Safe parking is a mirage in San Luis Obispo County. So far, not one entity has managed to create a program that works for the community and its homeless population.
You don’t need to look any further than the latest, greatest example of that: A grand screw-up in the city of San Luis Obispo, which closed one failed safe parking site prior to opening the next one, which also failed before it could even try to succeed.
Why? Nobody likes a safe parking site in their neighborhood. But also because the city was either naive or hoping that nobody would notice what it was doing. I’m guessing the latter.
Now the city won’t have a safe parking site for folks living out of their cars to use for at least a year. One full year. Not only that, the county’s Oklahoma Avenue safe parking site is no longer accepting new parking participants and will be closing imminently without a backup plan anywhere in sight. Which means what? Laguna Lake Park is looking mighty fine at this time of year. And so are the city’s streets, unfortunately for those who want a safe place to park and sleep at night and who might need a little help getting out of their present situation and into a more permanent place.
Where did things go so awry?
Welp. Perhaps we should stop trying to build the plane while we’re flying it. Even with two recently failed safe parking site programs to learn from—the pilot program that ran at Railroad Square for almost two years and dealt with its fair share of decidedly unsafe behavior, neighborhood complaints, and a lack of services, and the county’s Oklahoma Avenue site that also had issues providing services, and with safety—the city and its contracted provider, Community Action Partnership of SLO County (CAPSLO), still managed to flail the rollout of a new rotating parking site program.
“We only had one site identified, and we wanted a rotating model of sites,” CAPSLO Director of Homeless Services Jack Lahey said. “We need six minimum to get going, and ideally 12 or more.”
Really? This rotating parking site program only had one site? That deserves a very slow clap! Isn’t CAPSLO supposed to be the “experienced” one?
The only site identified was on Palm Street. Once the neighborhood found out, it freaked out (obviously); sent a barrage of angry public comments to the city; the city’s new Director of Community Development Timothea Tway was so flummoxed she pushed the decision on it to the city’s Planning Commission; and before commissioners could even weigh in, CAPSLO pulled the application and halted the program in its apparently nonexistent tracks.
But don’t worry, CAPSLO now has a plan. Don’t you feel better?
I know I feel better now that Charles Grace and his company, Grace Environmental Services, are no longer entangled with the San Simeon Community Services District (CSD). For 15 years, the company and the man have kept the CSD in their firm grasp.
And things were a little shady: Grace was the general manager of the CSD and his company held the contract for providing water and wastewater services to the district. Fishy, fishy, you know? Thank god for the SLO County District Attorney’s Office! (Something I almost never say!)
The office pointed out the rather obvious conflict of interest in an extremely pointed letter, the CSD kicked Grace and his company out of the ring, and now they’ve got a new contract on deck with the well known Fluid Resources Company.
But not all is well on the northern coast. Certain San Simeon residents were in a tizzy about the situation—warning the CSD that without Grace at the helm, things will fall apart.
“If you had been involved since Day One, you would know there has been nothing wrong and they have kept this community running,” Gwen Kellas, who recently resigned from her position on the board, said cryptically during the CSD’s Sept. 7 meeting.
Kellas said that Grace took money out of his own pocket to keep the CSD running. Well. The general manager was also filling his pockets on both sides, so I’m not sure what to say here. If he’s such an upstanding guy, why then is his company refusing to help transition the plant’s water and wastewater operations to the new company?
Sounds like a sore loser to me.
Elizabeth Johnson is also sore, although I’m not sure why. I am sure that she wasn’t very nice to a New Times reporter who was just doing his job when he reached out to her about her opinion on public art in San Luis Obispo.
“Let’s see what you come up with,” she emailed in response to his inquiry. “I know you are not paid a lot for your work, but I’m not paid at all for your work, so good luck.”
The attitude! His job is apparently to reach out to entitled, rude, asshat like you. Δ
The Shredder is sick of entitled people. Send rude remarks to shredder@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Sep 21 – Oct 1, 2023.
Oh dear!! I have always enjoyed reading your caustic comments, thoughts and what ever your own personal opinion is and apparently naively thought you had done research and verifications of what ever crap was provided to you. It would seem I was entirely wrong!! It would also seem you are entirely clueless prior to your postings of actual facts. In ref. to what?? Read your last post Sunshine–zero research, zero analytical, zero period!! Maybe you have just got lazy!!