Out of nearly 200 Santa Barbara County residents, election officials have selected the 45 “most qualified” applicants to narrow down the pool for an 11-member Independent Redistricting Commission.
Names and descriptions of the applicants are posted online for public review for 30 or more days, before a random drawing of five by the district attorney at the Oct. 20 Board of Supervisors meeting, according to Gina DePinto, communications manager for the county.
The applicants are divided into five sub-pools based on the supervisorial district in which they live.
The district attorney will randomly draw one applicant from every sub-pool to make up the first five members of the commission.
In accordance with California Elections Code, the Independent Redistricting Commission will exclude elected officials, their staffs, lobbyists, candidates, campaign donors, and their close family members to ensure that the redistricting is representative of the county’s diversity.
The 45 applicants come from varying backgrounds and experience.
An applicant from the First District, Gerald DeWitt, served on Santa Barbara’s Planning Commission for two years before being elected in 1981 to the City Council, on which he served two terms.
A Second District candidate, Lynda Bohnett, is the granddaughter of Santa Barbara Mayor Floyd Bohnett, who served from 1957 to 1959. She is a licensed Realtor who has served on the board of the Westside Boys & Girls Club for many years.
Kevin Kasseff, an applicant from the Third District, is a UC Santa Barbara alum who founded and runs Titan Real Estate Investment Group, a company with 700 employees.
Fourth District applicant Scott Fina has a background in education, worked as a state police officer, and worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
To get to the 11-member team by Dec. 31, the five randomly selected commissioners will meet in late October and early November to select finalists from the remaining 40 applicants to interview for the seats, according to DePinto.
An applicant from each district will be chosen, needing the votes of at least four commissioners as well as one at-large representative.
There will be a public hearing scheduled to allow for public comment and final appointment of the remaining six commissioners, DePinto said.
The Independent Redistricting Commission was approved by the county in Measure G during the November 2018 statewide general election. Every 10 years, districts are redrawn based on census data.
The drawing of county districts determines how effectively a community is represented in its government. Before this new selection process, the Board of Supervisors was responsible for drawing the electoral lines.
The Independent Redistricting Commission now has the responsibility of establishing electoral boundaries in the county for the upcoming decade, following the receipt of the 2020 federal census data, which is scheduled to be received in April.
“The selection process is designed to produce a commission that is independent from the influence of the board, political parties, campaign contributors or other special financial interests, and reasonably representative of the county’s diversity,” DePinto said.
— Noozhawk staff writer Jade Martinez-Pogue can be reached at jmartinez-pogue@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
