The Terrible Twos

Goleta is growing up. Too bad its City Council isn’t.

Time sure flies when you’re having fun. It wasn’t long ago that a certain faction of Goleta movers and shakers was chafing at unresponsive “outsiders” allegedly wielding enormous power as they pursued their own narrow and self-serving agenda for the community.

Fast forward, oh, say, 25 months and get a load of the Goleta City Council. Lo and behold, some of those same movers and shakers are now unresponsive insiders who are absolutely wielding enormous power as they pursue their own narrow and self-serving agenda.

This is an improvement?

You can read all about the latest intrigue in the page-one story reported by our David Downs. The brief version is that on Monday the rotating mayoral mantle passed to Councilwoman Cynthia Brock after Councilman Jack Hawxhurst’s term concluded and, as part of the process, a new mayor pro tempore needed to be named. The second banana job was expected to go to Councilwoman Jean Blois, as even Hawxhurst acknowledged to our reporter.

The problem, apparently, is that Blois is a lonely voice of reason and adult supervision on an otherwise witless and shortsighted panel of politicos. Can’t have that.

In a presumably unexpected twist, Hawxhurst nominated not Blois but Councilwoman Jonny Wallis, whose anti-growth views are more to his liking. Brock quickly seconded the call and, just like that, Blois was put in her place back on the sidelines.

The entire episode seemed so, well, so choreographed, but we know such a thing couldn’t have happened because that would be a violation of the Brown Act. The only surprise is that the power grab was too blatant for even Councilwoman Margaret Connell, who backed Blois and, we hope, now realizes just how infantile her colleagues really are.

We can’t say the same for City Attorney Julie Biggs, who gave some of the lamest lawyerly advice we’ve heard: “Historically you have proceeded with the next in line being pro tem, but you have a short history.” How’s that for a clarification?

Now, if you’ll permit us to digress, Hawxhurst insists our man got the story wrong when it came to his remarks about succession plans. He says he didn’t say any such thing about going with Blois. Downs stands by his account, and we believe him.

The whole affair would be comical — if it were a 30-minute sitcom on Fox. Unfortunately, Goleta is on treacherous terrain these days and sorely in need of real leadership. The city still has no general plan, it still has a building moratorium, it still has a housing imbalance, it still has too small a tax base to likely support its infrastructure needs, and it still has a potentially embarrassing and costly problem looming in a little matter called the Residences at Sandpiper.

The council’s brazen majority has shown little concern about what voters might think, apparently having concluded few are paying attention. Few were two years ago, to be sure. Hopefully, times have changed.