The Blueprint for a Safer Economy is so dumb. And here’s why. The requirements outlined in the state’s COVID-19 regulations “blueprint” just changed. And they will change again. So what’s the point of a system that makes it impossible to compare your status from next week to one month ago? Umm, politics. I mean, I’m […]
Opinion
Posted inOpinion
Students need district’s help
Only after constant pleas from youth requesting the school board to adopt a new grading system to address the record amounts of F’s given during distance learning did the Santa Maria Joint Union High School District (SMJUHSD) finally decide to do something. This whole ordeal is about understanding that students are human and that they […]
Posted inOpinion
OHV use may be harmful to Oceano’s economy
For nearly 40 years, the California Department of Parks and Recreation has been operating the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area, as permitted by the California Coastal Commission in 1982. As permitted, street-legal vehicles have been allowed to drive up and down a 2-mile stretch of beach extending from Grand Avenue in Grover Beach, across […]
Posted inOpinion
Bridge too far?
If COVID-19 has shown us anything (and it’s actually shown us a lot of things), it’s that people are hustlers. Put between a rock and a hard place—in this case COVID-19 pandemic job losses—people do what they have to do! Yeah! Take making food at home and selling it to people who prefer not to […]
Posted inOpinion
Thank you, Rep. Carbajal
The Wilderness Act called for “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” In 1964, it was one of three pieces of legislation—along with the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act—that essentially determined what kind of country we […]
Posted inOpinion
Is relying entirely on renewable energy a good idea?
Renewable energy has been the poster child for politicians and celebrity personages for the last few years to replace fossil fuel energy sources. In their quest to rid the Earth of the well-paying, job-producing, general-fund pot-of-gold fossil fuel industry, they think that solar/wind power is the answer. The primary justification for their concern is that […]
Posted inOpinion
Short-term fix
If there’s been one thing that COVID-19 is good for, it’s an influx of funding to tackle homelessness—kind of. It’s more like an influx of funding to make us feel temporarily better about not spreading a contagious virus among a population we’ve failed for decades. Homeless advocates like Good Samaritan Shelter Executive Director Sylvia Barnard […]
Posted inOpinion
Reassess Los Alamos project
Los Alamos is a small, unincorporated town. We don’t have our own elected government. We depend on county officials. We pay property taxes just like other county residents and expect fair and responsive treatment by these agencies. Recently, however, a Planning and Development issue has come to the fore after lying dormant for about two […]
Posted inOpinion
Dems need to examine their hypocrisy
Oh, you hypocrites! When Trump stopped “immigrants” from entering our country illegally, when he separated children from their parents rather than have them detained in cages built by Obama, the “righteous indignation” from the Democrats and the media was as thick as honey in a freezer. “We on the left would never do such a […]
Posted inOpinion
State Parks has failed the coastal community
Thank you to the California Coastal Commission for its futurist reimagining of the park in the newly released staff report for the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area. Due to the park’s closure to OHVs last year, many people have for the first time experienced the magnificence of the Oceano Dunes. This area is a […]
Posted inOpinion
Oso Flaco dunes project makes no sense
It is incomprehensible that State Parks, an agency tasked with conservation as well as recreation, would propose to place, within a few miles of each other, projects comprising 721 campsites, OHV staging and training areas, new OHV highways into the dunes, acres of parking, permanent administration buildings and staff residences, equestrian facilities, and, of all […]
Posted inOpinion
Government needs to be kept at arm’s length
I recently contacted our congressman, Salud Carbajal, asking that he cast a no vote for HR 1. I citied that it was an infringement of states’ rights set out in the 12th Amendment: The only job the federal government has is to set the date for voting and certification of the Electoral College vote. Our […]
