By Bob Ashton, SOS Coastal Science Director
With a city of 42.2 square miles, the Oceanside City staff is kept extremely busy keeping everything well administered and maintained. The day-to-day duties of keeping our beach city running are challenging and require significant staff focus. Oceanside also oversees and strives to maintain 3 miles of beaches and coastline. Currently, no one city staff person is focused solely on coastal and beach issues.
As the Beaches are one of Oceanside’s most valuable resources, it is time Oceanside establish and hire a City of Oceanside Local Coastal Zone Program Administrator. In hiring an Oceanside Local Coastal Zone Program Administrator, Oceanside will get an immeasurable return on investment.
This new staff position would greatly assist the City Engineer, City Planner and other key staff positions in the following areas with a focus on the Coastline and Beaches:
Monitoring our Coastline and Beaches with respect to safe access, developing projects for sustained improvements
Development and implementation of coastal management plans and policies, including strategies for managing sea level rise
Managing the City’s sand replenishment program to include tracking SCOUP permitting and opportunistic sand sources
Liaison with Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton for coastal issue coordination
Assisting with implementing the City’s Climate Action Plan
Grant writing; developing workshops and/ or presentations
Extensive coordination with sister Coastal Cities, regulatory boards, commissions, and agencies such as SANDAG, the Coastal Commission, State Coastal Conservancy, Army Corp of Engineers, and coastal nonprofit organizations such as Surfrider Foundation and San Diego Coastkeeper, among others
Other sister coastal cities like Encinitas greatly benefit from having an on-staff position of Local Coastal Zone Program Administrator. Oceanside will also benefit from the creation of the position. Surfrider Foundation San Diego County recently posted on their website the following – “we support community requests to hire a dedicated planning position for managing the coastal zone.”
The time is now! SOS Oceanside strongly advocates for the City of Oceanside to establish and hire the position of Local Coastal Zone Program Administrator.
