City Council — January 6, 2026

Welcome to Lompoc City Council meeting January 6, 2026. Roll call please.

Mayor and Council, the City Council met in closed session to discuss the three items on the closed session agenda. City Council gave direction to staff on the first two of those items. No reportable action was taken. And on item number three, the City Council did not discuss that item but continued it to a future meeting, the next meeting. That concludes the report.

supported and renewed in their calling We also tonight pray for the city employees, the volunteers, healthcare workers and all who quietly serve often unseen yet essential to the well-being of this community. And we also lift up all of our churches, our nonprofits and all of our service organizations who labor in different ways but often with the same heart to care for the vulnerable, to build bridges and to foster belonging. May we continue to work together across differences recognizing that unity does not require uniformity but mutual respect and shared purpose.

In the new year may Lompoc be a place where people feel safe Where families find stability, where neighbors look out for one another and where hope is not just spoken of but practice. Grant us wisdom for the decisions before us tonight, discernment for the paths ahead and grace for one another when the way forward is not always clear. We offer this prayer in a spirit of unity and gratitude trusting that the One who calls us to serve will also guide us as we do. Amen.

Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of

America

and

to the Republic

for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. I have a presentation, Jeff and group. We finally found out who was going to get this. So I'd asked for a translator to come here and I didn't get one. This is in Spanish as well, so hopefully we can get this on the city website, this proclamation as well, to identify it. You guys can blast that out as well because I think it's very important with what's going on in our community throughout the country as well.

And this is a Proclamation for Human Trafficking Awareness Month 2026. It says, whereas human trafficking is a form of modern slavery that occurs in every state including California where victims are forced to work in various forms of labor exploitation including but limited to commercial sex tax and other services that are induced through force fraud or coercion. And whereas due to its isolated discrete nature many individuals across the globe are unaware that trafficking exists in their community And whereas it is estimated that more than 28 million people around the world are victims of human trafficking, including more than 261 in Santa Barbara County.

Whereas Santa Barbara County estimates there are over 150 women in the city of Lompoc experiencing homelessness due to fleeing domestic violence, with evidence suggesting that many of these individuals are survivors of trafficking and are at a minimum at the risk of being trafficked. And whereas human trafficking victims face cruelty that has no place in a civilized world is a crime that can take many forms and one that tears to our social fabric, debases our community The Santa Barbara County Human Trafficking Task Force is committed to enforcing common humanity and violates what we stand for as a country.

And whereas increase education about how to identify human trafficking along with increased knowledge in state resources and services for those affected by criminal exploitation can help decrease the number of future victims and whereas the center of county human trafficking task force. Is Whereas the Santa Barbara County Human Trafficking Task Force has worked diligently to bring awareness to the fact that human trafficking occurs closer to home than one might think, that California ranks number one in the country for reported human trafficking cases. And Santa Barbara County is home to hundreds of survivors of trafficking and exploitation. Whereas Human Traffic Awareness Month is an opportunity to recognize the critical role all Santa Barbara County residents play in preventing reporting and adjudicating These heinous crimes, now therefore I James Mosby do hereby recognize January 2026 as Human Trafficking Awareness Month in the City of Lompoc and call this observation to the attention of all of our citizens.

So you, who's going to speak? So it's, I did ask for this again. I'll say maybe I didn't make it on the microphone but this gets put on the city's website and then we also have the translation component there as well. I did try to get somebody here to do it, they didn't make it but please you guys introduce yourself and fill us

in. Hi my name is Adrienne Ainsworth. I'm a subject matter expert who does work with the Human Trafficking Task Force and with Kingdom Causes as well as SAFE. More notably I am a lifelong member, community member of the City of Lompoc as well as an overcomer of human trafficking in the City of Lompoc. So I just want to thank you guys for acknowledging the need, the cause and the continued effort and support in finding solutions.

Yeah, my name is Jeff Schaefer. I am working with Kingdom Causes have been part of the task force, the county's DA's Task Force since 2014. Appreciative to Mayor Mosby members City Council city staff for acknowledging this day we are very active in Lompoc. We are working with some of your partners like Micah Mission and we're working with the North County Rape Crisis and Child Protection Center as well as some of our Kind of Lompoc Valley Medical, other providers to work with survivors and do prevention work in schools and other places to make sure that Lompoc is as Pastor Brian mentioned a safe space for all people. So just want to let people know if they want to learn more about ways they can be involved they can go to safesbc.org And that's kind of our county wide effort or people can always contact me My email is jeff.schaefer at kingdomcauses.org Always available to talk about what's going on and help community members figure out ways they can assist as well locally So thank you very much for the recognition

City Manager Report.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to do a real quick update on...I know the holidays are over but I just wanted to announce some of the people that spend a lot of time decorating their yards and businesses for the Holiday Lights and Decoration Contest. That was the Beautification Commission announced that December 16th. We had 34 residents that were nominated in seven businesses And there's an interactive PDF on the web page if you want to check it out. And thanks for the GIS for doing that.

I'll go over some of the winners, the residents. A classic Christmas was 1004 Rock Rose Lane. A shiny star was 621 North 10th Street. A coastal Christmas was 356 La Divera. An inflatable Christmas was 816 Canfield Avenue And a space age Christmas, it was 421 Hawthorne. So I want to thank those guys for doing the extra stuff and oh, I got some business ones too. The Lompoc Valley Florist, they got the best display and then the La Prisma had decorations and outdoors so thank you to those guys that did those decorations and made the holidays a little bit better for all of us.

All right, Parks and Rec. If you're looking for some stuff to do with the extra week of school being off, the Aquatic Center will be doing extended hours for swim, rec swim Monday through Friday from 1 to 3. They also have their spring activity guide for 2026 and have to check that out and start registering because a lot of those classes fill up. And the last one I wanted to say something about was the father-daughter dance. And I took my daughter to that.

It was kind of fun because I took her to dinner, too. And she didn't know what to say and she just kept telling me she loved me. I thought it was the cutest thing ever. It's a good opportunity to spend some time with your kids, your daughter, dads. I also want to announce that Lompoc Police will be doing the Lompoc Community Academy again. That'll be kicking off January 29th and it'll be Thursday. There'll be 10 Thursdays in a row. You can learn a lot about police activities including patrol records and traffic Participants must be 18 years old and live within or work within the city of Lompoc.

I wanted to thank the fire department, we had a dwelling, a single family dwelling that was on fire in the 200 block of West Chestnut and I Street. And I want to thank them for how quickly they knocked it out. Also wanted to thank them, they had to do some water rescues with a couple people over the weekend so thank you guys for keeping us safe. Also wanted to, oh no skip that one.

I thought he took that out. We have calendars in City Hall if you guys want to grab them. I wanted to say thank you to Ms. Andrews' class for their graphics arts and yearbook students for all the work they did putting that together and you can pick them up here. They're pretty good. The Dewey's, I wanted to announce that we submitted a direct appropriation from Homeland Security for $375,000 to Adam Schiff's office and he approved it. It also got approved by the Senate and so that would be a good opportunity during emergencies for having a generator at the Dewey Center which still has to go through the budget but I wanted to give everybody an update and I'll bring it back if we get it approved. So that's all I have for tonight.

Any questions? I had a quick one. With the F-150 Lightnings being cancelled or discontinued, we'd approve that acquisition of that. Do we need to do something to... Are you guys still planning on trying to acquire those things or what's going on? Somebody?

I can answer that. We are not going to be able to acquire those, we are currently working with trying to connect with CARB to discuss options and so our facilities department and conservation department are working to connect with the CARB regulations and They are aware that this has put a lot of agencies into a bind, so to

be continued. Maybe we look back at that lease option program that was out there because it didn't reflect us right? The lease option? So we're going to be looking at all the options absolutely. All right, so they answer the question we don't need to make the We have a consent calendar. I have a lot of items on consent calendar. So all items on the consent calendar are considered to be routine and will be enacted after one motion if this form listed below there will be no separate discussion of these items unless good cause is shown prior to the council vote any items withdrawn with the consent calendar for separate discussion will be addressed immediately before the second oral communications So we have approval minutes of November 4th, 2025.

Approval ratification of expenditures. We have a payroll December 5th of $2,097,000. The voucher register December 1st through 5th, 2025 of $1.2 million and another voucher registered December 8th through 12th, 2025 for $1,800,000 We're approving a Transit Fair Promotion Reimbursement Agreement with Santa Maria County Association of Governments and authorize the City Manager to execute this agreement.

And number four is adoption of Resolution 679, Presidio 26 amending the Local Home Buyer Assistance Program Guidelines to limit the number of approved lenders to five Approval lender application evaluation ranking tool for selecting those five lenders and allocate $913,000 for the Lompoc affordable housing trust fund. Homebuyers assistance plan number 5 award of a professional services agreement amount of $731,706 to Minter Harnish for this City of Lompoc 2050 technical general plan update phase 2.

The adoption of the resolution 679625. Number six, award of project fiscal year 25 S2 2025 curb ramp upgrade project and number seven is approval revised amendment to purchase agreement for eminence minerals filtration to purchase diatomaceous earth in the amount of $540,000. Does any council member want to pull any of these?

I have a few questions. I'm five, I'd like to pull five.

Okay let me grab public comment. Should I get public comment or minor questions first? You should take public comment first. Public comment okay. Go ahead, public comment on consent calendar.

Good evening thank you my name is Rebecca Starr. I grew up in Orkut. I have been living in northern Thailand. I am here for several months helping my mother who has just gone into hospice And I'd like to speak on the matter of the economic contributions, speaking of the budget and passing the payroll. The economic contributions of migrant workers to Santa Barbara County and our civic duty to safeguard all of our community members. So as we talk about millions of dollars tonight, as we thank our public servants and all the people who quietly serve I can't help but notice the economic foundation of our county and the labors of migrant workers who got up in the dark this morning, just got home are going to sleep as much as possible so they can be ready to get back out there tomorrow and harvest our food.

Prepare the meat that we enjoy that's called Santa Maria style barbecue Ready the daycare centers and the car washes, and all the services that we enjoy with money flowing through this county. With awareness of human trafficking and I appreciate the award that was given, I appreciate the acknowledgement that people are being trafficked in our county. I appreciate your service City Council and I would just ask when we're talking about so much money and what to do with it and how you guys get paid and how I get paid as an ethics professor And the fact that families throughout our county are suffering, are working their fingers to the bone to provide a standard of living for us while being trafficked themselves. Three weeks ago in Orkut, California, a pregnant woman working in the fields and her toddler were taken into custody and disappeared.

That sounds to me like trafficking. And I'm here to protest the fact that this is going on while we look at beautiful Christmas lights and we continue our comfortable standard of living, while an amazing hospice team shows up to help my mother in her final days or weeks of her life. Her next door neighbor speaking Mixteco. Begging for work, bringing us boxes of strawberries. Asking us to set up cameras on their homes so they can feel safe that they're not going to get abducted.

So I just bring this awareness when we talk about the budget and how well we all live and how much money there is to spend on each other and to pay each other and to honor our undocumented workers and to thank them tonight or remember them every time you have fruit or vegetables or berries or Santa Maria style barbecue

Remember, this is public comment on consent calendar. Please try to keep that to the items on consent. We will have oral communications right after this as well so...

Okay I actually had a question about the ice operation thing we have like the thing that was funded by Chairman Schiff regarding Yes, the inner city ice support bill. Thank you so much my words were failing me. So I have a question about that. Um, I thought that last year you guys passed a resolution that really limited how the city interacted with ice. So just that with like the inner city ice thing, that doesn't really mesh. So I just wanted some clarification on that because the diagram was very confusing and I can yield my time to you guys so you can explain.

They can't answer? Oh, I feel silly. Okay well, I guess I'll just leave it at that then since you guys can't answer me but yeah just very concerning we had some issues with ice you know just a couple of weekends ago. I am a U.S. citizen you know born in Santa Maria raised in Lompoc and I had ice outside of my house when they were here At very early in the morning, and it was a very uncomfortable experience to have to reach out and yell to my neighbors. So that's very concerning to hear. So I'll stop talking your ear off about it since you can't answer me.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any items on consent calendar? Seven items on here. Any other council members have anything? I want to pull item number five and item number six, and those will be heard immediately for the second oral communications. All right looking for a motion. I pulled five and six.

I'll make a motion we approve consent lists five and six. Five and six.

That's

what I said, five and six.

All right very good. I'll go ahead and second. Passes 5-0. Let's go ahead and go to oral communications Now you have three minutes Talk about items in the city

Give me a moment All right, I'm Jay Freeman. Here on January 6th, I am going to have a moment of silence for the vicious attack on our Capitol. Awesome! I got to talk fast because I only have three minutes. I'm here to talk about corruption in Lompoc both in the City Council and then the police force. About two days after my last appearance in this city council, I was called on the phone at 4am by one of the mayor's biggest constituents and personal friends on Facebook His name is Stets.

He was a local police force member, and they sent Officer Rayna out because I did the right thing and called the cops. Now upon arrival, Officer Rayna had a very friendly conversation with the person threatening my life, Stets, because again he was a cop. Now after that friendly conversation, Rayna refused to press charges so I went to the community to find out who was threatening my life.

And after about eight days, I found out who it was. Obviously, Stets, he's part of Golden Coast Investigations and I found out he was an ex-cop so I went back to the station and got a proper police officer to press charges. Now since then the DA has still not received the evidence for Stats yet and when I requested the criminal report it came back more redacted than the Epstein files It had more black lines than it had non-black lines.

So, that's where I sit in my personal life after trying to stand against the local populace of politicians. It's been a month of my life worrying about my family's safety from retaliation from the Lompoc Police Department and the mayor's people. This good old boy corruption in the local governments must be dealt with. Give me a moment. We have a mayor who power trips and calls the police as his local attack dogs to shut down random stalls of the civilians.

We have civil issues like poverty plaguing our city. In the last year, we've only dropped from 158 to 155 homeless in Lompoc. We are doing nothing to help our local poor people. I think Lompoc's answers lie in stop using scripty politicians address the corrupt police force, address the corrupt city council and address the high poverty rate. I've started writing to the state, to the State Secretary and the Governor about Lompoc now because I do not think our local area is going to be helped. Now in my last 18 seconds, I would like to reach out to the Democrat side of our community. I would like to join you guys. I would like to run against Jeff Bridges in District 2. And right here on this podium, I would like to challenge Jeff Bridges to a debate That's my time.

Thank you very much, Jay Freeman.

Good evening. My name is Sabrina Ross, I am the Associate Director with North County Rape Crisis and Child Protection Center. As part of the center staff, I have been a member of the Santa Barbara Human Trafficking Task Force since its inception in 2013. I'm speaking to you tonight because I want to give you a glimpse into how trafficking happens right here in Lompoc and to highlight the vital work our agency does with survivors of human trafficking.

So I'm going to tell you about Jane. Jane is not her real name. Jane was 16 when she ran away from home and met a woman here in Lompoc who seemed kind enough to offer her shelter. But this woman was not kind. She was a trafficker looking for a vulnerable victim, a young person to exploit. After offering Jane a place to stay she gave her alcohol and pills and while Jane was heavily under the influence the woman invited men over who then raped Jane while she was intoxicated and blacked out There were multiple men over multiple days.

Men from here in Lompoc who went to this woman's house and paid the trafficker money to have sex with an intoxicated, and sometimes unconscious minor. When the survivor was later interviewed by law enforcement she recalled blacking out and waking up with wet hair. The trafficker told Jane how she'd thrown Jane in the shower would take photos of her while she was passed out and send those photos to men in prison.

Thankfully Jane was able to get away and made a report to the Lompoc Police Department. When she did, the investigating detective requested an advocate from our agency to accompany the victim during her interview which she did. The advocate also provided Jane with information about her rights as a victim, explained the process of the legal system and provided her with resources for victim-focused support in trauma informed care.

She also provided support and resources to the survivor's parents. Jane is just one survivor of trafficking that the Rape Crisis Center has provided support and services to. I could stand here for hours and share dozens and dozens more stories, but I'm limited to three minutes. I am hoping that by sharing one survivor's story, I can help you understand how deeply important the work we do in this community is.

From prevention programs like Word on the Street with our teens in the high schools community education and outreach to local businesses who may encounter trafficking victims, to the direct services for survivors through advocacy and counseling. If trafficking is an issue that is important to you please remember we are here and we need the City Council and community support to keep doing this work I've placed brochures in the lobby for anyone interested in learning more about trafficking or how to support the center Thank you and have a good night

Hi guys. I would like to apologize for using the wrong public comment to ask my question. The holidays had me a little scrambled, so I just wanted to bring it up here again. I have a lot of concerns about the ice activity in Lompoc. As I had stated in my prior public comment, not this Sunday but the past Sunday prior, I woke up to banging at my door. I'm very well connected with the people at 805 UndocuFund and one of my friends in the organization who I don't want to name for her safety Knocked at my door at about 8.30, 9 a.m., to tell me that ICE was parked outside of you know on my block on my street directly across from my house. I have neighbors who you know I don't know the immigration status of all my neighbors. I think that'd be a little odd but you know we have a lot of Hispanic people on my block And it is not a good feeling to, you know before you've even had like breakfast or a cup of coffee.

To think about is this going to be the last time I see my neighbors? Is this going to be the last time my neighbor's kids see them? Are the people on my block going to welcome in the new year without their family. I am in strong, strong opposition to this intercity ICE thing. It just cannot happen here. You guys passed a resolution last year with pressure and support from Voces Sin Fronteras to limit just how much ICE can do in this city, and how our civil servants can help them.

And how much, you know ice can help them and it needs to be more than that in 2026. Because even though that resolution was passed we still had police officers because I went out in my pajamas for about three and a half four hours to let every single person I knew Lock your doors, do not answer the door. They do not have the right to come into your home. Letting people know their basic rights because they are being violated every day and it was not a good feeling to have a Lompoc police vehicle block traffic so that an ICE agent could drive away off probably to do one of the 10 kidnappings that happened that day in the city And as that ICE officer drove away, I asked him why aren't you protecting our community? And he said, I am.

I would like to ask the police department to remember that regardless of how people

Any of us, anybody else or communications?

Good evening, Mayor and Councilmembers. My name is Shawna Stilwell and I am here tonight as a resident, a mom, and someone who believes accountability is not optional, it's your job. I want to start with the question because that's how real change happens. What does integrity look like in this room right now? Because from the community's perspective trust is broken You currently have sitting Councilmember Bridge under indictment for serious white collar crimes, one of which carries a prison term so severe that Bridge will die in prison if convicted. Those are charges filed in court not rumors on social media. And yet this council continues as if that context doesn't matter. So my question is simple, how do you expect this community to believe you will protect them when you have not publicly reckoned with the corruption at your own table?

Now let's talk about protection because while this council avoids hard conversations like my ex avoided child support our neighbors are being kidnapped Since January 25, ICE has carried out repeated actions in Lompoc. Individuals kidnapped from parks, streets, near schools, outside courthouses, from job sites, from their cars, from their homes, transfers out of Lompoc prison facilities. You're laughing! You think this is funny Mosby?

Mass removals, early morning operations before sunrise. In late January multiple individuals were kidnapped over several days. In the spring and summer people were kidnapped from public spaces and residential intersections. Some without warrants, some despite having valid work accommodations. In the fall mass transfers occurred. This is not random, this is a pattern.

And on December 28th alone more than a dozen people were kidnapped in a single day including parents taken outside their home men while heading to work and even a father taken alongside with his minor child And I need to add one more incident to that record, mine. I was forcibly directed by ICE agents onto unmarked VSFB property using two vehicles and once there I was refused permission to leave. I was questioned under conditions that violated multiple of my constitutional rights During this encounter, I was forced to delete photos and videos documenting what was happening.

Good evening. Wow, that was a bunch of propaganda from somebody I don't really recognize. Somebody who was sent here by our friends. It's my time to speak now. Somebody who was sent from our friends down in Santa Barbara, maybe the ones that are Washing money through illegitimate non-profits just to do political attacks against people. People who actually support the Mexican Mafia that operates within our community.

Yeah, the people who wash money for the cartel. They're all kind of connected. I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to my city council. I'm not talking to propaganda people who show up here once in a while because they want to try to bully my city council into signing documents to support their grift. I did hear what the woman was saying, and I'm out in the Lompoc community every day Patrolling my hometown, I have seen absolutely none of that.

I have heard zero reports about anybody being wrapped up because they only transfer people with warrants in other areas from the jails which we don't have a jail in Lompoc. We only have a holding facility and It's a holding facility where people aren't supposed to be held there for four days. Right, Kevin? They're supposed to be transferred to the Santa Barbara County Jail Facility in Santa Maria or Santa Barbara for holding.

Yeah. So we don't like propaganda in Lompoc. We like facts in Lompoc We like people who have an investment in our town to talk about things that are relevant. And our city council likes listening to facts, yeah. That aside, happy new year.

Yes, please refrain from the other comments as well. Please

Hello my name is Leanne Wolliver I just wanted to say to The City of Lompoc and Especially toward the Police Department thank you for your service and all the things that you do Thank you for following the laws of the land. I do appreciate that And that's it. Thank you

Anybody else? Oral communications.

Hello. This is impromptu, I don't have anything written down for you guys or anything to say but I just wanted to based on the whole propaganda thing I just want to reiterate today is January 6th today a group of supremist white extremists attacked our capital and attacked the democracy that's not propaganda that was facts and what's happening now is in fact What seems like an ethnic cleansing. What is the police department going to do? Are you guys going to keep protecting the federal agents, just blocking them because you're standing by protecting the agents while the community is being attacked?

You guys are armed. Both agents are armed. How is it that a one-armed agent needs protection from the police? Why can't they protect themselves? We need clear policies is what I'm trying to get at. I don't have anything written down, I'm probably rambling now my time is running up but we need clear policies. I don't even live here anymore but I used to. You guys need to talk within the city council Lompoc, Santa Maria, San Luis Obispo all the counties get together establish policies that are gonna protect the citizens. The federal agents don't need any protection they have their own thing going on. The police department is supposed to protect community members.

I don't feel protected. If something happens right now, is my skin too brown? Is someone gonna help me or am I gonna get arrested? I worry when I take my kids to school. And you know what? The ICE agents will probably recognize me because I make sure that they know me, because I'm out there patrolling and making sure trying to do my part in trying to keep the community safe.

And if they take me then it's going to show that they're not even doing their things right. I'm an American citizen and even if I wasn't, what is it, my brown skin that is making you pull me over? I'm a law-abiding citizen My community, the community needs help from the police departments. We need a clear policy establishing that. You guys please you guys I mean I don't know you guys personally but I will I'm going to keep track on it and when voting time comes we're gonna remember that so I'm just anyways please clear policies Talk to Santa Maria, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara. Get a little meeting together and get the federal agents out of here and please come on protect the community guys.

Thank you I gotta go.

Anybody else? Okay we will close oral communication bring it back to the council. We have appointments item number eight. Appointment of Council Member to City Council Ad Hoc Committee regarding Building Planning Permit Process. What do you want? Who wants to go on there? Council Member Starbuck.

I'll accept it, I'll sign up.

All right, I'll give you a second on that. Why don't you motion your first motion. Push your motion button. There's a second on that. Let's go ahead and vote. Four yeses and one abstention. Council Member Ball, abstaining. All right. Number nine, council request. We're going to discuss Results of Lompoc Community Needs and Funding Survey, direction on the next steps for a potential 2026 ballot measure for a special transaction tax and use tax to increase funding for roads and right-of-way maintenance or alternative funding options.

Management Service Director, you're on.

Good evening Mayor and Councilmembers. Christie Donnelly, Management Services Director. Oh look I only have three minutes okay.

Lucky you right?

So just a little bit of background on this item the November 18th council meeting staff was directed to proceed with a community survey to assess potential support for a potential revenue measure Staff determined that Flash Vote was the most efficient, was determined to most efficiently meet the timeline, cost and engagement objectives. In December throughout the month, Flash Vote worked with staff to establish a panel of survey respondents from the local area. There were a total of 419 total panel members at the time that the survey was launched That number can continue to grow. The panel is open to continue have new members as we do surveys down the line.

A survey was held December 17th through December 19th and there were 206 participants, so just about half of the panel members participated in the survey. And it was conducted at various methods through text and phone online options. Each participant when they signed up was able to list their preference of how they wanted to participate in the survey. The margin of error on the survey results was plus or minus 7%. It's a little bit high, it would have been lower had we had more participants.

However, it's where we landed and the 7% is just for information as we're looking at the numbers know that they could be swayed by about 7%. So the questions that were asked during the survey, there were five questions. The idea of the survey is to keep it short so that people would participate and to have people sign up who are interested in giving feedback to Lompoc or about the city but to not bias them beforehand with what the survey is going to be about.

And so this survey asks, which do you think is a strength of Lompoc? Which aspects are most important to you? If the city or county were to collect a tax who do you prefer decides on how to spend the funds? Which is your preference for a sales tax increase and none was an option there. And any other comments or suggestions? One of the things that we really liked about FlashVote was that all results are visible to all panel members and participants, so anyone can go on and look at what the results are. Our hope is to be transparent with the community and to really receive the feedback from the community on what their preference is.

When you are on the website there are multiple ways to filter the data. So, you can look at all of the results which is what is included in the staff report and then you can filter it out by for example local. And that's what I'm going to be showing you here on the results on screen. So when we looked at the results of the locals only, you can see here on the first question, question one, what do you think is a strength of Lompoc?

The ease of getting around town was a clear outlier. Well, it was the most positive. Close behind that was our local recreation and parks and our library services. So it shows us what we've been doing well and I think this is a testament to how much effort we have been putting in recently in the local recreation and parks and so it shows in the community feedback So when you look at question number two, which of the following aspects of Lompoc are most important to you?

When we're looking at the responses of locals only it was clear that the physical safety and security was one of the top reasons. Right behind that was a condition of streets and roads. So those are clearly our top two most important to the community items. And we can go through, we can look at more detail on this if we want to get further into the weeds. We can do that. This is just an overview.

This is a scatter plot and I actually think this gives us one of the best Insights to what is important and needed in the community right now that shows the high importance and low satisfaction here. And these two items, these two bullets when we get into the live version you'll see that this one here is public safety and this one here is streets and roads.

And it's showing that there is a high importance for these items, but right now there is low satisfaction or lower satisfaction. And then we got into a little bit more specific question about the sales tax if due to the recent loss of funding for city streets and roads. There is the potential, we're thinking about proposing a half percent local sales tax increase that would add approximately 3.8 million to the city budget, change the sales tax rate in Lompoc from 8.75 to 9.25 and what they had to choose one of the following 137 responses by locals so of those 200, 137 were local 30% said no sales tax increase. 42% were supportive of a special sales tax increase that would be limited to streets and roads, and 20% indicated support of a general service, a general tax that would include streets and roads maintenance but also the public safety.

There's some of the words that were used in the final question about additional input. I thought it was interesting when you're in the survey and whenever anybody wants to go in, they can look at these results. You could click on any of these words and it'll pull up the comments. And so you can actually read the comments of your fellow citizens and community.

So just a real quick survey summary. We're going to be bringing in the President-CEO of FlashVote to discuss if you have questions about the statistics and everything, we're bringing him in. I think that he had the council meeting on in the background there so survey summary 62% support some form of tax increase, either specific to streets and roads or general services versus 30% opposed to the increase. Again that's a plus or minus 7%.

The highest what I would call pain points in the community are streets and roads and physical safety and security. Both are almost equally concerning to the constituents. One of the things that we can do with Flash Vote is do additional surveys. It was not just a one and done, it is something, it is a service that we have over the course of the year that we can do additional surveys to provide more insight if we wanted to dig into a particular question more or if we have something that's completely not related to this measure, we could do a survey down the line if we're looking at budget or any number of items.

Survey results are available at this website. We will have this presentation up on, with the agenda packet afterwards. It was one of these items that was time sensitive and we did not have leeway because of the timing of the results and the holidays to be able to get this done before today. So decisions tonight for council, this really is the information for you all to discuss and decisions are really do you want to proceed or not?

If you do then we need to decide or you need to decide whether to go with a June 2nd 2026 or November 3rd 2026 initiative. If June is decided, then staff will return at our next meeting with proposed language. And if November is decided, then staff can conduct further surveys and council can discuss more in the coming months. You also need to decide if we want to proceed with the special tax that had, I believe it was 42% was the indicated support for that or for a general tax which was at 20%, or combined was the 62%. And so that would be a question of how that 62% is divided up on special tax and general tax.

If you go with a special tax, then that requires a four-fifths council vote for a ballot initiative whether it's June or November. If general, then it requires a unanimous council declaration of fiscal emergency if we go with a June initiative or a four-fifths council vote for ballot initiative for November. So at this point I'd like to welcome Kevin Lyons, who is the owner and president in a flash vote through Zoom. We're going to see if we can get him on.