Cover Story

A woman in black slacks, high heels, and a billowy top cinched at the waist briskly walked out of a Santa Maria temporary employment agency. She looked up only long enough to push open the door and breeze through it. Then she dropped her head once again and brushed imaginary crumbs—or possibly wrinkles—from her blouse, […]

The economy, increasing crime, illegal immigration, and growing pains—the city of Santa Maria faces a host of challenges for the balance of 2010 and beyond, and a crowded field of candidates will be looking for the chance to make the tough decisions as city councilmembers come November. Two seats on the council are up for […]

They say seven is a lucky number. When it comes to the Santa Maria City Council race, however, only two of the seven candidates vying for council positions will end up winners come November. The two seats opening up this fall currently belong to council members Hilda Zacarias and Alice Patino. Zacarias announced earlier this […]

Will California go to pot? With the gray areas surrounding medical marijuana yet to be squared away nearly 15 years after voters approved Proposition 215, legalization of recreational use is on the table—a decision with potentially greater and even murkier ramifications. These facts are clear: If voters decide to pass the Regulate, Control, and Tax […]

It’s 7:30 a.m. I’m zooming down the freeway, Glee soundtrack blaring, toward Geek Mecca—a.k.a. the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International—and already I’m getting a preview of the bountiful treasures to come: To my left looms a giant billboard of femme fatal Angelina Jolie, whose new movie Salt premiered the night before in theaters. Coming up […]

On July 1, Secretary of State Debra Bowen hereunto set her hand and affixed the Great Seal of California to yet another official election document. This time, she was making her mark on a certified list of candidates for the Aug. 17 special general election for the state’s 15th Senate District, vacated by now-Lt. Gov. […]

It was easy to be overwhelmed. The ocean of color stretched literally to the horizon: purples, whites, reds, yellows, pinks—some in solid swaths, others jumbled together in a firework display. People came from all over the world to see the flower fields of Lompoc. Today, people still come, but they have to search a bit […]

Strolling through citrus groves, his feet treading the soil where he’s made his living for almost 20 years, Domingo Atilano contemplates his circuitous path from a young child in Mexico to the shade of a Nipomo lemon tree. Since 1991, Atilano has been a fruit picker and supervisor on a local rancho, a plot of […]

You’d have to have been living under a rock—or without a television, computer, or some other news-gathering apparatus—over the past year to have missed the hailstorm of political rhetoric regarding the costs of illegal immigration to California’s and the nation’s economies. For those of you hermit types, here’s just a snippet of the news bites […]