As someone who has lived in Santa Barbara County’s 1st District
for some 50 years, and spent 35 of that teaching high school here, I’ve watched
local politicians come and go. Generally, we’ve been well-served and
thoughtfully represented by our public servants, but one who has stood out as
particularly skilled and passionate about protecting this community and
bettering the lives of the broadest spectrum of the region’s residents has been
Das Williams.
Perhaps not incidentally,
I’ve paid attention to Das’s career from the start, since I remember his rather
serious presence in the front row of a 10th-grade English class at
Dos Pueblos High School about 30 years ago. I believe he took a not entirely
direct path from there through SBCC, a degree in political science from UC
Berkeley, work as legislative aide to Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, and eventually
a master’s in Environmental Science & Management from UCSB’s Bren School.
The kid has done well for himself!
And he’s done especially
well for all of us, serving seven years on City Council, six years in
the State Assembly, and the past three years on the Board of Supervisors.
Whether your concern is the environment, land use, mental health, economic
stability, public safety, or education, Das has been passionately supporting
and frequently crafting beneficial and far-thinking public policy.