Cover Story
No checkered flag
It was the first heat of the night and Bakersfield’s Zack Forster, in the No. 32 car, was fighting the mud and the corners to get past a Santa Maria car. This was the big race, the Bakersfield/Santa Maria, East vs. West, Super Street Stock Championship. And for each lap of the race, Forster had…
Future looking brighter for Sunny Acres
Months ago, the prospect of a sober living facility succeeding on Dan De Vaul’s Los Osos Valley Road ranch was bleak. County supervisors were angry with what they saw as De Vaul’s continued resistance to authority and legal guidelines. De Vaul thought his ranch could be taken from him, leaving him and the dozens of…
If you build it, they will park
San Luis Obispo’s 20-acre Damon Garcia Sports Field, six years in the making, finally opened this spring. The green fields sit nestled against gold hills, and a leisurely concrete walkway swings around the fields along an intermittent creek corridor. Giant lights tower over the field, making night play an exciting reality for youngsters. Residents of…
A new day in sewersville
After last Tuesday’s hairline victory for the Los Osos recall, the septically challenged community is now plunging forward headstrong into a litany of litigation, a frigate of fines, and a maelstrom of mixed emotions. In the face of anti-recall slogans, claiming “you delay, you pay,” the new CSD has wasted no time in carrying out…
Go green against the machine
Have you ever thought about going green? Not like being seasick, or the feeling you may get in your stomach after you chug out of the gas station with an empty wallet, but green in the sense that promotes a “Healthy Home, Healthy Kids, Healthy World”? This kind of green is the theme for the…
Dog wanted in mauling remains at large
The dog that mauled a 10-year-old boy at French Park last week has not been found and the child, Curtis Schultz, has begun a painful series of rabies shots. The 10-year-old suffered three one-inch puncture wounds in his buttocks when the he was attacked from behind. Last week, Emilie Schultz, Curtis’ mother, was still hopeful…
Mother knows best
Sorry if I seem a little scattered today. The wind blew my head off while I was on deadline, and I spent the better part of my writing time looking for the damn thing. My mother always told me I’d lose it if it wasn’t screwed on tight, and darned if she wasn’t right on…
Letters
Thirty-seven percent not a ‘large majority’ Barbara Mitchell, in her commentary last week (“What happened to the War on Poverty?”), stated that, “We know that a large majority of the enlisted military are African-American.” I don’t know what source she uses for images from Iraq, but all those that I have seen have shown enlisted…
Feds propose massive expansion to sea otter habitat
A new plan by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service would reverse an almost-20-year-old ban of sea otters in Southern California, and instead allow the state’s most famous mammal to freely range all the way to the Mexican border. In 1987, the federal government created a “no-otter zone” that stretched from the Mexican border to…
Power to the people
Imagine an aquarium, or marine museum, a hotel, or even open space on the 107 acres fronting the Morro Bay National Estuary and the ocean where the 50-year-old Morro Bay Power Plant now stands. That, in fact, is what people are doing – imagining all kinds of possibilities for the site, which itself once held…
SLO turns down addition of ranch land to SB County
Following the recommendation of county staff, the SLO County Board of Supervisors has turned down a proposal by the Perrett family, which wants nearly 5,000 acres of their 37,000-acre ranch shifted from SLO County to Santa Barbara County for improved sheriff services to protect their crops. The board cited loss of revenue as the main…
DA files charges in vehicular infant death
In a press release, the SLO County district attorney’s office announced that John Anthony Gonzalez would be criminally charged for a car accident on July 2 that killed an infant. Gonzalez was driving on the 101 when he lost control near Los Osos Valley Road. His passenger, Priscilla Vargas, had removed her three-month-old baby, Jazmyne…
Maldonado’s ‘Cole’s Law’ signed by Gov
The law has a simple name, the name of a child allegedly molested in San Luis Obispo County between five and six years ago. But it was a case that never went to trial, authorities say, because the then-4-year-old child would have suffered “severe” emotional trauma if he had faced his alleged attacker in court.…
