SLO City Council pleases

I love San Luis Obispo! While I don't expect to always agree with the City Council, or anyone, I agreed with them last night when they rejected a proposal to build a bunch of millionaire homes way up on the steep hillsides overlooking Johnson Avenue. So here's a big, sloppy kiss to all the City Council members, who voted 5-0 against the projects. Thank you!

The Council must have known there was going to be a big public turnout. They moved from the City Council chambers to the Vet's Hall. Good thing! 300 people turned out. Everyone was opposed to the project, except the landowners and the people they hired to promote it. Congratulations to Deborah Cleere, for a great job in organizing the opposition. Deborah, for you I got my butt out to the meeting.

Sure, those houses would have had killer views. But that would have come at the expense of everyone else who had to look at the roads gashing the hillsides. Plus the folks living downhill would suffer more mudslides. Fire danger was very much on the minds of the public. (As I write this, half a million people, an historic event, have been evacuated due to fires ravaging the entire coast south of here.) Neighbors recounted stories of fires they lived through, sometimes barely.

Another aspect of the City Council meeting was the small-town, personal side. Council member Paul Brown reacted angrily to threats of taking development to the County with "This is a really bad time to threaten me." His back story includes an ongoing messy divorce, replete with ugly accusations from the ex, which have been splashed across the front pages of the local newspaper.

Council member Christine Mulholland predictably blasted the project. She provided fireworks as she really spoke her mind. She recalled her history fighting past "really stupid projects." The whole time people were split between embarrassment at her harsh criticism of the people wanting to build on their property, who were present in the audience, and lustily cheering her condemnation of the evildoers.

I waited towards the end before I took my turn to speak at the meeting. When I spoke, against the project on general planning principles, I accidentally said I was on the City Council, when I was on the Planning Commission. In my attempt at recovering my narrative, I said, well, I tried for the Council (in 2004, when I started this blog.)

Council member Andrew Carter picked up on that in his comments explaining his vote, saying if I kept trying I could have got on the Council. I am grateful to Council member Carter for the kind words he spoke of my accomplishments on the Planning Commission. I will say that the people who most wanted to get elected to the City Council, did. Congratulations to Andrew Carter for persevering, and ultimately winning. In his explanation of his vote, he started with naming people in the audience who he knew through PTA or some other adult support circle for kid things. He was in his element, and he was shining.

Professor Allen Settle was true to form, running through all his reasons for voting no. He reminded us of his history, certainly including his term as Mayor. Right you are, Allen.

Mayor Dave Romero surprised me with his no vote. As a politician he had to recognize the fact that 300 people turned out, and no one spoke in favor of the project. He did admit his inclination was as an engineer who wanted to rise to an engineering challenge: how to build a really difficult project. Yes, it could be done, but the cost would be high; even he had to admit that.

So we had a great conclusion: 5-0 against a "stupid" project. Too bad the public's energies once again had to be mobilized in a defensive action. How can we mobilize people FOR something? The challenges facing us are so great. Surely we will find those moments in our future.