Where do Pismo Beach City Council candidates stand on water, tourism and other issues?

Five candidates are running for two open seats on the Pismo Beach City Council this November.

Pismo Mayor Ed Waage is running unopposed.

The candidates for City Council are Erik Howell, Stacy Inman, Kevin Carl Kreowski, Debora Ann Lossing and Mary Ann Reiss.

Howell, Inman and Lossing discussed their stances on key issues facing the city as part of The Tribune’s 2022 Election Voter Guide. Kreowski and Reiss did not respond to requests to participate in the Voter Guide.

Here are the remaining candidates’ responses, organized by candidate and in alphabetical order. Some responses have been edited for length or clarity.

Erik Howell

What is your vision for what Pismo Beach should look like in five years? 10 years?

I would hope that Pismo Beach will continue to be a warm, safe and welcoming community. My vision of Pismo Beach in the next five or 10 years is one in which we are addressing our traffic congestion, housing affordability and the joint threats of sea level rise and fire danger.

What do you believe is the most important issue facing Pismo Beach today, and what will you do to address it?

Ensuring a sustainable source of water is the most pressing issue facing our community. I will continue to promote collaboration with our neighboring cities, the county and local businesses to complete Central Coast Blue and maximize conservation.

Pismo Beach and its neighboring cities are pursuing a significant recycled water project aimed at improving the region’s water reliability. What are your thoughts on the Central Coast Blue Project? Are there any issues you see with its implementation or any changes you would like made to the city’s involvement?

I am a strong proponent of Central Coast Blue. A sustainable water supply and the protection of the groundwater basin needs to be a top priority for residents as well as businesses. Central Coast Blue is the most economic and environmentally sensible solution. One concern I have with the implementation of the project is the possible exportation of local jobs. The city should bid the project but ensure a community workforce to support our local families.

Do you think Pismo Beach has done a good job of balancing the city’s tourism-based economy and the needs of its residents? What more would you like to see done?

Pismo Beach has done an incredible job at promoting itself as a tourist destination. However, the city needs to be better at mitigating some of the negative impacts that inevitably come with visitors. We should be more proactive at reducing traffic, speeding and crime and providing parking.

Is there more Pismo Beach could do or policies you believe the city should pursue to address climate change? Should it follow the city of San Luis Obispo’s footsteps and pursue an aggressive environmental strategy?

The city of Pismo Beach can do a great deal more to address climate change. Offering reduced permit fees for environmentally responsible construction, grant programs for residents to reduce energy consumption and making city projects themselves more energy efficient are just a few places to start.

Stacy Inman

What is your vision for what Pismo Beach should look like in five years? 10 years?

My vision is to keep the quality of life here for our residents. To do that, we must have limited, well-thought-out growth. By 2040, we shall have a population of 10,216. Currently, we have approximately 288 vacant and/or underutilized properties in Pismo Beach. In order to ensure that we have housing for all sectors of our community, the city needs to encourage more affordable housing options so that the service workers and those with less than the median income can live where they work. In the downtown area, I envision a thriving business community. There are very few, if any, vacant commercial properties downtown. I would work to ensure that our commercial business maintain and enhance their strength. I also envision a parking structure in the downtown area. I also see other modalities to be in greater use: bicycles, mopeds and walking. We need to invest in more biking and walking paths so that people get out of their cars.

What do you believe is the most important issue facing Pismo Beach today, and what will you do to address it?

The most important issue facing Pismo Beach is our access to water. Currently, the city has declared a critical water supply condition. We receive water from three sources: Lake Lopez, the State Water Project and the Santa Maria Water Basin. Currently Lake Lopez is only at 23.7% of its capacity. Pismo will only get 5% of its allocation from the State Water Project and saltwater is intruding into our basin.

Central Coast Blue, which was recently agreed upon between the cities of Pismo Beach, Arroyo Grande and Grover Beach, will help by treating wastewater in order to inject into the basin. However, in my opinion, this will not be enough to sustain the water needs of our community. I believe that we need to study desalination now, not later. We have a potential opportunity to tie into the Diablo Canyon Power Plant’s desalination, which is underutilized, or study and design our own desalination plant. Water is a base need for all humans, and we must work on this.

Pismo Beach and its neighboring cities are pursuing a significant recycled water project aimed at improving the region’s water reliability. What are your thoughts on the Central Coast Blue project? Are there any issues you see with its implementation or any changes you would like made to the city’s involvement?

I appreciate Pismo Beach’s lead on this. The three cities of Pismo Beach, Arroyo Grande and Grover Beach have come together to cause the CCB to be authorized. This purification process will cause newly cleansed water to be injected into our groundwater basin and will help ensure a sufficient barrier within the basin to keep seawater from flooding in to our aquifer. This will help reduce Pismo Beach’s vulnerability to drought and seawater intrusion. The issues I see with CCB currently is that it is still not fully funded. The city must continue to pursue grants and other monies for it to be fully paid for. The city’s lawyers must prepare the Joint Power Authority’s (JPA) legal documents. The JPA will be able to receive funding, issue debt and hire personnel in order to cause the project to be produced and implemented. The issue I see currently is the build-out of CCB will need to be monitored closely to ensure that it is implemented correctly and does what it is destined to do.

Do you think Pismo Beach has done a good job of balancing the city’s tourism-based economy and the needs of its residents? What more would you like to see done?

I think that Pismo Beach has done a pretty good job of balancing the city’s tourism-based economy and the needs of its residents. There are times when the downtown area of Pismo Beach is inundated with tourists — typically from Memorial Day to Labor Day. At that time, our traffic circulation and parking needs are not adequate. I believe we need a new parking structure somewhere near Highway 101, to ensure that more parking is available for tourists. At the same time, it is not fair for our residents, who pay property taxes and local taxes, to have to fund the parking meters downtown. I believe a resident permit process should be put in place to allow residents to park for free. I also believe that our city should revisit and retract its decision to have paid parking on Price Street. Price Street is Restaurant Row as the city envisioned. But if residents and visitors want to have dinner downtown, they have to typically pay $5 an hour to park. To have dinner and pay $10 to $15 to park while visiting downtown will negatively affect our business’ ability to attract more paying customers. That is what I would like to see.

Is there more Pismo Beach could do or policies you believe the city should pursue to address climate change? Should it follow the city of SLO’s footsteps and pursue an aggressive environmental strategy?

Yes, I believe there is more that the city of Pismo Beach could do to address climate change. I believe that Pismo Beach needs to do a better job to reduce greenhouse gases. However, I believe we need to study if the city could be carbon neutral in upcoming years, and what it takes to do so for our city. The city has already contracted with Central Coast Community Energy, which pools the electric needs of communities and has less greenhouse gas emissions. The city has quite a bit of open space, now with the Pismo Preserve being opened. I believe we can, and should, have a tree-planting program, which will also help. I believe we should look to more electrification — which infrastructure needs to be built — and then move toward most of the city’s vehicles, including police vehicles, to be electric vehicles or even looking to hydrogen cell vehicles in the future. I also believe the city should do more to promote solar panels. While the city does have solar panels in its Frady Lane Maintenance Yard, I believe City Hall and other locations the city owns, such as the Veterans Hall, could and should be using solar for our electricity needs. Pismo Beach needs to formulate a strategic plan to address climate change, including the ideas above, and others, so that we can lessen our carbon footprint and address climate change.

Debora Ann Lossing

What is your vision for what Pismo Beach should look like in five years? 10 years?

Pismo Beach needs to be preserved in order for all residents to continue to enjoy this diamond of the Central Coast. There needs to be a balance with welcoming visitors and bringing in revenue.

What do you believe is the most important issue facing Pismo Beach today, and what will you do to address it?

Water, public safety and quality of life are very important issues to address. Central Coast Blue is a solution for water. Other solutions should be looked at as well. We need to be fully staffed to provide full public safety to our residents. Controlled growth is an important factor to our quality of life.

Pismo Beach and its neighboring cities are pursuing a significant recycled water project aimed at improving the region’s water reliability. What are your thoughts on the Central Coast Blue project? Are there any issues you see with its implementation or any changes you would like made to the city’s involvement?

I support the Central Coast Blue Project. If other cities are willing to get involved, I support that.

Do you think Pismo Beach has done a good job of balancing the city’s tourism-based economy and the needs of its residents? What more would you like to see done?

I would address Pismo Beach’s downtown parking and traffic. Many residents avoid downtown Pismo Beach due to these issues. Transportation should be provided in and out of downtown Pismo Beach during the busy season.

Is there more Pismo Beach could do or policies you believe the city should pursue to address climate change? Should it follow the city of SLO’s footsteps and pursue an aggressive environmental strategy?

Yes. Pismo Beach needs to be more pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly. SLO is a very good example in this regard.

This story was originally published October 14, 2022 at 5:30 AM.

Kaytlyn Leslie

The Tribune

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Kaytlyn Leslie writes about business and development for The San Luis Obispo Tribune. Hailing from Nipomo, she also covers city governments and happenings in San Luis Obispo. She joined The Tribune in 2013 after graduating from Cal Poly with her journalism degree.