Grover Beach’s City Council races may feature two different kinds of doctors and a former wine and spirits distributor, but all candidates have local government experience.
The beach city’s voters will participate in the first by-district elections on Nov. 8. Present Councilmember Robert Robert is running unopposed in the 1st District, but eligible residents in the 2nd get a choice: current Councilmember Daniel Rushing or retired dentist and former city Mayor Ron Arnoldsen.
Arnoldsen had stints on the Grover Beach City Council both as a council member and mayor from 1992 until 2004. He hopes to draw from his previous political experience and background in medical science if he wins the council seat. He told New Times that not only was he responsible for putting term limits on the ballot for Grover Beach, but he also thought ahead when it came to city reserves.
When he was first elected, Arnoldsen said, the city didn’t have anything in the budget for reserves.
“Now, Grover Beach keeps 25 percent of their budget in reserves. I am the one that put that forward and made that work. Those are the things that I think that I can do opposed to Daniel Rushing or anybody else,” he said. “I think I’m a common sense person. I’m not going to do everything that staff says. I’m a scientist; I take everything with a grain of salt. You got to prove things to me.”
Arnoldsen added that if he wins, he would be more “stringent when it comes to budget matters,” advocate for better access to water in SLO County, and figure out ways to reduce homelessness.
But his time in Grover Beach post-politics is not without controversy. In May 2017, Arnoldsen elicited gasps and accusations of hate speech when he asked City Council, “Are you whores?” during a debate about commercial medical cannabis.
The recreational cannabis industry is lucrative for the city, contributing $2 million in tax revenue—15 percent of the general fund—in the 2021 fiscal year.
“I actually opposed the way they set up cannabis here. As a medical person, I think if you’re going to do medical marijuana, it should be treated the same as any other medication. It should go through the drug administration … and should be put through pharmacies so that people can know the purity of it,” he said. “The city had limited the number of people who were going to be able to have businesses in the community, and that made it a pay-to-play thing.”
Rushing is relatively new to Grover Beach politics. After a failed run in 2020, he was appointed to City Council in 2021 when then Councilmember Mariam Shah moved to Arroyo Grande, vacating her seat. Rushing is campaigning on making the city more walkable as well as affordable housing and how it relates to homelessness. But the onetime wine distributor has another goal in mind.
“Business development is still an incredibly huge thing for me. I come from 15 years of working as an outside sales consultant working with our local restaurants. The COVID pandemic was ridiculous for everybody but more than anything else, in my personal perspective, our restaurants did an amazing job of finding resiliency through that. Building up and supporting our local businesses and growing out a more vibrant Grover Beach is a huge priority for me as well,” Rushing said.
The 18-year Grover Beach resident is gearing up for the new election system, adjusting to the city doing by-district races this year.
“I can’t help but worry that a community of our size may in the future have a challenge finding candidates that are willing to stand up and say, ‘Yes, I would like to run for election.’ It’s a hard process; it exposes you personally,” he said. “I hope that moving forward with our districts, we are able to consistently have legitimate, good competition between at least two, hopefully more, folks that want to serve the city.”
That concern is reflected in the District 1 race, where Robert is the only contender. First elected in 2020, the electrical contractor and owner-operator of Dr. Electric has some theories about why he doesn’t have competition.
“Some people say no one wants to run against me, which I don’t think is true. Another one is no one wants the job, which I think might be more true,” he said with a laugh. “The third is everyone is too busy. We’re in districts now and there are only a few thousand people in my district.”
However, Robert said that City Council represents Grover Beach as a whole. He said he will advocate for reinforced public safety in the wake of “more gang violence and murders” around the county. Δ
This article appears in Sep 1-11, 2022.