When I moved to Lompoc in 1975, the non-prison population of this city was 22,725; today it is well over 40,000. At the time there was only one fire station, an undersized city hall and very few police officers could be found patrolling the streets.
When the city constructed a new city hall and moved from the building that now houses the Anderson Recreation Center, the locals said the new building was a Taj Mahal, but it soon proved to be too small to serve the growing community.
Taj Mahal is a term that is often applied by poorly informed people to government infrastructure projects that they don’t understand.
In 1985 when the City Council (populated by the old, well-established names in Lompoc) was considering the need to expand fire services to the north end of town while the population then was 27,145; the station they built then was acknowledged by all to be too small and only a “temporary measure” until a bigger station that was more strategically placed could be built.
The same mindset was in place when the city modernized the police station about the same time — it too was too small the day the mayor surrounded by council members cut the ribbon.
Why? Because some citizens and council members felt that the police chief was asking for too much, so the council cut the budget drastically to appease the complainers in town who couldn’t grasp the fact that the city was growing at a rapid pace and needed a much larger police station.
Until a couple of years ago, the fire department was so understaffed that they couldn’t respond promptly to over 500 calls a year because all units were assigned to other calls.
That’s 500 times that citizens in need didn’t get the help that they thought their tax dollars were paying for in a timely fashion.
It wasn’t until a grant became available to fund additional firefighters that staffing was increased to cover the demand.
During the current budget cycle, these positions were converted to fully funded positions and the city is in much better shape today, but space is at a premium, and the fire station on the north end of town still needs to be enlarged and moved even though 30 years has passed since a city council approved the “temporary station.”
Now we have a new crop of council members who come from families who have lived here for many decades — like their forefathers they too want to cut the budget for a new fire station drastically to appease the complainers in town, thinking the fire chief is asking for too much.
Complaints like “it’s a Taj Mahal” are reminiscent of what their own families and neighbors said about city hall when it was built.
One council member and a former mayor seem especially critical of the new project. Former mayor John Linn always thought of himself as the smartest person at city hall during his tenure and hasn’t changed since he was soundly defeated in 2014.
The other critic, Jim Mosby, is a clone of Linn, and he too feels that he is much better at fire station planning and public finance than the professionals the city has retained to manage the city and the fire department.
Once again the debate is being framed by people who either can’t grasp the fact that the city is growing or simply are looking for some sort of political foothold for the upcoming election.
Maybe they are stuck in the past and long for the days when Lompoc was a small farming and mining community that was remote from almost anywhere else in the country.
Recently the council decided to ask more questions about the project; some assumed that the 3 council members opposing the project had come up with some new questions.
This time they were urged to submit their questions in writing so that, as the city attorney put it, “we can clearly respond to your specific concerns,”
Today’s Lompoc is many things; it has a large commuter population, a growing retired population and population that both lives and works in the city.
Several hundred thousand square feet of industrial space, new commercial business parks and hundreds of houses are in the advanced planning stages — yes, Lompoc has grown and will continue to grow as new people and businesses discover our town.
It’s time for Mosby, Linn and all the other poorly informed naysayers to take a deep breath and accept the fact that we simply can’t afford to build another undersized public safety facility.
Saving a few bucks now will cost us considerably more than what is saved in the future.
If you don’t believe me, look at what history has proven to us with city hall and both the police and fire department facilities.
As Lompoc grows, elected leaders shouldn’t repeat the mistakes of the past.
— Ron Fink, a Lompoc resident since 1975, is retired from the aerospace industry and has been active with Lompoc municipal government commissions and committee since 1992, including 12 years on the Lompoc Planning Commission. He is also a voting member of the Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Association. Contact him at news@noozhawk.com. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
