SLOTOWN CAN BE PROUD
Sept. 2007

Journal Article by Mayor Dave Romero

For a number of years your city has been following a path that has led us to become perhaps the finest city in California. We were the first to ban smoking in bars, restaurants and workplaces. We have received much recognition for our downtown, for Farmers Market and for Mission Plaza.

Not quite as well recognized are the many policies and practices which the city has adopted to continually improve our community. We have adopted “Compact Urban Form” as a growth philosophy and have limited industries to those that are non-polluting and low energy users. The city has been a leader in solid waste recycling and water conservation. We operate a very successful transit system, are a “Bicycle Friendly City” and for 25 years have received recognition as a “Tree City, USA”. We are well under way with acquisition of a greenbelt  in the hills around our city, together with construction of miles of biking and hiking trails.

Recently the city invested over 3 million dollars in numerous energy saving and renewable energy projects at the wastewater plant, the water treatment plant, the swim center, the Recreation Center and the Utilities Administration Building. The new city parking structure/city offices building is heated and cooled by means of a heat pump, a non-polluting, energy saving technology. We invested in these projects because they have a good payback within a reasonable number of years and will then generate cash or energy savings for the long term.

The city recently adopted greatly expanded Energy and Materials chapters in our Conservation and Open Space Element of the General Plan, covering both city government and private construction. We adopted these standards and made these investments because they positively influence our quality of life and provide a positive financial return for our citizens.

Last month several SLO civic leaders were invited to Berkeley to advise them on a project to open one of their busy downtown blocks with a flowing stream in a landscaped, pedestrian setting, somewhat similar to Mission Plaza. San Luis Obispo is also recognized by organizations concerned with Global Warming for the many efforts by the city to conserve resources and make operations more efficient. We weren’t thinking about global warming when we did them, but the net effect is the same.

With many organizations recognizing the jewel that San Luis Obispo has become, everyone in SLOTOWN can be proud of what we have all accomplished. There are many more improvements coming on for us in the next few years, and thanks to measure Y we’ll be catching up on a lot of deferred maintenance. I can hardly wait for all this to happen. We’ll be so proud, I hope we don’t burst.