Four candidates vying to succeed Frank Mecham as SLO County supervisor

Correction: This story has been corrected to accurately state the comments Steve Martin made regarding permit fees in the city of Paso Robles.

North County voters in District 1 of the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors have four candidates to choose from in the June 7 primary, and whomever they elect will have key votes on critical issues, including groundwater management, criminal gangs and housing.

In interviews with The Tribune Editorial Board this week, the candidates discussed their stances on those and other issues — finding common ground on the need to create more jobs, along with affordable and workforce housing. The candidates also notably disagreed on a few North County issues, such as whether the supervisors should have rejected a proposed Las Pilitas gravel quarry near Santa Margarita.

The District 1 candidates are Paso Robles Mayor Steve Martin, Paso Robles City Councilman John Hamon, retired Paso Robles attorney Dale Gustin and Templeton businessman John Peschong.

The large district includes all of Paso Robles and San Miguel and most of Templeton. Incumbent Supervisor Frank Mecham is not seeking re-election. If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote in the June primary, the top two vote-getters will go on to the November general election.

All four candidates said this week that they would work to improve civility on the Board of Supervisors, which is currently divided along partisan lines with Supervisors Adam Hill and Bruce Gibson on the liberal side and Supervisors Debbie Arnold and Lynn Compton representing a conservative side. Mecham has commonly been the swing vote on many controversial and partisan issues.

“We have given up fighting for what is right, and now we’re just fighting,” Martin said.

Water management

Now that voters have overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to establish a water management district for the Paso Robles groundwater basin, all four candidates said the county should step in and manage the basin rather than passing that duty on to state water officials.

Hamon said he originally supported the district but later said he disagreed with the details of how the district would be managed. Martin said he supported forming the groundwater district.

“I believe that control of the water should be kept as close as possible to the people it is benefiting,” Martin said. “Management should go to the county and not the state.”

The main problem with the water district was its cost, Peschong said. The district’s plan to tax residents of the basin $1 million a year for five years was way too expensive and the main reason the district failed, he said.

“I think there is the political will in the county to manage the five basins that are in overdraft,” Peschong said.

Those basins, in addition to the Paso Robles basin, are in Los Osos, Edna Valley, Cuyama Valley and Nipomo Mesa.

Other key issues facing district

The candidates were asked about the most important issue facing the district, other than water. Hamon said housing and jobs.

“Young people need to have jobs in order to stay in the community,” Hamon said. “I want to make our communities more affordable for young people.”

Martin named several issues: infrastructure and transportation, affordable housing as an economic driver and addressing homelessness. He said Paso Robles was looking at how to open a center that would provide temporary housing and services for the homeless.

Peschong said his door-to-door survey of North County residents found that gang violence was the most critical issue facing the district. He said he supports increasing the county Sheriff’s Office budget to better combat what he believes is a growing threat.

“Gangs and gang violence are big problems,” he said. “Drugs are coming into this community, and that’s what is causing a lot of the problems.”

Gustin agreed with Peschong and said illegal immigration was a factor that needed to be addressed.

Addressing housing needs

Asked how the county could encourage more affordable and workforce housing, all four candidates agreed that streamlining the construction permitting process was necessary. Martin disagreed with the other three candidates on whether the county should reduce permit fees, which can add tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of building a house.

Martin said fees that were too low in Paso Robles in the 1980s and 1990s ended up causing $200 million in infrastructure debt for the city. He said fees need to be reasonable but cover city or county costs. Martin also said reducing fees would not benefit homebuyers. He said developers sell houses at market rate, so any fee reduction would not be passed on to buyers but simply pocketed by the developer as additional profit.

“Fees are always passed onto the customer,” he said. “They need to be examined to make sure we are charging enough to cover costs.”

Peschong called for the county to guarantee a 24-hour turnaround on issuing permits for small workforce housing projects and said the city of Phoenix introduced a similar program a year ago.

Hamon called for deed restrictions on workforce housing to ensure it remained affordable — although Martin noted that affordable housing and workforce housing are two different entities. Affordable housing is typically restricted to low-income residents, while workforce housing is market-rate housing priced for the average working household.

Phillips 66 proposal

In an instance of unanimity, all four candidates said they support the proposal by oil company Phillips 66 to build a rail spur at its Nipomo Mesa refinery to allow the facility to bring up to five large oil trains a week. The candidates said safety would be their biggest concern but that trains are a safer way to transport oil than trucks.

They also pointed out that the refinery has operated safely and provides 200 well-paying jobs for the county.

A decision on the rail spur is pending before the county Planning Commission and could go to the Board of Supervisors later this year.

“Refineries located close to the consumer are the only best way to keep fuel costs down,” Gustin said.

That may not be true in the case of the Nipomo Mesa refinery. The oil brought by train to the refinery would be processed and then sent by pipeline to Phillips 66’s refinery in Rodeo in the Bay Area for further processing and distribution.

Las Pilitas quarry proposal

Three of the four candidates agreed that it was a mistake for the Board of Supervisors in May 2015 to vote down a proposal to establish a gravel quarry near Santa Margarita.

Residents of the town were largely against the quarry because of the truck traffic it would have brought through the center of town and changes to the character and quality of life for residents.

Martin said he had those same concerns and probably would have voted “no” on the Las Pilitas quarry proposal.

Mecham was part of the 3-2 majority that voted against allowing the quarry.

The other three candidates said the Las Pilitas quarry was needed in order to have a local supply of aggregate rock, which is used for road maintenance and the construction industry.

“I would have voted to approve the quarry,” Peschong said. “I think it is absolutely critical to keep supplies local.”

This story was originally published April 7, 2016 at 6:02 PM with the headline "Four candidates vying to succeed Frank Mecham as SLO County supervisor."