A group of local elected officials recently launched an initiative aimed at patching up the Central Coast’s post-pandemic economy, but the effort doesn’t appear to have much Republican support so far.
The Central Coast Economic Recovery Initiative is a set of policy concepts, program ideas, and proposals aimed at stimulating the local economy and creating jobs through housing, clean energy, and infrastructure investment, according to an April 14 press release announcing the program’s launch.
“With $85 million in federal relief funds coming to SLO County government agencies—and the potential for millions more earmarked for infrastructure improvements—now is the time to to work together to identify how we can invest in our community in a fiscally responsible way while also ensuring help goes to those who need it most,” Arroyo Grande City Councilmember Jimmy Paulding said in the release.
Paulding helped author the Economic Recovery Initiative and said the goal is to drive immediate decision making and meaningful action that will stimulate the local economy over the next two years. In short, he said it’s a place for local leaders and community members to hash out ways to stay economically stable after the COVID-19 pandemic and closures of both the Diablo Canyon Power Plant and the local Philips 66 refinery.
“How are we going to plan for all these things?” Paulding told New Times. “These are huge economic impacts.”
The group hopes to implement affordable housing strategies and pandemic relief programs, support clean energy investments, and modernize regional transportation, water, and broadband infrastructure. Cal Poly’s Institute for Climate Leadership and Resilience partnered with the Economic Recovery Initiative team to study the feasibility of its “more technical concepts” at low or no cost to local governments. Paulding hopes the initiative will tackle these economic challenges through in-depth research and using the talent, knowledge, and input of community members.
Economic Recovery Initiative authors also include SLO County 3rd District Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg, Central Coast Community Energy Advisory Councilmember Bruce Severance, SLO Climate Coalition Chair Eric Veium, community organizer James Sofranko, and SLO City Councilmember Andy Pease. Like the initiative’s authors, its initial supporters are also local elected officials and leaders who lean left.
But Paulding said the program is still in its earliest stages.
“We’ve tried to structure this in a bipartisan manner,” Paulding said, “and that’s the goal, to get bipartisan support.” ∆
This article appears in Apr 22 – May 2, 2021.
I though this was what REACH was getting paid to do…
Typical left wing nonsense….all those words….but nothing was said..,lefty double talk….go build solar panels…..here’s a ticket to china…..lefty dumb shits!!!!
Insulting your neighbors is not going to help anyone, especially yourself. Show some respect, please. Love thy neighbor.
The first person to curse and insult Is typically the first person to run out of anything worthwhile to say and whose argument is based on falsehoods and selfishness.
Keep Diablo open and MORE refining of oil on the central coast! Oil and nuclear will ensure energy independence for our future. Solar can’t provide enough power quickly enough to be worthwhile (try to power a trailer with a solar panel, a panel must be charged 8 hrs to provide 1 light bulb for 8 hrs.), wind turbines cannot run continuously and retiring blades pollutes the environment (see Wyoming windmill blade graveyard debacle). Oil and nuclear COMBINED with the limited power generated by solar and wind will power our society without brownouts or limits to ANYONE’S usage. POWER to the people…literally.
Does anyone have a plan of what to do with the millions of pounds of highly toxic radioactive waste that is currently being stored in temporary and vulnerable storage facilities at Diablo Canyon? The cost of storing that waste is horrendous, something our grandchildren and their grandchildren will be paying for. The waste will have to be stores and carefully monitored one way or another for the next 10,000 years at least. Thats a lot of storage fees.