SLO Journal Article

By SLO Mayor Dave Romero

The past four years have been good ones for our beloved city:

 

Housing: 

A. The City was able to come to agreement with HUD’s housing figures and subsequently adopt an award-winning City Housing Element.  This has enabled us to apply for and receive over $600,000 in housing grants rather than the threatened sanctions.

B. We’ve completed the planning process for the Margarita and the Airport areas (after over ten years) and are now in the process of annexing and controlling development in those areas.  Three tentative maps, representing 291 homes are now in process.

C. In 2003, Cal Poly built on-campus housing for 800 students, is now under constriction for 70 faculty housing homes, and has broken ground for an on-campus village, starting in 2008, which will eventually provide housing for 2700 additional students. 

 

Water: 

A. The reclaimed water project is expected to be placed in service this month allowing irrigation to our golf course, playing fields, and parks and saving hundreds of acre-feet of our domestic water supply.

B. We have come to agreement with North County and are well underway with the environmental studies, design, and right-of-way acquisition, and needed permit approvals of a water pipeline from Nacimiento Lake to San Luis Obispo.  When this is completed in about four years, SLOTOWN’s water needs will be solved for many years.

 

Quality of Life:

A. The City has adopted an Energy, Conservation and Open Space Element of our General Plan, thus setting policies and programs in place to preserve our open space and encourage conservation of all kinds.

B. We have completed construction and opened for play, the Damon-Garcia Sports Complex, and will be out to bid this fall on the Sinsheimer Swim Center therapy pool.

C. We have continued our active open space protection program, acquiring an additional 396 acres during the past four years, for a total of 4780 acres preserved for future generations.

D. Two years ago, after the San Simeon earthquake, we accelerated the City’s seismic retrofit program.  The community has responded beautifully with 41 of 125 buildings already retrofitted.  All others are in some stage of planning, design, review or construction.  A wonderful unexpected benefit has been the revitalization of many stores in downtown, all in keeping our beautiful historic character.

E. Mardi Gras excesses have finally been quelled after huge expenditures of time, energy, money and manpower.  In its place, we have the emergence of Fiesta de Sol, our long-time hometown celebration.

F. The Marsh Street parking structure expansion was completed and the brand new parking structure and City office building on Palm Street is now ready to open, thus helping to assure the vitality of downtown.

 

With all of these wonderful things happening in our city, why am I not a completely happy camper?  You all know I’m a Public Works guy, and streets and roads are near and dear to my heart.  With the severe financial problems of the State and Federal government, funds to cities have been reduced to a trickle. In addition, over the past fifteen years, the State has taken away from SLO City $22 million (now at the rate of $3+ million/yr.).  Although every facet of City government has shared the pain of reduced funding, our streets repair program has been decimated.  When we were spending around $3 million/yr. on street maintenance, we were gaining on the condition of our streets, but this year’s $0.5 million program will only achieve patching and minimal paving on a few arterial streets.  In addition, our traffic congestion management and flood protection programs have come to a virtual halt.

 

I believe our best approach to returning to the high service levels our city has historically enjoyed is to resolve the problem by our own actions.  WE can do this by voting to increase the sales tax by only ½ cent if the City Council places a measure on the November ballot.  You’ll be hearing more of this over the next several months.

 

Meanwhile, rich or poor, it’s still great to be Mayor of our beloved SLOTOWN.