Richard Schmidt
Richard Schmidt is an architect and teacher, and served for 19 years as a volunteer on various city committees and commissions, including eight years on the Planning Commission, terms on the Waterways Planning Board, Environmental Quality Task Force, Election Regulations Committee, and Housing Element Task Force, and is sick about what his city has become in the last decade and a half.
The "Continue Reading" links open in a new window or tab.
Let’s stop wasting our votes
OPINION by RICHARD SCHMIDT My votes for San Luis Obispo City Council just got wasted again. Just like in 2016. Just like before that. Election after election, my votes play no role in electing anyone to a council that then contains nobody sympathetic to my views or demographic. It’s enough to make one say “Why […]... (Continue Reading)
Facts SLO City Hall cannot defend
OPINION by RICHARD SCHMIDT It was one of those Alice in Wonderland moments observers of the San Luis Obispo City Council see so often under our current mayor’s rule. Jeffery Specht, a candidate for the council, had just begun speaking during public comment. He’s running a low-budget campaign, so this is one of his major […]... (Continue Reading)
Simple question to SLO staffers, weird answers
OPINION by RICHARD SCHMIDT It seemed a simple question my brain said I needed to ask. After being in the middle of San Luis Obispo’s Anholm Bikeway insanity for more than a year, I had the impression the city’s bike planners were … , well, let’s be polite and say “amateurish.” From the git-go, as […]... (Continue Reading)
Is SLO City Council ignoring the public and the Brown Act?
OPINION by RICHARD SCHMIDT Just two weeks after approving a compromise bicycle plan for the Broad and Chorro corridor that sought balance between residents’ needs and bikers wants, San Luis Obispo’s City Council, in an hour-long non-agendized public hearing, threw out the compromise and went full steam ahead to provide what a clique of bike […]... (Continue Reading)
Turning SLO into Slum Luis Obispo
OPINION by RICHARD SCHMIDT This is a tale of two cities, both faced with rapacious demands from developers buoyed by a new state law that provides incentives to developers who include a few units of “affordable” housing in their projects. One city’s leaders acted forcefully to protect the public interest and community planning standards, the […]... (Continue Reading)
A SLO City Council Merry Christmas to downtown shoppers
OPINION by RICHARD SCHMIDT Monday, downtown shoppers hoping to park in the 60-plus public parking spaces in the San Luis Obispo City lot off Broad and Marsh streets, were greeted with signs telling them the lot is closed permanently, and yellow construction tape blocking entrances and exits. So, right at the beginning of the holiday […]... (Continue Reading)
Kiss your SLO views goodbye
OPINION BY RICHARD SCHMIDT “Amenity transfer” is an awkward term you’re probably not familiar with, but there’s an old saying in politics: if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. If you don’t know about amenity transfer and live in San Luis Obispo, you’re definitely on the menu. Amenity transfer is about things […]... (Continue Reading)
SLO City takes citizens on a wild ride
By RICHARD SCHMIDT Usually I write about very serious San Luis Obispo City politics — water rates, tax elections, other boring stuff. Today, dear readers, we’ll talk about goofy little things our city people do, the warp and weft of city government that gets overlooked and under-appreciated. So, here goes. Panhandling The city doesn’t want […]... (Continue Reading)
Water and sewer sale in San Luis Obispo
OPINION By RICHARD SCHMIDT You haven’t heard about it, though, because the city wants you to believe they’re doing the opposite, encouraging you to conserve water with appropriate “conservation pricing.” Like much at our city hall, that’s smoke and mirrors. After the city council gets done raising rates again this month, if you’re a water-wasting […]... (Continue Reading)
Thanks to Carpenter and Smith for protecting SLO
OPINION By RICHARD SCHMIDT The following letter was sent to the San Luis Obispo City Council regarding their “failure,” as the Tribune put it, to approve general plan provisions that would allow high density housing beneath the flight path into and out of the San Luis Obispo Airport. Such development is prohibited by the Airport […]... (Continue Reading)
