[ From: Zombie Dog Death Wish - Angry Poodle Barks at City Politics, by Nick Welsh, SB Independent, September 17, 2009 ]

... During the Santa Barbara City Council meeting two weeks ago, Councilmember Das Williams stood up during deliberations, walked over to the thermostat, and turned up the ambient temperature setting by three degrees. At the time, the air conditioning was cranking and chambers were decidedly chilly. A few moments later, Councilmember Dale Francisco  —  who sits right next to Williams on the dais  —  got up, walked across the room, and reset the thermostat to a lower reading, thus undoing Williams’s work.

This simple dance sums up the increasingly prickly relationship between the two most ideologically, if not personally, polarized personalities on the council. Not a word  —  not even a glance  —  was exchanged. This week’s showdown between the two, however, was far more overt. About the only thing not exchanged between these two were a few elbows to the throat.

How Das and Dale came to sit next to one another remains one of life’s mysteries, though Mayor Marty Blum’s perverse sense of humor probably is at the heart of it. Williams represents the far left of the council’s political spectrum; Francisco the right. Both men are smart, articulate, and know how to move the chess pieces around to strategic effect. Where Williams is temperamentally effusive, but cool, Francisco is reserved, but hot. Both are intensely competitive; both get under the other’s skin...

Dale, Helene & Das Swearing in, January 2008

[ Full text at: Zombie Dog Death Wish ]

Labels: Dale Francisco, offshore oil drilling