Ron Fink

Previous Lompoc City Council members painted the current council into a corner because they had delayed an orderly schedule of electrical rate increases. Thus the staff is now predicting that at “the current projected pace of use of cash reserves, staff believes that with the 2011 rates in place currently, the Electric Fund will deplete […]

An update of the 2030 General Plan Housing Element is required every eight years by the state of California; it’s the state’s way of making sure cities are following its mandates. It costs a lot of general fund money to once again prove that proposed projects, some that were approved more than 15 years ago, […]

How safe is the water we drink and the food we eat? I guess it depends on who you ask. My grandma told me that “you have to eat a pound of dirt before you die” after I inadvertently got some mud in my mouth. After all these years I suppose I have “eaten” more […]

On Saturday evening, March 11, a very large fire occurred at the north end of Lompoc between Walmart and the airport. The property, known as the “Campbell Coolers,” is a very large vegetable processing facility. There are several football field-sized piles of construction material, pallets, and boxes stored on the property. It was one of […]

What is the purpose of a “code enforcement program”? In cities, the legislative body adopts policies and regulations designed to “protect the public,” and the public should be held accountable for compliance. Sometimes these policies can be open to interpretation, thus making enforcement a challenge.  For example, the Lompoc Municipal Code says, “Excessive, unnecessary, or […]

Now that the “unsheltered” (homeless people) are being provided with what the homeless advocates call adequate temporary housing, how much is it costing? In Lompoc a few months ago, the city decided to “clean up” some property east of the airport so it could be leased to farmers (previously the homeless had trashed the place […]

Did you notice that your natural gas bill went through the roof last month? Well, at our house we did, so I did a little research to find out why. When many of you vote, or for those who don’t vote, you may think that what goes on in Sacramento or Washington, D.C., has little […]

I have been trying to figure out the “root cause” and some potential solutions for the homeless issue for the last several months. First, the “homeless issue” has been with us since homeless pilgrims arrived on our eastern shores in 1620. The difference today is that in 1620, “homeless” folks homesteaded land and built not […]

Our legislators in Sacramento have been busy “helping us” again; they have passed—and Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed—several new laws that will impact people in Lompoc and everywhere else in the once Golden State. Some may have an adverse impact on traffic safety, others your pocketbook. Two important changes go into effect in January that […]

For several decades, a homeless encampment has existed near and under the H Street bridge on the north end of Lompoc. Until the last five years or so, the homeless largely stayed to themselves and didn’t bother anyone. Now they are everywhere, including the shopping center that occupies the northeast intersection of Central Avenue and […]