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cont...
All this was enough to make some people, including
UCSB Chancellor Huttenback, suggest that student residents of
Isla Vista be prohibited from voting in local elections, and encouraged--or
legally mandated--to vote in their parents' districts instead.
Environmentalists generally shuddered at the thought of losing
such a strong local, liberal constituency, and noted that local
events had a profound impact on the student community, both as
a group of relatively transient individuals and as a very permanent
segment of the local population. As such, students were entitled
to be involved as shapers of policy.
The Water Board elections of 1970 saw Isla Vista once again playing
a crucial role in maintaining the environmentalist status quo.
This time, however, environmentalist Donna Hone finished third
in a three-seat race behind challengers Don Weaver and Gary McFarland,
a leader in I.V.'s St. Athanasius Church. For the first time in
eight years, the environmentalist slate was not entirely victorious.
Hone joined 1977 victors Maschke and Phillips to maintain an environmentalist
majority on the Board, but with her victory came the chilling
realization of how close the environmentalists were to losing
control.
The next election, in 1981, saw incumbent environmentalist Ed
Maschke and Pat Shewczyk winning the hotly contested election
thanks to an 85% margin of victory in I.V. Without Isla Vista's
votes, challenger Larry Lane would have placed first over Maschke,
with Shewczyk finishing fourth behind challenger Henry Schulte.
The events of 1983 marked the beginning of the end for environmentalist
control of the Goleta Water Board, according to Ed Maschke, who
lost his seat--and with it, the Board majority--in 1985. By 1983,
things had changed. Environmentalists had been in control of the
Goleta Water Board for almost ten years, and the pendulum of political
change was swinging.
For one thing, the moratorium was springing leaks, as developers
with large projects found it cost-effective to sink wells to provide
the water they needed, thus circumventing the moratorium's restrictions.
Large-scale industrial and commercial projects were breaking ground
right and left, and fruit orchards were falling to housing developments.
Not the least of the problems faced by the environmentalists was
the simple fact of their success. As with any group holding power
for close to a decade, the environmentalists discovered that with
a track record comes criticism. It's one thing to be a challenger,
full of wild promises and quixotic goals, and quite another to
spend years making difficult decisions, each one bound to alienate
at least someone. A groundswell of blame was being placed on the
environmentalists, for everything from high housing prices to
foul-tasting water.
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