Pismo Beach mayor election heats up as 2 new candidates enter the race
Two new candidates threw their hats into the ring to be the next mayor of Pismo Beach, making it a three-way race going into the November election.
Candidates Cynthia Replogle and Shelby Bowen, both newcomers to Pismo Beach’s political scene, filed paperwork on May 29 and June 12, respectively, and will face current City Council member Scott Newton in the election.
The winner of the three-way race will be Pismo Beach’s first new mayor in a decade, following the 10-year tenure of incumbent Ed Waage, who announced he would not seek re-election in April.
Replogle said she’s running because voters deserve a choice to pick a candidate that best aligns with their values, and she didn’t want to see an uncontested race, as Newton was running unopposed at the time of her filing.
“I have a lot of ideas for how the city could work better for everyone and allow everybody’s voice to be heard, allow opportunities for everyone to participate, and that’s why I think I’m the best candidate for mayor,” Replogle said. “I really want to make Pismo Beach a place that works for all.”
Meanwhile, the mayor’s race is Bowen’s first foray into elected politics of any kind. She said what she lacks in political experience she makes up in leadership experience in the U.S. Air Force, where she served for eight years as an aircraft maintenance officer before becoming a Reserve Officer’s Training Corps leadership instructor at San Diego State University.
“What a mayor does is take the objectives and the goals and listen to the opinions of how those can get done, and then guide and direct, by asking a lot of questions, the action towards those goals, and the city already has quite an extensive amount of specific goals, and the idea is to just keep a clear vision around that, so that we can achieve as many of those things as possible,” Bowen said. “That doesn’t have anything to do with politics, in my mind, or political experience, I should say — that has to do with, do you know how to lead people, do you know how to motivate people?”
How do new candidates compare?
Replogle previously served as a director on the Oceano Community Services District board from 2018 to 2022, when she resigned with two years left on her term after she said the Oceano CSD declined to file a restraining order against a resident who allegedly stalked her.
After resigning, Replogle moved to Pismo Beach, and is self-employed as an attorney specializing in copyrights, trademarks and patents, though that venture is currently on hold while she runs for mayor, according to her website.
While living in the area, Replogle has been involved with the Surfrider Foundation, and said issues related to climate change are a particular area of interest. She supports the California Coastal Commission’s "managed retreat” approach to coastal armoring, an issue of particular relevance to Shell Beach’s blufftop population.
She’s also a proponent for reevaluating the Central Coast Blue water recycling project, citing concerns about the loss of Grover Beach and Arroyo Grande as partner cities.
“Given that the city’s lost partners, the project had to be scaled down, and the costs have risen, while state grant funding decreased,” Replogle said. "It would be a good opportunity to do a fresh alternatives analysis, because it’s been 10 years since the original one, and I believe that the scope of that was a little too limited, so I would like to press for a new analysis to include things like constructed wetlands that could filter wastewater.”
Replogle’s campaign priorities also include “Golden Year” support for residents over the age of 65, which would entail more urgency in bringing more infrastructure into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and boosting the city’s home repair assistance program to help lower-income owners stay in their homes, she said.
Replogle also supports the creation of a Resident Advisory Panel to work alongside the Conference & Visitors Bureau to strike a better balance between residents and the tourism industry, which she said has “overshadowed resident quality of life.”
Other campaign priorities include creating a more transparent, proactive city government that gets ahead of resident complaints about code enforcement, roadwork and trash pickup, and bringing back virtual public comment at city meetings, she said.
In her candidate filings, Replogle did not list a political party preference.
Bowen, meanwhile, is a retired Air Force veteran and owner of Equine Coastal Wellness who’s lived in Pismo Beach for 20 years, and is running as a Republican, according to her candidate filings.
Bowen is running on a campaign of maintaining Pismo Beach’s “integrity as a small-town community,” focusing on traffic and accessibility.
Part of that focus could include streamlining permitting for new developments and existing businesses and finding ways to incentivize developers to finish projects without overstepping development timelines, she said.
On the issue of the city’s relationship with the Coastal Commission, she said the city has a “duty to protect our land,” and supports the right of property owners to armor the coastline as needed. She also said she’s in favor of moving forward with the Central Coast Blue project.
“I thought about how to serve the community for a long time, and through my ventures professionally and also personally, I have felt a passion for this community, and what they seem to value, which is this classic coastal small town unique vibe, really, for lack of a better word, and that’s important to these people, and it’s important to me too,” Bowen said. “The reason I’m here and have chosen to stay here for almost 20 years is because I appreciate that, and it’s unique from anything else I’ve ever experienced where I’ve been.”
Newton enters the race with six years of experience on the Pismo Beach City Council, most recently identifying as a Republican in the 2024 election, though he did not specify a political party on his mayoral campaign filing.
According to his campaign website, Newton is running on a platform of local control and currently serves on the San Luis Obispo County Integrated Waste Authority and the board of directors for the San Luis Obispo County Air Pollution Control District, and has served on the Visit SloCal Advisory Committee, Liaison to the Shell Beach Improvement Group, Liaison to the Conference and Visitor’s Bureau and Zone 3 Water Advisory Committee.
According to his campaign website, if elected he hopes to focus on community safety through investing in new police and fire stations, water security by investing in Central Coast Blue and other water preservation technologies and permit reforms by making permits of all types easier to use for buildings and residents.
He also would focus on repairing streets in Pismo Beach neighborhoods, opposing state laws that override local building code requirement and fighting the California Coastal Commission’s opposition to seawalls, according to his website.
New mayor may be first to serve extended term
In addition to the mayoral and City Council elections, voters will decide the length of the position’s term in future elections.
Measure E-26, currently the only measure on the November ballot, will ask residents whether mayors should serve four-year terms starting in the 2028, doubling the current term length.
That means if the measure succeeds, the candidate who wins in 2026 will campaign for a longer second term in the 2028 general election. Newton was among the three City Council members who voted for the measure in April.
