I was recently reading a recent article by Ron Finks dated August 4th and felt to be fair to Mr. Mosby some corrections should be noted.
As is usual Mr. Fink’s bias seems to be driven by his personal animus to Mr. Mosby which clearly colors his perception of reality.
As those who follow the city are aware, in the past the State of the City was given by the Mayor in February of each year. The Mayor worked with staff to develop the State of the City and presented it at the Council meeting. However, during Mayor Lingl reign, he did not wish to make the presentation and he passed it to then, City Manager Wiemiller. This resulted in it becoming a Chamber event that one had to pay to hear.
In recent times no State of the City has actually occurred.
Therefore, Mr. Mosby felt the citizens of the city should have the information and since in this regard Council Members and Mayor have equal standing and responsibility it is clear this is well within his right and privilege to provide this information. Being sensitive to the political environment we live in and to be respectful to others, Mr. Mosby clearly represented that he was doing this an individual.
Regarding Mr. Fink’s aspersions to the appointment of Mr. Mosby to the council. This seems to me to just be sour grapes. This appointment followed all appropriate processes and since Mr. Mosby’s appointment he has carried out all of his duties responsibly and with proper diligence. In fact, we just recently appointed Ms. Cordova in a similar fashion and she has a similar city experience background. This is our process and even though I had personally supported another individual (myself) I see no reason to become bitter and divisive on hers or his efforts to do the best they can.
Regarding the reduction in code enforcement. The city has a long history of misusing code enforcement as a political tool. But the elimination of part of Code Enforcement, reductions in the planning staff, elimination of the Public Information Officer and temporarily holding vacant three police positions were to balance the City Budget. This budget was approved on a four to one vote with Mayor Osborne in opposition. Anyone who actually looked at the city budget at that time recognizes that to honor the commitment to provide retirement benefits to previous city employees and to achieve a balanced budget, these reductions were mandatory. The budget that Mr. Fink supported would have resulted in a growing out of control CALPERs debt just south of 100 Million dollars.
Mr. Mosby to his credit, once a balanced budget was achieved, supported placing a tax initiative on the ballot and actively campaigned to get it passed. This is simply being a responsible adult, figure out how to pay your bills, and then look for new revenue.
Regarding the new fire station. The original plan that the Fire Department shared with the Council in 2014 was a standard size fire station with a larger equipment bay for 3 to 4 million dollars. By the time it came back to Council, over $100,000 had been spent on design work for a 14-million-dollar fire station on leased land which with interest financing would take the cost to over 29 million dollars. This would be on top of the annual ground lease payment. The annual payment on this would have been over $1,000,000 per year. Clearly the city would not be able to carry this burden and Mr. Mosby and the council at that time were wise to avoid this cost.
In conclusion, in the past, I have had great respect for Mr. Fink’s knowledgeable experience with city matters, but in the last few years, he has allowed his political leanings to create animosity with certain city members. While I would like to still consider him as a friend, I certainly wish he would avoid political mudslinging and come back to his roots as an individual dedicated to Lompoc and unbiased truths.