Candidates dig into North County’s housing crisis and water woes at SLO Tribune forum
John Peschong and Stephanie Shakofsky got knee deep into groundwater at a forum hosted by The Tribune and KCBX at Cuesta College’s North County campus on Monday night, where water sustainability and homelessness were the focus of conversation.
We chose to hone in on those two main issues at a San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors candidate forum in Paso Robles because that’s what attendees told us they care about. We used their input on an RSVP form to shape our event.
The event was moderated by KCBX’s Tyler Pratt, who asked candidates a series of questions on a few topics, followed by an audience member’s question. Then, because attendees told us they wanted to get to know the candidates better, we set aside time for audience members to talk with candidates directly.
It’s part of our effort to reach out to our readers and the public and guide our coverage to meet their needs.
On Monday, the candidates gave their stump pitch in opening statements, beginning with Peschong and his go-to statement: “I ran four years ago on a platform of smaller, more efficient government, lower taxes and more personal freedom.”
Peschong, who describes himself as a small business owner, is partner in a political consulting firm, Meridian Pacific, and is running for a second term. He said the top issue in the county is homelessness.
Shakofsky is a hydro-geologist who moved to the area when she purchased a small vineyard outside Paso.
“I’m extremely concerned about the direction that the incumbent and and the current board of supervisors are taking our county. I’m running a campaign on open government, good government, government reform to stop what I consider closed-door deals that have been happening at the board of supervisors and to restore the faith in local government.”
Supervisor candidates on housing affordability
“California has the highest poverty rate in America,” Peschong said, adding that the only way to fix it in San Luis Obispo County is by providing affordable housing and helping push the prices of homes down by reducing developer fees.
As an example for his work to do that, he pointed to the Board of Supervisors’ recent adoption of a new ordinance that allows people to build secondary homes on their property, which he said “could add maybe 500 units countywide, which would be very, very affordable.” He also mentioned a farmworker housing project in Shandon that’s underway.
He also touted that the county raised the threshold for the “inclusionary housing fee” developers are required to pay to help subsidize nonprofit housing projects, up to 2200 square feet.
Shakofsky agreed regarding the severity of the problem.
“Yes, affordable housing is a crisis in this county and it’s a crisis in the state,” she said.
She applauded the county’s granny unit ordinance, and added there are other ways to incentivize the private sector to build more mixed-income projects while working with nonprofit home builders to lobby for more money from Sacramento.
We can “provide developers with bonuses if they make 10 to 20% of their units affordable. So you put in a 40-unit apartment building and maybe you make 10 to 15% of that affordable and the market rate units subsidize the affordable units,” she said.
Shakofsky also said she’s talked with Cuesta College about the value of adding on-campus student housing, which would free up more housing elsewhere and hopefully provide a place to live for the 70 or so students who are homeless.
Peschong, Shakofsky on groundwater sustainability
Shakofsky criticized the current Paso Robles Groundwater Basin sustainability plan that calls for a 20% cut in irrigation, without addressing other water users or other options to reduce water consumption, and she said the plan lacks important data.
She called it “toothless” with few mechanisms for reaching sustainability, as required by the state. Implementation of the plan is what matters most, and everyone needs a seat at the table to focus on conservation and finding more water, Shakofsky said.
Peschong said he’s been part of building the cooperative team of stakeholders to develop the plan, and he thinks it is possible to reduce consumption by 20% through efficiency if farmers use best management practices when irrigating. That wasn’t specifically put in the plan, he said, because the basin is varied and no plan would work across area.
Shakofsky criticized Peschong for joining a lawsuit, known as Quiet Title, that is suing the county, city of Paso Robles, San Miguel CSD, Templeton CSD — and cost the agencies a lot of money — over water rights around the time the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act was adopted, which says all stakeholder users should come together to create a sustainable groundwater plan.
“I’m really uncomfortable with somebody who is party to litigation that basically says we, the landowner, we own the water underneath our land and you the city of Paso Robles and you the San Miguel CSD, you have rights only after we do,” she said. “When you have a chair of the plan committee who is party to the litigation that has a different philosophy and worldview about who owns water, I have a lot of concerns about conflicts of interest.”
Peschong responded that his property is in the Atascadero sub-basin, not in the Paso Robles basin.
Peschong said he and the 700 or 800 families that joined the lawsuit did so, “because we believe that the groundwater under our land — and I have about 20 acres in the Atascadero sub-basin — can be used for the beneficial purposes of that land. That’s what the California Constitution guarantees. Our lawsuit’s about that guarantee.”
“I got elected the first time because I was on this lawsuit, part of it, discussing it all the time,” Peschong said. “When the government comes in and says that they’re going to then take your water rights away from your property, I have a problem with that.”
Moving forward with election coverage
The Tribune chose to host a candidate forum in District 1 because that race had the fewest scheduled events for voters to interact with candidates. We wanted to fill that gap and provide voters’ access to their potential representatives.
We’re taking lessons from this experience to inform our plans for coverage leading up to the November races, when local city council races will be our primary focus.
For now, we’ll work on getting out as much information as we can to answer your questions in the lead-up to the March 3 election.
This story was originally published February 13, 2020 at 2:06 PM.
