Cover Story
Experimenting on invasive species: Efforts to manage veldt grass in the Guadalupe dunes go aerial
View a slideshow of the Guadalupe dunes. A helicopter rises from behind the hills, fields of strawberries and broccoli stretch for miles into the distance. The pilot moves toward a specific target, then releases a foggy, wet dust from a 17-foot spray boom, carpeting the ground—and, more specifically, the plants growing there. Clouds of herbicide…
Spotlight on: Women’s Economic Ventures
The open house for Women’s Economic (WEV) was in full swing on the afternoon of March 18: A handful of balloons, aluminum trays filled with taco fixings, and a small crowd of people helped the nonprofit celebrate the opening of its new Santa Maria office. The Santa Barbara-based nonprofit offers business training classes, consulting, and…
What should be done about invasive species?
Paul Murphy dean at Allan Hancock College “We should recognize that species evolve over time and adapt to their environment whether predator or prey. The introduction of invasive species interrupts these biological phenomenon in harmful ways for which there is no natural adaptive response process. It is irresponsible to introduce invasive species and irresponsible to…
Teen Amaya Rose brings her champion fiddling and powerful yodeling skills to Santa Maria
Listen to the full interview with Amaya Rose. Amaya Rose is a 15-year-old from Paso Robles who will perform a concert of bluegrass, country, and Americana music at the Temple Beth El in Santa Maria on March 9. Like her performance at Temple Beth El last year, banjoist Julio Boysenberry and guitarist Ron Miller will…
Dana Adobe Nipomo Amigos releases new logo and mission statement
The Dana Adobe Nipomo Amigos (DANA) originally formed to restore the 176-year-old Dana Adobe building, but with the task complete, the nonprofit organization has shifted its focus as it builds a new visitors center and has issued a new logo and mission statement. Its new name, the Dana Cultural Center—a name that reflects not just…
Old Orcutt merchants hold shop hop and stroll
The Old Orcutt Merchants Association will present another Old Orcutt Stroll event, the Spring Shop Hop, on March 28 from 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Various businesses will be participating with differing attractions and offers throughout the day, including family friendly activities and entertainment. Easter-themed family events will take place from 11 a.m. to 3…
When in LA, do what the locals do
Most of my experiences in Los Angeles have been while visiting my wife Candice’s family, including my brother-in-law Izaac Meras, who moved to Los Angeles from Santa Maria several years ago to work for Film This!, a company that acquires proper permitting and notification for film and television productions looking to film in and around…
The Melodrama delivers laughs with ‘Leading Ladies’
If you look up “performance practices in the theater during Shakespeare’s day,” you will find that men played all of the female roles. Shakespeare himself toyed with this idea on more than one occasion in his plays, often writing female characters that dressed as men, and male characters that dressed as women for a variety…
The beer experiment
After conducting some of my own scientific testing, I have deduced that alcohol is actually not the answer to all of my problems. Upon further studies, I came to the difficult realization that my good friend alcohol really wasn’t the answer to any problem I ever had. Nope, the data doesn’t lie (and unfortunately for…
Hot dog!: Chase the taste with Runnin’ Dog Ranch Salsa
Dogs represent many things to many people. Vicki and Randy Weimer’s pair of happy-go-lucky Labradors served as true members of the family, teaching their children life lessons while always keeping an eye out for opportunities to roll in something interesting. When the couple moved from Southern California to the Central Coast about 22 years ago,…
State picks Delta High as model continuation school
The California Department of Education chose Delta High School as one of 29 schools in the state to be designated model continuation schools. State Superintendent Tom Torlakson announced on March 18 that the schools are being recognized for providing innovative programs and comprehensive services to students who may have otherwise been at risk of not…
Chess lessons now being offered at Battles Elementary
On March 24 Battles Elementary School began offering a new addition to its list of after-school activities: chess lessons. The lessons are being held from 2:45 to 4 p.m., every Tuesday for nine weeks. Author and chess instructor Robert Holland, better known as Dr. Chess, began playing chess in 1972, and he realized the similarities…
Political Watch 3/26/15
• California’s top lawmakers and Gov. Jerry Brown announced new legislation on March 19 to help communities cope with the ongoing drought. The $1 billion package includes funding for drought relief and infrastructure projects. “This unprecedented drought continues with no signs yet of letting up,” Brown said in a press release. “The programs funded by…
Community Notebook 3/26/15-4/2/15
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1 • The Santa Maria Planning Commission has its regular meeting at 6:30 p.m. in the City Council Chambers, City Hall, 110 E. Cook St., Santa Maria. • The Santa Barbara County Planning Commission has its regular meeting at 9 a.m. in the Planning Commission Hearing Room, 123 E. Anapamu St., Santa Barbara.…
Redacted: What remains unknown from the NRC and PG&E about Diablo Canyon
Page 1 contains a short memo. Page 2 features a list of recipients. Pages 3 through 67, however, are blank. Each page–in the public version of the document, anyway–is concealed by a white box, hiding the text the original recipients could access. While it’s not uncommon for documents from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)—or any…
Grant helps ensure Guadalupe’s water access
Over Memorial Day weekend 2013, Guadalupe’s one functioning groundwater well pump stopped working. Luckily, California hadn’t yet admitted to its full-fledged drought problem and was fulfilling more than 5 percent allocations of state water that year, so Guadalupe floated until the city could fix the pump. Should that same scenario happen this year, the city…
An objective to share California driver’s license photos with a nationwide database is raising concerns over privacy and oversight
Police from Santa Barbara County and other state police and law enforcement agencies say they want access to a national database of driver’s license photos to aid in their investigations, according to documents found by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The objective was first discussed by the Standing Strategic Planning Subcommittee, a panel inside the California…
Corrections
• In the March 12 story, “County DA and sheriff say Proposition 47 is going to increase their workload,” the Sun misreported what Bill Brown told county supervisors about jail bookings. Only drug charge bookings are down by 50 percent. • In the March 12 story “Maneuvering change,” about the Olive Grove Charter School program,…
County supervisors take no position on vaccination legislation
The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors took on legislative issues of a deeply personal nature, including end-of-life care and vaccination regulations, during its March 24 meeting. Supervisors voted to support SB 128, the End of Life Option Act, with 4th District Supervisor Peter Adam in opposition and 5th District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino abstaining. The…
One man is arrested, rifles and ammo are confiscated after a brief standoff in Los Alamos, police said
Law enforcement agents arrested a Los Alamos man on Friday, March 20, after a brief standoff that prompted a Highway 101 shutdown for several hours in both directions, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office. The standoff began around noon after sheriff’s deputies responded to a call that 56-year-old Ronald Carrari allegedly made threats…
Guadalupe City Council votes to ban spice
Guadalupe’s ban on the sale of synthetic drugs went before the City Council for second reading and approval on March 24. On March 10, the council voted 4-0 to ban the distribution, use, and sale of synthetic drugs marketed as bath salts and incense. “The ordinance was proposed against a proactive measure of the effects…
Pioneer Valley High School coach and teacher pleads no contest to sex with student
Brian Thomas Hook, former Pioneer Valley High School basketball coach, pleaded no contest in Santa Maria court on March 18 to four counts of having sex with a minor, according to Santa Barbara County Deputy District Attorney Brandon Jebens. Hook, 54, was arrested in February 2014 after it was discovered one month earlier that he…
Chrysler checks out Hancock’s new training complex
The 2015 Dodge Charger’s V-8 sings when Richard Petty Driving Experience driver Stephanie Reaves presses down the gas pedal, pushing it from a gentle cruise to that hectic hang-on-tight speed before the track molds from the straight-away into a sloped left curve. Reaves was touring Central Coast law enforcement officials around the mile-long high-speed track…
Santa Maria city manager overrules arbitrator’s decision to reinstate Ast
Dan Ast, a former police lieutenant with the Santa Maria Police Department, won’t be rehired by the city, according Alison Bernal, one of Ast’s attorneys working the case. City Manager Rick Haydon overruled a decision issued in January by Sacramento-based arbitrator Catherine Harris, who found no wrongdoing by Ast in a scandal that led to…
Textbooks and sunshine
First of all, let me say this: There’s a lot I don’t understand about teaching. I do understand that it’s harder than it looks to the average outsider who sees a photo of a classroom full of shiny, happy kids—all with their hands folded politely, or maybe raised in the air, eager to answer the…
Don’t be whiny yourself
In reply to “Say no to whiny, childish behavior” by Ken McCalip (March 19): I love reading the Sun, but lately it has me laughing almost every week. The articles get crazier, and the justifications people use get more far-fetched. I laugh at the lengths some go to, as the author points out, show their…
What do we do about water?
Why is it, as the American people, we are willing to spend billions of dollars on machines of war but do nothing about a drought that within one year may close down the farm fields of California? Why is it, as Americans, we pretend there is no human effect on our earth and its resources,…
Correcting five of the biggest parenting challenges
Children don’t arrive with instructions for care. What’s more, they are all different, so even if we figure out how to handle certain situations with one of our children, the next one may veer off in a completely different direction. In short, parenting can be challenging. Here are five very common parenting challenges, with suggestions…
Josh Rodriguez
Josh Rodriguez, Ernest Righetti High School graduate and Santa Maria local, went two for two the weekend of March 20 at the NCAA National Wrestling Championships in St. Louis, Mo. “The weekend was rewarding,” Rodriguez told the Sun, and he hopes to return next year to pursue his goal of becoming a Division 1 wrestling…
Lawn bowling: A relaxed sport that is both strangely like and strangely unlike bocce ball
On a July morning in 1588, Sir Francis Drake was enjoying a game of bowls on a lawn in Plymouth, England. Drake had circumnavigated the Earth and harassed Spanish ships and settlements in the name of Queen Elizabeth. The Spanish Armada, he was told, had been sighted off the coast of England. Drake was unhurried.…
