From taxes to water, here’s where SLO County District 4 candidates stand on the issues

San Luis Obispo County is less than a month away from the June primary election, and two familiar candidates are fighting to win your vote to represent District 4 on the Board of Supervisors.

The race is a rematch from four years ago, when Lynn Compton defeated Jimmy Paulding by 60 votes.

Here’s a look at who the candidates are and where they stand on a range of issues, from taxes to housing.

Want to hear about their stances on other topics? Let The Tribune know what you want candidates in all SLO County races to be talking about ahead of the primaries at https://bit.ly/3Fam4Ry.

Who’s running for the District 4 seat? Meet the candidates

Paulding was born and raised in Arroyo Grande and now serves on the Arroyo Grande City Council.

“One of my most exciting aspects of the campaign is getting to reconnect with people I grew up with, played soccer with or went to church with,” Paulding said.

Paulding said one of his priorities is to reduce partisanship on the board.

“We need to get the partisan politics out of local government and do what’s best for the interests of all of us in the community,” he said. “I want to serve everybody.”

Paulding has been endorsed by three of his colleagues on the Arroyo Grande City Council: a Republican, a Democrat and an independent, he said.

“That’s because I work across the aisle to focus on the issues that matter and get stuff done,” Paulding said. “I want to unify our community.”

Compton has served on the Board of Supervisors for seven years. She didn’t respond to The Tribune’s multiple interview requests.

“My priorities remain the same,” Compton said at an April 21 debate co-hosted by the League of Women’s Voters and Latino Outreach Council. “I will continue to work to assist constituents as I’ve done in the past, regardless of their political party or opinions.”

She said she wants to keep government small and effective.

“I want less government, less government intervention, less taxes, and more personal freedoms,” she said.

How will District 4 candidates protect the county’s water supply?

Water levels in the Paso Robles and the San Luis Obispo Valley groundwater basins are lower than is sustainable due to overpumping and the drought. Meanwhile, the county has now slipped back into “extreme” and “severe” drought conditions.

Both candidates pledged to address the local water crisis, but in slightly different ways.

At the debate, Compton noted that the county has projects in progress to protect the water supply, and promised to keep working on them if elected. For example, the county extended its state water contracts until 2035 and is “in talks with” Santa Barbara on building a joint desalination plant.

The county also may take ownership of the Salinas Dam Project from the Army Corps of Engineers, and Compton traveled to Washington, D.C. to discuss purchasing the project and doubling holding capacity of the dam at Santa Margarita Lake, she said.

Paulding, however, said District 4 needs new leadership on water.

“Instead of talk, we need action,” he said. “People are worried about the drought. They want to see leadership and they want to know that their elected officials are working to deliver new water sources.”

Paulding said regional collaboration is a critical component to water management. He wants to work with all stakeholders, including the county, cities and farmers, “to ensure everyone has a seat at the table and that we’re working together to proactively solve the problem,” he said.

During his time on the A.G. City Council, Paulding has advocated for the Central Coast Blue Project, which will “take our wastewater that’s currently being sent out to the ocean, treat it, and inject it back into the ground,” he said, yielding another 1,000 acre-feet of water for Pismo Beach, Grover Beach and Arroyo Grande.

Where do Compton and Paulding stand on housing and affordability?

The county must use “all the tools in the toolbox” to build more affordable housing, Paulding said, from supporting tiny homes to updating zoning to make it easier to build multi-family homes.

The Arroyo Grande City Council will soon review a program designed to make it more affordable to build accessory dwelling units (ADUs). Through the program, homeowners can select one of three floor plan designs for ADUs to build on their property. This way, they don’t have to pay a designer or architect to design their ADU, “which is a cost impediment for a number of people,” said Paulding, who helped write the grant application for the program.

The Arroyo Grande City Council also directed staff to explore permit fee waivers for homeowners who agree to rent out ADUs they build on their property, Paulding said.

The county should adopt programs like these to move the needle on affordable housing, he said.

Paulding said that local governments also should zone more land for multi-family housing.

In 2019, the Board of Supervisors updated the county’s inclusionary housing ordinance, which required developers to make 8% of their projects affordable housing or pay a fee. Fees were placed in a fund for affordable housing projects.

In March, the board voted to repeal the ordinance.

Paulding would have voted to keep the program, he said, as it helped the county meet its affordable housing goals. Over the past two fiscal years, the program helped build at least 220 units and generated about $1.2 million. To replace the funding generated by the program, Paulding said he would support passing another inclusionary housing ordinance, or place a housing bond on the ballot.

Paulding said that the board majority voted to end the ordinance after the Home Builders Association lobbied for its repeal, noting that Compton has accepted large campaign donations from developers during the past eight years.

“In many cases we see projects approved for the very developers that are buying her vote,” Paulding said. “That is not what we need. We need to restore transparency, accountability in our local government.”

Paulding “vowed not to take a single dime from the real estate development industry,” he said at the debate.

Compton said she hasn’t accepted as much money from developers as Paulding claimed, and pointed out that Paulding accepted large donations during the last election too — but from labor unions and the family of Andrew Holland, who died in January 2017 after spending 46 hours strapped in a restraint chair at the San Luis Obispo County Jail.

She also said she’s proud to be supported by developers.

“They’re the ones that have to build a home,” she said. “I have the people that are generating the jobs and producing the income and creating a workforce in this county supporting me, and I’m proud of it.

Compton said she doesn’t support the inclusionary housing ordinance, calling it a “house tax.”

She said developers will pass the fee onto home buyers, making housing more expensive in the county.

“I don’t believe in taxing anything we have a short supply of,” Compton said. “You can’t bash home-builders and then want more housing in this area.”

Paulding, however, said the ordinance is not a tax.

“It is a fee, just like any other fee — road fees that go on our roads when we approve development projects, park fees, public facility fees,” Paulding said. “To call it a tax is incredibly misleading and indicative of the kinds of misinformation that you hear from the incumbent.”

Compton said she’s worked to support affordable housing during the seven years she’s been in office.

In 2016, the county adopted a workforce housing subdivision ordinance, “which gives developers greater flexibility to design small lot, infill projects,” she said.

That same year, the county also funded an affordable housing initiative package — which waived permit processing fees and public facility fees for affordable housing projects, and also “removed barriers” from the construction of Accessory Dwelling Units in unincorporated areas of the county, she said. The county also conducted a feasibility study on placing a $40 million housing bond on the ballot.

“We’ve done lots of things to work on affordable housing at the county level,” she said.

From Diablo Canyon to wind energy, where the candidates stand on renewable energy

In 2016, PG&E announced plans to close Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant when the last license for its reactors expires in 2025. Gov. Gavin Newsom, however, recently said he’s interested in finding funding to keep the plant open.

Still, the future of the plant is uncertain.

At the debate, Compton said she supports the plant and signed a letter with the Board of Supervisors asking Newsom to keep the plant open.

“Diablo was green energy,” she said. “I don’t understand the reason for wanting to close that.”

For seven years, Compton said she has also served on a task force exploring renewable energy options to replace the plant’s power when it does close.

Compton noted that the county is already making progress on expanding sustainable energy — as it’s building a solar plant off of Highway 1 near Cuesta College and working to bring wind turbines to the waters off Morro Bay, which will provide both energy and jobs for the county, she said.

Like Compton, Paulding supports diversifying the county’s energy portfolio — from solar energy to offshore wind energy. He said the county can partner with Cal Poly to find ways to re-purpose Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant’s industrial site, perhaps using it as an offshore wind port.

Paulding also wants the county to join Central Coast Community Energy (3CE), an organization that delivers renewable and carbon-free energy to its customers. 3CE also gives participating communities access to a fund for green energy projects — from rebates for electric cars to large solar projects.

All seven cities in the county are enrolled in 3CE, and Paulding wants unincorporated areas to take advantage of the fund, too.

Residents are automatically enrolled into 3CE but can choose to opt out of the program.

Compton doesn’t support 3CE. Because residents are automatically enrolled in the program, she thinks it removes their right to choose how their energy is procured.

“If it was such a great program, let people opt in and you wouldn’t have a problem with me,” she said.

Where they stand on leaving the Integrated Waste Management Authority

In 2018, the District Attorney’s Office started investigating the Integrated Waste Management Authority (IWMA) for fraud. The agency takes care of compliance with state regulations and solid waste disposal, notably recycling, green and hazardous waste. In August 2021, the D.A.’s Office charged the IWMA’s former board secretary, Carolyn Goodrich, with embezzling thousands of dollars from the agency.

A week later, the Board of Supervisors decided to pull the county out of the IWMA.

As a result, the county had to create a new waste management division and hire five new staff members to manage hazardous waste collection and recycling for unincorporated areas of the county — which resulted in garbage rate increases for residents.

Compton called the IWMA “the most corrupt organization this county’s ever had.”

The IWMA governing board was comprised of an elected representative from each of the seven cities, all five county supervisors and a member from one of the area’s community services districts.

Compton said the cities “wanted to implement all kinds of crazy programs that us in the county didn’t want,” like fines for distributing straws at restaurants or using plastic bags. She also noted that the state’s new green waste rules impact restaurants most — and cities have more restaurants. The county didn’t want to pick up the bill, she said.

“It was a crazy, out-of-control organization,” she said. “(Leaving) was the best decision we’ve ever made.”

Paulding disagreed. He called the decision to withdraw from the IWMA “fiscally irresponsible” and “a disgrace to SLO County and an affront to the concept of regionalism.”

He would not have voted to withdraw from the IWMA, he said, and instead would have called for prosecuting the secretary and “making the organization stronger.”

“An employee embezzling some funds is a problem that needs to be addressed, but we don’t dismantle the entire organization for that reason,” he said. “We fix it. We address the problems.”

Paulding said it was Compton’s “ideological opposition” to measures like the styrofoam ban — not corruption in the agency — that caused her to vote to withdraw the county from the IWMA.

Election charter

The county is currently drafting an election charter, which would require vacancies in elected county offices to be filled by an election instead of appointment.

In February, Compton voted in support of the charter draft.

“I think the concept behind the idea is good,” she said at the debate. “The people need to decide who their next supervisor is — not a governor, whether it’s a Republican or Democrat.”

But now, she said she’s no longer sure if she supports the charter, as some constituents brought up concerns at the last meeting — though she didn’t mention which concerns resonated with her.

Paulding said he thinks the charter sounds good in theory, but he’s concerned that the district lines are gerrymandered and would prevent a fair election.

“The people should always decide who the elected officials are,” he said. “But when you consider the fact that the district lines are gerrymandered, it’s again a political power play.”

Paulding thinks the charter, proposed by conservative Supervisor John Peschong, is “in furtherance of an agenda” to preserve the conservative board majority.

Paulding also said the charter is too expensive. A special election for countywide offices can cost about $1 million, and taxpayers would foot the bill. He thinks this is unnecessary, as the appointed candidate’s special election lands on the ballot of the next scheduled election anyway.

Independent redistricting commission

In December 2021, the board voted to adopt a controversial district map drawn by Arroyo Grande resident Richard Patten.

SLO County Citizens for Good Government filed a lawsuit against the county, saying the map violated the Fair Maps Act by gerrymandering the districts to favor Republicans and splitting communities of interest. They asked the court to prevent the county from using the map in upcoming elections, but a local judge approved the map for the 2020 primaries.

Meanwhile, members of the public suggested the county form an appointed, nonpartisan commission that would examine district boundaries when the time came again for redistricting.

The board voted 3-2 on April 6 to exclude a commission from the proposed county charter.

Paulding said he supports the redistricting commission.

“We absolutely want to take the power to make these kinds of decisions out of elected officials who will use their power to gerrymander for their own self gain,” Paulding said at the debate.

Compton, however, doesn’t support the commission. She said that the board followed the Fair Maps Act when deciding on the map, so the county has no need for a redistricting commission.

“We have a good map,” she said. “The map is not gerrymandered.”

She said that independent redistricting commissions have disadvantaged the county in the past — noting that the California redistricting commission split San Luis Obispo County into two districts.

“It diluted our power in this county,” she said. “We have no power in the Legislature, thanks to an independent decision.”

Do the candidates support a sales tax increase?

Paulding noted that a sales tax “is one of the only ways to fix our roads,” so he would be willing to explore it as a funding option for the county.

Compton doesn’t support another sales tax, she said.

“We’re taxed enough here in this county, in this state,” she said.

How will District 4 candidates address crime, support law enforcement?

While on the Arroyo Grande City Council, Paulding voted to fully fund the police and fire departments, he said.

“Public safety is a top priority of mine,” he said. “In a small town like ours we need to increase our law enforcement presence, if anything.”

An average of two sheriff’s deputies are on patrol at a time in the South County territory stretching from Oceano to Highway 166. If elected, Paulding would focus on establishing a sheriff’s substation in Nipomo, which would improve response times and overall service, he said.

Paulding criticized Compton at the debate for not pushing for the sheriff’s substation, which he said was one of her campaign promises in 2018.

Compton, however, said it’s up to the sheriff if he wants to build a substation in the South County — and she’s done her part by consistently voting to increase the sheriff’s budget.

“We can’t tell the sheriff you have to hire people, you have to build something,” she said. “This sheriff made the decision to put more boots on the ground instead of building out a sheriff’s substation.”

She noted that there is a plan for a sheriff’s substation in the South County, and they have the land for it.

With policies like Proposition 47, which classified shoplifting as a misdemeanor for those who steal less than $950 worth of items, and Proposition 57, which creates opportunities for early release from prison, Compton said she’d rather put money toward increasing law enforcement on patrol, anyway.

“People’s vehicles are being broken into,” she said. “You can’t even leave your purse on the seat in the car. I think we’d rather have boots on the ground and people working actively to help our citizens that are struggling with all the increase in crime.”