House Not “Snookered”

Santa Barbara City Councilmember Grant House is still weathering fallout over his decision to break with his more liberal colleagues on the council last week and appoint a more conservative moderate — Randy Rowse — to fill out liberal, former-councilmember Das Williams’s remaining year in office, thus giving the right an apparent four-vote majority. “Some people think what I did was nonpartisan statesmanship,” he said. “Others say, ‘Grant, you traitor.’” House said the community deserved a council with the seven members the City Charter required.

House nominated Rowse for the post — after seven deadlocked 3-3 votes — only after Councilmember Dale Francisco, leader of the conservative bloc, assured him that Rowse had no intention of running for reelection once the year left on Williams’s term expired. (House had argued he couldn’t support anyone with long-term political ambitions.) Almost immediately after being sworn in, however, Rowse made it clear he never said never, only probably not. “Randy left the door open a crack, but in the world of politics that means it’s wide open,” said House. “That concerns me.”

Among liberal Democratic activists, there’s a suspicion that Francisco pulled one over on House, thus giving the conservatives the edge that liberals won at the ballot box. House disagreed. “I was snookered by Dale Francisco?” he exclaimed. “Come on!” Likewise, Francisco said he never grilled Rowse on the subject, but did talk with him about it at a meeting held two weeks ago at the Paradise Cafe, which Rowse owns. “He said, ‘One year will be plenty for me. I can’t imagine serving for four,’” Francisco relayed.