Current San Luis Obispo County District 5 Supervisor Debbie Arnold is not seeking a fourth term on the Board of Supervisors. Her seat is up for grabs in the March 5 Primary Election, and two women who sit together on the Atascadero City Council are running against each other for the position.
Atascadero Mayor Heather Moreno and Mayor Pro Tem Susan Funk have similar interests when it comes to what they'd like to tackle as supervisor, but they differ in the ways they'd like to tackle those issues.
For Moreno, public safety is her top priority. This includes budgeting for mental health services for public safety officials.
“With public safety, it's making sure through the budgetary process that we budget what they need to get the job done, both in the sheriff's department and in county fire with homelessness," Moreno said. "We've got millions of dollars that have been spent. We've had many plans to tackle homelessness. I think we need to have a performance audit and see how this money is being spent.”
Moreno wants to look at the availability of county-owned land and how nonprofits and developers could bring housing to those areas.
“Every two years we have a Point-In-Time Count and it's necessary to know what are the numbers," Moreno explained. "I don't think we have to wait over two years, though. In Atascadero, we know our numbers and I think this can be done countywide.”
As for Funk, tackling homelessness and bringing affordable housing to the community are her top priorities. The city council member played a major role in the creation of the SLO Countywide Plan to Address Homelessness.
“The five-year plan says that we need to expand housing integrated with services to support people for success," Funk explained. "We need to manage it with data that integrates the different providers together and gives us real performance metrics for accountability. We need to do it as a collaborative enterprise with all of the cities and the county working together, and we need to have the communication support to back that up so people can get engaged constructively in being part of the solution.”
Funk's plans to tackle homelessness involve handling each community differently since she says different areas have different needs.
“I made sure we had law enforcement on the committee at the table," Funk said. "I made sure we had lived experience at the table and that we had worked together to listen and made sure that we listened to the human beings on all sides of the homelessness issue.”
From members of the Atascadero City Council to opponents in a district race, both candidates are making a strong push for Debbie Arnold's position.
“My willingness to tackle tough issues, to make change and be straightforward about where I'm coming from and to work really hard to listen to everybody and to craft good, broad solutions, my countywide experience — all of that is part of what I bring to the table in this work, and that sets me apart as a candidate. I walk the walk," Funk said.
“My mentor before me, he used to talk about the Partisan Swing, and you'd have this pendulum and it would sing swing left and right and left and right. He always told me, 'I've done the best that I can do to take that pendulum and pull it straight down.' And I have followed in that same pattern, and I think we need that at the Board of Supervisors, and I commit to doing that," Moreno concluded.
Since only two candidates are running in the District 5 Supervisor race, whoever receives the most votes in March will be the winner with no November runoff.
