Jerry Roberts
By Jerry Roberts, Newsmakers
Mega-kudos to E.J. Borah — the blue-collar beating heart of political efforts and energy that advance the interests of progressive women in Santa Barbara — who was celebrated over the weekend as a congressional “Woman of the Year.”
“E.J.’s passion for political activism has spanned her career as far back as her graduation from UCSB in 1958,” said Rep. Salud Carbajal.
Salud presented Borah with the award at a lively reception on Friday evening hosted by philanthropist and community advocate Claudette Roehrig.
A retired teacher, Borah is a longtime, indefatigable volunteer for nearly every Democratic cause, campaign, and candidate, especially those that further the policies, prospects, and political fortunes of, and for, women on the Central Coast and beyond. The embodiment of old-school, out-of-fashion character virtues and values like civility, respecting others and basic human decency, she is a board member of Democratic Women of Santa Barbara County, with a seat on the local party’s central committee, her political commitment displayed most visibly through leadership of the Democratic Service Club whose members, she says, are “the people who do the grunt work.”
“We do the mailings, the precinct walking, the phone calls, staff events,” she said, in an interview several years ago with the “beyondthecontract” website. “When a project needs to be done, we send out an email, and we provide the volunteers. We do the work.”
Borah started at UCSB in 1954, the first year it moved from the Riviera to its present iconic location. After graduation, she departed for what became a 44-year teaching career in Fullerton, in then-deep-red Orange County: “It was extremely conservative and I was an active Democrat in politics, but it wore me out,” she recalled.
E.J. returned to SB in 2003, along with daughter Farfalla, an attorney who’s now president of the Goleta Water District board, and then-infant granddaughter, Rosalind, now a junior at Smith College.
“When I got to Santa Barbara, I was stunned to see how many Democrats there were,” E.J. Borah recalled.
Talk about your understatements.
Borah is one six Central Coast women Salud honored this year: Other honorees include former county Public Health Director Van Do-Reynoso, Franklin Elementary School principal Casie Killgore, and Laura Selken, president of the Santa Maria chapter of American Association of University Women, as well as Kathleen Minck and Janna Nichols from SLO County.
Count on Our Man in Washington to count in every outpost of his district.
Here’s hoping the fix ain’t in. If you blinked you may have missed Nick Welsh’s least-noticed scoop in memory, the news that the California Auditor’s Office has singled out Santa Barbara as one of six counties in the state for a close examination of how they handed out cannabis licenses.
The Legislature’s Joint Audit Committee requested the audits in the wake of “Legal Weed, Broken Promises,” a boffo L.A. Times series that included an investigation into “How Legal Weed Unleashed Corruption in California.” Long-suffering residents of Carpinteria, who’ve borne the brunt of the Das Williams-designed, pay-to-play effort to make Santa Barbara the epicenter of cannabis cultivation in California, led a strong local lobbying effort to get SB included among the Hophead Half-Dozen.
Which counties are being audited was supposed to be a hush-hush state secret, given the state auditor’s preference for keeping things under the radar; the Board of Supervisors was informed, apparently in confidence but Steve Lavignino, Das’s wing man in spreading the wonders of weed everywhere, except perhaps the Botanic Garden, confirmed it to the Angry Poodle anyway.
“I look forward to someone who knows something about it looking at what we’re doing and letting us know what we can do better,” he told Nick.
As if.
It’s intriguing to see how Das and Steve, long the pot industry’s most reliable lap dogs, suddenly modulated their hardline stance after Laura Capps showed up at the board and started highlighting some of the absurdities of the county ordinance. Noting, for example, not only that the promised bonanza of tax revenues the Doobie Brothers used to sell their appalling policy has not materialized, but also that the county barely breaks even, given the nearly two dozen public employees now singularly devoted to cannabis.
Advocating a seemingly modest reform, which apparently had not previously occurred to the other supes, she also recently pushed through a new policy to hold growers accountable for not paying their taxes.
Quel outrage!
Capps will be this week’s guest on Newsmakers TV.
Citizen McCaw” DVD cover (Rod Lathim).
Press Clips. Those who passed out drunk in 2006 and just woke up (as well as Gen Z-ers and other recent arrivals), and who wish to understand better All the Fuss this week over the bankruptcy of the town’s sole daily newspaper are urged to eyeball the documentary “Citizen McCaw” for insight into the origins of the lamentable, 17 year (!) civic tragedy that inexorably led to it.
Of more recent vintage, Josh Molina’s new podcast interview with Craig Smith, professor at The Colleges of Law in SB and Ventura, is also worth checking out.
When the deal went down, at the crack of dawn of the social media era, Craig’s blog was the go-to-must-read on the latest developments and inside scoop about the story, and his reporting archive represents the only day-by-day, contemporaneous recounting of the drama (farce? -ed.).
The widely covered, but not-very-surprising, bankruptcy filing by Southern California’s oldest paper appears to be, at least, the beginning of the end of the last chapter of this sorrowful tale.
Newsmakers will have more to say about it in coming weeks, but for now we have just three words: Sad, sad, sad.
McCaw is going to stick it to us one more time. A$$ets of 50k and shell game real estate deals.
Basically no creditors will be paid.
Sad, sad, sad and unethical and unfair. McCaw has still not paid a dime on the 2 million judgement against her. Communities need more investigative journalism to avoid corruption & waste and
have community engagement. McCaw , a billionaire did not even pay here employees or warn them.
Empathy and fairness was not part of her repetoire.
Congrats to EJ !!!
Assuming the photo caption is meant to be funny. Photo reversed and the man on the left is Salud, with the top of his head cropped off. Brava to E.J!
Congratulations to E.J.! She volunteered in the classroom weekly when Roz was in my kindergarten class. Her compassion for all the students was evident. We’ll deserved!
Borah – gotta appreciate the commitment and involvement. Congrats. Unfortunately, the Democrat machine that you’ve helped create in SB (and CA) is absolutely failing us currently. Back in the day – different story. But the present Dem political monopoly isn’t working. If you haven’t been anywhere else in our country you might not realize that.
Capps – good work. Let’s hope you can keep on top of those two dogs who are screwing us (especially the Carp folks) over their wannabe pot money. Das and Lavagnino are sucking. They’re not doing any of us any good at all.
McCaw – what a joke. She screwed a lot of good people.
You’d have to be living in a cave to believe that Ms. McCaw was going to actually have to fork over any $$$. Laughable that anyone would be that naive to expect that someone who has millions and millions of dollars would not make the right moves to protect their fortune. Love her or hate her, you’ve got to admire the tenacity of how Wendy has been able to out-maneuver, for the most part, those who are coming at her with pitchforks. Stop thinking of her as “the enemy” and get with the program and start working with her. Although it’s difficult for some to admit, it is undeniable that she is an important and integral part of Santa Barbara and definitely a huge part of Santa Barbara history. Sometimes you simply have to accept things the way they are and not dwell on the past. We will all live longer as soon as we get past the unnecessary and unwarranted seething.
Peace to all who want peace. Love for all who want love. Let’s get out there and enjoy the day!
8:59 – Ha, ha, ha! It must be hard trying to spin evil into something positive, and not come across as a comedian.