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.
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Measure G and developer subsidies
OPINION By RICHARD SCHMIDT San Luis Obispo is launching a radical change in who pays development’s infrastructure costs, and this is intimately related to Measure G, the city sales tax on November’s ballot. Simply stated, if you vote for Measure G, you will be taxing yourself for massive new city subsidies to developers. Never heard […]... (Continue Reading)
Measure Y and Measure G propaganda machine
OPINION By RICHARD SCHMIDT In the early 2000s, San Luis Obispo’s management decided it wanted more money. It would come from a locally-imposed tax. They had no grand vision for what they’d do with the money, nothing like, say, buying a greenbelt to surround the city or something else residents actually wanted. They just wanted […]... (Continue Reading)
SLO residents need to band together
OPINION By RICHARD SCHMIDT The right of the people to know what their local government is doing is sacrosanct in California. State law – the oft-referenced Brown Act – thunders: “The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what […]... (Continue Reading)
SLO water rates to rise again
OPINION By RICHARD SCHMIDT In San Luis Obispo, we know it’s June when the city council votes to increase residential water and sewer fees. This annual ritual is as dependable as the swallows’ return to San Juan Capistrano. The only thing is this ritual is a broken promise. Years ago, they promised us it wouldn’t […]... (Continue Reading)
