Instead of voters casting their ballots to decide whether Arroyo Grande should buy state water every time the city is parched, a measure on the November ballot could stop the back-and-forth once and for all.
On June 9, the Arroyo Grande City Council unanimously adopted a resolution putting a state water ballot measure on the Nov. 3 ballot. If passed by voters, it would effectively repeal two existing measures that have been around for decades combined.
The proposed measure would also authorize the city to buy state water without requiring additional voter approval.
“I think it’s important for the city to have this option to protect the resiliency of the water supply,” City Councilmember Aileen Loe said. “With what we’ve experienced with the Lopez litigation, we can easily see that the water supply might be more vulnerable … in ways we wouldn’t have expected.”
The Lopez litigation refers to the 2024 lawsuit filed by a group of environmental organizations against San Luis Obispo County that claimed the county’s water releases from Lopez Lake were too low to protect steelhead trout under the Endangered Species Act. A federal district court issued a preliminary injunction against the county in December 2024, forcing it to increase water releases from the dam for steelhead. But in December 2025, the 9th Circuit Court ruled in favor of the county when it appealed that injunction order.
Councilmember Jim Guthrie said at the City Council meeting that state water has proven to be more reliable over the years. Fellow Councilmember Jamie Maraviglia agreed with him that the city needs multiple options for its water needs.
The City Council’s adoption of the resolution comes after its March directive to staff to prepare the proposed measure for the November ballot.
Voting for the proposed measure would undo Measure A and Measure E-16.
Voters approved Measure A in 1990, resulting in a ban on Arroyo Grande participating in the State Water Project unless the public casts an affirmative vote. Previous New Times reporting found that people at the time seemingly equated state water purchases with development and population booms.
Measure E-16—a carve-out of Measure A—passed in 2016 and allowed for state water purchases during declared drought emergencies without a citywide vote.
According to city staff, access to state water outside of that emergency would provide the city with more flexibility than what’s afforded now under Measure E-16.
At the June 9 meeting, Loe and Mayor Caren Ray Russom agreed as an ad-hoc committee to write and submit an argument in favor of the proposed measure to the City Clerk for voter information documents.
“I think that it matters what our ballot argument says … because I think it’s really important to explain that in the past, and even now, if you want to buy into the State Water Project, it’s extremely fiscally prohibitive,” Russom said. “That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about being able to purchase state water from another entity.” ∆
This article appears in July 2-9, 2026.
