Cover Story
If you want to build it, they will protest
The names alone tell the story: San Luis Obispo’s Save Our Downtown. Concerned Citizens of # Cayucos. Atascadero Homeowners Association. San Miguel Area Residents Trust. Toro Creek Opposition Group. No on Measure J. These days, it seems that nearly every proposed Central Coast development leads to the forming of a new group of activists organized…
Stop and smell the Roses
With the warm days of summer upon us, my taste in wine quite naturally turns toward dry Roses. They sate my thirst for cool refreshment. Honestly, I’ve loved these delicious quaffers ever since my first sip when I was tasting coordinator for Wine Spectator magazine in San Francisco. It was a 1990 Vin du Mistral…
Entwined in yoga
# When you’re truly passionate about something, the passion becomes contagious. That’s the case with Yogi Valentina Petrova and her Morro Bay yoga studio, Holistic Movement Center. “It’s all that I do because I cannot find anything more enjoyable in life,” Petrova said. “I used to be a professional athlete in Bulgaria. I worked at…
Money makes it happen
It’s getting more expensive each year to run for Atascadero City Council. Despite being a part-time position that pays only $300 a month, the average amount of money raised has increased steadily and dramatically from $11,298 per candidate in 2000 to $24,997 in 2006 an increase of 120 percent. The biggest fundraiser in 2000 was…
The clarion call heard round the county
Deep in the heart of what Linda Camplese calls SoGro (South Grover Beach), a dark new space is growing, evolving, and defying simple definition. It has a stage, but it’s not really a theater. Paintings and photographs are welcome, but it’s definitely not a gallery. And the other workshops, rehearsals, and performances that call ECHO…
The ground beneath your feet
Whenever I hear the word “developer,” my first thought is always about photography. What with the newfangled digital cameras these days. I’m sure that half of you have no idea what I’m even talking about. I’m looking at the younger half of you. Back in the days before you could just click a button and…
Letters
This guy can afford the cost of a muffin The establishments interviewed in your article (“Music licensers seek payments,” July 26) are looking at royalty licensing all wrong. ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC are all responsible for paying composers royalties for their works. This was much more easily done before the digital age, when the time…
Fast Facts
Spokane-based franchise Cena has opened at 3940-2 Broad St. in San Luis Obispo’s Marigold Center. Cena prepares gourmet meals for pick-up and home cooking. The menu of frozen dishes changes every month, and the meals cost $3.19 per person per serving. Entrees, side dishes, and desserts are offered. Menus and nutrition information are available at…
Dropping the call
Nobody disputes that Huntington Beach developer Ed Harden purchased a hilltop site off of Highway 41 west of Atascadero in 2004, graded a road to the top without proper county permits, chatted up unsuspecting neighbors about his plans to settle there, and then, without telling them, sold off rights to put up a cell phone…
Transplant surgeon charged
A Bay Area transplant surgeon is free on bail after being charged with prescribing excessive amounts of drugs to a disabled hospital patient during his stay at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center in San Luis Obispo. Prosecutors allege that the doctor did so in an attempt to accelerate the patient’s death in order to recover…
Nurses call attention to ongoing negotiations
“This is not a strike.” A statement from Megan Maloney manager of communications on behalf of nonprofit Marian Medical Center, Arroyo Grande Community Hospital, and French Hospital Medical Center emphasized that the nurses and other supporters marching with signs and shouting union slogans for three hours on July 26 were part of what she termed…
Dalidio files complaints over campaign opposition
The San Luis Obispo Downtown Association and a private company called Responsible County Development LLC are targeted in complaints over the most expensive local campaign in SLO county history, filed with the state Fair Political Practices Commission by landowner Ernie Dalidio on July 27. His complaints ask the FPPC to investigate whether the two groups…
Oy vey!
# What happens when five Jewish gals mix comedy, music, spoken word, and burlesque? You get Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad, which, according to the group’s bio, is “the Borscht Belt reinvented, featuring the gals who learned to smoke at Hebrew School, got drunk at their Bat-Mitzvahs, and would rather have more schtuppa than the…
Receptionist jailed in student sex abuse case
A 24-year-old receptionist at Paso Robles’ Flamson Middle School was sent to County Jail on July 30 to begin a 270-day sentence after pleading no contest to sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy at the school. Cora Solorio also received five years probation and will have to register as a sex offender under the sentence, which…
City would help bankroll Garden Street project
When the SLO City Planning Commission meets on Aug. 8 to discuss the scope of the environmental review it will require for the proposed Garden Street Terraces project downtown, some skeptics are hoping the analysis shines light on the city’s complex plans to help finance the deal. The project, which would sit between Broad and…
Cable access fracas leads to mediation
The feuding sides in the drama-filled saga at San Luis Obispo County Public Access have at least temporarily laid down their accusations in an initial step toward mutual understanding. The first City Council-appointed mediation meeting between current and banned SLOCOPA members took place on July 30. Though what went on during the two-and-a-half-hour meeting is…
