The battle over redrawing the political map for Santa Barbara’s five supervisorial districts has heated up yet again, and we’re still seven months away from having the latest population counts courtesy of the U.S. Census. An attorney representing the conservative watchdog group COLAB — the Coalition of Labor, Agriculture and Business — has threatened to sue, claiming the attorney hired to represent the county’s 11-member redistricting committee has a conflict of interest.
While the terms of this dispute may seem arcane, the balance of power on the County Board of Supervisors is at stake, and no detail is too small to fight over.
Attorney Mark Meuser has charged that Fred Woocher, the attorney representing the independent commission, must step down because Woocher represented former 3rd District supervisor Doreen Farr in a protracted court battle over alleged voter fraud in the 2008 election that Farr and Woocher decisively won in 2013. Meuser contends that Woocher’s representation of Farr within eight years of his appointment to the redistricting commission effectively bars him from serving.