Paulding, Verdin face off at SLO County supervisor forum. Here’s what they said
As the June 2 primary election inches closer, the two supervisor candidates running to represent San Luis Obispo County’s Fourth District faced off at a forum Wednesday night to present their priorities for South County.
More than a hundred people showed up at the South County Regional Center in Arroyo Grande to watch SLO County Supervisor Jimmy Paulding and challenger Adam Verdin showcase their views on major election issues.
At the event hosted by the League of Women Voters of SLO County, attendees were able to submit their own questions to the two contenders. The forum was also livestreamed and posted on the league’s YouTube channel.
During the forum, Paulding and Verdin responded to questions on homelessness and affordable housing, health care, energy infrastructure and local water issues, among an array of other topics.
Here’s where the contenders stand:
Top priorities for District 4 supervisor candidates
One of the first questions of the evening called on the candidates to state their priorities for the Fourth District, which spans from Nipomo, Oceano and Arroyo Grande to far eastern areas of the county.
Paulding, a Democrat, previously served four years on the Arroyo Grande City Council and was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2022. The one-term incumbent said his top priority has always been public safety, noting how he secured funding for a $14 million sheriff’s substation in Nipomo.
He said his other priorities include moving the needle on homelessness, repairing infrastructure wiped out by storms, funding water security initiatives and building more affordable housing.
Verdin, a Republican, is the co-owner of Old Juan’s Cantina in Oceano and works as a chief pilot at MarcAir, a private charter airline service in San Luis Obispo. He also pledged that public safety was his top priority along with creating more affordable housing.
“Everyone acknowledges that we need workforce housing and that we need housing of all types, but no one wants traffic that’s associated with it,” Verdin said. “It’s a tough puzzle, but yet we owe it to our kids, our next generation, so that if they want to be able to live here and work here, they can afford to do so.”
Where do SLO County supervisor candidates stand on housing issues?
The candidates were also asked how they intended to add “thoughtful” housing in South County while also protecting small town environments.
Paulding started off by explaining that the state is requiring counties and cities to plan and permit for a specific amount of housing in order to maintain local control. Paulding said he’s a strong proponent for local control even if it means pushing back on the state’s housing goals.
“I just don’t know that we have the land for that, and in many cases, we don’t have the water and sewer infrastructure to support that,” he said. “I’ve taken a very balanced view of housing. I think we need the infrastructure, services and facilities to support that housing.”
Verdin said that two-thirds of the land in SLO County cannot be developed, but that more housing should be built on the terrain that can support it.
“We shouldn’t be so resistant to that,” he said, citing the magnitude of the problem. “I would argue that we’re not in balance right now, given the number of people that we have on our various waiting lists for housing, rental housing and the rest of it.”
While sharing their views on growth and housing, the two contenders also took the opportunity to make some jabs at each other on their differing approaches to campaign financing.
Paulding said that the county needed a stable approach on housing, which is “why I don’t take any money from real estate developers,” he added, alluding to how his opponent has accepted more than $23,000 from local developers.
At the end of Verdin’s allotted time, he shot back that the money he accepted was given only out of support for his candidacy.
“They’re doing it because they believe in you,” he said. “But if your paradigm is that it’s transactional, that really reflects on the person saying that, not on me.”
Supervisor, challenger discuss water concerns in South County
Paulding and Verdin were also asked about how they would tackle water reliability issues in South County.
Paulding said the area needed “a diversified water portfolio” by protecting Lopez Lake and local groundwater sources as well as continuing conservation practices.
He also added that a potential long-term solution could look like building a desalination plant on the Central Coast or pursuing recycled water.
“We need to make sure that we’re talking together, working on solutions together,” he said.
Verdin agreed that pursuing a desalination plant is an important solution, but he also feared that it would take too long and could potentially be too expensive.
He said another possibility could be connecting to a pipeline that runs underneath the Santa Maria riverbed in Santa Barbara County.
“Then you would have, as we were just talking about, a diversified water portfolio and the ability for mutual aid as well,” Verdin added.
This story was originally published April 30, 2026 at 12:47 PM.
