The city of Lompoc’s budget is a renewed point of contention amid public safety concerns following two deadly shootings in the city over the last two months.
On June 24, the City Council passed the 2019-21 biennial budget, which included numerous cuts to cover a roughly $3 million deficit. Mayor Jenelle Osborne cast the lone vote against the budget because she didn’t agree with where some of the cuts were taking place.
During the City Council’s Oct. 15 meeting, Osborne said the budget the city passed doesn’t allocate enough resources to the city’s public safety departments.
“We made decisions with our budget that did have an impact on our public safety, and it’s unfortunately in reactionary mode,” Osborne said.
The mayor made these remarks at the City Council’s first meeting since 15-year-old Erik Villa Vargas was shot and killed near the 700 block of North F and G streets on Oct. 12. Two other victims were injured in the shooting. Police arrested Raymond Ramon Vega in connection with this murder on Oct. 16, and officers are still searching for two other suspects.
This shooting follows the murder of Marlon Brumfield, a solider visiting home while on leave from Germany. He was shot and killed near the intersection of Ocean Avenue and A Street on Sept. 8. The police arrested suspect Francisco Gutierrez Ortega, who pleaded not guilty to murder on Oct. 17.
During the Oct. 15 meeting, Councilmember Jim Mosby resisted the mayor’s assertion that the budget the council passed is part of the problem.
“The council majority up here has been a very efficient council, and it’s been willing to spend the money that they have and not spend hypothetical money,” Mosby said at the Oct. 15 meeting.
Over months of budget discussions, Osborne insisted on passing a budget without cuts but with a sales tax election planned for additional revenue. At the time, the majority of City Council dismissed this plan because the city would have been spending money that wasn’t guaranteed. However, a few months after the council passed the city’s budget with cuts, it unanimously agreed to hold a sales tax election in March 2020.
Mosby also pointed to the 9 percent raise City Council provided the police department a few years ago, and he acknowledged that this raise came at the expense of holding three police officer positions vacant. But, he added, the police department is having trouble filling all of its available positions that are fully funded.
Although most of the revenue generated by the March 2020 sales tax measure—if it passes—will be used to pay down the city’s pension debt, any excess funds will first go toward filling the three police positions being held vacant.
During the Oct. 15 meeting, Councilmember Gilda Cordova said she is tired of talking about the city’s financial woes and would rather focus on what the city can do to improve its situation.
“Ever since I got on this council, we’ve talked about and we’ve focused on how we don’t have money, and that is true, we don’t have the money,” Cordova said. “I would love to at some point in time turn our focus into what we’re going to do to make that money, to make this community a better place.”
This article appears in Oct 24-31, 2019.