City Council — April 21, 2026

632, welcome to the Lompoc City Council Tuesday April 21st regular city council meeting. Roll call please.

We trust that you are always present God, and so your blessings are always present. As the rain falls on the land would you pour out your Spirit on us? We ask that you fill this room today and the people in it. Guide us and lead us, inspire us and convict us. Give us both creativity and wisdom, grace and truth, compassion and justice. Tonight we lift up the business of this meeting and the needs of our community. We pray for your kingdom to come, and your will to be done. We pray for teachers and nurses, for first responders and counselors, business owners and utility workers, coaches and city councilors.

We ask that you protect our city and those who serve it, that you build and strengthen our community, and that you enable us to care for our people and steward our resources well. God give rest to the weary and hope to the despairing healing to the sick We lift up people who feel trapped, or lonely, or afraid. Bring peace and hope. Protect us from all evil.

And may we and our city be known for love, integrity, and unity. We trust ourselves in this meeting to you knowing that your light is greater than any darkness. And we thank you. Amen. Please remain

standing until we have the Pledge of Allegiance. Ready? Begin.

republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for

all. Those that have done so Those who haven't done so, a reminder to silence your cell phones. Presentations, I did get a presentation on April 11th. I have an honor to do two more tonight. One is Child Abuse and Sexual Awareness Prevention Month, so if they want to join me at the podium Okay, so presenting to Sabrina Associate Director of North County Rape Crisis. All right. Thank you So proclamation for child abuse and sexual assault awareness and prevention month Whereas child abuse and sexual assault are serious community conditions that affect the health, safety and well-being of all residents. And addressing these issues requires active involvement from individuals and organizations throughout the community. And whereas people of all racial, cultural and economic backgrounds are impacted by sexual violence which is widespread and affects every segment of this community.

And rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment cause lasting harm as statistics show that child abuse, child sexual abuse prevention must be a priority as one in six boys and one of four girls will experience sexual abuse before the age of 18. And whereas Child Welfare Services received 3,927 cases for investigation In North County, including 1116 cases in Lompoc area and 47 unique allegations of sexual abuse investigated. And whereas the emotional and physical scars resulting from sexual violence and child abuse are often long lasting. And whereas working together to educate the community about prevention Support survivors and speak out against harmful attitudes and behaviors is critically important, and whereas effective child abuse prevention programs and sexual assault awareness and prevention education succeed through partnership among social service agencies, schools Youth organizations, faith-based organizations, civic groups, law enforcement agencies, the business community and residents.

And whereas prevention is possible when everyone is engaged through increased education awareness and community involvement while recognizing the compassion and dedication of those working in prevention and response efforts and acknowledging the challenges faced by victims and survivors of sexual violence and child abuse as well as The impact of their families and loved ones. Now therefore I, James Mosby, Mayor of City of Lompoc do hereby proclaim April 2026 as Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Awareness Prevention Month. And the City of Lompoc can call upon all citizens, community agencies, law enforcement, faith-based organizations, medical facilities, and businesses to increase awareness of efforts to prevent child abuse and sexual violence, to learn the myths and facts surrounding sexual assault, and to work together to strengthen the safety and well-being of our community.

Good evening Mayor Mosby and members of the City Council. My name is Sabrina Ross, I'm the Associate Director of the North County Rape Crisis and Child Protection Center Thank you for recognizing and honoring our work with these proclamations, recognizing Sexual Assault Awareness Month and Child Abuse Prevention Month. I am grateful that the City of Lompoc stands with us in our mission to eradicate all forms of sexual violence and child abuse.

As we mark the significance of the month of April let us remember that education is the key to prevention. I can say with confidence that each of us in this room would rather prevent child abuse or sexual assault from ever occurring than having to intervene in the aftermath of such a heinous crime. This is why our outreach and educational programs are so critical, and why our partnerships with schools, city leadership, and law enforcement are essential.

The children in our communities deserve to be safe and to grow up knowing they can live free from abuse, and those who have been or are being abused know they are not alone and there are people who will help them. Last month I had the privilege of assisting a survivor of child sexual abuse prepare his victim impact statement for the sentencing of his abuser.

He started counseling with me when he was 12, and he is now 16. As he was dictating his statement for me to type up, I asked him, when did you realize what happened to you as abuse? And why did you decide to speak up? This survivor was abused at an age so young that he didn't understand what was happening to him was abuse. He said to me, when I was in seventh grade some ladies came into my class and talked about sexual assault and how to say no and who to talk to if something happened to you.

After that presentation I was thinking about telling my mom and I eventually did. He told his mom who contacted law enforcement He was interviewed by Officer Justice from the Lompoc Police Department, and a second victim came forward. The District Attorney's Office prosecuted that case with DDA Jordan Lockey working diligently to hold this abuser accountable and after nearly four years reached a plea deal that resulted in a 24-year prison sentence.

What began with the center's child-safe educational program at Vandenberg Middle School continued with the courage of a survivor, the compassion and kindness of an officer, the commitment of the district attorney's office to justice, and ultimately ended with prevention because that perpetrator will never hurt another child again. When people ask me where I work, their response is often, I didn't know there was a rape crisis center here.

To which I gently reply, most people do not know that we exist until they need us. And while I would never wish upon any individual or family that they become in need of our services, it is deeply important that people know we are here and that is where you come in. Proclamations like this evening's may feel like a routine part of City Council meetings, but these and the support you provide our agency is incredibly valuable to our work in the community we serve because we cannot do this alone.

The story I shared with you would not have been possible if we didn't have the support of city leaders, if we didn't have the community donors that fund our educational and counseling programs If we didn't have strong partnerships with law enforcement and the district attorney's office, it took a village and everyone here is part of that village. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse I wish I'd had this kind of village. Much like my client, I didn't truly understand what happened to me until I was in my teens and I felt very alone trying to process that experience and those memories well into adulthood While I am not the reason our educational efforts are so important, my own experience is what fuels me every single day.

Every child deserves safety and when they aren't safe they deserve to know that help is available. No child

Well, is this your first presentation? It is, isn't it? It is. Yeah. To us at Council, we appreciate that and congrats on the move. That's going to save you significant money as well, correct?

Yes, yes

sir. And good to hear the membership turnaround is changing. What was that in your circle up there you had on the pie chart you had a...

On the right, yeah.

So what's a courtesy?

So the courtesy members, what we found and these were the numbers that we were looking at when I've been there three months and a week. We had a lot of memberships that were considered courtesy members so those numbers show all of the people that were on our books as members they enjoyed the membership benefits but they were not paying membership dues

Are you turning that around? Are they paying? I mean, you guys

are trying to survive, right? So they are no longer considered members. We have those lists. We are reaching out to those members individually to find out if they still would like to be considered members. But at this point, they will not be receiving membership benefits for free. We cannot continue to operate on the budget margins we have without receiving membership dues.

That's kind of hard when you have a 60% free membership and 40% paying. That's not really the Chamber of Commerce, is that? It's a different chamber.

There are ways to stay included and involved. We have our newsletters. We have our social medias. I would continue to do that but as far as the full membership benefits no. I can't continue to do courtesy memberships in that way.

Very good looking forward to working with you and seeing you at Old Town and State of

I'm filling in for City Manager Dean Alvaro at this meeting, so let's see how I do.

Looking good. Thank you. First off, we're excited to announce that the Summer Park and Recreation brochure is now available. The brochure can be viewed online or in person at the Anderson Rec Center so take a moment to browse the brochure and register for a multitude of upcoming summer programs. And then we also wanted to remind everyone that the annual Parks and Rec and Kiwanis Club's Track and Field Championship is coming up this Saturday, April 26. The event takes place at Lompoc High School's Huck Stadium with check-in beginning at 8 and the events will run from 9 to 3 p.m.

The events include sprints, distance runs and field events so this is a wonderful community tradition and we invite everybody to come cheer on Lompoc's athletes Next we have the City Building and Safety

Division. You said Saturday, did you mean Sunday?

I'm sorry, let me see. It's actually Sunday, April 26th. I apologize. Yes, Sunday. So that's Sunday from 9 to 3 with check-in at 8 o'clock. Thank you Council Member Bridge. Next facility, the city's building and safety division is hosting a developers roundtable meeting. So recently the city hired a new building official Michael Lowe and on May 6th 2026 at 1130 AM here in the council chamber, Mike will be providing a brief presentation on some recent business process improvements and ask for feedback on other areas to focus And we ask that the contractors please contact the building department with any additional questions and to RSVP.

Next, we have the community development department and the city are kicking off the 2050 general plan update. This is a series of community workshops that will be held together public input. The first workshop will be held next Monday April 27th here in City Chambers. The workshop is an open house format And residents are invited to stop in between 630 and 830 to share what they love about Lompoc, what could be improved and what they envision for the city's future.

We're looking forward to some engaging public comments so please join us. Next, Transit and Earth Day. Celebrate Earth Day with City of Lompoc Transportation. So we're excited to announce that along with regional partners SPCAG, Clean Air Express, San Ynez Valley Express and others, rides are free tomorrow Wednesday April 22nd for Earth Day We encourage you to take advantage of this great opportunity to use this fantastic public transit We wanted to take a minute to recognize our library and library staff during National Library Week. National Library Week is an annual celebration that highlights the important roles of libraries and library professionals. The celebration also recognizes the importance of, the value and strengths that libraries bring to our communities.

Thank you to the Lompoc library staff for their dedication to the library not only this week but always. Next, the Lompoc Police Department and the Parks and Rec. Division will be hosting a Senior Scam Awareness presentation. All community members are invited to attend this presentation on Tuesday April 28th at the Dick Dewey Community and Senior Center. The police department will be covering common scams that frequently target senior citizens. This presentation will be held at 1030 a.m.. I think that's a really important presentation for us to make our community aware of scams that are going on right now. And then finally we have a joint special meeting request so we'd like to put forward a request for a joint special meeting with the City Council and the Planning Commission.

We're proposing that the meeting be held on Tuesday July 14th at 6 30 p.m. and it will be the biannual joint meeting and workshop And the 2020, the 2050 general plan update will be discussed. So if the council is amenable to that we would like to request that we reserve July 14th at 630 p.m. for the joint meeting and that's all I have. Anybody?

July 14th? Thumbs up? Yeah? Yes? Mayor Vega? Hot date that night, can't make it? It's fine. So I've got a couple of quick questions and it was just some statements were made, I just wanted some clarification. You're in the hot seat. I'll do my best. Yeah, I know you will. So at the last Public Safety Commission meeting there was concerns about the police department being able to enforce municipal code.

Is there something that we need to do? Or is there something you can explain as to... Mainly there were two municipal codes that are kind of unable to enforce. One was the RV ordinance and the other was bicycles on the sidewalks. Is there something you can fill in on what's going on?

You know, I'm not aware of that. And then municipal codes are the code that the city has and they are enforceable so I can work with our police department to get some clarification on that. I know the council did adopt an RV ordinance in a parking ordinance. So I don't have the information on it but I will work with our chief and our police department on those two ordinances.

And maybe if there's something we need to do maybe we need to go out I'll follow up with that. City Manager

Alvaro when he returns as

well. Another statement I had a question about, and that's the towing service agreement which we as a council have asked for review. And I understand it was said at that meeting that the new TSA was signed already by the police department and I'm not sure how that happened. Is that an agreement that needs to go through the council or is that just bypasses the council?

Maybe some clarification on what happened? City attorney.

I'm not aware of the exact circumstances, but it's an agreement of the city with a vendor so it should come through the council if it's over a certain dollar amount.

Okay maybe we could get a follow-up on what's going on with TSA? We'll put

that on the

list to follow

up with City Manager Alvaro.

Thank you anybody else have any other questions?

All

right, good job. Thank you Mayor, thank you members of the council. So we move on to public comment on consent calendar and we've got a consent calendar I can see everybody's excited about this one

Mayor, before we get started on the consent calendar, I wanted to state for the record that Council Member Starbuck needs to recuse himself from all of the checks in item number two that are related to the Lompoc Valley Chamber of Commerce. That is because the Lompoc Valley Chamber of Commerce is a source of income to Council Member Starbuck. So he does not need to leave the room because it's a consent calendar item. But any of the checks that are in Item No. 2, he will recuse himself from tonight.

All right, so again public comment on consent calendar. I'll read the consent calendar items into the record We have number one which is the approval of the minutes of the Lompoc City Council meeting for February 3rd 2026 Approval and ratification of expenditures for payroll March 13th 2026 for 2.135 million And a payroll of March 27th 2026 of 2.184 million And we have a voucher register of March 16th to the 20th, 2026 at 1.541 million and a voucher register for March 23rd, 27, 2026 of 2.09 million.

Number three is adoption of resolution number 6809 parentheses 26 approving amendment number two to the Lompoc Police Officers Association MOU 2025-2027 to ensure compliance with CalPERS requirements. Number four is approve second amendment to agreement with Bureau Veritas North America, incorporate for plant checks and inspection services. Authorize the city manager to sign the agreement and authorize the purchasing of materials manager issue a purchase order. Number five is approval of change order requests to purchase order with SWT engineering for landfill gas remediation project And number six is the approval of change order request to purchase order with Ingle and Gray Incorporated for organics hauling and processing service.

And number seven is approval of additional national opioid settlements with six regional distributors, dispensers associated with Pharmacies Incorporated, J.M. Smith Corporation Louisiana Wholesale Drug Company Incorporated, Morrison Dixon Company North Carolina Mutual Wholesale Drug Company Incorporated and United National Natural Foods Incorporated adoption of resolution number 6810, parentheses 26 authorizing the city manager to execute the settlement documents.

And number eight is consideration of modifying the wastewater winter averaging calculation method for calculating wastewater charges schedule a notice of public hearing for July 24th, 2026 for proposed modifications to the wastewater winter averaging calculation method in accordance with Prop 218 Again, public comment. Do any council members wish to pull any items? I wish to pull item number eight.

And you want item number four or did you have a quick question or... Okay, you're gonna pull item number four? Very good. So items that are pulled by the Council will be addressed immediately before the second oral communications near the end of the meeting. So item four we'll pull. I had a couple quick questions before I look for the motion of approval. So, is Steve Clark? Yes. Steve Clark.

I'll just run it through the... I'm good you don't think you need on this one. My question to the acting city manager is When items are related to utilities, I think it'd be appropriate that we run these by the Utility Commission and just to reach out that we do that. It's good to do a trial run. I know Mr. Cross did that with item number eight and it's good for the public to see that in review but I think it's important to get it. The commission disappeared for awhile. We need to get Luke back together. Gives you an opportunity as well As the Solid Waste Regulatory Complaints Supervisor, I know they'd like to hear what you've got to say. It would be great to go to the commission and express what's going on.

Maybe number six, you could answer a quick question on item number six that I had? So if you could come to the podium for that one, I'm sorry. In item number six, this is your first time at the podium for us isn't it?

Yeah. With this group correct.

Good. Welcome. Thank you. So I guess my question is we have a purchase order and we're hauling compost. Is there any way that we could do something locally? We're spending a lot of money conserving and saving the environment hauling product Somewhere else. Is it more efficient or is there just nobody local we can put this together with?

Yeah, correct. England Gray is essentially the closest composter to the landfill. We went out with an RFP back in 2018 and kind of surveyed the lay of the land and they came out on top. They are the closest facility to us, and are able to compost and process the green waste in compliance with SB 1383. And they came out to be the most responsive bidder during that process.

So this request is to get us funding through July while we work through another RFP process to get back into a long-term agreement

Yeah it's going up to $300,000 to transport compost. Right?

Yeah and that's partly because we get in so much green waste of food scraps into the landfill And with the additional efforts of Accepting Food Scraps, that's brought those volumes up a little bit. The other reason why this year I think it's been a little bit more expensive is because we grind the mixture of the green waste and the food scraps up at the landfill and the grinder is getting up there in age And so there are like some months, maybe two to three months, four months sometimes where the grinder's down.

And so for this fiscal year we were actually grinding the stockpile from a good chunk of the previous fiscal year. So that's why these expenditures are a little bit higher than in previous fiscal years.

So doing a little catch up?

Yeah.

OK. Anybody else have any questions for that? No? Thank you. Please come on down to the Utility Commission, talk about some composting or something and they'll look at the compliance components that you have to go through and everything you're having to do. I don't have any more questions for you. I do have a quick one for Gabe. It's item number three. The reason why we're doing all these changes, but it's no cost is?

There's no cost to it because that's in the MOU already. What it is, is it's the language that we need to have in the MOU that puts us in compliance with CalPERS and the Public Employees Retirement Law. So it just language changes so that it conforms to their compliance requirements. So there's no change to any of the benefits that are already in the MOU.

Thank you for that. All right, motion for the remainder was items four and eight.

Councilor Ivega what do you got? I'll make a motion that we accept consent calendar with the exception of item number four which will bring back.

Four and eight. Four and eight okay. Seconded first by Vega seconded by Ball let's go ahead vote. Not voted. Was that me? Vega? Try it again, let's push buttons again. Hold on wait till it turns colors we're going to vote one more time. We've got to make the motion and the second and just go ahead and vote. Technology huh how about that guys there we go and that passes five zero all right so Another staff presentation on the implementation of time clocks, direction and input from the council. Who gets to do this

one?

Lucky you. Good

evening Council, Mayor. I'm here to present for a council request on the process and implementation of time clocks We're going to go over the cost and additional considerations. So the way it would incorporate with our payroll system, we would have tablet-sized or tablet style screens at every location within the city where people would read their proximity badge. They'd scan it. It would give them a chance to clock in or give them a chance to clock out as they were leaving. That information would be uploaded directly into the payroll system based on the time in and time out. It would be a dedicated kiosk or tablet at each location.

There's also the ability to do mobile entry, either by phone or by web and the system allows for geotracking and geofencing. So geotracking means supervisors can know if someone is logging in or tracking in by web It will tell them where they're located when they're doing it. And geofencing would restrict the area that the person could clock in from, so there are some issues with that but those are the capabilities of the system.

The cost of implementation, the license and implementation is about $70,000. That's a one-time cost and then 6647 annually after that plus there's a cost for the hardware which is the tablets essentially we'd need about 18 we've determined based on the number one The total cost of the system would be $112,000 to $117,000. There are a couple of things we need to consider, we should discuss. Do we implement it for all employees or just the hourly non-exempt employees? Currently exempt employees just mark their leave time that they're using during the time. They don't clock in, they don't enter their time in and time out.

Non-exempt employees enter the number of hours every day at work. And then for staff who start during their day off-site, there is the mobile app option. There's also possibilities to have a person in every department be the timekeeper and be able to do manual adjustments. For instance if someone is at a conference they can't clock in or clock out or if the electric crew has an emergency weekend So the next steps if we were to implement, the council would be looking for direction and input from council on how we would implement this.

We need council approval to let us know to further pursue this. We would have to hold a meet and confer with all the labor unions that would be subject to time clocks because this is a bargained item, and we don't know how those discussions would go but that would probably be the next step to get direction to start those discussions. And that's what I have, and I'm here for any questions.

Anybody have questions? Let me first start off. I appreciate this has been, I think I made this motion about 10 years ago was the first time I did it so I've been waiting 10 years for this to come forward and I wasn't on for a while that council brought it forward and then it kind of rolled off magically off the list and we were able to get it back on One of the reasons I did 10 years ago, approximately this was I had a number of employees coming in telling me about falsification of timesheets.

It was in a lot of different departments. There was one that was a large complication and it was with upper management falsification So that's one of the reasons why I asked for this item to go forward. I think the complexity, which a lot of people don't realize is all these modified schedules as well are very hard to follow. And from what I gather, you're not supposed to be trading if you're a 980. You're not supposed to trade Mondays or Fridays. Whatever your day is, you keep your day. But I've witnessed people trading days and even recently have witnessed accidentally Timesheets being forgot about when people on days they had taken half days off and such, and people accidentally forgot themselves.

But I think it's critical especially when people can buy their vacation days or get paid out of their days on the back. That's real money. And I think we need a hardcore accounting to make sure what we're doing. But one of the items I brought up way back when was an accounting of where the people were, whether they were on the clock or not on the clock when something happened.

If it's an accident or in this case, the gentleman I think was down in LA area and was able to prove his innocence because he was on the clock and he was somewhere else so working in his favor. I know there was a case in Sacramento where somebody ended up getting killed and he was on his way to work It wasn't things who exonerated the city because the person wasn't on the clock. In today's times, I think it's very important that we are moving into the 21st century and coming on with this progression so I do appreciate your presentation and openness for us to move forward.

Council Member Ball

you have a question? Sure, just a couple maybe comments and question. I don't really have too much of an issue with it. I think accountability is wise although I do sometimes wonder if...I've worked in restaurants before and there definitely be people clock in and clock out The mayor mentioned something about 10 years ago I think he basically is saying fraud from staff. So, I guess I'd ask if there's any current evidence of management or staff fraudulently filling out this stuff? If so we should definitely look into that because that's quite the claim. So I haven't heard that and no one has presented any information to me about that. Are we out of...I don't know who can answer this but are we out of compliance currently with the way that we record our times?

No. There are a couple local cities I know who have time clocks, but they're not that common. But now we're in compliance and we've always met auditors needs for documentation when requested.

Yeah so again my comment, I'm not against it if this is the way council wants to go so be it. But I just question whether we're going to get better work product or is it a better approach to insist or demand that our directors, managers are keeping their staff accountable and actually checking boxes for things that we need to get done. But again if somebody is fraudulently filling out the time clocks and that's current I think you should bring evidence so that we can address that head on instead of it just being a mention.

And I did at that time, so it was a lower level complaining about a manager director and falsification of timesheets. So I did pass that on.

Is that happening now?

No, that was then. That was like I said when I had made this request.

Do you think that's still happening right now?

I think there's some accidental, I don't think there's purpose stuff. I do know of some accidental stuff that happened. And somebody was actually going oh look, I do my own book right here and I go well remember that day you were off? Oh yeah, I forgot. And it clocked in four more hours than they actually had that day. So yeah, I get it. We're all busy and how hard is it to go beep-beep?

And then there's simple no question about it so...

Sure. So I get there's a couple mentions or it sounds like mistakes. $117 grand for this system-ish? And who pays for that? Where does that come from? Each department pitches in