Los Osos considers Morro Bay option for fire and emergency medical services
When the Los Osos Community Services District (CSD) asked neighboring Morro Bay whether it could provide fire protection and emergency medical services (EMS) in September 2025, Morro Bay Fire Chief Daniel McCrain said it may be possible. Now, the decision rests with Los Osos. During the March 10 Morro Bay City Council meeting, council reviewed…
The Culture food trailer wants to give you the best smashburger you’ve ever eaten
During the busiest shifts at his food trailer, Willie Galvan can crank out a smashburger in 10 or 11 minutes. When there’s no line, he can do it in five. “The buns take longer to toast than the burgers,” the Santa Maria native said. After an order comes in, he toasts the buns and heats…
Arroyo Grande will draft a ballot measure that allows buying state water
The Arroyo Grande City Council is preparing to make its water supply more reliable through a ballot measure asking voters to cancel a policy that’s been around since 1990. At its March 10 meeting, the City Council unanimously approved city staff to prepare a measure for the November ballot to repeal an initiative called Measure…
SLO resident Pete Biltoft uses AI tools to create visual images and music
Have you used AI? Maybe it helped you write an email or summarized a Google search. Maybe you have an AI personal assistant—“Hey Siri?” “Hey Alexa?” Or maybe AI scares the shit out of you, especially if you’ve seen Terminator and think Skynet and total human enslavement is only a matter of time. See and…
Divisions stall San Miguel CSD board appointment
The San Miguel Community Services District (CSD) board has been unable to fill a vacant seat since board member John Green passed away in December 2025, leaving the five-member board with one open position. During the district’s annual reorganization in December, the board selected its officers for 2026, reelecting Ashley Sangster as president and appointing…
Live Well SLO issues open call to artists to display their work
Live Well SLO, a chiropractic and wellness business, has put out a call for artists interested in displaying work in its offices. “We are looking to partner with you,” the business announced. “We have the space, you have the art. We are excited to introduce our WellArt space. We will be rotating art on a…
Cal Poly Arts presents Cirque Kalabanté at the PAC in SLO on March 20
Cal Poly Arts presents Cirque Kalabanté and their show Afrique en Cirque at the Performing Arts Center in San Luis Obispo on Friday, March 20 (7:30 p.m.; $39 to $69 at calpolyarts.org). “Afrique en Cirque is a show by Yamoussa Bangoura, inspired by daily life in Guinea,” Cal Poly Arts announced. “This performance shares the…
The Bride! is a guttural yawp into the patriarchal void
Writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal helms this updating of the Bride of Frankenstein story. Set in 1930s Chicago and up the Eastern seaboard, the story follows Frankenstein’s monster (Christian Bale), who’s referred to as Frank, as he asks Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening) to create him a companion to help cure his deep loneliness. They resurrect a dead…
Dawson’s Creek is pure late-’90s and early-2000s nostalgia
After the recent and untimely death of James Van Der Beek at age 48 due to colorectal cancer, I—and probably a lot of women my age—was sent into a nostalgic tailspin. It seems just yesterday that the weekly show rotation featured Dawson, Pacey, Joey, and Jen, teens coming into their complicated social dynamics, their sexual…
Dead of Winter is an Emma Thompson-driven austere psychological thriller
Like Allison Janney’s Lou (2022), Dead of Winter is Emma Thompson’s turn to embrace her age and wrinkles while still proving what a tough, resourceful old bird she can be. Barb is in mourning, and her memories of her husband, Karl (Cúán Hosty-Blaney), are coursing through her as she’s searching for Lake Hilda, where they…
Good Medicine and Numbskull host two local performers at Club Car Bar this week
On “Grown,” his 2025 single release, Paso Robles singer-songwriter Casey Anglin explores the depths of fatherhood: “Work hard and do my best, throw a bomb straight and fast. Now I’m grown, two of my own, and I finally understand what it means, to love something so strong. All them nights, stay up waiting, for a…
Central Coast schools grapple with policy, politics, and transgender athlete participation
In April of last year, Hilary Norcross was walking her family dog through the Arroyo Grande Village when a flyer on the front door of Harvest Church caught her eye. The flyer advertised a movie night showing a detransitioning documentary produced by Turning Point USA and the Daily Wire, followed by a discussion on what…
Avila Beach locals worry that rising vacation rentals are elbowing out long-term residents
Avila Beach Committee member Vicki Book misses having familiar next-door neighbors. Over the years, the homes dotting her surroundings have evolved into vacation rentals, eating away at the beach town’s stock of long-term housing. “I don’t have a problem with vacation rentals, what I have a problem with is not having neighbors, of having empty…
New aquatics center opens at Paso Robles High
For the first time, Paso Robles High School swimmers won’t have to leave campus to practice. On Friday, March 6, the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District officially opened the Paso Robles Aquatics Center after years of planning, design, and construction. The new 38-meter pool will serve the high school’s swim and dive teams and…
The world needs to tell the U.S. and Israel, ‘No more war’
While polls revealed that 70 percent of Americans opposed war with Iran, why has our government, at the behest of Israel and without a vote by Congress, begun bombing Iran’s major cities? The truth is that this war has been planned for 19 years. In March of 2007, Amy Goodman interviewed retired Gen. Wesley Clark,…
Let workers finish the job on offshore wind
President Trump does not like windmills. In December, his Department of the Interior issued stop-work orders for five offshore windfarms along the Atlantic coast, putting thousands of workers out of a job just days before Christmas. Thankfully, a little more than a month later, federal judges ordered all the projects to move forward, putting workers…
We need to function as one whole people to function as a nation
The culture wars sure experienced a bad hare day with Bad Bunny’s Superbowl performance. While I personally don’t pay a lot of attention to popular youth culture, it sure got a lot of people going. I had largely consigned the kerfuffle to distant memory when my friend Steve Dunn sent me a copy of his…
Whose rights?
In a world full of thorny issues, is any thornier than the transgender debate? How do we protect everyone’s “rights”? Considering how challenging adolescence is for a cisgender kid, I can’t imagine the complications of simultaneously navigating gender identity as a trans kid. Any decent human wants all children, regardless of gender identity, to feel…
