Facts are a strange thing. Often they can come back to bite a politician when he or she least expects it. One Lompoc City Council member is an expert at misrepresenting facts, and he usually gets away with it. Recently though, he picked the wrong subject and the wrong city employee to pick on publicly.
Public safety support, and specifically police department staffing, has been a hot topic for the last couple of years. Councilmember Jim Mosby regularly flaps stacks of papers to prove he knows everything about public finance, but the public record says something else.
A month ago, the Canary pointed out that during a council meeting Mosby “was also quick to blame the police department for its own budget woes, saying that police officers got a 9 percent raise just a few short years ago, and it came at the expense of holding three positions vacant,” (“The blame game,” Oct. 24).
Mosby consistently repeats this diatribe like a broken soundtrack. He is quick to forget the fact that the council majority had remained firmly opposed, from 2016 until a few months ago, to a sales tax hike to boost public safety funding as other cities have done.
He also called out Sgt. Augustin Arias, a seasoned police officer who is the Lompoc Police Officer Association (LPOA) president. The LPOA represents police officers during labor negotiations. This is typical of Mosby, who is noted for badgering and bullying city staff from his perch on the council dais or on his meanderings through City Hall.
At the time, Arias, who is assigned to the detective division, was “on duty” and deeply involved in trying to solve one of the seven murders that have occurred this year. During the public comment period at the Nov. 5 council meeting, Arias, who was now “off duty,” said he was “here to defend myself” and set the record straight about the “9 percent raise.”
He started by saying that Councilmember Mosby was “misleading the public” concerning a raise that occurred nearly three years ago. He also said that this multi-year deal has barely kept up with the cost-of-living increases during that period. He agreed that the LPOA offered three positions to offset the cost of the raise, but he then said that during this period, the council froze hiring at the police department to balance the budget.
“Misleading the public” isn’t a taboo for politicians. We see it at all levels of government and from both political parties. The rule seems to be “if you repeat something often enough, then it becomes fact.” And this rule seems to be practiced regularly by Mosby and his two loyal henchmen.
One of those is Councilmember Victor Vega, who leases commercial office space from Mosby and has been a solid supporter for several years. Vega was somehow allowed to vote to appoint his landlord to an empty council seat a few years ago, even though many viewed it as a conflict of interest.
During public comment, Arias continued, “instead of trying to work together, you have cast a shadow that we are the bad guys.” He then said Mosby had been in office for a few years and really hasn’t done anything to support public safety.
“You froze hiring, and other than marijuana, you haven’t brought in any new businesses to town,” Arias said.
Lastly, he said he was “willing to help fix the situation and do anything it takes to get more revenue coming in.”
The negotiation for the earlier raise took months. Currently, the LPOA is “in conference with labor negotiators” according to the latest closed session agenda. Why it takes so long to simply grant a cost-of-living increase escapes me, but I guess that’s how labor negotiations go. And most economists will tell you that simply keeping up with the cost of living isn’t really netting the worker much since the value of their money is less as a result of the cost-of-living increase.
I spoke with Arias after the meeting, and he said, “Since that last raise, we’ve lost approximately six more police officers, two due to retirement from on-the-job situations and to higher-paying agencies. We have trouble hiring because other communities around our area are bringing in new businesses, building houses, and passing sales tax measures.”
He went on to say, “At the end of last budget cycle, the police department returned to the city more than $750,000 from our budget. However, that money did not get returned to the PD. And [the city] is experiencing budget savings by us not being able to hire police officers.”
It is a well-known fact that, despite what Mosby says, Lompoc public safety employees are paid far less than surrounding agencies, which makes recruiting difficult. It’s also a fact that large tracts filled with rental apartments are owned/operated by nonprofits who pay no taxes to support public safety.
Mosby should be more selective with his targets. Trying to bully someone who has had years of experience interviewing liars and thieves and was part of the now nonexistent and very successful gang/narcotics suppression unit probably wasn’t very smart.
In a time when we should all be supportive of our public safety personnel, Mosby seems to believe antagonism is the order of the day. This is not only shameful but will further discourage potential police and fire recruits from wanting to work in Lompoc.
To fix the situation will require some strategic thinking, and so far, I haven’t seen any indication that Mosby or the other two councilmen have this skill.
Ron Fink writes about Lompoc politics from Lompoc. Send comments through the editor at [email protected] or write a response for publication and email it to [email protected].
