Familiar faces made up the candidates for Grover Beach City Council during a forum held recently at the Ramona Garden Park Center.
Candidates for the office of mayor include incumbent John P. Shoals and Ronald “Ron” Arnoldsen.
Shoals, who holds a degree from Cal Poly in city and regional planning, served on the council starting in 2002. In 2008, he became the city’s first directly elected mayor. He was elected again in 2010 and termed out in 2012.
“Good things are happening in Grover Beach,” Shoals said. “I think we all know that. You have seen it chronicled recently. Streets are being done. Water and gas lines are being upgraded. Police and fire are a priority; we will have a fully staffed police department here very soon. We have fundamentally improved emergency services and fire in this community. Economic development is happening.”
Arnoldsen, a dentist who formerly served on the Grover Beach City Council from 1992 to 2004 did not attend the forum but provided an opening statement that was presented.
“I have an impressive record of community involvement,” Arnoldson wrote. “I consider the office of mayor in Grover Beach an area of community involvement. I will donate the mayor’s salary [$300 per month] back to programs the City of Grover Beach sponsors such as a tree program or the concerts in the parks series.”
Arnoldsen said he questions the timing for the planned Grover Beach Lodge and Conference Center and he supports a building moratorium until sufficient water supplies are in place.”
The office of mayor is a two-year term.
Three candidates are vying for two seats on the council including incumbent Jeff Lee along with former mayor Debbie Peterson and Terry Wingate who was not in attendance.
“I’m a civil engineer,” said Lee. “I work for the San Luis Obispo County Public Works by day, so I have the expertise and the knowledge to discuss roads, to discuss water along with, hopefully, a common sense approach to addressing issues before the council and before the community.”
Peterson, a business owner who holds a degree in communications from the University of Idaho, served on the council in 2008 to 2012 and was elected as mayor in 2014.
“It is really important for us to support our local businesses,” said Peterson. “It is the businesses that bring in the funds that help us to do the things that we need to do to make Grover Beach a better place.”
Council members serve a four-year term.
Candidates were given an opportunity to respond to all questions from the audience. First up, they were asked to describe their leadership philosophy.
“My leadership philosophy is to be inclusive,” said Shoals. “I believe the mayor sets the tone and the tenor for the discussion that happens at the city council.”
Lee said his philosophy is to “lead through action.”
“Action sometimes means active listening,” said Lee, “actively reading staff reports or communications that address an issue, and being decisive—listening to public testimony and making an action—as well as cooperation and making a consensus.”
Peterson said that diversity is important.
“As council members we are your representative, and we cannot represent you, if we don’t hear from you,” Peterson said. “The most important thing in every case is to hear from you. It is also important to hear diverse opinions, to honor diverse opinions and respect diverse opinions.”
Water supply needs are at the heart of almost every forum in the county.
“Ideas and plans to address water supply needs are multi-pronged,” said Lee. “The first that the community has been doing and continues to do is conserve. That is a wonderful thing that the community is doing, however, we are not going to be able to conserve our way out of a drought.
Lee supports pursuing water reclamation through the South County Sanitation District proposed project.
Peterson would like to see more action on the rainwater recapture front with new or renovated buildings.
“We have some big users like the schools,” said Peterson. “I think I would like to have us talk with Lucia Mar Unified School District about rainwater recapture on some of their sites. It’s educational for the kids, but it also helps us a great deal.”
She also supports working with the Sanitation District and Philips 66 concerning water reclamation.
Shoals, who serves on the Sanitation District board, said that part of a settlement from a lawsuit against the facility over a sewage spill in 2010 would be used for a regional groundwater sustainability project started by the City of Pismo Beach.
“We are going to contribute to that study, and we are already at the table,” he said. “We are also looking at ways to reclaim water at that [Sanitation District] facility.”
It seems almost impossible to talk about low water supplies without considering a building moratorium. None of the candidates support a moratorium in part to the lack of build out potential within the city and processes already in place for water savings efforts for new development.
Measure L-16 that will ask voters to approve a commercial cannabis tax should business related to that field be approved to operate in the city.
“The conversations we have had are with people who come up and talk about the benefits of medical marijuana and how it has impacted their lives,” said Shoals adding that he knows people who have used cannabis while fighting cancer. “When I hear the stories of those [people] out there, I think this is the humane thing for us to do.”
Lee supports the measure as well.
“The industry is here,” he said. “The industry is perched to be a clean industry, a green industry, and with appropriate mechanism in place through an ordinance passed by the city, it will be a safe industry as well… As the industry comes forward we need a way to support services that are going to be impacted by that—fire and life safety.”
Peterson said she also supports Measure L-16 for the medical benefits but she has concerns with pot still being illegal at a federal level.
“The feds are still the boss,” she said. “I have seen, personally, people go to jail for being involved with this industry. I’ve seen lives destroyed by that. I want to make sure that we aren’t setting people up to land in the penitentiary.”
All three candidates somewhat reluctantly support the half-cent sale tax measure the San Luis Obispo County Office of Governments placed on the ballot to address traffic congestion. It would sunset in 9 years while bringing in about $6.9 million to Grover Beach.
The Arroyo Grande & Grover Beach Chamber of Commerce sponsored the forum.
