Santa Maria Sun
Northern Santa Barbara County News & Entertainment Weekly
Things got a little wild at Lompoc’s last City Council meeting—so wild that Mayor Jim Mosby asked police officers to forcibly remove a woman from the chambers.
“Can you please remove her?” Mosby asked about resident Shawna Stillwell, who continued speaking after he warned the chattering crowd that he’d “clear the chambers.”
“We don’t want ‘judge and jury,’ we want leadership,” Stillwell shouted at the dais before exiting. “Your entire community is standing in here demanding accountability. This isn’t ‘innocent or guilty,’ this is trust.”
If you’ve been paying attention to what’s happening in Lompoc, you can guess what she’s shouting about. City Councilmember Steve Bridge.
On Sept. 15, a tied 2-2 vote meant the council members weren’t going to censure their colleague for the charges against him from the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office. Those allegations include misuse of city funds, identity theft, and forgery.
Bridge pleaded with the council to let the courts decide on his guilt before they did: “Proof first, judgement second.”
Mosby and Councilmember Jeremy Ball—who are competing for the mayoral seat this election cycle—were on opposite sides of that vote. Mosby first accused staff of being the problem, then he floated a conspiracy theory.
“There was an active movement to go after Councilmember Bridge. There was gloating about getting him,” Mosby said.
“From who?” Ball asked.
“I’m not going to tell you,” Mosby replied.
Oh! OK. Must be a big secret that only Mosby knows about. Conspiracies be like that.
Mosby also chastised city staff for approving flawed applications as part of the rebate program that got Bridge in trouble with the District Attorney’s Office.
“Why didn’t the application get thrown out?” Mosby asked. “The reason I ask this is because you end up setting traps for people. … This program was trapping a lot of people.”
Yes, I’m sure the way the rebate application was set up simply forced Bridge to find an old contractor’s license number that was no longer valid to put on his application so he could get money from the city. That wasn’t a choice that Bridge made himself.
“A lot of people filed applications that had flaws in them,” Mosby said. “Eleven accounts that had done this, and they went after one person.”
A missing contractor’s license number or a typo is not the same thing as what Bridge is accused of doing. But I guess justification is just how politics works these days. Why would anyone admit to wrongdoing so everyone can move on with their lives? When we can drag it out over the course of several meetings and then get all indignant, angry, and righteous! The whole thing was just political theater, not governance.
What a gigantic waste of everyone’s time. It’s not even worth getting kicked out of a meeting for! We all knew Bridge wasn’t getting censured, and we knew Mosby would lead the charge against the effort.
At least the courts have a process that’s apolitical—no matter what Trumpty Dumpty and Mosby say. The District Attorney’s Office is doing its job, and the justice system will weave its work slowly. And at some point, we’ll either have a plea agreement or a jury’s decision.
The Canary is a conspiracy theory. Send news to canary@santamarisun.com.
This article appears in September 24 – October 1, 2026.
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