How to watch: Lompoc City Council meetings are held at Lompoc City Hall, 100 Civic Center Plaza and streamed online at 6:30 p.m. Click here to watch live and archived meetings. Zoom login is usually made available from the City of Lompoc Facebook page.
How to Submit Public Comment: If you wish to make a comment during oral communications or on a specific agenda item, you may call (805) 875-8201 before the close of public comment on the agenda item. You will be provided three minutes for your comment. Alternatively, you may submit comments via email to s_haddon@ci.lompoc.ca.us not later than 4:00pm on Tuesday, January 9, 2021. Individual councilmembers can be contacted here; this page also defines district boundaries.
On the Agenda for January 19, 2021:
- Approval of minutes from January 5, 2021 meeting.
- Adoption of Resolution No. 6374(21) Approving Application for Proposition 64 Public Health and Safety Grant Program Funds.
Under Proposition 64, which legalized cannabis for adult use in California in 2018, cities were delegated the authority to regulate their commercial markets or ban them altogether. One incentive the state provided localities to do so is a wide-ranging grant program to fund city police, schools and development to those that opt-in. There is a 15% state tax on legal cannabis.
Lompoc qualifies for millions in grants through Proposition 64. This item on the council agenda would authorize the city manager (or designee) to proceed with applying for Proposition 64 Public Health and Safety Grants.
Lompoc does not have a full-time grant writing position, although funds were allocated for one in the 2019-2020 budget. The total cost allocated to the position was $150,000, but when a public information officer position was defunded on January 1, 2020, the city manager reallocated the funds without council authority, citing the pandemic and stating there was a need during the emergency to reallocate funds. The public information officer was given six months to train and become familiar with grant writing.
There is still no full time grant writing position in Lompoc.
- Adoption of Resolution No. 6375(21) Authorizing Application for, and Receipt of, Local Government Planning Support Grant Program Funds
Like agenda item #3, the council may vote to authorize the application for, and receipt of, grants the city qualifies for.
- Letter of Support – Housing Authority of Santa Barbara County Conversion of Rental Housing Units from Public Housing to Project Based Voucher Assisted Units.
Council will review and consider signing a letter supporting the conversion of Public Housing rental units to Project Based Voucher assisted units, per a request from the county housing authority.
This would bring more low-income housing to Lompoc. While Lompoc undoubtedly needs more housing and more affordable housing, it already has a disproportionate amount of the low income housing in the county. A full 30% of Lompoc is low income housing, compared with 5 and 6% in Santa Barbara and Santa Maria, respectively. (Letter to Mark Stiver from the City of Lompoc, 2018)
General fund budgets receive a large portion of their revenue through property taxes. The county does not make up the budget shortfalls to the city by shrinking its tax base so drastically. Restrictions made on the development of new single family homes by LAFCO and other agreements with the county continue to prevent the expansion of the tax base by expanding the ability for Lompoc to also build more single family homes, which are in short supply locally.
In a memo from the City of Lompoc dated August 15, 2018 to Mark Sivers, the executive director of the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee, the problem is laid out succinctly, “The saturation in our community of affordable housing has begun to displace high income households.”
While recognizing the need for low income housing, residents can request that their city council work to expand development of single-family homes in Lompoc as well as petition for funding from the county to make up the difference.
- Award of Contract for Purchase of Sludge Suction Header Replacement System for the Lompoc Regional Wastewater Reclamation Plant’s Secondary Clarifier Units.
- Adoption of Resolution No. 6377(21) Adopting the Revised City of Lompoc Renewable Energy Resources Procurement Plan and the Revised Renewable Portfolio Standard Enforcement Program
- Adoption of Resolution No. 6378(21) Attestation to the Veracity of the 2019 Power Source Disclosure Report and 2019 Power Content Label
- Council Appointments to the Planning Commission and the Youth Commission.
- Adoption of Resolution No. 6379(21), Accepting Grant Award from Department of Defense’s Office of Economic Adjustment Military Installation Sustainability Program, Approving Amendment No. 3 to Agreement with Bridge View Resources Authorizing $1,364,930 in Additional Compensation for Grant Task Activities, Affirming the City Manager’s Authority to Execute Grant Documents, and Approving Budget Amendments and Appropriations For Such Revenues and Expenditures.