Oh geez, the budget problem just hit Lompoc like a ton of bricks. For the same reason that Santa Barbara County is in the hole—more expensive employee pensions—the Lompoc City Council is considering putting funding for outside agencies on the chopping block.
That might leave the Lompoc Chamber of Commerce and Visitor’s Bureau, the Lompoc Museum, the Central Coast Collaborative on Homelessness, and Domestic Violence Solutions without a serious chunk of their yearly budgets.
Some organizations weren’t aware of the draft budget proposal until contacted by the Sun. That’s not a call we like to make.
But it’s not a call that Lompoc wants to make either. City Manager Patrick Wiemiller said he “lost sleep” over it.
But not everyone’s budget news is bad, like Rep. Salud Carbajal‘s. His campaign fundraising numbers are in, and the first-time California 24th District Representative raked in more than half a million dollars for the first quarter of the year. Cha-ching!
According to Carbajal and his people, most of that money came from small donations from Central Coast residents. That’s great, but not all of the money came from “grassroots” support. Millionaire moguls like Dan Emmett and S. Donald Sussman donated the maximum amount.
Carbajal also got some of that sweet, sweet Veep money from actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus who is tired of playing politics just on TV. To be fair, she has supported Democratic candidates for years, including Al Gore, some guy named Barack Obama, and (you guessed it) Hillary Clinton.
Hey Julia! Why don’t you give some of that money to someone who needs it, like Lompoc! Oh wait, you already did? That’s right—Louis-Dreyfus and husband Brad Hall gave the Lompoc Theatre Project a fat wad of cash not too long ago. My mistake!
So now that Salud has the endorsement of millionaires and the Hollywood elite (yes, sarcasm), all he needs is a donation from George Soros to ensure local right-wingers wring their fingers off.
But can we take a moment to acknowledge how stupid it is that our representatives have to waste so much time on raising money? They spend hours a day in many cases raising cash for campaigns that are still years away. That’s something that Sen. Bernie Sanders harped on when he visited Santa Maria last year while running for the Democratic presidential nomination, saying that elections should be publicly funded and reformed.
If it takes that much money to fund an election, I don’t know how Santa Barbara County or Lompoc could afford any with all the current budget issues. It’s probably going to affect just about every county city, town, and citizen in the long run.
Well at least Santa Maria Police Chief Ralph Martin is taking off before he has to start laying anybody off or chopping down his budget.
But I don’t think too many Santa Marians are going to begrudge Martin a pension after he retires. Remember who he came in to replace, Danny Macagni? Yeah, knowing we’re still paying Macagni’s pension, that one sure sticks in the craw.
The Canary is shopping for a pension fund. Send your thoughts to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 11-18, 2017.