Five Syllable City

I am still making the transition to running for office. It has been three weeks since I declared my candidacy, and still I feel the impulse to take a shower whenever I think of myself as a politician. It is not a label that I like. Then, again, there are virtually no labels that are appealing to me, because I do not want to accept the confinement that comes from being categorized. So politician is just another label that I will have to learn to ignore in trying to be myself and do the right thing.

Since entering the Council race, I have received a lot of encouragement and support. Quite a few residents of Atascadero, and elsewhere in the area, seem excited by the fact that someone like me has stepped up to try to turn things around in Atascadero. There is a widespread perception that Atascadero’s business district is an embarrassing failure, and that new blood is needed to give the city a chance to reorganize. They see the moribund mess that is downtown, after years of hearing talk about revitalization in that area, and realize that individuals with ambition and fresh ideas have to be brought in to make things happen. There also seems to be an awareness that my professional profile and background will be of great help on the City Council. So I have been heartened by the reaction to my candidacy up to this point.

Nonetheless, running for office is an activity that I do not find particularly enjoyable. Asking for votes and other forms of support does not come easy to me and, surprising as it may seem to some, bragging is something I am very uncomfortable doing. In any event, it is worth it for the purpose of doing the right thing. Clearly, this is an undertaking which will bring me personal growth along with, hopefully, the achievements that are the ultimate goal. Stay tuned.

I have decided to run for a seat on the Atascadero City Council in the upcoming November election. Within a couple of weeks after the filing period begins on July 14, I expect to file the necessary paperwork to qualify as a candidate.

After I opened the UpGrade Atascadero website in February of this year, numerous individuals suggested that I run for City Council. Among them were three of the five sitting members of the Council, who offered the suggestion with what I sensed was an underlying message that I should “put up or shut up.” I have considered that reaction to my outspokenness, and taken it to heart. Having concluded that I cannot “shut up,” I have decided that I had better “put up.” I am therefore entering the race for the three Council seats that are up for election in November.

Running for City Council is the next logical step in the movement I launched when I set up the UpGrade Atascadero website. Upgrading the city’s management is a vital step in the effort to UpGrade Atascadero. Few enterprises succeed without skilled, capable and focused management, and that is especially true when there is a crisis such as that which is now facing Atascadero. It has become obvious that the incumbent Council members are not up to the task of managing this city of 28,000 people and reversing its declining fortunes, and that Atascadero needs individuals like me to step up and serve. My deep background in sophisticated business and legal matters will enable me to bring to the City Council the kind of skilled professionalism that is needed to meet the complex challenges that are now facing Atascadero.

By stepping up to run at this time, I am also hoping to encourage other talented and accomplished Atascadero residents, who have until now been uninvolved in local government, to step up with me to help our city complete its transition from the small town that it once was to the mid-size city that it now is. I contemplate a day in the future when we will look back on our success in reversing Atascadero’s current downward trend, and see that the turnaround started when we began to upgrade the city’s management by putting more qualified individuals on the City Council. I am hoping that this declaration of candidacy on my part will prove to be one of the major milestones in that progression.

I am also running at this time because I think that the current members of the Council are too preoccupied with partisan political interests. They are so focused on preserving or regaining power for their respective political factions that they are often putting factional political objectives ahead of Atascadero’s best interests. I am neither a member nor an opponent of either of the vying political factions, but like many other Atascaderans, I see how the factional power struggle is dragging Atascadero down. So I am stepping up as an independent candidate, offering proposals to advance the interests of all of the residents of Atascadero. I expect to find support from the many citizens of Atascadero who are uninterested in the partisan conflict, and who want dedicated professional representation of the interests of the entire Atascadero community. I also expect to draw support from a large number of thoughtful and fair-minded individuals on both sides of the partisan divide who will recognize the merits of my vision and accept my offer of leadership because it will benefit our whole community.

A goal of my candidacy is to raise the standards for City Council campaigning. With my extensive writings in the last few months on the UpGrade Atascadero website and on the Five Syllable City blog, and with the detailed candidate platform statement that is accessible on the home page of the UpGrade Atascadero website, Atascadero voters will find more information about a candidate and his proposals than they have ever been given before. In addition, with my record of educational achievements and career accomplishments in business and law, I hope that my candidacy will raise the bar for those who consider calling themselves qualified to take on the formidable challenge of managing the affairs of a mid-size city in modern-day California.

Beyond this, by voluntarily limiting financial contributions to my campaign to $500, I want to set a precedent for doing what is right when asking the public to entrust you with the power and responsibility of an important elected position. Only with such a cap on financial contributions can the public be sure that a successful candidate is coming into office without owing all kinds of favors to supporters who had the money to make large monetary contributions to his or her campaign. If a candidate is serious about doing what is right, instead of just doing whatever appears helpful to win an election, he or she will not wait for the law to impose a limit on gifts of money to his or her campaign. People or organizations who can afford to make large financial contributions should have no greater say in the electoral process than those who don’t have that kind of money.

At the age of 57, I hope to follow the achievements of my career in the private sector with achievements in the public sector that will benefit our community for years to come. My wife and I have come to love Atascadero in our 3½ years here, and we plan to spend the rest of our lives here. In stepping up as I am doing now by declaring my candidacy for City Council, I am seeking to start a process of accomplishment that will make the long-discussed, long-delayed revitalization of Atascadero a reality. I want to play a major part in bringing about tangible, meaningful improvement for our community.

Len Colamarino

Anticipation is growing in advance of the June 24 City Council meeting, where the next episode of the Wal-Mart serial is scheduled to run. This installment will focus on the Atascadero Shield Initiative, which was supported by enough petition signatures to qualify for action by the City Council, either to enact it or place it on the ballot for the November election. In the run-up to the next Council showdown on Wal-Mart, letters to the editor have been proliferating in the Tribune and the Atascadero News. On June 18, the Tribune also chimed in with a lead editorial entitled “Initiative may worsen Atascadero’s retail ‘crisis,’” recommending that the Council not enact the Shield Initiative, but instead refer the matter to the voters for what the Tribune implied should be rejection in November. Meanwhile, the June 20 edition of the Atascadero News carried a full-page color advertisement rallying opposition to the Shield Initiative and urging people to show up at the Council meeting to demonstrate their opposition. And so the drumbeat continues, with spokespersons and activists sounding off and the opposing forces readying themselves for another round of public conflict on Tuesday night at the Council meeting.

As the quasi-carnival atmosphere begins to take shape in expectation of the next Wal-Mart shootout, one starts to wonder whether this running controversy, with its now almost ritualistic public displays of support and opposition, is partially a response to an unfulfilled need for community in Atascadero. As has often been noted in this blog and elsewhere, there is no community hub in Atascadero, no center where people regularly meet, or where they can go to see and be seen. There are also no events or occasions that draw participants from all segments of the Atascadero population, the way the Mid-State Fair and certain wine-related and other events do in Paso Robles. With such a void existing in Atascadero, perhaps the opportunity to gather around an issue, showing up at City Hall to be counted en masse on one side or the other, provides a measure of reaffirmation of membership in a community that is otherwise hard to find.

The problem, of course, is that depending on controversy to satisfy a craving for community has the effect of reinforcing the identity of the community as one which is divided and conflicting, both in people’s minds and in reality. Those who congregate for the Wal-Mart showdown events do so in distinct groups of “us” and “them.” From there it is all too easy to slip into the hateful name-calling vocabulary of talk radio, reducing real people who are neighbors to two-dimensional, cartoon-character abstractions labeled variously as socialist, anti-worker, elitist, trash, no-growth, good old boys, tree-huggers, pawns of developers and brokers, and so on.

As important as it is to find places and causes to bring people together in Atascadero, it is equally important to exorcise the demon of divisiveness that the Wal-Mart issue has become. In that regard, if there is any hope of ever covering over the cleavage exposed by Wal-Mart, it will only be realized by letting the voters express their will on the issue. Only through a cathartic popular vote will the people have their say and will it be learned with certainty what the majority thinks about a Wal-Mart supercenter. Once that is done, maybe Atascadero will achieve the kind of closure needed to enable the community to heal and move on to address more cohesively the many other challenges that are pressing.

At its June 24 meeting, the City Council majority should exercise restraint and refrain from deciding on its own to adopt the Atascadero Shield Initiative. Instead, the Council should place the matter on the ballot for November and afford the voters a chance to make the conclusive decision on this lightening rod question. By proceeding in that way, the Council can help bring our community closer to reaching closure on a conflict that has been dividing it for too long.

The members of Atascadero’s City Council made the right decision at the Redevelopment Agency meeting on May 27, when they refused to dedicate public funds to the Colony Square project. Even though the project is a worthy one, and is of great importance to the revitalization of the downtown, tough love is the right way for the City to nurture the project at this stage. The reality is that the current developers are undercapitalized and beyond their depth in connection with this 50 to 60 million dollar project. Their business plan seems to be based on the premise that if they succeed in getting the initial, 18-million-dollar, first phase of the project completed, they will qualify for the additional financing needed to finish the project. After the movie theater goes in, the developers hope, high-paying retailers will line up to participate, expected rents will increase and the project will become bankable in the estimation of potential lenders.

Who knows? Maybe a fortuitous series of events such as those hoped for by Colony Square’s current developers could unfold. Nonetheless, it would be imprudent for the City of Atascadero to advance funds on the basis of such a speculative plan. The hard truth is that it will probably be necessary to restructure the ownership of the Colony Square project for the project to succeed. The current developers will almost surely need either to recruit another partner prepared to commit substantial capital to the project, or sell the project altogether. The Redevelopment Agency enhanced the prospects for that happening sooner rather than later by declining to provide the stop-gap, take-a-chance financing that the current developers were requesting to keep the project going within the present ownership structure.

Rather than allocate money to propping up the Colony Square project, the City of Atascadero should apply any available discretionary funds to rebuild the historic City Hall for a productive use. That extraordinary building is the most valuable physical asset which Atascadero has, and occupies a position of pivotal strategic importance in the downtown area. While there were repeated suggestions during the May 27 meeting that Colony Square is a “catalyst project” for Atascadero’s downtown revitalization, the fact is that rebuilding the City Hall is the real “catalyst project” for the downtown, as it is the project that will determine whether, and when, downtown redevelopment goes forward in earnest. In fact, rebuilding the old City Hall may well make or break the Colony Square project itself.

With the old City Hall standing in a ruined state, and with doubt remaining about its future prospects, an air of uncertainty pervades Atascadero’s downtown. It is a basic fact of business life that uncertainty is a condition that is inhospitable to business. And that fact is only underscored when the uncertainty relates to whether, when and how the largest, best-positioned, most prominent and impressive building in a community is going to be rebuilt and used. Until that uncertainty is resolved, reasonable, risk-averse businesspersons will continue to take a pass on development projects in the downtown area. That is why, from a business standpoint, it is of pressing importance for the City of Atascadero to put a definite, viable, plan on the books for rebuilding the old City Hall and applying it to a productive use.

It must be acknowledged that deciding on the best course to follow in rebuilding the City Hall is not a simple matter. As has been noted frequently in the four and a half years since the earthquake damaged the building, there are formidable engineering challenges in retrofitting the building which have to be overcome. In addition, how the old City Hall is to be used after it is retrofitted may affect the City’s right to keep amounts that it has received from FEMA to reimburse it for tenant improvements and rent payments the City has made while leasing the new City Hall from the Redevelopment Agency. So a careful analysis is needed to evaluate the various courses of action open and the costs and benefits, direct and indirect, associated with each option for rebuilding and using the structure. Based on that kind of analysis, a strategy should be committed to which will best serve the City’s interests, taking into account not only dollars and cents spent and saved immediately but also all of the short and long term effects that rebuilding the City Hall for a particular use can be expected to have on the revitalization of Atascadero’s downtown.

As things are, the crucial project of rebuilding of the old City Hall is a matter that seems just to be drifting along. It is more or less accepted within the City Council and staff that the retrofit is going forward and that the building will be used as a City Hall in its next incarnation, in order to avoid any risk of losing some or all of the reimbursements that FEMA has been providing. That the City’s employees prefer not to leave their current offices and go back to the old building, and that the highest and best use of the historic City Hall may not be as an office building for city employees but as an attraction such as a museum, are realities that are being ignored in letting the project drift along. Those realities are making their presence felt, however, by giving rise to the perceptible lack of enthusiasm and urgency on the part of the city in retrofitting the building. It is no accident that, almost four and a half years after the earthquake, no commitment has been made to a definite plan for rebuilding Atascadero’s centerpiece structure or a timeline for doing so.

Sound management of the City’s affairs calls for adopting a methodical, proactive approach to deciding what to do with the old City Hall. A strategy for dealing with this invaluable public asset needs to be developed after careful consideration of all of the various alternatives, and comparison of the costs and benefits of each option, including implications for FEMA funding, city employee morale and downtown redevelopment. For the purpose of formulating that strategy, it would be advisable to impanel a committee, composed not only of city officials but also selected members of the public, to study the matter and make recommendations to the City Council and the City Manager.

In any event, the fate of the historic City Hall should not be determined by what happens to occur while the matter drifts along in the current of day-to-day affairs. Following that approach leaves it essentially to chance that a correct decision will be made on how to deal with the building. It could also make it very difficult to explain how decisions were made that might later be regarded as misjudgments in any post-mortems and recrimination sessions that would take place if there is dissatisfaction in the future about what was done with the building. In addition, letting the matter just drift along without the City government being committed to a positive plan for the use of this pivotal property perpetuates the uncertainty that is stifling business development in Atascadero’s downtown area.

Announcing a definite, considered plan for restoring the old City Hall to productive use is an essential step that needs to be taken to give credibility to plans for the revitalization of the downtown area. When that genuinely “catalyst project” is on the books, struggling projects like Colony Square will be given new life, and substantial developers will have a reason to consider more seriously the possibility of undertaking projects in Atascadero’s rebuilding downtown. As things stand, there is too much uncertainty about the fate of this key property for rightfully cautious lenders and developers to commit themselves to projects in the area.

On May 13, a majority of the City Council denied Atascadero voters the opportunity to decide whether to have an elected mayor. Councilmember Jerry Clay made a motion to put on the Council’s agenda for a future meeting the question of whether an initiative measure should be included on the November ballot allowing voters to elect the mayor directly and, if so, whether the mayor’s term should be two or four years. Councilmember Tom O’Malley supported the motion. Councilmembers Luna and Beraud and Mayor Brennler opposed it. So, by a 3-2 vote, the motion was defeated.

The rationales given by Councilmember Beraud and Mayor Brennler for opposing the motion had the ring more of pretext than of truth. Councilmember Beraud put herself on record as favoring age discrimination in selecting a mayor, and used that dubious position to support an even more dubious argument of false economy. She said that whoever gets the job of elected mayor should be young, and that since such a young person would have more need for compensation than an older person, it would be necessary to pay an elected mayor more than the $300 per month that other members of the City Council get paid. So she voted against the motion because, she said, in its current strained financial condition, the City of Atascadero cannot afford to pay an elected mayor the additional compensation that he or she would have to get. Mayor Brennler, meanwhile, used a different line of suspect reasoning to justify his vote to deny residents an opportunity to vote on whether to have a directly elected mayor. Starting with a statement that an elected mayor is something that Atascadero should have in the future, he said that that future time has not yet arrived and that it is necessary first to address the subject of election campaign finance reform. No reason was given for why the subject of an elected mayor could not be put up for decision by the voters in November while the subject of campaign election reform is being addressed.

Councilmember Luna provided an explanation for his opposition to the motion which was more candid and coherent. It was also disturbing in its substantive content. He made the point that Atascadero is a divided community, and that different councilmembers have their different constituencies. He also made reference to what seemed to be painful memories of a past time when, he said, he was on the short end of a 4-1 division on the Council and was passed over for mayor. He then expressed concern that allowing the voters to elect the mayor would somehow recreate the situation he faced when he was an oppressed minority member of the Council. From those comments, the message came through that Councilmember Luna represents a certain constituency; that he feels he is now part of a majority faction of the Council; and that he does not want to let the voters elect a mayor because it could alter that favorable status quo by producing a mayor who might not be just another member of his Council majority.

There can be little doubt that the political concerns that Councilmember Luna expressed are at the heart of the opposition by the majority to allowing the voters to decide whether Atascadero should have an elected mayor. The rationale expressed by Councilmember Beraud to justify her opposition to Councilmember Clay’s motion does not withstand analysis. The additional amount of money that it would cost the city to pay a mayor even as much as $2,000 a month is just not material in the whole scheme of things. As to the explanation given by Mayor Brennler for his opposition, there is no reason why campaign election reform cannot be pursued on one track while the question of whether to elect a mayor is being pursued on another. Unless we are to assume that the Council majority acted on the basis of flimsy rationales unsupported by logic, we can only conclude that they were motivated by the political calculations presented by Councilmember Luna.

The Council majority’s opposition to a motion to consider allowing the voters to decide whether to have an elected mayor represents a defeat for the interests of Atascadero. As has been discussed in detail in previous postings on this blog, and elsewhere, Atascadero is at a great disadvantage in trying to operate its municipal corporation without a chief executive officer. The absence of an executive disables Atascadero’s government by leaving it without an individual whose job it is to proactively promote a vision for progress and improvement, to initiate action and to stand personally accountable for the results. There is a void, and no individual Councilmember or faction of the Council has stepped up to fill that void. Indeed, the majority faction which is now straining to preserve its power has shown little unity, much less initiative, and has not provided the leadership that is so sorely needed by Atascadero during these challenging times. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that this majority will even remain in tact after this November’s election. Nonetheless, the majority voted to put its questionable, short-term political interests ahead of the obvious best interests of the residents of Atascadero, in a decision that is not easy to reconcile with the duty of Councilmembers to promote the best interests of the community.

The explanation given by Councilmember Luna for opposing an elected mayor serves to point up yet another important reason why we need an elected mayor—because members of the Council apparently regard themselves not as representatives of all of Atascadero but of only their supporters. Councilmember Luna was up front in disclosing that he regards himself as the representative of a limited constituency, and that his role is to advocate the interests of that constituency as an avowed partisan. Other members of the Council might not be so up front about it, but the fact is that their respective profiles, actions and voting records strongly indicate that most, if not all, of them have a similar view of their roles. That is not the way it is supposed to be, as members of the Atascadero City Council should be fiduciaries for all of us, duty-bound to protect and promote the interests of the entire city and not just the interests of their supporters. That being said, it is, of course, not uncommon in the partisan world in which we live for politicians to view themselves primarily as representatives of the interests of their supporters and, if questioned about the propriety of that view, to claim that the interests of their supporters are completely congruent with the interests of the larger community.

It is another political reality that an elected mayor would not be able to get away with representing a limited constituency as easily as members of a city council are able to do. To get elected as mayor, an individual would have to succeed in finishing first in the voting. Mayoral candidates would, therefore, have to seek support across the community and present platforms recognizing the interests of the whole city. In contrast, candidates running to fill two or three open council seats can focus their campaigns on a particular constituency, based on the calculation that winning the votes of the right-size group will be enough to finish among the top two or three vote-getters in the race. In addition, after a mayor wins election, he or she will be called upon constantly to serve the interests of the entire community, to be accountable for all of the city’s ups and downs and to field approaches for assistance from every segment of the community. In contrast, after members of the City Council get elected, they enjoy the cover that comes from being just one member of a group of five and are spared personal accountability for all of the city’s fortunes, as well as many pleas for help from non-supporters.

Having an elected mayor might also bring some sorely needed unity to the divided community of which Councilmember Luna spoke so matter-of-factly. It is not an advantage for Atascadero that it is so divided, and that its disparate groups always seem to be vying to impose their identities and wills on the city. When a city reaches the size of Atascadero, there needs to be general acceptance that not everyone is the same or shares the same tastes and values. And there needs to be recognition that different elements of the population are entitled to pursue their lives and have a place in the community. That is an essential part of the growth process of a city. On that point, much of the success that Paso Robles is enjoying these days can be attributed to the way the ranching and wine cultures have come together harmoniously and productively in that city. Those are two very dissimilar groups of people, and it can easily be imagined how there could have been a disastrous collision when they found themselves sharing the same town. Those two groups adapted and cooperated, however, and in the process succeeded in putting together a community that was greater than the sum of its parts. They created a community with a unique character formed from elements of the old west and California and European wine backgrounds. In Paso it seems that a place was made for everyone, with a civilized shopping, dining and cultural hub in the downtown, a center for the ranching and farming interests at the fairgrounds, convenience and big box shopping on the south side of the city, and an infrastructure area concentrated on the east side of the freeway along Paso Robles Street.

Admittedly, there was a powerful incentive for cooperation in Paso Robles, in that there was real money to be made from the wine boom there. While that same incentive may not be apparent in Atascadero, it should be becoming clear that money is being lost in Atascadero by having a business community which is one-dimensional and disordered. And it should also be clear that if Atascadero does not find a way to diversify its commercial sector to serve all segments of its population, its sales tax revenues will continue to languish and the financial crisis which is currently in progress will intensify. In the face of these realities, there should be motivation enough for Atascaderans to find a way to come together.

To accept complacently that Atascadero is a divided community, and that it is your group against their group, does not serve the interests of the people of this city. Hopefully, the voters will recognize this and demand that members of, and candidates for, City Council commit themselves to represent the best interests of the entire community and not just the interests of a limited constituency of political supporters. Hopefully, also, the subject of an elected mayor will be revisited again soon, because the need for an executive officer accountable to the entire community has never been proven so convincingly as it has been proven by the refusal of the Council majority faction to let Atascaderans vote on whether the mayor should be elected by the voters.