Candidate for
Commissioner; San Mateo County Harbor District; 2 Year Term

My name is Robert S. Grant and I would be honored to serve this outstanding community as a member of the San Mateo County Harbor District Commission. Living on the coast for the last five years, the ocean and harbor have been very important to our family. When I read about the dysfunctional and disastrous state of the Harbor Commission - a Grand Jury recently recommended dissolution because of an inept commission - I decided the time had come to give back and get involved. I wanted to confront the problems head on and be part of the solution by running for San Mateo County Harbor District Commissioner. I have always had an interest in local government, and now it's time to do something about it.

Let me give you a little background about myself...

I am 39 years old and live in Pescadero with my wife and 10 year old daughter. I am a former web developer, software engineer, and computer consultant as well as a small business owner. During the early 2000's I got out of the daily grind as a computer consultant and decided to buy a faltering franchise business. During the first three years I tripled gross revenue as well as profits. I ran that successful business for ten years, and later sold for a profit in order to move with my family to California. We could have lived anywhere in the San Francisco Bay area. We looked at Los Altos, Atherton, Menlo Park and Half Moon Bay. However, after a few days stay at the Oceano Hotel at Pillar Point Harbor we fell in love with the area and decided to make the coast our home. (Yes, really!)

My plan is to run the district more like a real, legitimate business. Currently the district is working on a $3,000,000+ yearly deficit. All funded by the tax payers of San Mateo County. That works out to about $10 per taxpayer. It doesn't sound like much, but when the majority of the county never uses or even sees the harbor, it's very alarming. As I see it, if the harbor continues to be managed the way it is going they will be bankrupt in about five years, if they are not dissolved first.

In my eyes there are three ways to make more money for the district, just like any other business. You can either earn more revenue, cut costs, or ideally do both to earn more net income to the bottom line. I plan on working with the other commissioners and the public to come up with more ideas to increase visitors to the harbor thereby increasing revenue. I plan on completely revamping their web presence to increase tourism to the harbor and to possibly gain revenue from the web itself (i.e. Advertising local companies that are tenants of the harbor, click through ads, ticketing, etc...). When we see tourism to the harbor increase both revenues and profits will soon follow.

Local fisherman should also be supported. The San Mateo County Harbor Commissioners should work with them to make the harbor and docks work for them! Basic courtesy like involving our local fisherman in decisions about the harbor, that affect their business, should be common practice.

I think by increasing profits, making the harbor work for local fisherman making our harbors a great experience for tourists we can get this district out of debt, balance the budgets and start moving forward past all the current problems.

I want to help make our harbors great once again!