The Tribune endorses Jeff Lee, Debbie Peterson for Grover Beach City Council

Jeff Lee is seeking his second term on the City Council. He deserves it. Lee is an approachable, respectful, common-sense council member who’s in tune with his constituents.

His background in civil engineering — he’s employed by county Public Works — will prove especially valuable over the next four years as the city deals with the ongoing drought.

For the record, Lee supports pursuing new sources of water, rather than relying on conservation.

“We are not going to be able to conserve our way out of the drought,” he said at a recent candidates forum.

We agree, and we believe Lee will be a key player in ensuring Grover Beach has an adequate water supply in the future.

Like the other council members, Lee deserves credit for moving forward with road improvements, the Grover Beach Lodge and Conference Center and the revitalization of the Grand Avenue commercial corridor.

Another plus: Lee’s involvement with the 5 Cities Homeless Coalition — he sits on its board of directors — gives him insight into how to best tackle one of the city’s biggest challenges.

The Tribune gives Jeff Lee a strong endorsement for Grover Beach City Council.

As a former Grover Beach mayor and council member, Debbie Peterson has experience, name recognition and a knowledge of the issues facing the city. We expect voters will return Peterson to the City Council.

There is a lot to admire about Peterson. She’s not afraid to question the status quo, as she did in 2012 when she criticized management of the South County Sanitation District.

More recently, we were impressed by the way she ran her campaign for county supervisor; while Adam Hill and Dan Carpenter traded insults, she behaved in a civil and civilized manner. (Peterson, who came in third, did not advance to the general election.)

We find it hard to reconcile those strengths, though, with the lapses of judgment that led Peterson’s fellow council members to remove her as the city’s representative on the county Air Pollution Control Board while she was mayor.

That decision stemmed from Peterson’s opposition to the “dust rule” that required State Parks to reduce particulate emissions from its off-road vehicle park. Peterson went beyond disagreeing with the decision; she circulated a petition calling for repeal of the rule, without first bringing the issue to her fellow council members.

Following Peterson’s removal from the air board, the off-roading community threatened to appeal the Grover Beach Lodge project unless she was reinstated. As we said at the time, Peterson didn’t do much to counteract the bullying behavior of her supporters. That concerns us.

We believe, though, that Peterson is the more qualified candidate for the position, and on that basis we endorse her — with the strong caveat that she should not be appointed to the Air Pollution Control Board.

Terry Wingate, the third candidate in the race, is a newcomer to local politics, though he does serve on the Citizen Oversight Committee for street bonds. Because of an illness in his family, Wingate started campaigning late, making it tough for him to get his message across to voters.

We urge Wingate to stay involved in local politics and to consider making another run at City Council.

If Peterson is returned to the City Council — as we expect she will be — we urge her to avoid overstepping her bounds and to work on building consensus, rather than sowing dissension.

This story was originally published September 28, 2016 at 3:34 PM with the headline "The Tribune endorses Jeff Lee, Debbie Peterson for Grover Beach City Council."