SLO County's handbook for advisory councils gets modernized for the first time in 10 years 

A year to the day after dropping the ax on the controversial Oceano Advisory Council, the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors reworked the handbook guiding the county's 11 remaining advisory councils.

In one of her final official actions last December, then 4th District Supervisor Lynn Compton recommended revoking the council's 26-year-old certification after a lengthy commentary on all the ways it had stepped out of line. Compton's successor, Jimmy Paulding, and 3rd District Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg started an ad hoc committee in February to set robust standards for future advisory councils.

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• File Photo By Jayson Mellom
• TEAMWORK Fourth District Supervisor Jimmy Paulding (left) and 3rd District Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg (right) worked with SLO County Planning and Building to make changes to the advisory council handbook that encourage best practices.

The pair worked with the Planning and Building Department to update the advisory council handbook, which was last touched in 2013. The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the updated handbook at its Dec. 5 meeting and directed county staff to send letters to all 11 councils for feedback.

Some community members felt it wasn't enough.

"Where's the teeth? What's going to change?" Oceano resident and former Oceano Advisory Council Vice Chair April Dury asked during the public comment period. "A glaring omission is who's eligible to be on an advisory council. There is not one whit of information of what the requirement is."

The biggest change to the handbook is formally laying out a semblance of structure for local councils. The updated document now includes a code of civility, best practices for councils to adopt bylaws and rules of procedure, and an overview of the advisory council's role and interaction with county staff. The additions are suggestions to improve the effectiveness of advisory councils as they review and make recommendations on land use issues for the county's unincorporated areas.

Between March and October, Paulding's and Ortiz-Legg's offices reviewed county advisory councils' bylaws and investigated the structures of councils in other counties. The bulk of the update stemmed from a survey commissioned by the supervisors earlier in the year. Emailed to each county advisory council's chair for distribution and participation, the survey took place on May 4 and lasted 20 days.

An aggregate of 75 valid responses from council members across the county found that the role of advisory councils needed clarification. They saw a benefit in having an outlined mission statement and clear bylaws; they want the county to conduct an annual orientation for new council members; they're willing to sign a code of civility; and they stressed the need for elected council members as opposed to appointed ones.

The county used to provide annual training sessions to advisory council members but stopped due to COVID-19. County staff announced at the recent Board of Supervisors meeting that training will resume in April 2024.

The fate of the defunct Oceano Advisory Council became a cautionary tale at that meeting. When Oceano resident Dury asked for more enforcement policies, supervisors referred to the board's ability to decertify advisory councils in response. Paulding, who now represents South County, added that creating set rules around enforcement for advisory councils changes the nature of the body itself.

"If we were to impose specific requirements on individual advisory councils, we would be turning those advisory councils into Brown Act committees, which then opens a whole can of worms in terms of how we'd need to staff each of those advisory councils," he said.

County Counsel Rita Neal underscored Paulding's statement by saying that the Board of Supervisors struck a balance in 1996 when it passed a resolution recognizing advisory councils. It acknowledged the councils as private organizations that provide advice rather than formalizing them as rigid bodies with land use power that must comply with Brown Act requirements and Public Records Act requests. More formal councils would strain county resources because they would each need to be staffed with legal counsel, planning and building department employees, and receive a lot of training.

However, one speaker at the meeting believed that the advisory council representing his community exerted more power than it should. Los Osos resident and real estate broker Jeff Edwards criticized the Los Osos Community Advisory Council (LOCAC) during the public comment period while also calling for more enforcement.

"The handbook really is permissive and not compulsory. Fundamentally, an overhaul and complete reorganization of advisory councils is needed," Edwards said. "I'm not expecting [LOCAC] to modify their behavior because of the handbook."

He told New Times on Dec. 15 that he frequently comes face to face with LOCAC members because of his development projects that appear before the council. Living in the coastal town for almost 50 years, Edwards added that he's followed LOCAC since its inception, "but in recent times, it seems to have deteriorated."

"Some of these folks, they think they're actually legislators, where they can make new rules and new law, and the existence of the most glaring example of that is the vacation rental ordinance for Los Osos," Edwards said. "It's draconian."

Four years ago, LOCAC recommended that the county pass an ordinance to cap licenses for vacation rentals in the area. In December 2020, the county started drafting the ordinance, which set a limit of 55 vacation rentals within the Los Osos Urban Reserve Line, amending the land use ordinance, the local coastal program, and the general plan to make way for it. Last June, supervisors approved the ordinance, and the California Coastal Commission certified it.

According to Edwards, Los Osos' vacation rental ordinance is the most restrictive one in the county. Limiting vacation rentals in a town with 6,000 residential units affects local tourism, he said.

"I characterize [LOCAC] as xenophobes; they had a complete fear of strangers," Edwards told New Times. "They crafted what they called vacation rental guidelines, presented them to the county planning department, and the planning department fast-tracked them into an ordinance."

LOCAC Co-Chairs Trish Bartel and Deborah Howe told New Times that the vacation rental guidelines emerged from community concerns about real estate companies potentially buying and converting houses on certain streets in Los Osos to vacation rentals. Bartel, who wasn't serving on LOCAC at the time, said a separate group of residents approached the county with its concerns. That group conducted a petition that "hundreds and hundreds" of residents signed in favor of vacation rental guidelines.

"It was not fast-tracked," she said. "It took three and a half years for that process to get done."

The co-chairs added that LOCAC researched vacation rental ordinances from San Diego through San Francisco, and the vacation rental situation in Cayucos caused alarm bells to ring.

"They have such a problem in that small beach community," Howe said. "So many people have purchased homes and turned them into Airbnbs that they have hardly any actual residents who live within that town. So much, to the point that they can't find people to serve on their advisory council."

Howe and Bartel said they appreciate the county's attempt to streamline the workings of advisory councils. They both responded to the county's survey even though Howe's participation isn't noted in the document. While LOCAC has set bylaws and a code of conduct—unlike a few other advisory councils in the county—its co-chairs are looking forward to training and orientation next year, especially for new members.

"I'm grateful that they updated the handbook," Bartel said. "They took out probably 90 percent of the clip art that was in the old one, which was great. I think the handbook for advisory councils should be updated every year, and it should have input from the advisory councils." Δ

Reach Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal at [email protected].