Well, it looks like three-time loser Jim Mosby is making another attempt to occupy the mayor’s seat on the City Council dais.
In the last three elections he was defeated twice in a run for mayor, and he was soundly defeated when he ran for a seat in the Council District where he lives. I guess his neighbors know him better than anyone else because he lost that one in a landslide.
When he was in elective office, he pulled some stunts that would embarrass even the worst elected official. His misguided actions created irrevocable harm to both the General and Enterprise Funds and ultimately to all the people of Lompoc because of lost funding.
In March 2020 the citizens of Lompoc approved a temporary sales tax measure billed as “Lompoc Preservation of City Services Temporary Transactions and Use Tax.” Although most voters believed that the tax would primarily be used to improve public safety services, the last sentence in the measure clearly said, “Funds generated by the proposed tax are not restricted and may be used for any City General Fund purposes.”
The Council majority led by self-professed municipal funding expert Jim Mosby and his enablers Dirk Starbuck and Victor Vega hijacked the funds created by the tax so there were no tangible improvements to public safety services. But the devil is in the details.
When the three councilmen voted to increase the annual obligations for two separate public retirement plans to theoretically pay them off in 15 years, not only did that obligate almost the entire revenue stream from the 1-percent sales tax to pay for the Public Safety obligation, but it obligated all other activities such as the fee-funded Utilities to pay the Miscellaneous plan’s obligations in the same 15-year horizon.
This irrevocable decision permanently changed the annual payment obligation and restricted future council’s budgeting flexibility. And, as it turns out it won’t eliminate the pension debt.
It wasn’t until the federal government provided an unplanned infusion of revenue to the General Fund following the shutdown of the economy during the COVID pandemic that any big-ticket one-time public safety equipment buys could occur.
Next, during the runup to the 2022 election he staged a publicity stunt by declaring that the Santa Ynez River estuary at Ocean Park was open for public use. A favorable media report (he thought) with a picture showing him in a kayak floating in the water was in the local press.
Of course, this waterway was closed to any public use by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service several decades ago, and violating the closure created friction with Vandenberg Space Force Base upon which the estuary is located.
He also encouraged citizens to violate existing laws governing the discharge of wastewater into the sewer system, which resulted in several hundred thousand dollars in otherwise unnecessary legal costs for the city to respond to the environmental concerns identified by state and federal regulators during routine audits and to settle litigation by the Environmental Defense Center for $260,000. This money could have been spent to help improve public safety services or pay for code enforcement efforts. And informed city employees say the issue still hasn’t been resolved between the city and the EPA.
Perhaps his worst fault was his public demeanor. During council meetings he was frequently and very publicly abusive to the professional city staff and any councilmember, particularly the female elected officials, who disagreed with his dictates. His long and frequently faulty analysis of budgetary issues distracted other council members from the facts of the situation and created chaos during council meetings.
Electing Jim Mosby as mayor would be a serious and avoidable mistake; because of his previous public record, he should never serve as an appointed or elected official again.
