Sales tax ballot measure proposal season is here!
I know it’s not officially a season, but it should be. In the run-up to election season, local governments ponder all the things they could do with a little extra sales tax revenue.
In Lompoc, during this season of proposals it’s all about the roads. They need a little love, and a half-cent sales tax could do the trick, according to city staff. It could raise about $3.75 million per year to fix the city’s roads and sidewalks, an issue that city residents who responded to a survey said was most important.
The two-day survey called a FlashVote yielded a little more than 200 responses.
Is it a representative sample of the community? Who knows. But Lompoc’s roads could use some sprucing up!
Councilmember Dirk Starbuck said he was supporting it because it was a special tax—as in it needed a super-majority of support from voters (66 percent) and was earmarked to be spent on something specific.
“The competence of government to spend tax money is very questionable with many. But with a special tax, it takes any questions out of what we can do with it,” Starbuck said.
Truth!
Councilmember Jeremy Ball, on the other hand, said special tax, schmecial tax! A general tax measure only needs 50 percent of voters plus one to pass! It’s too hard to pass something special!
“I’d be open to a discussion about a general tax because I believe that gives council—the current council and future council—flexibility to address the issues that arise,” he said.
And that’s the problem with a general tax. A tax that’s not earmarked for anything can be spent willy-nilly at the whim of any new version of the City Council. It seems like a waste, kind of like the Solvang City Council’s discussion about the city’s sign ordinance!
After more than a year of discussion over “streamlining” a permitting process for people who want to put signs up on their buildings, the city is still in the drafting process. Basically, city staff wants to cut the Design Review Committee out of the process and keep the whole situation objective instead of subjective. Too many subjective issues waylaid sign projects, pulling them off the consent agenda and into a committee hearing, which often led to a months-long appeal process.
Even though the First Amendment can’t be stifled! Here, here!
But the Design Review Committee is still trying to hang on! And the City Council seemed on board with it. What about murals? Shouldn’t the committee have control over that? Public hearing!
Community Development Director Rafael Castillo was miffed but said he would take council’s direction during the Jan. 12 meeting.
“I strongly urge that murals go through city staff,” he told council members. “I’ve seen way too many councils, … commissions, and boards get hung up on the content of a mural, and it brings out the worst in humanity to argue over what a message is of a mural, versus being very streamlined and straightforward.”
Like, what if someone wanted to paint a LGBTQ-plus supportive mural on the side of their building? I can see that conversation devolve into a total conniption fit after what happened two years ago over crosswalk paint.
The Canary is a First Amendment hawk. Send your speech to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in January 15 – January 22, 2026.