Pismo needs to support residents over developers 

Some things never seem to change. The Pismo Beach City Council is once again being influenced by developers. Anyone who has recently been to our pier can see the negative impact that hotels have created by surrounding our pier parking lot. The pier area is becoming claustrophobic and is soon to be surrounded by large hotels on two sides with new restrooms that will be framing our new pier on the other side.

Three council members once again appear to be swayed by big developers, and those who follow our local politics have come to expect one of the council member to always side with developers (he's the one who is known to receive donations/perks from developers to get projects approved). It's very disappointing that the other two council members appear to put the priorities of developers over the concerns of the residents as well as the tourists who frequent the downtown area.

The newly planned restroom locations were planned to be tucked away from the view of the pier and were approved a year ago. Now, three of the council members have flip-flopped and are leaning toward giving in to the will of the developer over the will of the people. They are ignoring common sense as well as the overall aesthetics of our core downtown pier area. The developer/hotelier of one of the hotels has recruited other developers/hoteliers to lobby on his behalf to help him influence the council because he doesn't want the new planned location to be near his hotel as they might block a few of his rooms' views that overlook the pier parking lot.

During the 35 years that I've lived here, council after council as well as the residents have wanted to move these restrooms away from the gateway of the pier. We have the distinction of having the only pier in California that has restrooms at its gateway. We are spending millions of dollars on the new pier only to have its views hampered by restrooms.

They are allowing this developer to change the locations of the restrooms to suit his wishes, not ours.

Thank you Councilmembers Marcia Guthrie and Mary Ann Reiss for not allowing yourselves to be strong-armed by developers and for caring more about the thousands of residents than developers.

Please attend the council meeting on the Feb. 20 to voice your concerns. If you are unable to attend, please write to the council to express your opinion on this issue. You may contact them at [email protected].

Susan Testa

Pismo Beach