I’m not sure what happened at the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors meeting on Sept. 10. Maybe it’s just been so long since I’ve seen a productive policy discussion about a contentious issue end in compromise and unanimous agreement—but that’s what happened.
What started out as a tense conversation about whether to form an ad hoc committee to study a farmworker minimum wage ended in an agreeable discussion about a committee that would study a much broader topic, including issues such as farmworker housing.
Two weeks prior, farmworkers and advocacy organizations bombarded the board with requests for them to set a $26 minimum wage for farmworkers in Santa Barbara County, pointing to cost of living and poverty as reasons. Supervisors decided to form an ad hoc committee to learn more about what it would mean—and apparently their email inboxes and cellphones were flooded with messages.
“There’s a lot of alarm out there, unnecessarily, at this point,” 2nd District Supervisor Laura Capps said. “The nature of our emails here is that we’ve already completed this issue.”
But it sounds like they’ve only just begun and might not actually go anywhere. After hearing several speakers talk about the tenuousness of the industry and some who spoke about farmers who had closed up shop or were planning to close their operations down, the board took a different tack.
Fourth District Supervisor Bob Nelson was hoping to throw the ad hoc committee idea away, or at least broaden the topic that was being discussed. What the board achieved was balance.
“I would prefer to have a productive conversation, and if we can have a more productive conversation with a wider mandate … ,” 1st District Supervisor Das Williams said. “I think that we should be examining this thing from multiple aspects.”
And so they did. They unanimously decided to change the title of the committee to one that would look at agricultural worker conditions, and away they went.
Somehow, they managed to twist the lid back on the can of worms that was opened in August. Color me impressed.
What I’m not impressed with is the dumpster fire that the city of Lompoc is prepping for: Its landfill could be full in 10 years, and it needs to figure out the best way forward.
Vandenberg Space Force Base isn’t even allowed to haul its garbage to the Lompoc Landfill because it doesn’t have enough space. The Space Force has to drive its trash to Santa Maria!
But Lompoc is between a rock and a stinky place: It needs to raise money to pay for whatever it decides to do, but it doesn’t want to raise rates for out-of-towners to hit the dump because it’s also worried about competition. What?
“I’m a little confused with staff’s position on the whole competition thing,” Councilmember Gilda Aiello said. Me too.
To build a transfer station or expand the landfill is going to cost millions, and eventually it could cost Lompoc ratepayers. Better to not cost ratepayers, right? Charge the freeloaders!
“It’s a balancing act between revenues and volume,” Lompoc Utility Director Brad Wilkie said.
Sounds like Lompoc should have built a bigger landfill to begin with. I guess hindsight is 20/20.
The Canary believes foresight is cheaper than hindsight. Send expansive ideas to [email protected].
