From left, Morro Bay Mayor Carla Wixom, Councilwoman Cyndee Edwards and Councilwoman Zara Landrum are up for re-election in November. Submitted photos. Right, Local business owner Mike Gerson announced last week he is running for Morro Bay City Council. Submitted photo
Nominations are being accepted now for election to the Morro Bay City Council and anyone wishing to serve will have three offices to pick from.
Up for election on Nov. 3 are the Mayor’s seat, and two City Council seats.
Current incumbents are Mayor Carla Wixom and Councilwomen Zara Landrum and Cyndee Edwards, who are also the three women council members left from a full women’s council that served from 2022-24.
Mayor Wixom, who was unopposed in the 2024 Election, has already filed a notice of intent to run for what would be her third, 2-year term.
She defeated 2-term incumbent John Headding in 2022 to return to the Council. She had previously served as a Councilwoman. As of July 23 (EBN’s deadline) she’d only filed a notice of intent to run, according to information posted on the City website.
Both Landrum and Edwards are coming to the end of their first 4-year terms. And as of July 23, only Landrum had filed a Notice of Intent to run. Nothing had been listed for Edwards as of that date and when EBN asked her at a recent town hall meeting on Morro Elementary if she planned to run again, she said she was thinking about it.
There will be at least one newbie council candidate, as local business owner Mike Gerson officially announced last week that was running for a City Council seat.
A 20-year Morro Bay resident, Gerson has owned and operated General Distributing and Sales Company, Inc., for over 15 years.
The nomination period started July 13 and runs through 5 p.m. Friday, Aug. 7. If any of the incumbents misses the deadline or declines to run, the deadline is extended for that office to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 12. Incumbents would be ineligible to put in papers after the Aug. 7 deadline.
If any readers want to run for office, they need to contact the City Clerk’s Office at 805-772-6205, or via email at: cityclerk@morrobayca.gov.
Getting nominated isn’t very difficult. One needs to first qualify — you must be a resident of Morro Bay and a registered voter (at least 18-years old). Then you must collect at least 20 and no more than 30 signatures of registered Morro Bay voters on a nominating petition and return it to the City Clerk’s Office before the deadline.
There are also a number of forms that must be filed with the State in order to collect donations and spend money on a campaign, and the City Clerk will explain all that.
“Candidates should schedule their initial appointment with the City Clerk early enough to allow time to collect signatures and return completed nomination papers before the Aug. 7 deadline,” reads information on the City website.
It’s rare that one of the Morro Bay City Council seats fails to have anyone sign up to challenge for the seat. But in 2024, Mayor Wixom and candidates (now Councilmen) Jeff Eckles and Bill Luffee were all unopposed and for the first time in town history there wasn’t a contested election for any of the open Council seats. Things were different back then.
In 2024 the town was facing two, massively controversial issues — a proposed Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project and the possibility of offshore floating wind farms.
Since then, the BESS Project was dropped by plant owner Vistra and to date, two of the three energy companies that bought offshore leases from the Federal Government have officially dropped their projects here with the third one expected to do likewise.
To borrow boxing terms, both of these massive projects are now getting a standing eight count if not already totally knocked out.
The big issues on the immediate horizon seem to be a wastewater-recycling project tied to the City’s Water Reclamation Facility Project and the demolition and potential redevelopment of the old sewer treatment plant on Atascadero Road, which the City is in escrow now to buy out the Cayucos Sanitary District’s interest in that property.
Also, the future re-use of the old Morro Elementary School site that is scheduled to close escrow Oct. 31, is another issue the next City Council will have to deal with.
The City is in the process of purchasing the old school for $5.3 million from the San Luis Coastal Unified School District and has already put up a $500,000 down payment.
And there’s also one other potentially big issue to deal with, as the State Fish and Wildlife Commission is contemplating establishing a new Marine Protected Area covering a large section of Estero Bay that would become off limits to fishing except for members of the Santa Ynez Band of Mission Indians, the officially recognized Chumash Tribe.
Such a ban would have a negative effect on both commercial and sport fishing.
