Priorities
A Pismo Beach That Works for All
"My vision for the city is a Pismo Beach that works for all of us: tourists and residents, young and old, those threatened by the rising sea and those at risk of wildfire."
Tourism & Residents
in Balance
The city's General Plan frames resident quality of life as something that trickles down from serving visitors.[1] Yet the Conference & Visitors Bureau (CVB) has an atypical permanent institutional home in City Hall while residents have no equivalent voice. A Resident Advisory Panel, annual quality-of-life reporting, and formal resident protections around large events would begin to bring balance.
This isn't an argument against tourism — tourism revenue is essential to the city's budget. But true balance requires equal representation, and right now the city has formal, ongoing infrastructure dedicated to the visitor experience with nothing comparable dedicated to the resident experience. The city's government website describes Pismo Beach first and foremost as a recreation and tourism-oriented town.[2] A Resident Advisory Panel — with conflict-of-interest exclusions so it truly represents residents and not special interests — would give residents the kind of dedicated, ongoing attention the CVB already provides for visitors.
That attention should include annual quality-of-life reporting, tracking everyday measures like traffic and parking impacts, housing costs and availability, and access to local services. This would provide the city with the same kind of accounting for resident wellbeing that it already keeps for visitor activity, where metrics like transient occupancy tax revenue are regularly reported.[3] Paired with resident protections on access, parking, and noise in the city's event permitting, this is about making sure the scales aren't permanently tipped toward one group.
Climate Change:
Fire & Water
Wildfire risk in hillside neighborhoods, coastal erosion, beach loss and flooding from sea level rise, and water supply reliability are connected problems requiring a coordinated response. Completing the overdue Safety Element, a fresh Central Coast Blue alternatives analysis, and a disaster preparedness plan for the city's most exposed residents are immediate priorities.
Climate change is making environmental hazards worse.[4] Hotter, drier conditions extend the fire season and increase fuel loads in hillside areas. Sea level rise accelerates coastal erosion and beach loss. More intense storms with higher seas raise flood risk in low-lying areas, including the mobile home park communities which are a key source of lower-cost housing — making this a housing issue as much as a safety one.[5] The Safety Element of the city’s main planning document is long overdue for an update, and it needs to reflect the latest climate science as well as who is actually here — including an aging population with mobility and evacuation constraints, and a visitor load that can swell the local population many times over.
Reduced snowpack in the Sierras and more variable precipitation put long-term water supply at risk.[6] Pismo Beach is now the only city pursuing Central Coast Blue after partner agencies withdrew and the project was scaled down,[7] and costs have risen while state grant funding decreased.[8] This warrants a fresh look at alternatives, including constructed wetlands for filtering wastewater, a lower-cost, more natural way to address water reliability while increasing stream flows. Conservation matters too: Pismo Beach's per capita water usage remains above state conservation targets,[9] and reducing use is one of the most cost-effective steps we can take.
Senior Support
Pismo Beach planning documents identify older adults as the city's most notable vulnerable population, and nearly a third of Pismo Beach residents are over 65,[10] yet city policy largely addresses senior needs only when new development triggers a requirement. A city that works for all of us should treat its largest vulnerable population as a planning priority, not an afterthought.
The city's 2014 ADA Transition Plan[11] catalogued thousands of accessibility gaps, many of which remain: missing curb ramps, sidewalk gaps, and crossings that aren't safe for those with mobility challenges. The city's Safety Element identifies older adults as the population least able to evacuate in a disaster[10] — a documented vulnerability that deserves significant consideration in emergency response planning. More than half of Pismo Beach's senior households earn low or very low incomes[12] and the city funds a home repair assistance program to help lower-income homeowners stay in their homes, but the program is underutilized.[13]
As mayor, I’ll prioritize senior needs as a standing consideration in infrastructure and planning decisions, built into the process from the start. That means finishing the high priority accessibility upgrades the city identified years ago, giving the city's most vulnerable residents a more prominent place in emergency planning, and making sure the programs that already exist reach those who need them.
Multimodal Transportation
The city hasn’t implemented many of its plans for safer walking and biking. Cyclists lack connected routes through much of the city. Sidewalk gaps and missing curb ramps outside of school corridors make routes less safe for people with mobility issues, while installation and ADA upgrade costs often fall on property owners. The city should fund the gaps and execute the 2013 Complete Street plan.
The Shell Beach Road project[14] shows both sides of this. The city rebuilt an 18-block stretch with a separated multi-use path, wider sidewalks, and accessibility upgrades — the kind of complete street the city's plans call for. But even this path stops at the edge of the neighborhood, pushing bicyclists onto the street or onto sidewalks with pedestrians to reach downtown and the main beach.
The Complete Street plan[15] is more than a decade old, and many of the gaps it identified are still there. In the meantime, the cost of closing gaps like missing sidewalks too often is borne by whichever property owner happens to be adjacent,[16] rather than being treated as a citywide responsibility. That means safety for non-drivers can depend on the timing of unrelated private projects rather than on need. I'll push for a clear, prioritized list of the remaining gaps — focused on the highest-need locations first — and a commitment from the city to close them directly, instead of waiting for them to be addressed piecemeal.
Good Government
Good government means residents can participate meaningfully and trust the city is working proactively on their behalf. Remote public comment at meetings, substantive minutes, and heading off problems rather than just reacting would make that more real. Residents should feel that the city is actively looking out for their interests and keeping them informed.
Transparency and accountability mean making the plans the city already has — like its assessment of accessibility barriers around town — public information that residents can simply look up, not something they have to fight to see. It means offering remote public comment, so those unable to attend in person can participate actively and meaningfully. And it means publishing meeting minutes substantive enough that residents can understand what was discussed without sitting through hours of video.
Proactivity means keeping the city's planning documents current — some haven't been meaningfully updated in years, even as conditions have changed significantly. It means fixing problems because the city staff and leadership proactively seek them out, not because residents complained. And it means forward thinking to address issues like declining tourism revenue[17] and coastal erosion, not operating on hope and band-aids. That's the standard I'll bring to City Hall.
Footnotes
[1] City of Pismo Beach, General Plan/Local Coastal Program Update, Land Use Element, Guiding Principle "Support the Visitor Population While Enhancing the Quality of Life for all Residents," p. LU-3 (adopted May 19, 2026).
[2] City of Pismo Beach, "Living & Visiting” pismobeach.org.
[3] City of Pismo Beach, FY 2026 & FY 2027 Budget in Brief, "General Fund Revenues" and "Your City Is Prepared.”
[4] City of Pismo Beach, Draft Safety Element Update, (Dudek, March 2022), prepared for the GP/LCP Update but not adopted, Section 2 ("Climate Change").
[5] City of Pismo Beach, Draft Safety Element Update, (Dudek, March 2022), prepared for the GP/LCP Update but not adopted, Section 3.2 ("Flooding"), Figure S-7.
[6] California Department of Water Resources, "Climate Change and Water"
[7] New Times SLO, "Pismo Beach is the Only Agency Left on the Central Coast Blue Water Project", July 2025.
[8] Central Coast Blue, "Central Coast Blue Project Update", March 2024.
[9] The Tribune (San Luis Obispo), "More Water Cuts Could Be Coming to SLO County. Here's How Much Your City Faces", Feb. 14, 2024.
[10] City of Pismo Beach, Draft Safety Element Update, (Dudek, March 2022), prepared for the GP/LCP Update but not adopted, Section 4 ("Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Recovery"), "Vulnerable Community Members."
[11] The ADA Transition Plan is only available for inspection at city offices.
[12] City of Pismo Beach, 2020–2028 Housing Element Update, Chart 2-28.
[13] City of Pismo Beach, 2020–2028 Housing Element Update, Program HE-17/HE-19 Housing Rehabilitation; Chart 5-2.
[14] Western City Magazine (League of California Cities), "Pismo Beach Transforms an Iconic Neighborhood", Sept. 1, 2023; Cannon Corporation, "Shell Beach Road Streetscape Improvements".
[15] Gates + Associates and RBF Consulting, Pismo Beach Complete Street Plan, City of Pismo Beach, adopted March 19, 2013.
[16] California Building Code, Chapter 11B; 28 C.F.R. § 36.403(f). Adopted by the City of Pismo Beach by reference, Pismo Beach Municipal Code § 15.04.010.
[17] Oxford Economics, "Inbound Travel to US in Steep Decline" (May 2025); U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Summer vacations: prices for gasoline and air travel each up more than 20 percent over the year" (May 2026).