Community Development

Paso Robles Community Development
“Planning for a quality of life”

Fred Strong photo


Position: Low Income Housing
Low income housing should not, and realistically cannot, be in the form of three or four bedroom homes with fireplace, family room, two or three baths with a two car garage on a 10,000 square foot lot. It should be a minimum sized, livable family shelter in single family, duplex, four-plex, condominium or apartment formats. Workforce and moderate income housing should be a step up from basic housing supply. Housing costs will have to be met by the marketplace. Where the Federal and State governments have subsidy money available we should seek our share.

I am working diligently to replace funding previously available through our Redevelopment Agency by one of the many mechanisms being proposed at the State level.

A realistic option for public transit available to all people could allow many low income families the opportunity to reduce their spending on transportation and redirect those funds to housing, food and health care.

Position: Planning for City Growth
The City must provide a broad variety of opportunities for its residents. Different people have different needs and desires for their lifestyles. Being different doesn’t mean being “bad”. We have an obligation to make this a City that respects different lifestyles and needs without compromising health and safety considerations. The efforts we made toward long range plans regarding the Uptown, Town Center, Salinas River and South Chandler/Olsen Ranch areas, as well as efforts in process for the balance of the Chandler Ranch and Beechwood areas are examples of the long range planning we hope for as a community. Five of those plans, with my involvement, were the first time that numerous public workshop meetings were held to get the total community involved in the pre-planning process. 40 hours, or more, of opportunity over a week long time frame allowed thousands of public contacts and opinions to be processed in determining our future direction

Our future must look to better utilization of available land resources on and under the influence of our airport and other industrial areas. We must expand the opportunities presented by owning our airport. We must provide the opportunities for appropriate amounts and variety of shopping for our population level. Those opportunities should not include government subsidies for new growth and development. An appropriate amount of housing for all people who freely choose to exercise their rights, as Americans, to live here should be planned for in order to avoid infrastructure and resource shortages, increased crime, and a reduced quality of life. All new development must pay its own way! There is one exception. When Federal or State government orders us to subsidize or provide services, in specific instances, we must follow the law.

Position: Quality of Life
I believe that the balance in Paso Robles between jobs, housing, shopping and destination leisure activities for others around the world must be maintained for a safe, healthy and pleasant future. Paso Robles was founded as a resort community. We set our feet upon a path then that has determined our lifestyle and success since that time. It would be foolish to abandon our success. Meanwhile, we cannot ignore other economic opportunities that technology and circumstances may present to us. Remote working for our qualified citizens in high paid positions for heavily impacted corporations is one of many opportunities that we must be prepared to embrace for a long term improved, and balanced, economy.

Position: Transportation

In many of my capacities both within the city and as a result of representing the city at the region, State and Federal levels I am dealing with multiple ways to improve our transportation services and infrastructure. All goods and people movement depend upon quality and diverse transportation options. I am working diligently to improve funding for our streets and highways with a great deal of success, especially at the regional and State levels. I’m also working with my rail boards, executives of the rail industry and Cal-Trans leadership to improve and expand our rail services both north and south to all of the major economic centers of California and beyond.

At the national level I’m working on a plan, that is beginning to get some traction to fully fund the Federal Highway Trust Fund that provides much of the funding for our regional, State and Federal road and highway systems. In that effort I’m seeking to eliminate a regressive and costly form of taxation for a system that is paid for equitably only by those who actually use the system. This will ultimately greatly improve both the safety and the quality of our entire surface transportation systems with a small cost in the everyday goods we purchase as the users seek to recoup their costs of transportation from their customers. The overall result, however, will be much lower costs for the average American in the long run according to studies done by some of the major think tanks in our nation.\

I pledge to continue all of these efforts for as long as I’m in office and a position to do so.