I’m not sure what’s going on around here.
Maybe it’s the end of summer and the fact that the days are getting shorter, or maybe it’s the chemicals in the water, but the city of Santa Maria is making moves to join a community choice energy provider (gasp!) and the city of Lompoc is heading toward putting a special tax measure (yes, new taxes?) on the primary ballot!
Hang on a second while I pick my beak up off the floor of my little cage.
The three musketeers on both City Councils—Mayor Alice Patino and Councilmembers Etta Waterfield and Michael Moats in Santa Maria and Councilmembers Victor Vega, Jim Mosby, and Dirk Starbuck in Lompoc—have broken rank!
A conservative-minded City Council actually voted to join Monterey Bay Community Power! Community choice energy is such a hippy-dippy California thing to do. What happened Moats? It really seemed like you weren’t going to vote for it. Patino and Waterfield were betting on you to side with poor little PG&E, the giant monopoly of a corporation that’s screwing everyone in California over because it can’t figure out how to take care of its own transmission lines, started some major wildfires, and then filed for bankruptcy. All the while, it’s sticking ratepayers with the bill!
Councilmember Gloria Soto—the most liberal member of the council—practically jumped out of her seat with excitement at your surprise vote! I bet your fellow musketeers are so pissed right now. Wanting to save the ratepayers a little bit of money on their electricity bills. As if. Now everyone in Santa Maria is going to have the option of choosing from two electricity providers and deciding what percentage of their go-juice will come from renewable sources.
And isn’t capitalism about choices and competition?
Now, the residents of Lompoc might finally get a choice! They can decide whether or not to raise their own taxes to pay for the pension debt that’s crippled city services and dampens the future outlook of a city on the brink. OK, maybe that’s dramatic, but the discussions I’ve had to follow in Lompoc have pushed me over the edge!
Vega, Mosby, and Starbuck—nicknamed “The Triad” by opinion writer Ron Fink (cue eyeroll)—switched their opposition to putting a tax on the ballot to being all for it. What? We had to listen to you guys be anti-tax. We had to watch you guys hand out pink slips. And, now, all of sudden, you dudes are all for it? What gives?
As Vega tells it: This was the plan all along! Duh!
Well, I’m not sure it was, but either way your plan is dumb. You should have been leading the conversations about a potential tax measure months ago! Not poo-pooing them. Then the city’s budget cuts wouldn’t have been such a painful conversation. And it was painful.
Speaking of poo-poo. The Solvang City Council voted to allow medical marijuana dispensaries in one area of town and only one building owner in said zone is willing to allow cannabis under his or her roof. So, that person basically gets to handpick the dispensary that’s allowed to open. What? That shit cray.
Watch out for Canary poop. It could come from anywhere. Send comments to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Aug 29 – Sep 5, 2019.
