Lompoc’s been chasing a Space Center dream for a long time. And every time that little snippet of hope pops up in news headlines, there’s always a tidbit of information threatening to burst that balloon of optimistic/unrealistic thinking.
In 2009, the California Space Authority (CSA) was looking for members of the community to become members of the California Space Center “launch team.” A minimum donation of $10,000 for organizations, or $1,000 for individuals, would have qualified the donor’s name for inclusion in a permanent exhibit celebrating the center’s supporters.
Construction for the space center was slated to begin in 2010 on Vandenberg Air Force Base property. Vandenberg eventually decided the whole space center concept seemed like a private venture that needed to be subjected to Santa Barbara County land-use regulations. That 71-acre pipe dream started in 2004, when the CSA reached out to the U.S. Air Force with the idea of leasing land off Highway 1 for the project.
When the county told CSA it would take three to five years to complete the regulatory process, the group severed talks about leasing that particular spot of land and looked to the city of Lompoc as its savior. Although, in hindsight, the county might have been a quicker path to pursue than the particular street the latest version of that little vision of the future is on—which is the path to nowhere. The CSA’s big plans fizzled out. And in 2013, a nonprofit called the Environmental Education Group’s big space center plans also bit the dust. The latest incarnation of that project from outer space is closing in on the same fate.
I hate to say it (actually, I really don’t), but I recall twittering my pretty little beak about the issues with that latest proposal earlier this year.
Eva Blaisdell, CEO of California Space Consortium LLC, brought her incomplete project to the table in 2014, when the city of Lompoc asked for development proposals for a site near Allan Hancock College’s Lompoc campus. It was, after all, the only project proposal to meet the deadline. As in, it was in by deadline but missing key components, such as who or what would be putting development muscle and money behind the project. A high standard if I ever heard one.
Councilmember Dirk Starbuck raised an eyebrow at the time, expressing concerns with the lack of details in the project, although he’s also the one who made the motion to move forward with it. Maybe it was the allure of jobs and money. Elusive and always out in the ether, those are the two things that city (and Santa Maria and Guadalupe) always seems to be chasing.
So in February of this year, the City Council decided “Yay!” to move forward with negotiations for the proposal. I mean, Blaisdell did say several major corporations were “interested”—including Apple. APPLE! In Lompoc! At the time, former Mayor John Linn said the project would bring 3,000 jobs to the area. That would put a significant dent in Lompoc’s 6.3 percent unemployment rate (for August 2015, according to the state’s Unemployment Development Department).
Current Mayor Bob Lingl bit that hook like a fish would bite a mayfly: “We want those 3,000 jobs. … We want the tourists to come to town. We definitely want this one.” But alas, that ship is sinking into the deep blue Pacific Ocean just a few miles from town. Blaisdell and her slew of big-time “interested” corporations like Amazon (AMAZON!) or the development money has yet to knock down Lompoc’s city door. Blaisdell said that would all be revealed if the city entered an exclusive negotiating contract with her company. And so that’s what happened.
But, so far she has yet to hold up her end of the weird little ultimatum of a promise she made. The city recently issued a Notice of Default to Blaisdell, saying the city will terminate the negotiating agreement if she doesn’t get that information to the city by Nov. 2.
Why waste any more of the city’s time or money? The promise of jobs and tourist dollars without anything real to back it up shouldn’t take the place of common sense, ya’ll.
The canary thinks space centers aren’t necessarily a Lompoc thing. Send comments to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 24 – Oct 1, 2015.