Can you believe that governments aren’t required to record their public meetings and post them in an archive so anyone can view them? It seems like they have to, but they don’t. They have to keep “minutes”—and depending on the governing board those can be extremely detailed or not detailed at all. Basically, if you […]
Opinion
Posted inOpinion
The presidential debate lacked substance but cleared up one serious question
The last time I watched a presidential debate was in 1956 when surrogates represented Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson who was challenging incumbent Republican President Dwight Eisenhower. Since then, I have relied on press/media reports and analysis of what was said or how the candidates acted. But I changed my strategy when President Joe Biden “debated” […]
Posted inOpinion
No president should be above the law
What, if anything, can be done to avert the coming disaster of living in a country where our president is “above the law”? Where criminal violations of the oath of office are ignored? Where Supreme Court of the United States candidates can lie under oath to the Senate selection committee and, once confirmed, render baseless […]
Posted inOpinion
We should not shrug off Trump’s potential to be a dictator
As I read the letters and editorials in your paper, it seems as if Republicans must really hate this country. Everything to them is doom and gloom, and they seem to believe Biden is ruining the country. On the brighter side, this country has now had seven straight quarters of economic growth and unemployment is […]
Posted inOpinion
Biden over Trump
I don’t know what planet Ron Fink was on four years ago, but the country and entire world were in the middle of a pandemic! Remember COVID? It was hard to get toilet paper, masks, and staples like flour and rice! Millions didn’t survive, and Trump did not care. I will take Biden over Trump […]
Posted inOpinion
Wind facilities vs. our national bird
Our national bird, the bald eagle—a protected species—is incurring increasing mortality from existing and proposed wind facilities. This letter focuses on the slaughter of bald eagles due to the offshore wind industry, which are proposed to grow massively along coastal California in order to reduce carbon emissions. However, the U.S. Department of Energy has stated […]
Posted inOpinion
Trump isn’t alone in speaking against immigration
President Trump is not the only person in history to speak out against immigration. Alexander Hamilton was upset about the election of Thomas Jefferson. He claimed the election was stolen and non-U.S. citizens in New York had voted for him. Hamilton an immigrant himself, stated that “the influx of foreigners” would “change and corrupt the […]
Posted inOpinion
Unsupervised
Who knew a 24-hour gym was such a big deal? 24-Hour Fitness has gyms all over the state: the greater Los Angeles area, the Bay Area, Santa Cruz, the Sacramento Valley, San Diego area, and in Santa Barbara. But there isn’t one in the Santa Ynez Valley, which has a YMCA that wants to keep […]
Posted inOpinion
We can’t go back once we mess things up
It seems we have been gaslighted with the “group think” new agendas. I am a local of San Luis Obispo. I was born in 1951, so I’ve seen a lot of changes in San Luis Obispo city and the county. The very sad thing about the Dana Reserve project is not only the loss of […]
Posted inOpinion
Stop pouring public money into weapons and war
Cannot our national-level elected officials, Sens. Laphonza Butler and Alex Padilla and Congressman Jimmy Panetta, do more to protect our young people from having to work for war and in war corporations? Some young people want to enter the military or to work for war companies, to kill and to risk being killed. But most […]
Posted inOpinion
We all pay
Why does it always feel surprising when budgets dry up? We go a year or two without having to think too hard about money on the municipal level, and then, bam! Your city’s gotta start pinching those pennies again. Santa Maria’s currently moving forward with a solution for its $21.3 million budget deficit. Sort of. […]
Posted inOpinion
Affordable housing is wishful thinking in this state
If your son/daughter and their mate have a couple of kids and they have a joint income of say $85,000 a year, why can’t they find an affordable home to rent/buy? Well, there are lots of reasons why it will be hard for them, and most are associated with government policies that have dramatically increased […]
