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From: "Santa Lucia Chapter of the Sierra Club" <
Date: Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 6:47 PM -0800
Subject: Comment for 2017-19 goal setting
To: "E-mail Council Website" <emailcounci1CcDs1ocity.org>
Greetings, Councilmembers—
The Santa Lucia Chapter of the Sierra Club submits herewith the text of our Viewpoint, "Ensuring 20 more years of
happiness in SLO," below, as it appeared in the Aug. 14, 2016, edition of The Tribune in the hope that it will assist you in
the goal -setting process as you formulate work programs and a strategic budget direction going forward.
Best regards,
Andrew Christie, Director
Santa Lucia Chapter of the Sierra Club
P.O. Box 15755
San Luis Obispo, CA 93406
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Ensuring the Next 20 Years of Happiness in SLO
by Karen Merriam, Cal French, Patrick McGibney, Lindi Doud and Sue Harvey
The "happiest city in America" tag seldom gets invoked in San Luis Obispo except in the context of an argument against
it. It provides a handy rhetorical backdrop, useful for making any civic shortcoming pop out in high relief and allowing
the commentator to grab some easy irony.
But the appellation was not invented by the chamber of commerce, nor did it spring fully formed from the lips of Oprah
to commemorate a nice day she had in town. It was the conclusion of the 2010 book Thrive, by Dan Buettner, in which
the author reported his findings after reviewing 70 years of data covering 95 percent of the world's population and
interviewing psychologists, social scientists, demographers, economists, and "the one sure source of knowledge about
happiness: the people who are verifiably experiencing it." His report arrived at the conclusions dictated by the data.
A significant factor in the off -the -charts quality of life he found in SLO were "protected green spaces" and "access to
outdoor recreation." Underscoring the point, an extensive survey of city services was circulated in 2012 in advance of
the update of San Luis Obispo's Land Use and Circulation Element, asking residents what services they valued most. The
response clearly revealed the highest priority of residents: protecting natural open space -- creeks and marshes, hillsides
and peaks and the greenbelt. In survey responses, this outranked housing, police and fire, traffic management, and
every other category of city service. Open space was the only category for which a majority of respondents said they
would be willing to pay more than current funding levels.
On June 23, the City's Natural Resources Program wrapped up a six-month series of roundtables commemorating the
20th anniversary of the creation of the greenbelt. A stakeholder group engaged in monthly sessions at the Mitchell Park
Senior Center dedicated to various aspects of the open space program (trail designation, creeks and streams, agricultural
lands, etc.) and lively discussion on how to proceed for the next twenty years.
At the first meeting of the roundtable in January, it was clear that all participants understood what it means that SLO
gives people of all income levels the ability to be in a place of protected nature and experience the quiet of the natural
world; a resource that will become more precious as the city becomes more dense and we and our children become
even more hyper -cyber -connected and increasingly vulnerable to "nature deficit disorder."
By the last meeting in June, there was general agreement on maintaining the primary reason for the designation of open
space and natural reserves in the City's far-sighted General Plan: not to lure tourist crowds and provide venues for large-
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space are different animals. The motorized mountain bikes and large gatherings that are prohibited in the city's natural
reserves can be a good fit in city parks, which are designed for active sporting events and competitions. Opportunities
for new city parks increase as the City expands.
The consensus extended to the establishment of an Open Space Committee, long called for in the City's Conservation
and Open Space Element. That committee should be wholly separate from and non -duplicative of the Park & Recreation
Commission, its formation should include consultation with representatives of trailhead neighborhoods, and the
resulting committee should inform the process of setting land conservation priorities, program initiatives, funding
strategies and sustainability measures for the next 20 years.
The City's open space program has been a notable success story. Much of that success can be traced directly to the work
of a General Plan Open Space Element committee that was convened in the 1990s and created many of the policies that
gave the city what it has today. To maintain that success, in addition to establishing an Open Space Committee, the City
needs to:
enforce the Open Space Ordinance's wildlife and habitat protection requirements;
set measurable benchmarks for the health of natural open spaces and the wildlife they support;
set up an effective feedback loop from the neighborhoods adjacent to open space and trail heads so that
residents' 24/7 observations of the management of the city's natural reserves can provide input toward
benchmarks.
As brokers say, past performance does not guarantee future results. As the Sierra Club says, the protection of
nature can never be taken for granted. These are the things that need to happen if SLO is to avoid slowly,
imperceptibly losing what the majority of residents value so highly: the protected natural places that are
essential to their quality of life.
Karen Merriam, Cal French, Patrick McGibney, Lindi Doud and Sue Harvey serve as the Executive Committee of the Sierra
Club's Santa Lucia Chapter.
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