A Fairer, More Open Morro Bay City Government

by Nancy Bast

The May 28 Morro Bay City Council meeting was a landmark meeting for the citizenry of Morro Bay. Here's why.

For a couple decades waterfront lease sites — state-owned public property entrusted to our city to be managed for the good of all the people — have been negotiated outside the visibility of the public, creating a potential for favoring some leaseholders.

The City's tourist promotional funds benefit primarily waterfront businesses, motels and hotels, making those the most successful in town.

In some cases, multiple leases are held by the same people. Some adjoining leases were allowed to be purchased and consolidated into a single site to enable a "bigger better development " (such as Marina Square), which creates sublet spaces that have a potential for a primary leaseholder to profiteer on the use of public land.

This current Council has adopted a policy of openness in dealing with lease sites, thus Mayor Jamie Irons agendized the first public discussion on waterfront leases, including input from residents. The result was a lively discussion between all the Council members, the public, the city attorney, and staff, which resulted in everyone being well informed and a unanimous decision by the Council.

The meeting did start at the regular time of 6 p.m., and the leases discussion took about 1 1/2 hours until 11 p.m. It was at times somewhat repetitive, but that is the democratic process.

The lesson, I believe, is that everyone's questions were answered, all the Council members came together in agreement, and any aggrieved party witnessed the entire process and was able to clearly understand the prudence and fairness of the Council's action with no reason to suspect favoritism.

Thank you, Mayor and Council, for providing residents a chance to participate more fully in the process that so directly affects our quality of life in this exceptional place.

Christine Johnson, George Leage, Jamie Irons, Nancy Johnson, and Noah Smukler (City Photo)

Belted Kingfisher Image on Banner by Cleve Nash