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Morro Bay needs revenue producing projects

August 10, 2024

OPINION by BOB FOWLER

The City of Morro Bay needs private investment to develop and redevelop revenue producing projects that benefit our city. Without it the city’s economic vitality stagnates, and the city goes bankrupt.

Those investors need assurances that the process is fair and that they have a path to successfully entitling a property. That is why Morro Bay and every other municipality invest hundreds of thousands of dollars and untold hours of their citizens time and their city staff’s time in developing general plans, zoning codes, waterfront master plans, downtown design districts and all the other dozens of reports and planning documents.

Measure A-24 eliminates that kind of assurance for a prospective investor. After spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in the normal entitlement process, the project is then required to survive a public vote? Nobody’s going to take that kind of risk.

On top of that, Measure A-24 cedes the approval of the battery energy storage system plant to the State Energy Commission. So we end up with the battery energy storage system plant and a dilapidated and deteriorating property with no path forward to be redeveloped.

That’s bad For business and that’s bad for Morro Bay. Vote no!

Bob Fowler is a Morro Bay buisness owner who completed a full rebuild of Morro Bay Landing.

 


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Fire up one of those power plant units and use the electricity to run a desalination plant. Sell the excess water to other cities around the county. It won’t be long before Morro Bay would be flush with funds.


SLO County and the cities in it keep issuing new building permits without developing new sources of water….so sooner or later water is going to become quite valuable.


1

This may surprise the writer, but not every town needs a massive influx of development and investing and paving over, in order to remain solvent. Morro Bay has done just fine all this time, without the need for Walmart, or Costco, crazy dangerous battery storage, or a “Disneyland like” waterfront (although, the Embarcadero all “Pirates Of The Caribbean” would be rather cool. Yo Ho!)


Despite the power plant, commercial fishing fleet, and the former Navy base going away, MB simply chugs along just being lil ‘ol MB.


Let’s try spending less on management, and more on infrastructure. Bloated salaries have never paved a street, because when they try to, it resembles Marina St…


4

Resurrect the 4th of July fireworks.


3

All the negative feedback here is really only about stopping the battery project. If that is the true issue, then fight that specific project. Instead of tying all the future of that area into a quagmire of inaction for any other development in the future.


The A24 movement will cause a huge amount of future colateral damage to stop one specific project. We are dropping a 10,000lb bomb in an attempt to stop a mouse.


Many people are against the BESS project but have the insight to see the overkill that is contained in the A24 movement!!


1

I think you did a great job with Morro Landing remodel. Big improvement, but the embarcadero and the rest of Morro aren’t blighted like areas of Santa Maria or Grover, for example.

Also the city staff tend to be obstacles in events and other promotions individuals try to bring like the kite festival.

I’m afraid the city will certainly go bankrupt in the No s distant future. Salaries and pensions will do it.

There will be no state or fed bail because they are broke too. So one way or another we will have less government in town. Scam projects like the big battery won’t cut it because not enough investors foolish enough and the rapid awakening of tax and rate payers that will only spread as we enter recession.

Morro bay city government has had too big a payroll for decades and day of reckoning is coming ever closer.


13

Silly me, I thought elected officials were supposed to look out for and answer to the residents of the city. If the city is broke, maybe it needs better management, or cutbacks in unnecessary spending, and a ramping up of what it does best. Selling it to an out of state corporation whose goal is its own profit, at the cost of destroying all that is Morro Bay’s unique charm and livability, is not a viable option IMHO.


25

You folks are kidding, right? Do you believe the citizens of Morro Bay would be able to come to a decision on this property?

Do you want some guy who pours drinks at a bar to be the one to repair your car brakes? We have representative government so we can elect and appoint the proper persons to do the job and represent us.


None of this stuff is that simple and straightforward as you think, there are many twists and turns for the average citizen to manage the process.

You will have to excuse me now, I need to have my gardener do a bypass on my heart.


-19

It’s not actually a debate with a winner… it’s a vote. A decision will absolutely be made lol. Besides; what’s wrong with the guy who pours drinks or repairs your car brakes? Nothing. Elected officials are often just people with regular jobs anyways. Doubt a long time local would say some nonsense like that… from out of town?


6

Yes, elected officials are just normal people, but they direct staff who hopefully are experts. They can utilize consultants etc. They need to be more focused than the general population who normally only get focused when it directly impacts them.Yes, I am a long time local (27+ years) which is exactly the reason I can tell the outcome. Dejavu


-3

Big difference between an investor and a carpetbagger. Let the voters decide.


27

I for one couldn’t care less about “private investors” or their “assurances”. If the “benefit of our city” is truly of concern then the citizens of said city should surely have a say in matters via public vote.


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