Ty Lewis transitions from police chief to city manager
New City Manager Ty Lewis.
Goals include increasing community trust and completion of projects
–Former Paso Robles Police Chief Ty Lewis officially began his new role as the Paso Robles city manager this month. With 25 years of experience working in various positions in three California police departments, Lewis brings his expertise and passion for the community to his position as city manager.
As city manager, Lewis will supervise all city department heads, including the fire department, community development, city administrative services, and more, to work on initiatives. He will work to align the expectations from the city council and community to what the City of Paso Robles can accomplish with a focus on problem solving and decision making.
Lewis aims to see to completion of new housing developments, expand emergency and public safety divisions, address issues surrounding cannabis, downtown parking, and homelessness, and complete the goals of various measures such as Paso Robles’ Measure J-20.
“We are on a great trajectory,” Lewis says. “That’s one of the things that drew me to this job is that Paso Robles isn’t a broken community. It’s a vibrant, bustling, positively emergent community. We have so many things going on here and so many superstars that are working at city hall and various divisions that are doing great work right now.”
“The economy is looking brighter than it has in a long time despite coming out of COVID, and we’re gaining national popularity as far as people want to come here and they love the energy that’s going on,” he says. “So for me, I want to be able to take that positive momentum and build upon it. We have our challenges, certainly, but being able to mitigate those and improve them wherever possible and be able to get a lot of these projects that we have in progress across the finish line [is my goal],” he says.
Lewis aims to translate his experiences and knowledge gained from 25 years as a member of the police department to continue building a strong relationship between the community and government departments as city manager. As Lewis notes, “Whenever you look at [national and local] surveys about people’s trust in the government, it’s typically pretty low. One of the things I worked hard for at the police department was to build and increase trust.”
“I’m happy to say one of the last surveys that we did, we were one of the most trusted police departments in California based upon community approval ratings. If we can even transfer a portion of that and increase that trust to city hall and to our local government in general, that’s a win. I want people to know that their tax dollars are hard at work [and] we’re working on the initiatives that are important to the community…My charge as city manager is getting things done and that’s what I hope to do.”
Economic development
Lewis will work alongside the city’s economic development manager to explore and review the economic plan and strategies set in place several years ago. His goal is to attach specific deliverables and responsibilities to the strategies set in place to make an executable and attainable plan of action.
Another idea Lewis presents is an ambassador program with national businesses based in Paso Robles, such as Firestone Walker Brewing Company and IQMS, to network and grow with other businesses that may have interest in operating out of Paso Robles. Lewis will also work on the topic of local cannabis business as Measure I-18 passed three years ago. His focus will also be placed on maintaining tourism and partnership with local travel associations, such as the Chamber of Commerce and Paso Robles Main Street Association.
“In the arenas of economic development, it’s a work in progress, but there is certainly a foundation to expand upon what we’re doing and then refine it to make it more contemporaneous to where we’ve grown in the last 10 years,” Lewis said.
Housing availability and affordability
Making housing more affordable and available in the city is a goal for Lewis. “We only have so much land, but trying to maximize and understand what opportunities we have is going to be a big part of all of these developments, so whether we’re looking at the Gateway Project, the Landing Project, Olsen and Chandler,” he says.
“We have those kinds of components already built into it. So once those shovels hit the ground, we’re going to start seeing some immediate improvements there and just trying to make sure these topics we’ve identified as a community stay at the forefront and be able to implement them.”
In addition to working with the existing housing authorities, the city will work to identify properties to expand upon and start relationships with other housing developers.
Challenges of homelessness
Lewis aims to address the challenges of homelessness with a three-pronged approach: education, prevention, and enforcement.
The City of Paso Robles received around $5.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act Funding (ARPA) and $550,000 was set aside specifically for addressing challenges facing the homeless. Lewis wants to bring together the various government departments, community stakeholders, and service providers to discuss specific goals.
“[With these organizations], if we were able to build the ideal future of Paso Robles as it concerns our unhoused population, what would it look like? If you can build a shared future, then you can start building initiatives on how to get there. Conversely, you want that same group to say what is the worst-case scenario,” he says.
“Now you can weave that into your strategy or your initiative and say this is what we want to avoid and you’ve identified specific things,” he says. “Then of course there is the status quo model, which is what is most likely to happen…once you identify all those, then you can take it into the planning portion of it, which is what we’re working on.”
“Now that we’ve identified our preferable future, who can we bring to the table that can help us execute that, what initiatives can they bring and how do we bring ownership to this,” says Lewis, adding that while some aspects are out of the city’s control, such as court decisions, the city will demonstrate they are doing everything in their power to address these concerns and want to bring the community’s voice in to help be part of the solution.
Ty Lewis served over 20 years with the Paso Robles Police Department.
Ty Lewis’s background
Lewis was born in San Luis Obispo and moved to Bakersfield at three years old, as his mother was recovering from a car accident and had family support in both the Central Valley and Central Coast.
His parents were property managers and eventually transitioned to their own business of appliance repair for major manufacturers. After working in the family business, Lewis worked as a service technician for Whirlpool for several years before returning in the early 1990s to the family business.
He joined the Porterville Police Department in 1996 to fulfill his dream of becoming a police officer, eventually moving to work with the Bakersfield Police Department in 2000 and then working as a commander in the Paso Robles Police Department in 2002.
During his 20 year career with the Paso Robles police, Lewis worked his way through each assignment, serving as a detective, sergeant, and lieutenant, before working as police chief in 2018.
Just a few initiatives that Lewis implemented include the Community Action Team with a homeless liaison who specializes in mental health and drug addiction issues to provide a holistic approach to challenges faced by the unhoused population, and safety measures regarding active shootings and civil unrest.
The department is the first in the nation to start a new strategy of paying police officers an hour of overtime a week to learn arrest and control tactics brought by social justice leaders; the goal is to provide officers with more tools in addition to de-escalation training. Another first in department history was “implementing the first strategic plan…that was formed with community input from all our various internal and external stakeholders to come up with a four-year plan to help guide the department through expansion and initiative issues,” Lewis says.
The results from this plan have come to fruition as the police department has grown substantially – the usual number of police officers were in the mid-30s for several years with the current number being at 46. Lewis hopes that with the next budget cycle, another seven officers can be initiated and help grow the department.
Lewis is involved with the community through the Rotary Club of Paso Robles, the Junior Giants Program, Santa’s Sleigh, Paso Night Out, and partnerships with the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
He can also be found coaching and teaching Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, of which Lewis is a black belt after 11 years of study and used to compete regularly.
Lewis currently resides in Paso Robles and has three daughters: the oldest lives in Grover Beach, the middle is a mechanical engineering major at Cal Poly SLO, and the youngest lives in Montana.
Gratitude
“I’m super excited, grateful, and thankful that the city council has given me this opportunity. I couldn’t be more thrilled to work with the 250+ people who work for the City of Paso Robles. It’s a new role for me, so as a public safety leader I really work hard to build that trust and I plan to continue to take that and build upon it to always pay back what this community has invested in me. Hopefully, we take it to new levels with everyone’s help,” Lewis said.
