Everyone is so polarized these days! But before we get to the President and his Twitter feud with football teams, let’s focus a bit closer to home.

The Lompoc City Council has agreed to get together and totally not fire City Manager Patrick Wiemiller, but just talk about their feelings and city code or whatever. Maybe our Sept. 14 cover story (“A house divided”) had an effect in Lompoc, I mean, one resident literally waved that article in the council’s face, telling them to read the story.

But it got even weirder when our online opinion poll was tampered with that week, logging more than 13,000 votes, most of which voted Mayor Bob Lingl as the council member who was “most out of line.”

For this week’s poll (page 15), we coyly asked who messed with the poll. More than 100 votes came in, which isn’t unreasonable, but the majority again went to Lingl. So, is this really the consensus, that Lingl tampered with a poll and tried to make himself look bad? Doubt it!

And as election season picks up, there’s sure to be more bickering in Lompoc, mark my words. But wait, before we get to national bickering, there’s more local rage to tap into!

The sparks sure did fly at a Sept. 25 county meeting to share the results of negotiations between a Santa Barbara County ad hoc subcommittee including supervisors Joan Hartmann and Das Williams and the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians regarding the Camp 4 property, which is now a part of the Chumash’s reservation thanks to the feds.

A crowd of angry Santa Ynez residents basically yelled at Hartmann, Williams, and Chumash Tribal Chairman Kenneth Kahn for the better part of two hours. The mob was super pissed about the Camp 4 deal moving forward, that the county didn’t have the full report ready, and that the valley’s identity is changing. One guy literally cried about it, I kid you not, saying that the community he grew up in was getting taken away. One dude even yelled “Indian money.” Real classy.

Others openly booed Hartmann, whose district includes Santa Ynez, and walked out of the room when she spoke. There was also raucous applause when residents delivered zingers during public comment.

Hartmann asked the crowd to settle down and said, “This is not a sporting event.”

Thanks Joan, for the perfect segue to President Donald Trump’s most recent incoherent act of bigoted stupidity! I don’t know why the president decided to zero in on the NFL and its teams, calling players peacefully protesting police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem “sons of bitches,” but there you have it.

Is it just a coincidence that black athletes like Colin Kaepernick and Stephen Curry are the ones getting attacked by Trump, but the president had to point out that “fine people” were among the neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan at the rally in Charlottesville that took the life of Heather Heyer? Again, doubt it!

Sports are supposed to unite Americans, no matter their political persuasion, and offer a break from the madness of partisan politics. Leave it to Trump to ruin even that!

 

The Canary welcomes anyone triggered by this column to send a letter to [email protected].

Comments (0)
Add a Comment