We elect politicians we believe will best represent us. In turn, elected officials run the government and make decisions that will best serve their constituents. This is representative democracy. We don’t always like the decisions officials make, so sometimes when they run for the office again, we vote for their opponent. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s obviously more efficient than the micromanaging alternative of citizens voting on every little thing.
The city wants to erect a new stoplight. Let’s have an election and vote on it. The city wants to allow cannabis dispensary deliveries. Let’s have an election and vote on it. Obviously, this system would be untenable. Out in Morro Bay, however, Citizens for Estero Bay Preservation (CEBP) want to strip elected officials of their decision-making power when it comes to public land zoning.
This is the kind of boneheaded decision that leads to unnecessary expense and inefficient governance. If a plot of publicly owned land is zoned commercial but a business wants to lease the land to start an industry, do we really need John and Jane Q. Public weighing in via ballot? We vote in elected officials to make these decisions so that we don’t have to.
But because CEBP really doesn’t want Texas-owned energy company Vistra to turn the old Morro Bay Power Plant site into a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), they’re willing to gum-up the governmental works of the Morro Bay City Council for years to come with Measure A-24, which has been placed on the November ballot and if voted into law will require the public to vote on public land rezonings.
All this for one project? Worse still, Morro Bay Citizens Opposed to A-24 argues it won’t even guarantee Vistra will be denied permission to build because Assembly Bill 205 allows companies like Vistra to bypass local governments and apply for approval from the state or the California Coastal Commission. I get you’re passionately against Vistra’s BESS, CEBP, but you don’t need to create a law that strips your elected officials of power to stop it. Let an informed City Council guided by its staff decide. Wouldn’t you rather have your elected officials overseeing the Vistra project than state officials?
Speaking of elections and representation, Paso Robles is gearing up to vote on three City Council seats, and the race is already turning accusatory. Go grab some popcorn. I’ll wait. During public comment at Paso’s Sept. 3 meeting, perpetual candidate and eugenics advocate Michael Rivera, who’s running for the 3rd District seat, accused 1st District Councilmember Sharen Roden of stealing his campaign sign from in front of a local business and replacing it with one of her own.
“More disturbing is that after removing my sign, she placed her campaign sign where mine had been and zip-tied it to the public fencing,” Rivera claimed. “When placing mine, I purposefully used T-posts to avoid using the city fencing—those are the rules.”
According to Rivera, former secretary of Californians for Population Stabilization, a hate group according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, another campaign sign for 3rd District Councilmember Steve Gregory near the same location was also hanging but later removed, ostensibly by Roden. Evidence? Nah.
“This act is a direct challenge to our election laws and a complete disrespect for a candidate,” Rivera whined. “I interpret this as a serious case of election interference by someone who should know better.”
Oh boy! You’re running for Paso Robles City Council, not student body president.
Go pop some more corn. There are still 54 days before Nov. 5.
The other popcorn-worthy race is the matchup between sworn enemies Charles Varni and Shirley Gibson competing for the 5th Division seat of the Oceano Community Services District (OCSD). Varni’s the current board chair and Gibson’s a board member.
Gibson was accused of making shit up about nonprofit Ecologistics, which she classified as political organization that battled the Coastal Commission, supported Dana Reserve opponents, and maybe—Gibson wasn’t sure—helped sue the county over the development.
“None of these things are true,” countered Ecologistics, whose mission statement is to collaborate with people and organizations to create environmentally and economically sustainable communities. They sound simply dreadful, don’t they?
Varni was the dude who inspired OCSD legal counsel Daniel Cheung to quit and who former board member Steve Montes identified as the source of OCSD’s dysfunction.
“Our new general manager, Peter Brown, has brought a lot of just very positive energy to the district,” Varni recently claimed. “We’ll soon be hiring new legal counsel, but we have interim legal counsel now, and I’ll tell you honestly if it was a continuation of 2023, I think I probably would have just sat back and let somebody else stand up for it.”
Hm. Sounds like a real stand-down guy.
As Gibson said after Brown was hired, “There’s a price to pay for the last year and a half of district dysfunction and ugliness that has engulfed our district meetings.”
Hm. Vote for the guy who says he wouldn’t stand upon his convictions again or the gal who’s threatening revenge? Δ
The Shredder buys bulk popcorn. Butter it up at shreddder@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Student Guide 2024.
Standing up for my convictions has never been a issue for me which is why I am a candidate for Director of the OCSD District 5. 2023 at OCSD was a challenging time and I was not interested in any repeat of that in 2024. Fortunately, critical staff changes were made and this year has been one of significant progress in doing our job. And yes, I am excited to serve for a full four-year term.
Since I became President in 2024, with the help of our interim and new General Manager and attorney, OCSD meetings have become civil, business is getting done, planning for the future is in process, and new collaborative projects in the offing. I want to build on my work in creating the OCSD Parks and Recreation Committee from which I wrote two successful grants. The first has funded field trips to State Parks for hundreds of Oceano Elementary School students and teachers during 2024. An expanded version of that grant for 2025 was recently submitted to the State Parks. The second grant was awarded from County’s “Preventative Health” fund in the form of $25,000 which will be used as seed money for design, engineering, and permitting of the new community track and soccer field project at Oceano School. Additionally, Congressman Carbajal awarded $1,000,000 to OCSD for water system improvements in a grant I seriously lobbied and generated significant support for.
All of South County needs to learn about a planning process the South County Sanitation District is mandated to do for the possible total relocation of the existing plant, a $300-400 million project. Now is the time to begin community education and engagement. Additionally, regions which have their planning act together will be at the front of the line for millions in Federal funding. This is a huge opportunity for inspired regional wastewater management and OCSD can be a leader in this process. On the other hand, my opponent Shirley Gibson thinks this is a bad idea and not appropriate (as stated in public meetings).
Looking at these achievements in the last 22 months, in addition to attending meetings and doing my homework, I think my convictions are standing tall.
Charles Varni
Charles,
The only agency that can be a leader in talks or planning for the relocation of the South County Sanitation District, is in fact that agency. And I do believe that was what was mentioned during that meeting. Even though the customers that are in Oceano pay towards their sewer to the Sanitation plant, the OCSD has no actual control of their operations outside of the seat on their board. I also remember that the individuals from each city as well as plant operations manager said that the major focus right now is the redundancy project and repairs within that same project. It also has never been decided that the plan NEEDS to move, if they fail to meet the compliances within their new permits from CCC, they will have to plan for move. Once they start coming up with a plan, then I do believe that yes, OCSD should be a major player of the talks and also help spread the word about it through meetings with presentations done by Jermey or even hold a town hall meeting for it but unfortunately staff would not be allowed to work on a project or use staff admin time for project that is not in their jurisdiction.
wow yes charlie boy you sure have achieved a whole lot! like how about getting our fire services taken away?? our station is now closed down thanks to you sir. you just stand on your convictions that’s why no one other than your little bro jimmy will endorse you. mayor of arroyo grande? wont touch you with a ten foot pole. former fire chief and ocsd manager that actually worked with you? they want nothing to do with you now. They want Shirley! the signs i’ve been seeing around town say Varni no bueno! Varni… no bueno is not Spanish for awesome. It is actually the opposite of awesome
All and all, good piece here on crazy people trying to get into office and stay in office. Michael Rivera has no agenda outside of his own ego, it’s sad and it’s the polar opposite of great public servants like Steve Gregory, who has represented the city well for almost 20 years, 10 of them on the city council, and has helped develop and turn Paso Robles into what it is today. Paso is a good place because of the great people that live there, let’s keep the pettiness and division out of Paso and demand more of our public servants. I’m glad we have people like Steve Gregory and Sharon Roden.
Now, Charles Varni and his cronies need to go as well. Let’s grow up and realize we need to play well with each other to get things done. He refuses to do that and his only public support is from the equally, if not more divisive, Jimmy Paulding. Also, Ecologistics is a political organization that does the bidding of whatever Paulding tells them to do. They aren’t legitimate and shouldn’t be recognized as a non-profit. Just more dirty money in politics.