City Manager gives update on Downtown Pavement Project

ATASCADERO—The Atascadero City Council met for their regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 28, at 6 p.m. The hybrid meeting was held in the City Council Chambers. Councilmember Mark Dariz was not in attendance at the meeting.

Both the agenda for the evening and the Consent Calendar passed unanimously. 

In his Updates from the City Manager, Jim Lewis stated that it is looking like the Downtown Pavement Project and the Broadband Utility Work will be completed by Dec. 8. He also mentioned that the public can keep up with the project by going to atascadero.org/downtownpaving. 

Public Work Analyst Ryan Betz gave the council a Management Report on the Integrated Waste Management Authority – 2023 County Joinder Amendment to Second Amended and Restated Joint Powers Agreement. 

“The IWMA (Integrated Waste Management Authority) was originally formed in 1994 as a joint power authority. It enabled its members, which included the county, the seven cities, and the community service districts at that time to form and dedicated resources to help navigate through state regulations related to solid recycling waste at the time. Later certainly organics,” stated Betz. 

In Oct. 2021, the county decided to leave the IWMA and formed its own department in the county to handle what the IWMA had been doing. The IWMA currently has 40 programs that function primarily to monitor and report back to the state on how agencies comply with current state regulations. In June of this year, the county appointed a committee to revisit joining back into IWMA as a member. In early Oct., the IWMA Board approved a path forward for San Luis Obispo County to rejoin, and later that month, that county approved the item presented to the City Council at the meeting.

“All the other member agencies of IWMA are tasked with going before their elected officials with this same agreement, and it’s been discussed both at the IWMA board and at the county. [They] reviewed that resolution and recommend the council to allow the county to essentially come back into IWMA,” added Betz.

Originally, San Luis Obispo had five voting seats on the IWMA, but as proposed in the new agreement, that has been reduced to one seat and one vote.

Current representative to IWMA, Councilmember Charles Bourbeau, stated that he would expect and hope, but not guarantee, that the fiscal impact of rejoining next year’s rate, which is currently 4.4 percent, would drop again next year.

“There should be, not only no cost to our residents, but there should be some small financial gain in the future if everything works out, and everything has been working out very well,” added Bourbeau.

Bourbeau then made the motion to approve the agreement, with a second from Mayor Pro Tem Susan Funk. The motion passed unanimously.

The next Atascadero City Council meeting will be held on Tuesday, Dec. 12, at 6 p.m.