Cover Story
Artists’ escape
#As a town that draws visitors to a wild variety of art venues, art cafés, and art festivals, it’s about time San Luis Obispo offered those discerning tourists art-themed lodging where they could enjoy small-town hospitality and celebrate the creative spirit in the idyllic setting of a historic Victorian manor. The Sanitarium at 1716 Osos…
Downtown SLO is irreplaceable
I love my downtown. My sincerest thanks to all of the shops providing friendly service and free gift-wrap, to the boutiques and furniture stores for their stylish fashions and furniture, the galleries and jewelers for their art and craftsmanship. My appreciation to the Academy of Dance that keeps me focused and strong. I also love…
PR firm maintains Marketplace mailers’ use of city logo wasn’t illegal
Barnett Cox & Associates, the public relations group that sent out a mailer in support of the Marketplace, said it does not legally have to print a retraction for using the city’s logo on one of its mailers. City Attorney Jonathan Lowell has investigated the use of the logo on the mailer, which featured the…
Calling the septic police…
The new building on the corner of South Bay Boulevard and Los Osos Valley Road (LOVR) is now open for business. Its clever developers were allowed to build during the sewer moratorium on the basis of “Wastewater Exchange” or “Sewer Equivalent,” condemning two duplexes and one three-bedroom home (10 bedrooms in all). These duplexes (9th…
Keep our library open
For me the library is a living symbol of freedom. This is the one place where all Americans, rich and poor, young and old can access knowledge without charge. We can connect through time and space with other people in the books, videos, CDs, the Internet, and other programs the library offers. This is a…
Officials struggle to make changes to fatal intersection
It may be impossible to put a price on safety, but residents living near the intersection of Suey Creek Road and Highway 166 would feel a lot better if somebody was willing to cough up $1.4 million for road improvement. Trouble is, nobody has the money. According to Caltrans, $1.4 million is what it would…
Corrections
Last week’s cover story (“Morro Bay’s big gamble,” March 24-31) incorrectly stated that Morro Bay’s budget is around $10 million. While Morro Bay’s general fund is $11.4 million, its budget is $22.2 million. The greater budget includes funds that cannot be tapped for general purposes. The photo of Paul Kelly and the KVEC news crew…
Warm your heart, Kitty
I’m writing in regard to the letter sent by Kitty Crockett. Kitty, I couldn’t believe what I was reading! After my wave of nausea passed and my heartbeat returned to normal, I reread your letter. Are there really people out there, like you, who view homeless people as roaches? What (and who) gives you the…
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Atascadero’s favorite diner just got finer. Deborah Blair, owner of Hoover’s 101 Cafe in Atascadero, is pleased to welcome executive chef Patrick Elkins and a new dinner menu from 5-9 p.m. Monday through Saturday. By adding this seasoned professional to the Hoover’s family, the restaurant intends to raise the quality and variety to something closer…
Poor people are still people
In response to the letter titled “Pass the bug spray, please” (March 24-31): SLO County wouldn’t have a homeless problem if there weren’t so many greedy people from L.A. making it difficult for those that don’t make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, or jacking rents so high that the average person couldn’t afford.…
Scissor-wielding man charged with stabbing SLO residents
Last Saturday police say that 25-year-old Eric Martin showed up at a Chorro Street house to retrieve a cell phone he left there. As he approached the house, two men who live there say they saw Martin was holding a large pair of scissors. In their police report, the men said they tried to hold…
How Marketplace cash helped (and hurt) local politicians
In the final week before the November 2004 elections, three San Luis Obispo politicians got a nice gift from the developers behind the Marketplace project: $17,870 worth of advertising. To get around a city-imposed $100 donation cap, the developers didn’t actually give any money to the politicians. Instead, they funneled money through other political groups.…
Birth control should be encouraged
Compliments to New Times for carrying its first birth control ad (March 24, page 5). I hope we will now be seeing ads for condoms, vasectomies, and emergency contraceptives. Human numbers have exploded. It took a million to reach our first billion in 1800, over 100 years to reach our second billion in 1930, third…
Local homeless people are just like you
The hateful and judgmental letter regarding homeless people in Atascadero that appeared in the last edition of New Times was obviously written by an angry, fearful, and completely misinformed person. ECHO (a private nonprofit organization) has operated a homeless shelter in Atascadero since 2001. We have not experienced an influx of transients anxious to move…
The German conscience
It’s almost exactly 60 years since the Germans finally surrendered unconditionally after their marches through Europe. And it’s 50 years since they regained sovereignty over their own affairs. It took that long for the gritty, uncomfortable German movie, “Downfall,” to be made and to make its way into our consciousness. Okay, a few years less…
County ordered to remove bullet from defendant’s hand
Five days after Paso Robles police shot Steve Messina after he allegedly ran into an officer with his vehicle, a judge ordered the county to remove the bullet that was left in his hand. According to his case file at the courthouse, a judge ordered a doctor to evaluate Messina’s injuries and retain the bullet.…
Farmers acquitted in mesa collapse
Four years after a 25,000-cubic-foot section of the Nipomo Mesa collapsed during heavy rain, a San Luis Obispo Superior Court jury ruled that a nearby farm did not contribute to the cave-in. The two pieces of property involved in the litigation sit 100 feet above the normally dry Santa Maria River on the border of…
Putting things in perspective
Has anybody thought about how huge the San Luis Obispo Marketplace will be? How totally oversized it is for SLO? A comparison to places we know illustrates. Right now, there’s a really large commercial project under construction downtown on Monterey at Osos – the Court Street project. At three stories, it looks huge. But if…
Medical-pot grower acquitted
Robert Marshall of Morro Bay was acquitted on charges of felony marijuana cultivation by the San Luis Obispo County Superior Court on Friday, March 25. Morro Bay police arrested Marshall last September for growing 30 mature females and 43 additional seedlings and male plants. But Marshall was able to prove that this was a reasonable…
Don’t mess with us, Texas
Those damn Texans. Always trying to outdo us Californians. If we say we’re a big state, they say they’re a bigger state. If we pollute the atmosphere, they pollute theirs even more. If we send a mentally unstable former governor to the White House … well, you see where I’m going with this. Get a…
NIMBYs, come to your senses
Verily! Compassion obviously drips from Kitty Crockett’s heart! (“Pass the bug spray, please,” Letters, March 24-31.) Considering it’s the season of Easter, when we are reminded of Jesus’ admonitions to care for the poor and downtrodden, her efforts to rid Atascadero of the “roaches,” as she labels the homeless, are not exactly Christ-like. If I…
Who’s helping the mentally ill? Not Dan DeVaul
As an advocate for the mentally ill, I know what Christine Mulholland has done to help the mentally ill and the homeless in San Luis Obispo. Mariann Cirelli (“Who else is helping the mentally ill?” Letters, March 17-24), what have you done to help the mentally ill and the homeless besides advertising your plight and…
