When I served on the SLO City Council, there were various controversial projects that did not receive unanimous votes. After one such vote, I attended the annual local American Institute of Architects Christmas party where an architect who worked on that project got in my face and berated me for not supporting it.
I said, “What’s the problem? You got your project.”
He said, “We wanted a unanimous vote.”
I said, “There are a lot of people who disapproved of it, and they deserve a voice, too. This is a democracy, goddammit, and I don’t have to march in lockstep.”
He backed off.
The Dana Reserve Project environmental impact report listed way more than a dozen Class 1 impacts, significant and unavoidable. Not so long ago, one Class 1 impact was regarded as important enough that the ruling body had to make a Statement of Overriding Considerations to approve a project. They were often lame, but as one county planning staffer said, “Well, we have to come up with something.”
Groupthink is a dangerous demand to make of our elected officials. It denies a variety of opinions and hampers full discussions. Note the parking fiasco—a 5-0 vote brought down on San Luis Obispo recently.
This self-proclaimed pro-housing group appears to support “my way or the highway” thinking. The negative impacts of the project in Nipomo were clearly stated and apparently ignored, in spite of the work of many to try to present a better housing project with fewer negative environmental impacts.
Christine Mulholland
San Luis Obispo
This article appears in May 30 – Jun 9, 2024.
Though we believe a project as good as the Dana Reserve deserves a 5-0 vote, it was not the point of our article.
As the original article mentioned, the title “Unity must prevail” was written to emphasize the need for local politicians to remain factual in discourse to prevent unnecessary community division.
This is why we did not mention Supervisor Gibson, who spoke respectfully and factually in his comments, though we disagreed with his points and perspective, prior to voting no. We recognize that everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but remaining factual is key to providing a productive discussion.
Supervisor Paulding unfortunately did neither of these things. We therefore felt compelled to write the original article detailing such mistruths which we felt caused unnecessary fear in the Nipomo community.
Lastly, as a minor point, we are not anonymous and have a public board on our website.
I cant blame Jimmy for lying for his group. he just gave himself a giant pay raise and doesnt want to lose his job. Man has to eat i guess…
oh by the way, he gave himself the raise before he let out of the bag the county is short some serious coin. My bro was thinking
Paulding did vote yes on the raise, but pledged not to take it. One of the main reasons he voted yes is that the initiative to raise salaries came with a stipulation that supervisors would not be able to vote to increase their salaries in the future with salaries now tied to raises for California judges.
Your exactly right! who gives supes a 25% pay bump and then garuntees future increases when the county is broke? Jimmy do. bruh.
Easy to cast stones from the anonymity of your keyboard. Why not post using your real name, which I presume is Jack Ass.
Dude! Those arent stones “cast” those be jimmy votes which he cast and that YOU BROUGHT UP!! wtf. go deal with that and stop calling me names!