Carpinteria voters to decide in November between three candidates in the 5th District
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - In Carpinteria's upcoming city election there are three candidates in the running for District 5.
This is first time Carpinteria has had district elections. Two other seats are open and they are uncontested.
The 5th district is on the ocean side of the freeway roughly between Linden Avenue to the city limits on the East. There are about 1530 registered voters, so far.
In the running are Greg Carty, Al Clark and Patrick O'Conner. Carty and Clark are already on the council and O'Conner is an aerospace engineer.
The candidates were asked five questions by News Channel 3-12.
One question was: What was your main reason for running for the 5th District City Council seat in Carpinteria?
Carty said, "we need to look at every proposed development and look at it and what it brings to the community and what it can bring to the community and as a whole. What do people want here, development we need. If we say no in the long run that may be our city's golden jewel failure that we will get projects that are forced upon us that we won't have a say so in."
Clark said, "there's some issues that have come up that are, that are big. How you judge this is, how many people come out to things. And we have had a lot of citizens involved in issues lately, and it shows that people come off the couch they're interested, they want to be engaged. "
O'Connor said, "I have gotten to know quite a bit about building codes and zoning and community development in general. As an engineer I think I can bring decision making processes and complex problem solving to the council which is really the under pining a lot of the issues, the ability to maintain Carpinteria's character."
The candidates were also asked: What are you most pleased with about Carpinteria as a city that you want to continue, preserve with laws, or fight from losing?
Carty said, "we have over 100 acres of open space not including the salt marsh not including our beach and that is something I am really proud of and I'm very fortunate we don't have to fight for that because we already have it but one thing that comes to mind that I am really shaken up about is preserving our agriculture in the valley."
Clark said, "We've got the mountains, the ocean and the views, and they are spectacular it is a very beautiful place. We have clean water, clean air, the breezes, it is a wonderful place to live and I think that is a special thing that needs preservation."
O'Connor said, "the relationship that people tend to have that they express is that they are afraid of what they don't know of they are afraid of the agencies that are making the decisions. I think we need to have, we need to have fair decisions without fear or favor."
Overall the candidates were asked five questions for their race in Carpinteria. Their full video responses are attached to this story.
