In spite of having three business owners on the Morro Bay City Council, Morro Bay businesses are out of luck when it comes to support from the council.
The Morro Bay Art Association Gallery on Main Street has been in existence for 60 years. That’s longer than some city council members have been alive. The Art Association sponsors the successful and popular Art in the Park three times a year in City Park. The event brings vendors, tourists, and locals together, benefiting other businesses in town.
Of the three business owners on the city council — Cyndi Edwards (The Skin Shop), Jen Ford (Rock Harbor Marketing), Carla Wixom (Carla’s Country Kitchen, retired) — only Mayor Wixom supported the Art Association’s cautionary request to postpone already delayed construction at City Park until after tourist season. Absent: the ever-present-at-city-council-meetings Chamber of Commerce to support one of its own.
This lack of business support does not bode well for the newly formed ad hoc committee tasked with reviewing the possible implementation of a downtown design district. How will only two lonely downtown business owners stand up against an abundance of city officials and chamber reps on the committee? Should the committee produce a balanced recommendation, will the city council trash it the way it did the short term vacation rental committee recommendations?
One has to wonder what elixir elected officials drink to abandon their base.
Betty Winholtz
Morro Bay