The May 15, 2019, Lompoc budget workshop was another seance in budget perfidy.
The “triad” of Lompoc City Councilmembers Jim Mosby, Dirk Starbuck, and Victor Vega were at it again, nickel-and-diming the budget to get it cut so it will be balanced—again at the cost of city services—but refusing to directly consider a 1 percent sales tax. The city needs more income, and it will not get it by making more cuts, as explained by the city’s professional finance staff. It needs the millions of dollars that additional sales tax can generate.
The triad was responsible for shelving the sales tax in 2017 and instead put the funds that would have placed it on the ballot into balancing the budget. Had the sales tax passed then, the city would have been $10 million richer today. Here we are two years later, and we still have the same problem—generated by the same triad—of a chronic shortage of funds.
The city attorney presented the options for a sales tax in the 2019-20 time frame. It is most obvious to everyone, except for those in the spineless triad, that we need a sales tax that will generate up to $5 million per year in funds to cover services and to pay down the debt to CalPERS. The best opportunity is before us right now. The five City Council members need to declare a financial emergency—and there is one—and then vote to place the sales tax on the ballot this November. They will have to get the tax wording approved by the end of August to make this time frame. And the tax must be a general sales tax with a 50 percent plus one voter approval needed—not a special tax that needs a 67 percent approval, which would be harder to get.
These five councilmembers need to “get real” and solve our budget shortfalls now or they will continue to grow in the next years. We have no other choice. There is no downside to the sales tax. Let the citizens vote on it. Other cities have done so, and most sales taxes passed. The triad flailed around two years ago, and that’s why the city has shortcomings now.
The triad is entirely at fault for numerous people losing their jobs and reduced city services.
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This article appears in May 23-30, 2019.