thing

thing.py

def formater_a(city):
    pos1 = city.find('(') - 1  # finds the position of the first parenthese and substracts 1
    pos2 = city.find(')') - 2  # finds the position of the second parenthese and substracts 2 (assumes the the final 3 characters are a state abbreviation with a closing parenthese) 
    return '{0}, {1}'.format(city[:pos1], city[pos2:-1])  # returns a formated string of the city by slicing

def formater_b(city):
    return city.replace(',', '').replace(' ', '-').lower() # returns a formated string of the city by removing any commas and replacing any empty spaces with dashes

z = ['Del Mar (San Diego, CA)', 'Alamo, CA']

for city in z:
    if city.find('('):
        formater_b(formater_a(city))
    else:
        formater_b(city)
    print city

formater_a converts "Del Mar (San Diego, CA)" to "Del Mar, CA"
formater_b converts "Del Mar, CA" to "del-mar-ca"