Santa Barbara County Supervisor

3rd District

Four-year term

Name: Steve Pappas

Age: 48

Political party: Registered as “decline to state” a party

Years in 3rd District: 11

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Elected office: Los Olivos School District board

Work: business owner

Family: married, two children

Web site: www.stevepappas.org

By Chuck Schultz/Senior Staff Writer

Steve Pappas isn’t easily discouraged in his bid to become 3rd District supervisor of Santa Barbara County.

In March 2004, when Supervisor Brooks Firestone was elected to that post, Pappas finished a distant third, receiving only 6.5 percent of the votes cast. But he was a political novice then and has since learned a lot about how to raise money and run a campaign, he said.

He thinks he has a chance of getting a majority of the votes on June 3, and winning the 3rd District seat without a runoff, even though five candidates are competing.

“I’m hopeful,” he said. “I do understand the odds are low.”

The other 3rd District candidates are Dr. David Bearman, Doreen Farr, Victoria Pointer and David Smyser. Firestone did not seek re-election.

The sprawling district includes the Santa Ynez Valley, Los Alamos, parts of the Lompoc Valley, western Goleta and Isla Vista.

Pappas, 48, is a businessman who formed the citizens group Preservation of Los Olivos (POLO). He was elected to the Los Olivos School District board in 2005 and is now its president.

He stepped down as executive director of POLO when he announced her would run for Firestone’s seat.

The driving force behind his decision to run again for 3rd District supervisor is “concern and disappointment about the way the county is being run.” Too many decisions are “not transparent” and are being made with too little or no public involvement, he contended.

“I think the supervisors’ main responsibility to the people who elected them is communication and keeping them involved,” he added. “For me the biggest issue in the county is returning government back to the people.”

Pappas insists he’s “not beholden to any political machine” and said he’s not registered with any political party. That independence is “absolutely essential for the 3rd District seat,” he said, “which is often the swing vote” on key issues coming before the Board of Supervisors.

Like the group he formed, POLO, he adamantly opposes any expansion of gaming at the Chumash Casino off Highway 246 or annexation of land into the reservation by the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians.

His stance on other land-use matters is hazier, though.

Some way needs to be found, he said, so owners of agricultural lands “can put more housing on their ranches and farms to accommodate their workers. We’ve got to give ranch owners a way to stay profitable,” he added. “At the same time, I don’t want to see ag lands rezoned for development.”

One of his campaign’s biggest backers is Nancy Crawford-Hall, owner of the San Lucas Ranch near Lake Cachuma.

Pappas minces no words in calling for the abolishment of state housing mandates that dictate how much new housing, including units affordable to low-income residents, that each community must plan for.

In addressing the county’s fiscal problems, “we need to look at expenses, not revenue,” he said. “When I look at the county budget, I see waste everywhere.”

He would start, Pappas said, by eliminating the county executive office, headed by CEO Mike Brown. “There is too much decision-making and too much authority in that one office.”

Instead, he would return to the previous structure where department heads reported directly to the Board of Supervisors.

In his view, one county department that’s ripe for cutbacks is the Planning and Development Department. “It is fat with bureaucracy” and inefficiency, he contended

Some programs, though, should be immune from cuts. “I would not cut (public) safety and health,” he said. “To me those are not expendable.”

None of several proposed new taxes or fee hikes discussed recently by the board would get his vote. “I just simply oppose any increased taxation or fees,” Pappas said.

Nor does he favor boosting tourism as a way of fattening county coffers, as Smyser has suggested. “Personally, I don’t see that as a priority for fixing the budget,” Pappas said.

He favors “sensible growth; planned and slow growth,” he said, based on carefully crafted community plans. “That will allow the people of each community to decide their destiny” concerning future development.

He formed POLO “after I became aware in the 11th hour of a huge, high-density development (proposed) on farm land across the street from me,” he said. With the help of POLO, that Montanero Ranch property on Grand Avenue was eventually purchased by community activist Doug Herthel to keep it from being developed, and remains in agricultural use, he added.

Pappas sees transferring development rights (TDR) to other properties as a viable means of preserving as much of the Gaviota coast as possible.

“My preference is to preserve it as-is forever, but you've got to couch that in reality,” he said. “The county needs to develop and perfect a TDR policy” for that area, he added. That approach can work “if there is a desire to make it work.”

He and his wife, Lori, own and operate two companies based in the Santa Ynez Valley: Steve Pappas and Associates and Vocational Trends Inc. They have two children.

Chuck Schultz can be reached at 925-2691, Ext. 2241, or schultz@santamariatimes.com.