Co-chair (2 positions)
Britta Young
Britta Young has been involved in socialist projects in Santa Barbara since she was in high school, including helping to start local leftist pop-up cafe Bonfire Collective; assisting with media and outreach in a successful grassroots campaign against Sheriff Bill Brown’s mail ban in Santa Barbara county jails; and as one of the lead organizers for Santa Barbara Prison Solidarity Network. She became involved with SBDSA earlier this year and joined the delegation representing our chapter at the DSA Convention in July. She currently holds the position of interim Vice Chair.
Britta has worked in the service industry and education for years and hopes to see powerful movements of working people begin to win tangible socialist gains for all the people of this city, and would like SBDSA to take the initiative in imagining and leading these campaigns. As co-chair, she would prioritize growing the chapter through working with the Bernie 2020 campaign and setting up an education working group to help new members build a collective class consciousness and engage with socialist ideas.
Per Kristian
I am so excited by the chapter this community has grown in the past year and a half. Santa Barbara DSA has gone from an idea to over 150 local dues-paying members and an even larger community of supporters and activists who are progressives, lefties, Democrats, Greens, socialists, social democrats, democratic socialists, anarchists, millennials, boomers and more. We joined in heroic statewide coalitions for Prop 10 and local renter protections, and sat at the table with Salud Carbajal, who this year signed on to Medicare for All. It’s been an enormous pleasure to meet and work with so many of you, and I look forward to meeting many more, and working together on the challenges ahead.
We face unprecedented, global, systemic crises — and at the same time there is an awakening happening in American politics. Like many of you, I believe that DSA is an important part of building the kinds of movements and social goods that are at the heart of our theory of change. I served as co-chair for the past year and would be honored to do so again. As chair, I hope to grow and multiply our capacity, build new coalitions with local groups, improve our communications and successfully implement a slew of technology that DSA National are equipping us with. I also look forward to working more closely with each Steering Committee member, as well as exploring how we can have half the meetings but get twice as much done!
Vice-Chair
John Douglas
I believe in DSA’s mission and share the values guiding DSA’s policies and priorities. I helped to form the Santa Barbara chapter with some of the folks with whom I worked on Bernie Sanders’ primary campaign in 2015–16 and others. I have attended many though not all chapter meetings since formation, and have done a fair amount of DSA–sponsored canvassing for Medicare for All and on other issues. I have been canvassing sporadically for Bernie Sanders this summer, and plan to continue. I would like to continue to build the chapter in order to help achieve our goals.
Secretary
Barbara S
I have been an active member of the SB DSA Chapter since it was established. I am passionate about the work that our chapter is doing and I would like to contribute more to the chapter as the Secretary. Thank you!
Treasurer
Sara S
Raised in a radical socialist family, I have been organizing since I was 16, including running a successful wage increase campaign for contract workers at my college, and aiding in shelter construction at the Oceti Sakowin camp at Standing Rock. I was also on the organizing committee, then steering committee of the newly formed DSA North Bay Area, which gave me a ton of experience in organizing new chapters. I own and operate a business that installs greywater and rainwater catchment systems, which I aspire to turn into a worker coop. I have recently become interested in the structural side of organizing, and have enjoyed learning about the technical and financial side of running a successful group as the Treasurer for DSA SB for the last year. As your treasurer, I will continue to get our chapter on track to becoming an official 501-c4, which will allow us to receive our cut of monthly dues from National, as well as develop much larger fund raising goals.
Outreach Coordinator
Zac S
The past couple years working to build DSA have given me so much joy and purpose and I hope to continue that work as Outreach Coordinator. I’d like to focus on building coalitions throughout the community with groups we find ourselves aligned politically with – from the Bernie 2020 campaign, to labor unions, to environmental groups like 350 and Sunrise, to nonprofits organizing the Latinx working class in CAUSE, and others. As outreach coordinator, I’d focus on growing organic member-to-member connections between DSA and the politically active working class in Santa Barbara by pushing for common goals. I learned a lot from our coalition work with Medicare for All and Just Cause, and would like to continue and strengthen that work to new horizons so that we’re able to unify and fight as a class in itself and for itself rather than as individuals or within separate groups. I’d try to do this by mapping our community connections, looking to DSA members to embed themselves within various organizations, and identifying unifying campaigns that will strengthen existing bonds. I hope to have your support with this as we look towards our revolution. Onward!
Will Vanguard
My name is Will Vanguard and I would love to participate more in DSA. My political radicalization occurred around 10 years ago when I was on a combat deployment to Iraq, losing friends and realizing it was all for profit. I was inspired by Obama and voted for him because he campaigned as anti-war, but then I returned to Iraq twice more while he was my Commander In Chief. Since 2012, I have voted third party and no longer believe in the status quo options. I left the Army in 2012 with an Honorable Discharge after 7 years of Active Duty service at the rank of Captain, so I have a lot of leadership and management experience from that (mis) adventure. Since then, I spent 3 years owning/operating a food truck / catering business in Denver. We were ‘Food Truck of The Year’ in 2013, but I did not enjoy the lifestyle enough to continue so I moved to Cali in 2015 and lived in my van for a few years before settling in Santa Barbara, where I attended Santa Barbara Body Therapy Institute and completed the 1k hour Holistic Health Practitioner Program. Now I make my living as a certified Massage Therapist and Practitioner of Chinese Energetic Medicine. I am also a musician and am spending a lot of my free time playing music, getting booked here and there, and volunteering for Bernie 2020. (I am running for Outreach Coordinator but am happy to consider other positions if there is need)
Communications Secretary
Damon Garcia
I’m Damon Garcia, a new but passionate member of the DSA. In my personal life I make online content on several social media platforms to help connect spiritual-minded people with Socialist ideas and Socialists with spiritual ideas. In the past I’ve worked in church youth and young adult ministries, which involved community outreach, event planning, volunteer coordination, newsletter writing, running social media platforms, and creating content for those platforms. As I’m becoming more involved with my local DSA chapter I realize that my background has provided me some unique skills that I would like to use to serve the DSA in any way I can. The office position that stood out to me as something that I could take on with confidence and passionate creativity is the Communications Secretary. I would like to help further DSA SB through overseeing our member newsletter, website, social media, and other outward facing media. Thank you for the opportunity.
At Large (2 positions)
Jean Z
I’m running because I believe in DSA platform and I want to be part of advancing it. I want to be part of the steering committee and work together on projects we pick to help our community.
Harassment Grievance Officer (HGO) (2-4)
Isabel Lipartito
Hi- I’m Isabel Lipartito and I am a proud DSA member. I joined back in 2018 and although I wasn’t able to participate in regular activities this summer, I’m looking forward to getting involved again this fall. I am interested in running for the Harassment Grievance Officer position. In order to make the DSA an inclusive and accessible space for all our members, we need some means by which we deal with interpersonal conflicts and grievances. Addressing interpersonal issues that come up in a fair and unbiased way will provide justice to all our members and ensure that we as a unit can thrive. The DSA is not just a political group, we are also a mechanism for social change. In order to effect change in the greater world, however, we need to first make sure we ourselves are practicing our own principles of inclusion and diversity. I want to help our own chapter of the DSA reflect these principles. I have had prior experience in this field. I am the president of the UCSB Women in Physics group. Women make up less than 15 percent of the physics department. Through our Women in Physics group, I am working to improve the UCSB physics department climate for women and other underrepresented groups, both in the undergraduate and graduate section of our department. For undergraduates, I am helping to coordinate a series of higher education advancement activities, beginning with a graduate school information panel aimed towards women and minority students in the physical sciences. For graduates, I have been meeting with professors and campus climate representatives to discuss how to implement workshops and training to promote a respectful climate for women and other minorities. Through these events, I intend to make our department aware of the issues women and other underrepresented grounds in physics face and how the department can address these needs and support these groups.
Per Kristian
It’s me again! Since HGO’s aren’t a Steering Committee position, I’m also running because I believe very strongly in the need for a clear, accountable process for ensuring that SB DSA remains an open, welcome space to organize that is safe and equitable. We are also a growing organization already with substantial active membership, and having a few HGO’s who can serve will be a great help.