Das Williams captured all the headlines when he was stunningly upset by Roy Lee for the Santa Barbara County First District Supervisor’s seat.
But behind the scenes there was another defeat; that of Darcel Elliott, his longtime chief of staff and district director in the California Assembly.
In the latest episode of Santa Barbara Talks with Josh Molina, Elliott discusses her career as the silent force behind Williams’ time in office, and explains how she tried to separate herself from him in the past couple of years.
“I think my identity was fully one with Das,” Elliott said. “We still are very much a pair. I took things so personally for him and was totally enmeshed with him at the start of my career.”
She said tying her identity to Williams was related to the relationship she had with her mother.
“My mom was an alcoholic and bipolar so there was a lot of co-dependency there and it kind of ended up working into my relationship with Das,” Elliott said.
The 36-year-old also talks about her career as a staffer and offers the reasons why she believes Williams lost to Roy Lee last March. She claimed that the Santa Barbara County Democratic Party, a group that she chaired, was focused on keeping Joan Hartmann, Santa Barbara County Third District Supervisor, in office.
Elliott, who previously took time away from the county to run Williams’ election campaign, did not help him last time, and instead focused her attention on countywide politics.
“Resources and limited and it was all about the Third District,” Elliott said.
Elliott recently stepped down from her role as chair of the Santa Barbara County Democratic Party. She is unsure what next job will be. She said that she wants to see the Fifth District supervisor seat, currently occupied by Republican Steve Lavagnino, go to a Democrat.
“If I come back to politics, I think it will be to work on the Fifth District seat,” Elliott said. “I want Santa Maria to have a Democrat as a county supervisor. But I want to rest first before I figure out what I want to do next.”
Joshua Molina is journalist who currently writes for Noozhawk and teaches journalism at Santa Barbara City College. He formerly covered politics and land use for the San Jose Mercury News. Santa Barbara Talks is an independently owned podcast where Molina looks to bring together voices from all perspectives to discuss and provide solutions to the challenges related to housing, education, transportation and other community issues. Subscribe to his podcast here and consider a contribution here.