SLO County finalizes election results
All of San Luis Obispo County’s ballots in last month’s general election have now been counted, meaning all results are now final.
Two candidates ran in SLO County’s District 2 supervisor race. Incumbent Bruce Gibson narrowly won against challenger Bruce Jones by only 13 votes, which now shifts the Board of Supervisors to a progressive majority.
San Luis Obispo’s incumbent Mayor Erica Stewart won by a landslide against three other candidates for the city's mayoral seat. For SLO City Council, Michelle Shoresman and Emily Francis both secured seats.
In the city of Morro Bay, local restaurant owner Carla Wixom has defeated incumbent John Headding for mayor.
In Paso Robles, incumbent Steven Martin will continue to serve as mayor.
The San Luis Coastal School District bond Measure C-22 has passed, approving a $349 million school bond for capital improvement projects across the district.
Full results are available here.
Offshore wind lease winners announced
The federal government has announced the results of today's lease sale auction for West Coast offshore wind projects, revealing which companies will be putting floating turbines in the waters off of Morro Bay and Humboldt County.
Three of the five areas of ocean are in the Morro Bay Wind Energy Area, while the other two are further north near Eureka. In total, California’s planned offshore wind sites cover about 370,000 acres of ocean.
The three provisional winners of the Morro Bay leases are Invenergy California Offshore, Central California Offshore Wind and Equinor Wind US. A total of $757.1 million was put forward on this project between these three firms and the two who won leases in Humboldt County.
Molly Morris, president of Equinor Wind U.S., said in a statement that California is a “key market for Equinor’s offshore wind activities” and that they “aspire to be a leader in growing this new energy industry.”
Central Coast Congressman Salud Carbajal reacted to the sales in a statement, saying: “For years, supporters of clean wind energy projects like myself have touted offshore wind not only as a tool to tackle climate change, but also as a way to boost economic growth and job creation for our region."
"This week’s auction, which drew three quarters of a billion dollars in interest from the private sector, proves that wind can and will be an economic powerhouse for the Central Coast," Carbajal said.
Still, there are many unknowns about how the project would impact the marine environment, the local fishing industry and the local economy. Indigenous tribes, commercial fishers, labor unions and more have raised these concerns and more, though many are generally supportive of the project.
Putting floating turbines in these waters would be a massive renewable energy project, estimated to someday generate more clean power than SLO County’s Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.
More information on the project and the winning companies is here.
