ready for today. There's a monster precinct walk going on this morning, and Das will be at the Pride Festival at De La Guerra plaza today, from around 12:30 to 1 or so. Look for the local Democrats table. See you out there!
- posted by Unknown @ 8:56 AM -

 
Hello Santa Barbara! Welcome to the brand spanking new weblog for Das Williams' campaign for Santa Barbara City Council. The next three weeks are going to be democracy run amok here in our little town, so we're starting this site to help you keep track of the action and to let you get to know Das and his vision for Santa Barbara as fully as possible in such a short time.

My partner Jen and I are new to politics, but we got involved in this campaign from almost the first time we met Das and heard him speak. I've never seen anyone work as hard or as passionately or as smartly as this guy. To try to sum it up, he cares deeply about both preserving the environment and creating an economy that works for all of us. He grew up here on the south coast and has a bottomless love for this city. He's going to be an amazing leader.

This campaign is, to paraphrase from one of our inspirations, one of the great local grassroots campaigns of the 21st century, built from mouse pads and shoe leather. We need your help: calling your neighbors and going to talk to them out in the neighborhoods are the best ways we're going to get people to know him. We have phone sessions and neighborhood walks going on almost every day for the next three weeks. You can always call Das or Stephanie the campaign manager on their cell phones to find out what we're up to, and we'll be listing these events here. Their phone numbers are listed on the right.

Welcome again. If you have any questions about this weblog specifically, let me know - my email is da {at} usprogressives {dot} org. Thanks for tuning in and we hope to see you out on the campaign trail!
- posted by Unknown @ 5:28 PM -