Cover Story
Closing in on the ‘Dean mystique’
James Dean’s 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder, “Little Bastard,” had 135 German horses running underneath the hood. The model that I took laps in at Laguna Seca has 155 and a fiberglass body. It’s a replica, but equally if not more stunning then old No. 130- Dean’s Little Bastard. This is not, by any means, to…
State begins evicting boats
It was a sunny, early-fall morning and two wardens with the state’s Department of Fish and Game were zipping between boats moored just off Morro Bay’s Natural History Museum. Warden Drew Brandy was at the helm, Patrol Lt. Dean Hileman was in the bow, and the two joked back and forth in the windless morning.…
Feds reduce plover habitat but beach closures remain
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) recently completed its final designation of critical habitat for the Western snowy plover, a threatened species that nests along thousands of acres of Central Coast beaches. Though the critical-habitat area is smaller, beachgoers won’t notice any changes- signs and fences will remain in place to protect the federally…
SB County doesn’t oppose adding SLO ranch land
The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors has decided to not stand in the way of a San Luis Obispo ranch family’s request to change the county lines around its property. The Perrett family wants 4,735 acres on the east side of Highway 101 next to the Santa Maria River and Bull Canyon Road to…
Garbage in, garbage out
Get me out of this dump. Seriously. You there, walking by like you can’t hear me. Pull me out of here. It stinks. Some yutz went and threw whole stacks of New Times away last week, and I somehow got stuck in the garbage. I’m really wedged in here. I have a sneaking suspicion that…
Minor injuries after car drives over woman’s head
Thanks to a bike helmet, a Cal Poly student escaped serious injury when a Volkswagen Beetle’s rear tire rolled over her head last week. “I am very lucky, helmet saved my life,” said Caroline Capelle, a 21-year-old foreign exchange student from France, in broken English. “It could have been very tragic.” Capelle was traveling west…
Avila murderer pleads guilty
On Sept. 26, J. Efrain Gonzalez Albor pleaded guilty to murdering his son Edgar David Gonzalez Marquez. Albor has been in custody since the stabbing occurred in late January. On Jan. 31, J. EfraÃn Gonzalez Albor hid in the Avila Beach house of his estranged wife, Maria de los Angeles Marquez Ruiz, and their son.…
SLO residents sue Weyrich over fence
A neighborhood group angered over restricted access to a walking path is suing the Weyrich Development Company, which is owned by David Weyrich, the local developer who owns the Carlton Hotel in Atascadero. Residents of the Rolling Hill Ranchos Development off of Crestmont Drive in San Luis Obispo say Weyrich has illegally blocked access to…
New Times wins defamation case filed by local doctor
A San Luis Obispo Superior Court judge has dismissed a $6 million case against New Times filed earlier this year by Atascadero’s Dr. Glenn Cooperman. Cooperman had accused the paper of libel based on a subhead- the headline under the main headline- in a June 2004 story by then-News Editor Daniel Blackburn about the doctor’s…
ACLU and Nipomo man announce lawsuit
Michael Tocher, of Nipomo, and the American Civil Liberties Union announced they will file a lawsuit against the Santa Barbara Police Department for violating Tocher’s 1st and 4th Amendment rights. On Veterans Day last year, Michael Tocher and his brother George went to State Street in Santa Barbara to read the then-1,200 names of soldiers…
Making sense of kids
Sometimes kids don’t seem to be listening to us. They fidget too much, or they stare out into space. Sometimes they overreact to loud noises or bright lights. We might think these kids are misbehaving, but what may be overlooked by such a sweeping generalization is the possibility that some of these kids are exhibiting…
No direction home
In what has to be called the most contentious issue in the history of the Central Coast, the citizens of Los Osos took their sewage into their own hands Tuesday and narrowly voted to recall three mid-term CSD members, ostensibly putting a stop to the current wastewater facility that lies at the heart of their…
Letters
Templeton Area Advisory Group is not out of control I attended the Templeton Area Advisory Group (TAAG) meeting last Wednesday night and would like to express my outrage at an incident that occurred during that meeting. Mr. Cliff Smith, legislative assistant for County Supervisor Harry Ovitt, delivered a very aggressive speech in which he berated…
What happened to the War on Poverty?
“We are fortunate to be alive at this moment in history. Never before has our nation enjoyed, at once, so much prosperity and social progress with so little internal crisis and so few external threats.” This is a quote from President Clinton’s 2000 State of the Union Address- only five years ago! In the last…
