Local business owner John Hamon, the owner of Hamon Overhead Door Co., has served on the City Council for the past 12 years and hadn’t planned on running again, but “there’s a lot of things I don’t have a good feeling about walking away from,” he said, including water and infrastructure projects and overseeing the spending of the proceeds from the city’s half-cent sales tax.
“Every cent of it needs to go back into our streets and I’m going to be committed along with other Council members to doing that — holding our City officials accountable, living within our means. We only have so much money and how we spend it is very, very important.”
WHAT WILL YOU DO TO FACILITATE HOUSING FOR WORKERS AND FAMILIES IN PASO ROBLES?
Hamon also suggested lowering impact fees to encourage the development of more affordable homes, saying that the fees implemented by past administrations were “designed to basically put a pretty heavy load on developers.”
“We need to open up our development to the east side,” Hamon said. “We have over 2,000 units that can be built there over the next 20-30 years. But we need to have a policy here that will develop that sort of product — not only residential single families but also apartments. Workforce housing. Affordable homes. We’re working right now on specific plans that will do that. We’re coming around and our Council is thinking differently now than in years previous. We’re going to see some more improvement in that and have places for our kids to live.”
IN YOUR OPINION, WHAT IS THE BIGGEST PROBLEM FACING PASO ROBLES AND WHAT IS YOUR SOLUTION?
Hamon also called for an increase in resources for public safety agencies and recalled that the City had to cut those resources drastically during the recession years with the programs never fully recovering since then.
“Luckily we’re in an area where we don’t have a whole lot of crime and folks that do us harm, however it’s not just police that we’re talking about here, it’s also fire,” he said. “Our emergency services, our fire guys are strapped. So we’re making some improvements.”
Hamon pointed to the addition of a new squad truck to the fire department as the most recent progress and called for more.
“Now that things are going I think it’s time to increase and as far as a priority, I think I would say that and our infrastructure as a second.”
WHAT IS YOUR POSITION ON SB 54, THE SANCTUARY CITY AND WILL YOU PROACTIVELY WORK WITH OR AGAINST ICE TO REMOVE CONVICTED CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIENS OUT OF PASO ROBLES?
Hamon said that he was the “one on the Council” who suggested a discussion on SB-54 and spoke out strongly against the law. He said that he did not like the idea of “illegal foreigners” being sent to and released from local jails rather than being turned over to ICE for deportation.
“On the one hand, the Federal government are the ones who are supposed to enforce our borders. SO we have Federal government and state government fighting each other with Paso Robles in the middle,” he said. “Having said that, again, we are welcoming, but if you break a law, we’re going to have our police department talk to you and do what they’re supposed to do.”
RESIDENTS KEEP BEING TOLD THERE”S A SHORTAGE OF WATER BUT WE KEEP BUILDING HOTELS. HOW ARE THE TWO COMPATIBLE? DO YOU WANT PASO TO GROW? AND WOULD YOU PROMOTE TOURISM THROUGH THE BUDGET?
Hamon also assured those in attendance that Paso Robles has plenty of water.
“I think the rub has been that the state of California has told us that we can’t use our water, so most people want to understand that we don’t have it,” he said. “We do. Again, it’s Sacramento getting in our government and telling us how we will do things, which is the main problem.”
Hamon also expressed pro-tourism opinions, saying that one three-day hotel stay brings in as much tax revenue for the City as a single-family home does in a month.
“So the question is for the Roblans here, do we want to share our attractive city for three days to help us pay for all of our bills?” he said. “I for one think we can do that. We’re not going to change our downtown character, we’re going to keep it the way it is.”