Das Williams showed up to the first day of his new job as a county supervisor without prepared remarks. Even so, the former state assemblymember recited a line from “his favorite dead white male,” T.S. Eliot: “Take no thought of the harvest, but only of proper sowing.” He explained, “Our society does not prize long-term thinking … I want my values to be more than surface pretention.”
Joan Hartmann, meanwhile, said while America’s faith in nearly all institutions has tanked, the glimmer of hope is local government. It doesn’t get much more local than Santa Barbara’s Board of Supervisors.
Williams, 42, was elected to represent the 1st District, which stretches from Montecito to the western edge of the City of Santa Barbara. Hartmann, 66, will represent the 3rd District, spanning Isla Vista to the Santa Ynez Valley, and up to Guadalupe.