SUPERVISOR HOPEFUL TO SOLVE HOMELESSNESS: MORE HOMELESSNESS!

The Lompoc Record, bless its earnest little heart, recently informed us that District 5 supervisor candidate Ricardo Valencia is running on the riveting platform of 'housing and homelessness.' We were initially confused; isn't that what every single progressive candidate has promised for the last three decades, usually with the same dazzling results? Apparently, Mr. Valencia believes the solution to the housing crisis and its associated street-dweller epidemic is... well, more of the same. One can only imagine the sheer brilliance of his plan: perhaps a county-funded tiny-home-complex-slash-job-training-center-slash-holistic-wellness-commune, funded by a new 'wealth tax' on anyone who owns more than one pair of sensible shoes.

Now, we're not entirely sure what 'protecting services for working families' actually means, but if history is any guide, it usually translates to expanding bureaucratic programs that hire more county administrators than they help actual working families. It’s a classic move: identify a problem, propose a massive government spending program, then hire all your friends to run it. The problem persists, but at least the bureaucracy expands, and campaign donors get their slice.

What the Record conveniently overlooked is the direct correlation between the failed policies of previous progressive-leaning supervisors and the very issues Mr. Valencia now decries. Restrictive building codes, NIMBY-ism disguised as 'environmental protection,' and an addiction to 'affordable housing' mandates that actually make housing *less* affordable for everyone else – these are the real culprits. But don't expect any candidate beholden to the county's progressive establishment to point *that* out. Why solve the problem when you can just keep campaigning on it?

So, prepare yourselves, District 5. If this is the 'change' on offer, it sounds suspiciously like more of the same tired, tax-gobbling, symptom-treating political theater that has lined the pockets of activists and administrators while the actual issues fester. Perhaps Mr. Valencia's real solution is just to put a pretty bow on a runaway train and call it 'progress.'