Your “Canary” was recently wondering why folks might think that there is a shadow government in Lompoc (“WTF, Lompoc,” Sept. 21), with former Mayor John Linn at the helm.
First a brief chronology of events over the last decade: Linn ran against longtime Mayor Dick DeWees in 2008 and lost by a narrow margin. Following DeWees’s untimely death a brief time after the election, Linn sought to be appointed as the interim mayor; he failed to gain enough council votes and in a harsh letter blamed then-council member and current Mayor Bob Lingl for sabotaging his effort.
Linn later ran for mayor and won two terms by wide margins, however in 2014 Lingl beat him in a landslide and then repeated the landslide against Linn in 2016. Linn wasn’t happy either time and continued to try and “run the city” from the council chamber floor by choosing to offer his “guidance,” supported by faulty facts on nearly every item on the agenda.
When Lingl was elected mayor in 2014 it was in the middle of his four-year council term, and an interim council member had to be appointed. This is where the so-called shadow government begins. Jim Mosby, a longtime monetary supporter of Linn’s, applied for the job.
Although he had no experience, Mosby was appointed in a questionable process whereby two of Linn’s allies voted for only one candidate (Mosby), while the instructions to the council indicated that they were to vote for two during the first round. The two Linn allies were betting that at least one other council member would choose Mosby in the round, thus the fix was in.
During the 2016 campaign, the Linn/Mosby forces were ruthless in their push to get Mosby “fairly elected.” Consider this: In the 2010 election seven people ran; in the 2012 election seven ran; and, in the 2014 election eight ran. The number of candidates running has been fairly consistent for many years.
But mysteriously, that all changed in 2016: Only three people ran, and the Linn/Mosby team reportedly attempted to dissuade the third person from running so that Mosby would be assured a seat. In a previous election Linn also tried to dissuade candidates for council to favor another of his pals, and apparently he thought he would try again.
So, with Linn clearly aggravated with Lingl for trouncing him in two elections he has a motive for trying to run a shadow government. Apparently, he currently has three willing accomplices to carry out his instructions; they are City Council members Jim Mosby, Dirk Starbuck, and Victor Vega.
The reason I call these three out is that they appear to consistently follow the reasoning and requests Linn makes from the chamber floor; he meets with all three regularly; and, in the recent budget discussions, they even submitted a verbatim list of “questions” laden with erroneous information for consideration.
So, how did City Manager Patrick Wiemiller get entangled in this mess? Well, Linn is the chairman of a local foundation that sought approval to build a motorsports park on the city airport. Linn was chair prior to being elected; Mosby took over for him in his absence while mayor; and then, when Linn was defeated in his run for mayor in 2014 he resumed his post after Mosby was appointed to the council.
Linn and his cohort lay the blame for the failure of the motorsports project at Wiemiller’s feet, but that’s not even close to the truth. The Federal Aviation Administration controls the airport, not the city of Lompoc. Every activity on an airport must be aviation related, and motorbikes don’t have wings, so the FFA nixed the project.
With Linn and his cohort’s reputations at stake with their motor head supporters, the city manager has to go, and that’s why they have asked for three performance reviews in the last year in an attempt to run him out of town.
So, now you know why people think there is a shadow government.
Ron Fink is a resident of Lompoc. Send your thoughts to letters@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 12-19, 2017.