Public Safety
I am committed to ensuring our Police and Fire Departments receive the resources and support they need to keep our community safe. I will advocate for increased funding, advanced training programs, and the latest equipment to empower our first responders. Public safety is the most important responsibility of local government, and I will always support our Police and Fire services, ensuring they can respond effectively to any emergency facing our community.
Road Repairs
Over the past ten years, I am proud of our record of fixing our roads with all resources available to us. We replaced the roads around the golf course, fixed Spring Street, have Creston Road under construction, and have many more shovel-ready projects in the pipeline. Voters approved supplemental sales tax revenue, and as promised, we spent all 70 million dollars of that on road improvements. I have been serving on the Supplemental Sales Tax Oversight Committee along with nine public members for the last ten years to make sure all of the funding is spent on repairing and improving our roads. Keeping our roads in good condition does not happen overnight or with the stroke of a pen. It requires prudent planning, fiscal responsibility, and strategic planning. I will continue to take that approach in the years to come.
Fiscal Responsibility
Having spent my career in business and the private sector, I have brought fiscal responsibility to the City Council and sought to ensure that the city continues to live within our means financially. While working with the Council we were able to bring in a new City Manager in 2014. With this new manager we were able to focus on the budget and actually started developing a sustainable surplus almost immediately. I have always supported a transparent budgeting process and seeking the most efficient use of taxpayer dollars. By prioritizing essential services and eliminating wasteful expenditures, we have been able to maintain a balanced budget while investing in our community's future. And most importantly we are continuing to maintain a healthy surplus for those emergencies that come upon us.
Homelessness/Housing
As a member of the Housing Constraints and Opportunities Committee, I have worked with the committee to approve more affordable and workforce housing in our community, by saving costs on permits and water and sewer hookup fees. Today, Paso Robles is leading the County in creating new housing opportunities at a more affordable level. Additionally, our Community Services Department is striving to improve efficient customer service helping to make a business friendly environment for our citizens. As a Council, we continue to support our Community Services Department to encourage housing affordability.
We are working with ECHO, our partner in reducing the unsheltered locally. Homelessness is a challenging issue that has impacted every community in San Luis County. We are taking this issue very seriously and we have significantly reduced the number of unhoused individuals and families on the streets. With ECHO’s assistance, recipients of homeless services must work through a 90-day program designed to get them back on their feet. We are seeing record numbers of these folks finding permanent housing in our community—and now this has become a regional model of success in housing the unsheltered.