The Oceano Community Services District is starting a new era of positive change, leadership 

The Oceano Community Services District (OCSD) has a new interim general manager with a stellar career of public organization management in the county and community services district. He is developing excellent relationships with all the directors through an inclusive process of transparency and involvement. Our first meeting of the new year was distinguished by a spirit of civility and cooperation. Linda Austin and I have agreed to both serve on the South San Luis Obispo County Sanitation District board and help lead a more thorough assessment of the long-term water quality and quantity resources in Oceano.

Our new interim attorney is also a very experienced professional with decades of city government and community services district service. Past problems are being addressed and resolved as well as the directors and public being properly informed regarding district business as required by state law.

Our new Parks and Recreation Committee is implementing a $16,000 grant it wrote (at no cost to the district) to provide multiple field trips to state parks for all children at Oceano Elementary School during 2024.

Also, our new Parks and Recreation committee is promoting a project to add 900 feet of guardrail to Highway 1 just north of the train overpass so pedestrians finally have a safe route to the beach. Currently when pedestrians exit the overpass sidewalk, they are guided directly onto the state highway with no protection. When this project is complete, inland Oceano residents will have a safe route to the beach for the first time in history.

The Oceano Plaza at 17th and Beach streets, originally conceived in the 2013 Oceano Revitalization Plan, and fully supported by OCSD directors, will break ground early this spring with $1.8 million in funding from Caltrans and the SLO County Council of Governments.

SLO County and the Council of Governments agreed to seek a $3.5 million grant from Caltrans to complete sidewalks on three major streets in Oceano, improve dangerous intersections, and create two bike corridors. Many Oceano residents, two OCSD directors, Supervisor Jimmy Paulding, and local agency staff have worked together for more than two years to make this happen.

A new $3 million capital improvement project to replace old water lines and infrastructure will begin this year. This project, initiated by OCSD directors, was supported and funded by U.S. Congressman Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara). District directors helped mobilize community support for this effort, and our congressman listened, as he has many times in the past.

Last week, the Shredder opened its column with this statement: "I don't know why anyone gets into politics. Not only is it a thankless job, it's a precarious one. You're always one decision away from a recall attempt. Are politicians simply masochists who like being whipped by John and Jane Q. Citizen?"

My reputation, over decades of leadership work in the private and public sphere, has been one of collegiality, mutual respect, fairness, and objectivity. It has also often been public volunteer work that challenges the status quo and powerful economic and political interests.

Have they ever been pissed off at me? Oh yeah.

In 2018, Exxon and Chevron spent $8 million to defeat grassroots citizens' Measure G, which I led and sought to ban new oil development in SLO County. I mobilized citizens against the Phillips 66 plan to ship tar sand oil though our county to its Nipomo refinery on dangerous mile-long oil trains.

As an elected director, I argued against the Santa Maria Valley Water Conservation District filing a lawsuit over groundwater rights. I have been a proponent of a vehicle-free beach for Oceano and a redeveloped airport property. At times, I have become a lightning rod for some of the opposition who specialize in character assassination. But contrary to the Shredder's theory, I am neither a masochist nor a victim. I am a working-class kid who got educated in the '60s and chose a retired life of volunteer work on behalf of environmental, social, and economic justice—focused on the county and the community of Oceano. Grateful to be of service. Δ

Charles Varni is the board president of the Oceano Community Services District. Respond with a letter to the editor by emailing it to [email protected].