Law slaw

San Miguel might appear to be a sleepy little hamlet tucked between Highway 101 and the Salinas River, but bubbling below its rustic surface is a cauldron of dysfunction, acrimony, and division. Look no further than the town’s Community Services District. Some board members appear to loath one another, they can’t agree on anything, and some have been accused of being openly hostile.

The latest dustup is over a proposed fireworks ordinance, which at this point seems dead on arrival. Board member Owen Davis brought the ordinance before his fellow board members out of concern for fire safety.

“I mean, as far as I’m sure, on the Fourth of July, this city’s out of control. It’s like a war zone,” Davis said. 

Considering what happened to Templeton Feed and Grain last Fourth of July, maybe an ordinance would be prudent. Illegal fireworks shot onto the building’s roof burned it to ashes, and charges have now been filed against the two young men allegedly responsible, including a 16-year-old. What’s that old saying about playing with fire?

Luckily, illegal fireworks are already illegal.

Davis’ ordinance came with hefty fines for scofflaws, but the four-member board was split. It didn’t help that Davis typed his name incorrectly on the document, but local resident J. Brown was happy to point it out, turning in this public comment:

“I would like my comment read aloud: Can someone please tell me why [Board President] Ashley [Sangster], Owen, and Legal Counsel created this ban on sparklers that under section four includes jailing families for up to a year for each sparkler they own? What is this a dictatorship? Also Owen needs to resign from this board. His letter demanding this urgency ordinance is signed from an Owen ‘DAVIES’ not ‘DAVIS’. The E is not even close to anything on the keyboard. If a Board Member can not remember their own name, how can they make decisions for our Town? Unless someone wrote it for him? Perhaps Greg Campbell wrote it? The man with the illegal building downtown and genius who proposed shutting down the fire department in the first place. VOTE NO on this ordinance. —J.Brown.”

Hm. A lot to unpack there. Setting aside J. Brown’s missing commas, unnecessary space in “cannot,” and unorthodox capitalization (I have a red pen, too, buddy!), the E is actually located directly above the S and D on the keyboard, and A and V aren’t far off, but still, spelling one’s own name correctly seems important on legal documents. The board had to stop the meeting to confirm the proposal was in fact from Owen Davis.

J. Brown clearly has a bone to pick with Greg Campell, who did propose dissolving San Miguel’s CSD to have SLO County take over running its water and sewer and fire departments. Some residents find the board’s dysfunction untenable and disqualifying, see? 

Maybe the town’s reverting to its Wild West days when Frank and Jesse James hid out at their uncle Drury James’ ranch and frequented the Elkhorn Saloon in the late 1860s. Fun fact, Drury was one of Paso Robles’ founders.

Speaking of scofflaws and divided government, it looks like Grover Beach is poised to give its citizens the right to vote on a building height ordinance in November that would put the city out of compliance with California state law if passed. Fun!

The City Council voted to put the initiative to a vote even though city staff warned it could put the city out of compliance with California housing laws.

“If HCD [California Department of Housing and Community Development] is telling our staff, ‘You’re going to be in violation,’ it’s pretty clear they’re going to put us in violation for this,” Grover Beach City Councilmember Clint Weirick said at the June 8 meeting. “I would want to have something actually in writing from them … Basically, if this passes, what can we do as a council that gets us away from being decertified because right now it’s just verbal conversations.”

Why did the council even allow the ordinance to come up for public vote, you might ask? Because citizens group Save Grover Beach is hopping mad about a string of new developments such as the Bella Vista Villas from Empire Development and Construction and Coastal Community Builders projects called Trinity and Solstice, which they say are destroying the city’s character.

Save Grover Beach gathered enough signatures—1,249 to be exact—for the council to accept the petition. If passed, the initiative would limit building heights from 55 feet to just 40 in commercial zones and from 40 feet to just 33  in industrial zones. The proposal also requires mixed-use developments to devote 33 percent of their space to commercial uses.

You’d think cities could determine their own building codes, amirite? But thanks to California’s housing crisis, the state enacted a slew of laws such as the Housing Crisis Act, Housing Accountability Act, Density Bonus Law, and Housing Element Law.

“Collectively, these statutes create a legal framework in which approval of qualified housing development projects is required unless the city can make specific adverse findings supported by … evidence in the record that there would be a public health or safety issue,” Grover Beach Community Development Director Megan Martin told councilmembers.

Which is why Grover Beach was forced to approve projects such as Bella Vista Villas, Trinity, and Solstice. Having to follow the law sometimes sucks. ∆

The Shredder never breaks the law. Give it a gold star at shredder@newtimesslo.com.

This article appears in Winning Images 2026.