I wonder how former Lompoc City Councilmember Gilda Aiello is taking the news about the guy who took her seat on the dais at the end of 2024.
Remember what happened? She decided not to run for reelection due to “a few unfair attacks brought on me by a group of individuals who wanted to have me removed.” They accused her of living outside of her district and of personally benefitting from her seat on the council—both of which she proved wrong.
But they wouldn’t let up, also upset about Explore Lompoc, the tourism organization that was accused of not tracking how it spent tourist dollars closely enough. Aiello sat on the board.
One of her alleged attackers ended up running unopposed for her seat: former Lompoc Planning Commissioner Steve Bridge.
“One of my biggest opponents and accusers is running to be your representative for District 1,” Aiello said at the time in a Facebook video. “His platform: integrity, transparency, and change. Yet he offered none of those things to me.”
Integrity isn’t really his strong suit, allegedly. But, irony is!
Bridge accused Aiello of having a “misunderstanding of who was posting those things.”
“It just got to a point where I feel like it’s my time,” Bridge told the Sun at the time. “I’ve done all I could do at the Planning Commission, and I feel like it’s a good time for me to help the city.”
He was ready to run the city like a business, he said.
“It’s always a matter of priorities and where you put the funding,” he said. “I’ll focus on economic development because I believe rising tides bring all the ships up.”
I’m not sure how much help he’s providing Lompoc with, because he was charged on Nov. 18 with embezzling money from the city starting in March 2024—before he ran for City Council.
Maybe the only ship those “rising tides” were bringing up was his?
His funding priorities were really just internally focused, allegedly. Innocent until proven guilty, you know.
Where are all the Aiello haters now? I’d love to hear what they have to say about Bridge, who swears he’s innocent. But it’s pretty quiet out there.
The Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office alleged that Bridge took $10,000 from the city of Lompoc and used a contractor’s license number that expired more than 30 years ago, among a list of fraud, identity theft, forgery, and grand theft charges.
According to the DA’s Office, in June 2025, Bridge falsified a document to benefit from the city’s energy efficiency rebate initiative (among other things). Maybe he had a misunderstanding of what the documents were for. He could probably ask his son to help.
Brandon Bridge, who sits on the Lompoc Planning Commission, also operates Certain Sparks Music, a business that was listed in the District Attorney’s charging document.
The expired contractor’s license was listed on invoices for Certain Sparks and other local businesses, allegedly.
I guess we’ll see if the allegations bear fruit, and whether the Bridges all fall down. Or if they can make it over the troubled waters.
The Canary is pun-tastic. Send some to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 27 – Dec 4, 2025.