Earlier this year, a few local citizens created great concern when they tried to imply that something sinister was happening concerning the finances of Visit Lompoc Incorporated (VLI).
According to a May 21 staff report, “Between the months of March and June 2023, three individuals made public comments during the regularly held City Council meetings alleging unaccounted funds in VLI’s annual reports, calling for the city of Lompoc to either conduct or commission an independent financial audit of VLI.”
VLI manages the Lompoc Tourism Improvement District using funds collected from special assessments that were approved by voters.
According to the Ralph M. Brown Act, the City Council “must set aside (time) for public to comment on any other matters under the body’s jurisdiction” during public meetings. The council cannot respond to these comments at the time unless it’s on the agenda; however, they must respond to grand jury reports.
On May 2, 2023, the city attorney reported to the City Council that “after review, staff has determined that the majority of [the citizen’s] claims are without merit.” He also indicated that the claims had factual errors.
Ultimately the Santa Barbara County grand jury, based on a citizen complaint, decided to investigate these allegations. The jury determined that VLI submitted its reports late as required by the city; however, the jury also noted that the Property and Business Improvement District Law of 1994 does not require such reports to be submitted in that time frame.
The city received the 2024 grand jury report, “Lompoc Tourism Improvement District Management Agreement 2019-2028,” on March 18. The report contained six recommendations, each alleging that the city had failed to require that VLI submit audit reports.
According to a recent city of Lompoc response, the grand jury was poorly informed about the relationship of the city of Lompoc to VLI. In the city’s response, it informs the presiding judge that none of the jury’s recommendations will be implemented because the city has no management/oversight responsibility for VLI or the Lompoc Tourism Improvement District.
The May 21 staff report states that the city “continues to hold the opinion that as a passthrough agent of non-city funds, the city does not hold responsibility to audit nor to impose regulations other than those specified in the VLI agreement on VLI, and that spending time on such activities would be a misuse of taxpayer funds if the city were to devote additional staff time to researching, analyzing, and opining on an entity outside of the city’s purview.”
According to that staff report, “More than 150 hours of staff and attorney time have been spent addressing this unsubstantiated issue since the initial allegations were brought against VLI. Preparation for the grand jury investigation, analysis of the grand jury report, analysis of VLI’s reported financial transactions, comparison of VLI’s annual reports, preparation of this and other related staff reports, and preparation of the response letter to the grand jury took time away from staff’s ability to work on other important city business. The total estimated fully allocated cost of the staff time required for the aforementioned activities is over $50,000.”
This seems like a waste of time and money by the city to respond to an ill-informed public’s concern. But since the concerns were echoed by the grand jury and required an official response, the city had little choice but to point out the numerous inaccuracies in the assertions and recommended actions.
Hopefully this puts this issue to rest, but considering the past actions of the folks making the allegations, it isn’t likely that their egos will accept any of the explanations provided to the grand jury.
Ron Fink writes to the Sun from Lompoc. Send a letter for publication to [email protected].
