If Santa Barbara County Planning Commissioner Larry Ferini likes it, then you should like it! At least when it comes to agriculture, according to fellow Commissioner Michael Cooney.
“Similar to a baseball team, you figure out who the best players are for a given project,” Cooney said during a March 9 hearing about a giant freezer project just outside of Santa Maria. “[Ferini] not only lives and works alongside the applicants, but he’s thoughtful about the best way to develop ag-related services, which this is.”
Is Ferini a coach or a player? Or, is he both?
Ferini, who runs Rancho Laguna Farms on Betteravia near the project, called Arctic Cold a “top operator,” and the project passed 5-0.
I have one question: If Ferini lives and works alongside the applicant, should be be voting on the project, or is that a conflict of interest?
OK, I have two questions: Is Ferini only an expert when it comes to agriculture that doesn’t include cannabis?
I’m just throwing these things out there, you know.
So here’s another question: Why did the Lompoc Police Department want us to speak with Lompoc Mayor Janelle Osborne before agreeing to answer questions about violent crime in Lompoc? If you read the news secondary on page 8, “Pieces of the puzzle,” you’ll notice Osborne does a lot of talking about crime and all the things the city is doing to address it. You’ll also notice that we didn’t get a chance to speak with the police chief.
Osborne does a lot of glossing over of the violence that’s happening in Lompoc, saying that crime statistics are improving for 2022, although we don’t have any real numbers to back up that statement.
From 2019 to 2021, the city of 43,000 people racked up 16 homicides, 80 rapes, and 2,234 assaults that were pretty evenly spread out between the years.
As far as we can see, the numbers really haven’t improved in the last few years.
But, the seasoned Democrat has solutions, everyone! Spend more money on the Police Department and the crime rate will decrease! And Lompoc is doing just that, giving the department a larger budget for the 2021-23 fiscal year.
One of the strongest ways to prevent future violent crime from happening, according to the City University of New York’s John Jay College Research and Evaluation Center, is to add structure such as jobs, extracurricular activities, tutoring, and behavioral intervention to the lives of young people. So—not more police.
“Any effort to reduce violence must involve a special focus on youth,” the study states.
And that should be common knowledge at this point. But focusing on youth takes collaboration, something that Alternatives to Violence Project Executive Director JP Herreda is skeptical can happen. Herreda has reached out to community organizations in Lompoc to see how they can work together, and feels like there isn’t an interest in sharing either the money or the glory of “fixing” the situation.
“With the violence comes a lot of money. The more crime that happens, a lot of money comes into law enforcement,” he said. “Everybody makes money off it.”
The Canary relies on experts to be an expert. Send questions to canary@santamariasun.com.
Correction: In a previous version of this Canary column, the Sun incorrectly identified the university that the John Jay College Research and Evaluation Center is connected with. It’s a stand alone college that’s part of the City University of New York. The Sun regrets the error.
This article appears in Mar 17-24, 2022.
