On May 3, Lompoc resident Jim Mosby welcomed paintballers back onto his property for the first time in several months. After listening to Mosby talk about the importance of paint gun safety, excited men and women donned helmets and goggles and prepared their weapons for long-awaited battle.
The day before, on May 2, the local entrepreneur won a preliminary ruling in Santa Barbara County Superior Court against county officials that allowed him to reopen his paintball course, remote-control car track, and soccer fields to the public.
“It was a victorious day in court,” Mosby crowed to the Sun in a phone call from Santa Barbara.
Last year, Mosby requested that the county rezone his property to an updated agriculture designation and grant him a conditional use permit that would allow him to operate the Mosby Sports and Outdoor Recreation Facility.
The drawn out planning process, which included three environmental reports and multiple visits before the county Planning Commission, seemingly ended in defeat in February when the Board of Supervisors voted 3-2—with North County supervisors Steve Lavagnino and Peter Adam dissenting—to deny the request.
Mosby was ordered to cease operation of the facility and to destroy everything but one of his soccer fields. He responded by filing a civil suit against the county.
On May 2, Judge Donna Geck tentatively ruled that the case “weighs clearly in favor of the continued use and non-destruction of the facilities/amenities,” and granted Mosby a stay.
That the county “apparently recognized the need for facilities such as these, in allowing the public to continue to use them during the entire lengthy period during which [Mosby’s conditional use permit] application was being processed,” the judge continued in the ruling, “would tend to support the existence of a significant harm to the public if it were prevented from using the facilities.”
The county now has the opportunity to defend its findings in court; however, it was uncertain as of press time whether a new court date had been set.
County Counsel declined to comment on the case because it’s considered to be ongoing litigation.
In the weeks prior to the court ruling, the Sun visited Mosby at his then-defunct recreation complex, conducted interviews with county officials, and pored over endless planning documents to gain a better understanding of the case. Here’s what we came up with.
County planning: An education
The property at 2 River Park Road has many uses.
On its eastern portion, behind a tall, unassuming fence, is a post-apocalyptic battleground dotted haphazardly with camouflaged defensive structures. At the center of the arena—which is covered with dusty straw and old tires—stands what looks like a gas station awning and a rusty, sun-beaten truck that’s being swallowed by weeds. The only things missing from the scene are people with paintball guns … and perhaps zombies.
Just south of the paintball course grow three small soccer fields that have been lovingly watered and maintained. But there are no players kicking around balls, and there aren’t any remote-control-car enthusiasts driving their miniaturized monster trucks at the nearby RC track.
The only features currently in operation on the property are a small organic farm and an aquaculture operation—and Jim Mosby’s mobile home.
“We’ve had emus and malamutes. I’ve got some macaws … this is Tom Sawyer’s Island. When my kids were growing up, everyone else’s kids wanted to come here,” Mosby told the Sun while on a tour of his land in mid-April.
The longtime Lompoc resident wants that land to regularly welcome visitors to its recreational areas again, but that desire is at odds with the majority of Santa Barbara County’s leaders.
The matter also divided attendees at the February board meeting, with supporters saying the park gives residents much-need recreation opportunities, and opponents claiming it was built illegally and infringes on nearby ag production.
Some of the people on Mosby’s side include the RC enthusiasts who’ve used his track and the coaches, parents, and players who’ve used his fields for their games.
“When I was growing up, there was nothing to do in Lompoc—and there’s even less to do now,” one supporter said at the meeting.
He told supervisors that the lack of city-run recreation fields drove his team to seek out other options, especially since what fields there are, he argued, poorly built and maintained.
“We’re proud and thankful to [Mosby] because he did privately what the city and county failed to do by not providing safe fields,” he said. “It’s not fair for the kids to be penalized.”
Mosby and some of his supporters also argued before the board that the project is in the perfect location because it’s bordered by Lompoc’s mobile-home-friendly River Park and mini-moto park and sits a half-mile away from the county road yards and the county-owned Bridgehouse Homeless Shelter.
Mosby’s opponents, however, argued that approving the project would set a county planning precedent for people building illegally and then “asking for forgiveness later.”
“We don’t oppose recreation … we just believe the project is in the wrong location,” said Linda Krop, chief counsel for the Environmental Defense Center and a representative for the political organization Santa Barbara County Action Network (SBCAN), which has been a driving force behind shutting the park down.
“If the applicant had come forward through the normal process, and applied for permits for this project many years ago, the project would have been denied,” Krop said. “Public support doesn’t matter. It isn’t legal.”
Other opponents said the project threatens wildlife in the Santa Ynez River, and that a project involving intense recreation isn’t compatible with the area.
A majority of the board—1st District Supervisor Salaud Carbajal, 2nd District Supervisor Janet Wolf, and 3rd District Supervisor Doreen Farr, who are all members of SBCAN—ultimately sided with the opponents.
Following suit
In response to the decision, Mosby filed a civil suit against the county in superior court, claiming the board wrongfully denied his request to rezone his property.
This is where things get a little convoluted, so get ready for a whirlwind primer on county zoning policies.
Ready?
OK, here it goes:
Mosby’s land is currently zoned for general agriculture use in accordance with a 1970s version of the county’s general plan. That plan included zoning designations for rural properties under what’s known as Ordinance 661.
In 2007, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the Ordinance 661 Consistence Rezone Project as a way of modernizing zoning codes for land in the Santa Maria Valley and San Antonio Creek regions (which had zoning designations similar to Mosby’s land, but that, of course, wasn’t a factor at the time).
Under this ordinance, a landowner could request a property rezone, and the county could find an applicable designation recognized under current Santa Barbara County Land Use and Development Code, then make the switch.
“The benefits of the consistency rezone include simplifying the zoning and permitting process and reducing permitting costs and time delays for applicants,” county staff said in a 2007 report to the Board of Supervisors.
In James Mosby v. County of Santa Barbara, Mosby claims his land should be rezoned under the new code and that his recreational fields are consistent with the new code.
Mosby told the Sun his family used the two 10-acre parcels for light manufacturing prior to 1978, when the county rezoned the land to agricultural use. In the mid-2000s, Mosby converted his horse corrals into a paintball course for his son and an undeveloped meadow into soccer fields for his daughter because she hurt herself while playing on a local public field. Soon, Mosby said, his children’s friends started asking if they could use the grounds, too. Then, in 2006, the Mosbys turned the paintball park into a source of revenue.
The Sun wrote about River Park Paintball in a June 2011 sports story:
“Jim and Audrey Mosby, the field’s owners, have leased out or run the arena themselves for the past five years. Over a period of five months, Jim built the urban-themed scenario course completely out of recycled materials, turning idle land into a place for youth to paintball legally.
“‘You play in the [Santa Ynez] riverbed, you get a ticket,’ Jim Mosby said. ‘So we put them in a controlled environment that’s insured, with referees and everything. They’ve got an itch, and we’re scratching it for them.’”
Protection of the riverbed is one reason why Lompoc Mayor John Linn and council members DeWayne Holmdahl and Dirk Starbuck support Mosby’s facility. Linn and Holmdahl showed up at the February Board of Supervisors meeting to speak in favor of the project, and, in April, the Lompoc City Council voted 3-2—with members Ashley Costa and Bob Lingl dissenting—to issue a “statement of facts” in support of Mosby’s lawsuit against the county. Both of those actions have sparked accusations of a potential Ralph M. Brown Act violation, which the District Attorney’s Office is currently investigating. (For more information on that, see the sidebar.)
In the lawsuit, Mosby and his lawyer state, “[County] staff recommended approval, but the county denied petitioner’s application based upon findings that claimed the project was inconsistent with the old zoning. The findings completely ignored Ordinance 661 and the requirement for the re-zone, and ignored the fact that if the property had been re-zoned under Ordinance 661 all uses would have been consistent with the general plan.”
In November 2013, when the project went before the county Planning Commission, staffers recommended that the rezone and conditional use permit be approved. A staff report said, under the California Environmental Quality Act, the project didn’t have any significant unavoidable environmental impacts and that all potentially significant impacts could be properly mitigated.
In their presentation to the commission, staffers said the project wouldn’t introduce substantial land-use conflicts with the surrounding ag land and that the recreational components of the proposed project were buffered from surrounding agricultural operations.
The Planning Commission told staff to come back with findings to deny the project. Then, at a meeting in December, the commission voted 4-1, with 5th District Commissioner Dan Blough dissenting, to recommend to the supervisors that the project be denied.
The Planning Commission found that the project is inconsistent with Santa Barbara County Comprehensive Plan policies because:
- • the close proximity of the existing unpermitted public recreational uses to production agriculture creates land use conflicts.
- • the lack of permanent buffers threatens long-term agricultural productivity.
- • the project would establish an urban land use north of the Santa Ynez river, a natural boundary between the city of Lompoc and production agriculture.
According to the lawsuit, Mosby believes these findings, which the Board of Supervisors ultimately upheld, “are unsupported by the law or substantial evidence.”
He’s asking the court to grant a writ of mandate voiding the findings and to send the matter back to the county “with direction to re-zone the property under Ordinance 661” and then vote once more on the project.
In late March, the county sent Mosby a notice of zoning violation and demanded that he “permanently cease the commercial recreational use of the property and remove all commercial recreation facilities/amenities,” including the RC track and the paintball course, and remove athletic equipment from two of his three soccer fields. He and his family are allowed to use one of the fields.
“I can’t drive my RC car or play paintball,” Mosby said. “That’s like telling me I can eat chicken, but I can’t eat beef or pork, or telling a winery, ‘You can have red wine, but you can’t have white wine or beer.’”
He told the Sun that if the court doesn’t grant a writ of mandate, he’s going to turn the paintball park into a private chicken farm.
Mayor Linn is concerned that closure of Mosby’s park will prompt paintball enthusiasts to go back to playing in the Santa Ynez riverbed.
“The [Environmental Impact Report] for River Bend Park quotes paintball in the riverbed as an issue,” Linn told the Sun in a recent interview. “Jim charges $10 a day to play paintball. You can’t buy a babysitter for $10.
“If the park closes, they’re going to go back in the riverbed,” he said.
Prior to the court ruling, the Sun reached out to each of the supervisors about the February vote and the lawsuit, as well as county counsel and the Environmental Defense Center about the lawsuit.
Supervisors Lavagnino and Farr declined to comment because the case is ongoing.
Supervisor Adam, who voted in favor of the park in February, said, “I don’t have any objection to having [the project]. If you wanted to build a soccer field in the middle of ag fields on the west side [of Lompoc], I don’t think that’s a good idea. But this one right here is surrounded by parks on all sides, the Bridgehouse, and the county yards.”
He called Mosby “an aggrieved party” and deferred all other questions to county counsel.
“You know my colleagues are fond of telling me I have a conflict of interest anyway,” he said.
Supervisor Carabajal told the Sun, “There’s not a whole lot to say. The facts and information were clear. … The bottom line is this was an illegal operation that was not allowed under the zoning. Both the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission said no.”
Supervisor Wolf couldn’t be reached for comment as of press time.
Krop with the EDC said that while her organization isn’t involved in the suit, “We definitively support the county’s decision and think it’s completely defensible.”
Contact Managing Editor Amy Asman at aasman@santamariasun.com.
All about Brown
Santa Barbara County Deputy District Attorney Kelly Scott told the Sun her office received “more than one complaint” alleging that a majority of the Lompoc City Council violated the Ralph M. Brown Act—the open meetings act—by supporting Jim Mosby in his lawsuit against the county.
“The gist of the complaint is that the council discussed a position on the Mosby case outside of a public meeting,” Scott said.
There are two separate instances that are under investigation. First, it’s alleged that some of the council members violated the Brown Act by speaking in favor of Mosby’s project at the Board of Supervisors meeting on Feb. 11 and stating that the vast majority of the local community supported the project.
Mayor John Linn said he is frequently asked to give general opinions on topics as a representative of the city of Lompoc.
Added Scott, “Elected officials do have a right to go to publicly noticed meetings of another legislative body.”
The other instance stems from actions taken at an April Lompoc City Council meeting.
Linn announced during open session that Mosby contacted him earlier that day requesting a “statement of facts” from the council declaring that, according to meeting minutes, his recreational fields “are unique and provide a service to Lompoc that would not be available if closed by the county.” Linn said it was an urgent matter because the deadline to submit the statement happened before the next scheduled council meeting.
The council unanimously voted to place the item on its agenda. Around midnight, the members voted 3-2—with Ashley Costa and Bob Lingl dissenting—to send a statement to the court saying that all of the fields in Lompoc City parks are committed to existing sports programs; that Mosby’s paintball field is the only public permitted and insured field in Lompoc; and that his RC track is the only public RC track in Lompoc.
(It was later determined that one recreation field is open for a couple of hours two days a week, but would have to be shared.)
It’s also been reported by other local media outlets that the city has taken several actions over the years to support the Mosby facilities without placing the items on a council agenda or holding a public meeting to discuss the project.
The part of the Brown Act the council is accused of violating states, “The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.”
When asked to comment on the alleged Brown Act violation, Linn said, “There was no Brown Act violation.”
How does he know that?
“Because the city attorney told me what to do; if I’m going to jail, we’re going to jail together,” he said.
This article appears in May 8-15, 2014.