Santa Barbara City Council candidate David Pritchett has received the endorsement of Walter Kohn, a Nobel Prize laureate and UCSB physics professor active in community affairs. Both regular bus riders, Kohn and Pritchett share a vision for increasing Santa Barbara’s energy self-sufficiency.
“It’s an incredible honor to be endorsed by this esteemed man of science,” Pritchett said in an announcement. “I look forward to brainstorming ideas with him that may benefit our great city.”
Pritchett met Kohn in March during the dedication of a new solar-power facility at a city equipment yard, where the city receives a substantially discounted electricity cost from the private-public partnership. A larger solar-power operation also is planned for a Santa Barbara Airport parking lot, to be paid by private investors.
“These innovative facilities save the city money while also reducing our carbon footprint,” Pritchett said. “This is the kind of change we need for our economy and our environment.”
Kohn, a Riviera resident, received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1998, and is an advocate for sustainable energy systems in Santa Barbara as well as the University of California’s withdrawal from weapons development.
Other local environmental leaders endorsing Pritchett include clean-water advocate Scott Bull; Craig Fusaro, a member of the California Trout board of governors; Vince Semonsen, Harding School PTA member and Environmental Committee chairman; and Assembly candidate Susan Jordan, founder of California Coastal Protection Network.
— Mo McFadden is a publicist representing David Pritchett.