Guadalupe native Tetsu Furukawa, now 88, grew up playing baseball on the local grammar school diamond. In February of 1942, at age 14, Furukawa was told he had to leave to town. “My parents got two suitcases for each kid,” he recalled. “When we went to camp, I opened my suitcase, and right on the […]
SEAN MCNULTY
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Mission to sainthood: Father Junipero Serra helped establish the California mission system, but is he saint material?
Washington, D.C., stands some 3,000 miles from the site of Mission Carmel, once the home base of Father Junipero Serra, an evangelist Franciscan from the island of Mallorca. With a bum leg and a handful of starving Spaniards, that tiny priest founded a backbone of missions in what was then called Alta California—a massive hinterland […]
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Spotlight on: Aegis Treatment Center
Cherlynn Glaser, clinic manager
Aegis Treatment Center, an outpatient opiate recovery center on Fesler Street, hosted an open house on Aug. 20. It was a sunny, cheerful event, with peppy music and free cupcakes, and a grinning medical professional explaining the details of their work around every corner. Aegis is the only outpatient center for opiate recovery in Santa […]
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Santa Barbara County gets closer to rolling out new ordinance for septic systems
The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors slogged through a decision to approve the county’s Local Agency Management Plan, or LAMP, for onsite wastewater treatment systems. The vote was 4-1, with Chair and 2nd District Supervisor Janet Wolf dissenting. Approval for the LAMP is a missing piece that puts the county one step closer to […]
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California hits July water conservation target
The Golden State brought down water use by 31.3 percent this July, staying six points ahead of Gov. Jerry Brown’s mandated 25 percent reduction. Three out of four water suppliers in California managed to hit their water conservation standard. Between June and July, Lompoc breezed past its 12 percent savings target, putting up 25.4 percent—double […]
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Isabelle Rodriguez
Her soccer career started off on the right foot. Isabelle Rodriguez went to Pioneer Valley High School, where she was team captain on varisty for four years. Before that, she was playing soccer at the age of 4. When Rodriguez wasn’t playing for Pioneer, she played for a number of clubs—including one, in Santa Barbara, […]
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After a long fight, Olive Grove Charter School is almost ready to reopen its doors
Olive Grove Charter School, the small charter that’s fought tooth and nail to stay open over the course of the year, has new digs—a sunlit suite of offices in Orcutt. It’s been a little more than a month since the state Board of Education approved its charter petition, and stakeholders have been scrambling, all-the-king’s-horses-and-all-the-king’s-men style, […]
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Issues of immigration, domestic violence surface in Oceano death
Last year in Santa Barbara County, the nonprofit Domestic Violence Solutions received 4,080 calls in the one-year period between July 1, 2014, and June 30, 2015, according to Executive Director Charles Anderson. Yet, Anderson believes only 10 percent of cases of domestic violence are being reported. He said it could be due to any number […]
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State judge decides Central Coast wastewater rules are insufficient
A state Superior Court judge has ruled that the Central Coast’s Regional Water Quality Control Board is dragging its feet on curbing pollution in agricultural runoff. Judge Timothy A. Frawley found rules governing wastewater with fertilizer and pesticides produced by farms to be weak enough to violate state law. He overturned the wastewater regulations, directing […]
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Firefighters bike from the Bay Area to Santa Monica to push back against their hidden threat: Cancer
The road from San Francisco to Santa Monica Pier threads some 500 miles of tarmac through the pastures, bluffs, and beaches of California’s Central Coast. Steve Winter, who worked with Ventura County Fire for three decades, biked that road through Guadalupe and Lompoc Aug. 20. “I’m just one of 31 guys riding,” he explained. “It’s […]
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Desiree Domingues
Three coaches in three years. Can Righetti Girls’ Basketball catch a break? Last year, as the Sun reported, there was an bizarre Facebook exchange where a high school student baited their coach into talking smack on Facebook. The coach faced disciplinary action and left the job shortly thereafter. The year before that, there was another coach-student dust […]
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Give me shelter: The founder of the immigrant sanctuary movement talks about its history
It was another searing, cloudless day in Santa Maria on Aug. 13. Dozens gathered in protest outside the initial arraignment for Victor Ramirez, an undocumented immigrant who pleaded not guilty in the assault and killing of 64-year-old Marilyn Pharis. Some carried signs calling to “defund sanctuary cities.” Across the street, counter protesters chanted, “Don’t hate!” […]
