In a showdown with the Lompoc City Council over funding Tuesday night, the Lompoc Valley Chamber of Commerce amassed a mammoth crowd with 47 speakers spiced with community leaders seeking the reversal of an earlier vote that imperiled the future of a Lompoc institution founded in 1903.
Long story short: The council blinked.
Such an outcome seemed impossible two weeks ago, when four councilmembers appeared dead set on using the axe. But after moveable walls were folded away for the throng and 20 pro-chamber letters were noted, the council found itself face to face with local hero Mark Herrier, executive director of The Lompoc Theatre Project.
“The Theatre Project would not exist but for the chamber,” he declared. Herrier’s theater recently broke ground after birth as a pipedream in 2012.
Herrier was followed by grocer Aaron Crocker, three graduates of Leadership Lompoc Valley, a representative of the Solvang Chamber, Ann McCarty of the Rape Crisis Center, and Superintendent Kevin Walthers of Hancock College.
The waiting line stretched beyond where the portable wall had been. Mayor Jim Mosby decreed that each public comment would last only one minute instead of the customary three by cutting the mic, but still they came and talked, vocal cords be damned.
Three women talked of fledgling businesses, pastor James Earl Cray of True Vine Church called for justice, a young Realtor attacked “a lack of willingness to communicate,” and a longtime coach called chamber CEO De’Vika Stalling “a critical new piece” of the Lompoc puzzle. Stalling was praised by many.
The 34th speaker, Ken Ostini, served eight years as chamber CEO and in November was elected a Hancock College trustee. “We need the Chamber,” he said. “Things can be worked out.”
By 8:30 p.m., most of the crowd had gone, but it took until 11 p.m. and 10 more speakers for the council to decide that, yes, they could make enough revenue-enhancing tweaks to the draft budget to permit renewing their contract with the chamber.
“We can find money,” Mayor Mosby declared several times with dozens of suggestions. Councilmember Steve Bridge said he had 26 pages of them. The vote was 5-0.
CEO Stalling expressed her thanks. “I was overwhelmed with gratitude for how the Lompoc community showed up and advocated and saw value in what the chamber brings,” she said. “It’s a clear demonstration of what community is all about.”
