VOTERS’ GUIDE

Candidate Forum With SLO choosing a new City Council member, it is time to get to know the candidates...

Why are you running for City Council?

In your view, what is the biggest issue facing SLO today?

Paul Brown

I was asked to run by resigning Councilman Andrew Carter, former Mayor Dave Romero and other community leaders. We need a broad spectrum of voices on council to maintain balance and common sense decision making.

Keeping SLO economically vibrant, while retaining the charm we are celebrated for. Through good planning, we can provide for necessary workforce housing and commercial uses without spreading out to the LOVR and Edna Valley corridors.

Carlyn Christianson

I am running for city council because I love San Luis Obispo and I believe in giving back to my community. I will work to protect our beautiful environment while promoting economic vitality.

Housing and fiscal stability are ongoing issues, but SLO is updating its Land Use and Circulation Element (LUCE). What the City decides now will affect neighborhoods and traffic patterns for decades to come.

What is your position on the proposed homeless shelter on South Higuera?

The site is too small to adequately accommodate a 200 bed shelter and will negatively impact the surounding neighborhoods. We need to mitigate these issues and secure more funding before moving the proposed shelter forward. I support replacing the crumbling shelter. If built on South Higuera, I would like to see the project altered to address the concerns of the business park owners, and measures regarding transients put into place.

Would you support a ban on leaf blowers?

No, this would be challenging to enforce. In areas of town this is a great concern, in others, not as much. I’d rather see home owners associations and neighborhood groups build consensus on the issue.

Who or what has had the biggest influence on your life?

Who—My parents, Bill and Marie Brown. What—Working as a military instructor for the Grizzly Youth Academy on Camp SLO. I still maintain contact with many of the cadets I worked with and mentored.

What do you like to do for fun?

I like working in my yard. I also enjoy hiking. There are many great trails around the area and I think the views of SLO are amazing, especially when the sky becomes crimson before sunset. I would look into the pros and cons before instituting a ban. Leaf blowers are noisy and cause pollution, but alternatives like using water are not good either. I’d check other cities for ideas.

My two children. I’ve learned about love, patience, humility, generosity, and kindness. Also about being a grown-up! I still learn from my now-adult children—they give me something new to think about all the time.

Spending time with my kids and my friends, hiking, walking, movies, day trips, arts and performances, conversations over coffee or wine, eating out, cooking in, biking to work. I like to enjoy other people’s gardens!

Don Hedrick

My goal is to make a difference. I still just be one vote on the council, but I would bring some heart and soul into the corporation of our city that has been demonstrating a lack. Big money and special interests are way too represented now.

International corporate criminal organizations that own our high governments and have their seditious treasonous agents installed in key places within our governments have for their agenda, as in Agenda 21 of the United Nations, been in the process for years of handing our country over to be incorporated into the New World Order.

The homeless need help from their hostile government caretaking plans. Building a FEMA barracks to house 200 is not a healthy thing to do. Putting so many people with all the various illnesses common to the disadvantaged of our society is not safe and a larger facility would be worse. Leaf blowers are an annoyance brought on by a culture that demands instant everything. Sweeping and vacuuming do not kick up so much dust into the air the people have to breathe. Secondary to that the noise is a problem. The Planning Commission and then the City Council that “retaliated” for my participation in the meetings with that first mixed-use project to come before them by orchestrating the demise of my life and business.

Riding my WWII vintage industrial mobility device that has become well known as Don Quixote’s trusty steed Rosinante. There is nothing like the wind in your face cruising along in the quiet of electric transportation.