Q. Who are the real environmentalists?
A. Not Santa Barbara County’s three “liberal” Democrats.
This past week, the SB County Board of Supervisors, on a 3-2 vote, with Nelson and Lavagnino opposing, voted to proceed with banning all future oil development in Santa Barbara County.
The vote wasn’t shocking. In past hearings, Roy Lee, Laura Capps, and Joan Hartmann have made it clear that they could care less about the jobs that will be lost. (Interesting because these are the three liberal supervisors that claim they care about minorities and environmental justice, and yet 80% of the jobs in North County in the oil industry are held by Hispanics who will end up unemployed under this policy direction.)
They could care less about the fact that the county, which has significant financial problems, could receive an additional 20-30 million dollars in property taxes if oil projects proposed in North County could go forward.