At the January 5, 2021 Lompoc City Council meeting, new council member Jeremy Ball ended the night with a passionate plea for more dedicated coordination to deal with the homeless crisis in Lompoc, only to discover that not only had he accepted the role at the previous council meeting, but affirmed this fact earlier in the evening when he approved the prior meeting’s minutes that cover the appointment. 

Transcript below, full meeting can be viewed by clicking here. 

Councilmember Ball: Help me through this because I am new here. Potentially, a couple council requests, and I think I talked about this with a few of you, the top of the list for me is figuring out how we can get code enforcement back, and potentially having a discussion about how to adapt that into a multi-pronged effective code enforcement, including the topic of homelessness.

Part of that, or separately, is potentially looking at having someone head a discussion on homelessness here, whether it is a liaison, manager, coordinator. Obviously we don’t have a lot of funds here at the city to do much with that, but to have someone primarily focused on that issue dealing with county entities, being a liaison, keeping our eyes on the prize, in terms of trying to better the quality of life, both for those that are homeless and those that are [live] in our town, I think would be ideal. So, I am not sure how… 

Mayor Osborne: The second request, technically you’re it. You are on the C3H that is now Home for Good, you got appointed to that so you are the liaison to the county and to the homeless coordination that goes on, so – 

Councilmember Ball: I am also talking about something that might be considered part time or full time, this is a big deal and a part-time city councilmember dealing with this a couple hours a month isn’t going to solve this issue to the level I think it needs to be dealt with. But that’s my- 

Mayor Osborne: Right, and I get what you are saying now. Um, I think that would come up in budget discussions, so having a discussion about our goals and then a discussion about what you would like to see as part of those goals, and that goes again with code enforcement. Those are budget line items and policy changes, so that’s my recommendation, is that, bring those back those back up at the next budget cycle… it would need to be a budget and policy discussion. 

Watch the full January 5, 2021 Lompoc City Council Meeting by clicking here.