The budget-busting trio of Councilmen Jim Mosby, Dirk Starbuck, and Victor Vega has a funny way of saving money. You would think that the trio would do everything it could to save the money for the essential things of government, but it just depends on their personal agenda.
In January, Police Chief Pat Walsh was forced out of office by the three amigos. I made a public document request, and what follows is a commentary on what the city of Lompoc provided. This is a story of egos gone wild and the consequences of three councilmen’s arrogance.
It started with an excerpt from a disturbing letter from a concerned Lompoc city employee: “To whom it may concern, I am writing this as a concerned citizen of Lompoc. I work in the city offices and am concerned about something that I have noted over the last couple of months. Councilman Mosby frequently comes into our offices (two to three times a week and is often joined by Councilman Starbuck) and makes disparaging remarks about Chief Walsh to anyone who will listen. I have recently found out that the purpose of several of these visits was to ‘encourage’ the city manager to fire Chief Walsh.
“This concerns me as I feel Chief Walsh is doing more for our city than many of his predecessors. I believe that these councilmen want Chief Walsh ‘out’ because he is not their ‘yes man’ and does what is right for the citizens of Lompoc.
“I am frustrated that a good man like Chief Walsh can be treated this way.”
This person had a right to feel frustrated. What empowers a council member to stroll through City Hall, trap employees at their workstations, interrupt them from their work, and engage them in this sort conversation?
Mosby is known for his bullying tactics, but these episodes are a serious breach of ethical protocol. Personnel matters must be discussed either in closed sessions of the council or privately with the city manager—any responsible person knows this, and surely Mosby and Starbuck know it because other personnel matters concerning their own behavior have come up during their tenure as councilmen.
If they read the City Council handbook, they would have come across this: “The City Council agrees any criticism of a city staff member shall be done privately through the city manager.” Oh, I forgot, they are in denial that there are any rules that apply to them concerning proper decorum.
Perhaps what bothered Mosby most is that Chief Walsh wasn’t bashful when it came to matters that involve the police department. Mosby and Starbuck have led efforts to keep a public safety sales tax measure off the 2018 ballot. This resulted in some drastic general fund budget cuts in the 2019-21 budget cycle, many of which came from the police/fire staff budgets.
All three councilmen are homegrown and raised in Lompoc; all have publicly stated that they feel that police officers and firefighters are “overpaid,” and they advocate reductions in city staff. It’s hard to believe that any of the three understands what it takes to keep the citizens of this city safe or what sort of skills are required for the task.
Chief Walsh was an outstanding, community-oriented police chief who personally conducted community walks to connect with people and service organizations; he spearheaded and was personally involved in measures that helped resolve our homeless issues.
He was well respected in our county and our state and had done all he could do to lead our police department well, even amid a radically reduced budget and frozen police positions. With the increase in gang-related crimes, emboldened young men who shoot at their rivals in congested neighborhoods filled with children, and the growing homeless population of thieves and mentally challenged individuals, you need a strong law enforcement leader.
In short, Chief Walsh was exactly the type of police chief this city needed to keep people informed and respond to their complaints.
Another sticking point concerned Mosby’s free-market approach to cannabis sales and processing in Lompoc. Walsh has had significant experience with this industry in Portland, Oregon, and advocated a limit on the number of licenses in the city, and that probably didn’t please Mosby.
Recently, Walsh asked if the Public Safety Commission could be done away with. This commission meets quarterly, and by its own admission, this commission really does not make a meaningful contribution to public safety. Its members are supposed to act as a conduit for communication to citizens but have held no outreach meetings with the public to hear their concerns, so it’s clearly a waste of city staff time.
So the three organized an effort to have Chief Walsh resign; more correctly, he was terminated as an “at will” employee. But it wasn’t cheap; in addition to his back pay and accrued leave/sick time, he was paid an additional $88,332 as a “consideration for his service,” according to the city’s agreement with Walsh.
So, the budget-busting trio paid the equivalent of one year’s pay for a rookie police officer or firefighter, positions which had been frozen or cut, to rid themselves of someone they didn’t like simply because he was doing the job he was hired for.
Now they are after the current fire chief and have expressed a desire to have the city clerk become an elected official and have all division chiefs be appointed by the City Council. This is how dictatorships operate.
Irresponsible council members who feel free to intimidate the staff, violate rules they agreed to follow by discussing personnel issues with staff members, and make disparaging remarks about public employees have no business serving the public in any capacity.
Ron Fink writes his opinions about Lompoc from Lompoc. Send comments through the editor at clanham@santamariasun.com or write a response for publication and email it to letters@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 18-25, 2019.
