HomeMy WebLinkAbout5/26/2026 Item 5a, Schmidt
Richard Schmidt <
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:Agenda item 5a
Re: Item 5a, Safe and Livable Neighborhoods May 25, 2026
Dear Mayor and Council,
This is perhaps the weirdest agenda notice I’ve seen since beginning to follow council agendas in 1970, when following
them was my job. Purportedly about “Safe and Livable Neighborhoods,” the item contains a neighborhood cyanide pill that
would forever destroy both the safety and livability of our neighborhoods. This is especially concerning because the
cyanide pill is being advocated by Cal Poly’s president and a council majority derives its household income from him. As
the vocabulary-impaired might say, Wow!
Let’s look at the situation that would be “fixed” by this dose of neighborhood cyanide, i.e. allowing fraternities in low
density neighborhoods where they’re currently not allowed. A bunch of entitled adolescents who think it’s their “right” to do
what they want, where they want, when they want even if that assaults their neighbors 24/7 and breaks numerous laws,
are being egged on by Cal Poly’s president to continue doing all that while he works to change city zoning law to allow
offending fraternities in neighborhoods and make this law-breaking legal, and thus end the “persecution” of his entitled
adolescent charges.
That this has even made it to a council agenda should alarm every thoughtful resident of our city.
For the city to do this would be the equivalent of the city’s changing its Vision Zero approach to red light running to
support the “right” of red light runners to continue running red lights in perpetuity. It’s nuts. And, obviously, it’s not a
constructive solution for anything.
While “joining them where they’re at” might be appropriate when dealing with someone beset by dementia, it is
inappropriate when dealing with partially-formed adolescent brains. Indeed, the premise of education (as evidenced in the
word’s twin Latin roots) is to recognize the student is still developing, and to mold the student while leading them out of
childhood and into responsible ethical adulthood. Good colleges instill values such as trust, concern, integrity, respect and
responsibility in their students, and make the creation of socially-responsible, ethical graduates with critical thinking skills
their goal. Pandering to the self-centered immature socially-blind adolescent brain, effectively telling possessors of such
brains they don’t need to grow up or be good citizens, as Cal Poly wants the city to join it in doing, is a recipe for social
chaos and Trumpism. It is the antithesis of good education, and the antithesis of good civic governance.
I also have concern enacting President Armstrong’s cyanide solution would present every member of the council with an
odiferous conflict of interest. Three of five council members derive household income from Cal Poly active employment, a
fourth from Cal Poly retirement income, and the fifth is compromised by close friendship with President Armstrong’s chief
agent in advancing his cyanide solution. The latter conflict is not to be dismissed: it’s a classic “mother in law” conflict in
which the choice to do something that offends a close associate who has strong convictions on a subject puts the council
member in an untenable emotional box that’s likely to shape her decision.
I have special concern about the mayor’s apparent conflict. She states her current Cal Poly employment is “lecturer.” A
lecturer position at her length of holding one is normally an insecure short-term contractual appointment that carries no job
security and no guarantee of future employment. That means she would basically teach at Cal Poly’s momentary
pleasure, and that to me raises the concern her performance for Cal Poly at the city could be used by Cal Poly to shape
her future employment or lack thereof. (Don’t dismiss this as far-fetched; I’m first-hand evidence of how these insecure
positions work and can be used punitively.) Her advocacy for the cyanide solution would thus raise the question: whom is
she serving by taking this position? The essence, in other words, of a concerning conflict.
Finally, I’d like to point out the indifference this mayor and council have shown for the welfare of neighborhoods in the
northern portion of the city based, it seems, on the fact four of them live at the other end of town. Whether it’s from lack of
familiarity and understanding or from active hostility I don’t know. But it looks bad when four of the five live near each
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other at the southern end of town in 93401’s distant edge, and only one is a 93405, currently at the south end of that zone
but previously a resident of Armstrong’s targeted northern neighborhoods, from which she was driven out by the illegal
fraternity-caused public nuisance Armstrong wants you to legalize and normalize.
There is one more issue to mention based on the staff report’s comments on comparable cities. Davis is one of those
cities, and I can personally testify it has a very different story from SLO, in large part because the city of Davis took steps
to pre-empt the decline of its equivalent of our Alta Vista neighborhood, which SLO has done absolutely nothing to
protect. In the 1960s our family (meaning mom and dad) lived on Oak Avenue in Davis, a half block from campus. It was a
nice neighborhood where professors and university people lived quiet lives. (Notably, Davis’ first bike lane went right in
front of our house.) Back then there were the first signs of real estate pressures (plans for a frat house!) on the
neighborhood due to student enrollment increases, and the city immediately stepped in to quash harmful effects. I can
recall a city council member coming to our home to discuss the city’s concerns and plans. I’ve long since left Davis, so I
don’t know how the city has acted in intervening decades, but I did revisit the old neighborhood several years ago and it
remains a stable place, unlike Alta Vista.
So you can take steps to stabilize our northern neighborhoods, or you can sell out to Armstrong and the fraternities and
destroy our neighborhoods.
I think you know, without my stating it, what you should do.
Richard Schmidt
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