Joe Shaw believes in community spirit and protecting the environment. And he killed his own lawn to prove it.
Shaw, who is making his second run for City Council, was on the Public Works Commission in 2009 when the city urged residents to curb water usage during a regional drought. The nine-year Surf City resident looked around his own home for ways to reduce water use, and his eyes stopped on the patch of green out front. By the end of the summer, Shaw had removed all the grass from his yard and replaced it with more water-efficient native plants.
"We had a Stage 1 drought alert, asking residents to cut water use by 10%, and I thought I could do better than that," he said.
Shaw, a Bolsa Chica Land Trust board member and a former planning commissioner, wants voters to know that he's not afraid to make bold moves. An early entrant in the race, he led all challengers by raising more than $14,000 by the end of last year, and he's pushed that total to nearly $35,000, among the highest of any candidate. In August, he joined Planning Commissioner Blair Farley and former Mayor Connie Boardman to form Team Huntington Beach, a coalition running on the platform that it can meet residents' needs better than the current council.
