Toasts and Roasts for Wolf and Hart

Janet Wolf and Gregg Hart didn’t quite get to attend their own funerals this week, but it was close enough, given the abundance of eulogizing directed at the two South Coast political figures on Tuesday.

The lion’s share of the purple smoke, naturally enough, was directed at Wolf, frequently noted for the passion and ferocity with which she represented the Goleta Valley on the Board of Supervisors. She officially stepped down this week after 12 years of service. If the encomium for Hart — the political center of gravity on the Santa Barbara City Council on which he’s sat the past five years — was less voluminous, that’s because he’s not going away, but instead taking over the seat Wolf is vacating.

On paper, Wolf and Hart seem cut from similar cloth; both are solidly progressive Democrats and all that suggests. In flesh and blood, however, the two are studies in contrast. Wolf is outspokenly independent, ready and willing to clash with her own side of the proverbial aisle as she was to throw down with Sheriff Bill Brown, with whom she most famously feuded over the treatment afforded inmates in the Santa Barbara County Jail, not to mention the size of the new North County jail. On both those issues, it should be noted, Wolf prevailed.