Welcome to the Slo Coast Journal. Published monthly, the Journal brings you information about California's Central Coast and surrounding area.
The Great Blue Heron Image on Banner by Nan Carder. All Content Copyright Slo Coast Journal and Individual Writers.
"Do you think God gets stoned? I think so . . . look at the platypus!" Robin Williams
New City Council Seated - First Native Member?
by Jack McCurdy
Matt Makowetski may be the first native of Morro Bay to be elected to the Morro Bay City Council. But more importantly, he brings to four the number of Council members who have shown their bona fide commitment to the welfare of the community as a whole, aside from special interests.
Three of the five members of the five-member Council can enact virtually anything legal in the City. But having four votes conveys something special, convincing, and powerful and leaves no doubt about the dominion behind the vote and the support of a large majority of residents. Read More
What Makes a Good Citizen?
by Shana Ogren Lourey
Would it feel wrong to be drafted to help others?
It was our official commemorative Veterans Day last month on November 11. On that day, I think of civic duty and wonder if I am doing my job to fulfill it.
What does it mean to serve one’s country? Or to serve the world?
What if we were to require non-military national (or international) service for our citizens? In Austria and Switzerland there is an organization called Zivildienst, which provides its citizens with the opportunity to avoid enlistment in the military if they wish to by completing an alternative civil service.
In Austria, for those who object to the draft for military service, they instead can spend nine months serving at an NGO, a nursing home, a hospital, or in a ministry. Read More
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Buddhist Monks, MFP Stage Vigils to Close Diablo
by Jack McCurdy
Buddhist monks, joined by Mothers for Peace members and supporters, will stage a series of local vigils and fasts starting today, December 1, and extending through next Sunday, December 7, after leading a Peace Walk joined by the public from San Luis Mission Plaza to the gates of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant yesterday, November 30.
It’s all to advocate the closure of the plant, which is under the gun from many quarters for fear, among other things, that an earthquake will tear through one or more of the faults surrounding the plant and cause a disaster that could expose many people in San Luis Obispo County to harmful, if not deadly, radiation.
After the Peace Walk yesterday, the first vigil today (December 1) will be near the gates of Diablo in Avila Beach from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; again on Tuesday and Wednesday. The second vigil will be held on the lawn of the County Courthouse in San Luis Obispo (across from the Fremont Theater) from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. The third will be next Sunday at the plant’s gates.
San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace is a local organization which works to promote peace and to abandon nuclear energy and weapons. The flyer for the Buddhist monks events can be found at the Mothers for Peace website.
Meanwhile, nine environmental groups and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have filed separate lawsuits in the D.C. Court of Appeals challenging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) decision to proceed with an “extended waste storage rule” and a generic environmental impact statement, claiming it has failed to comply with a 2012 federal court ruling that had reversed the NRC decision.
A Mothers for Peace statement said three of the nine groups and NRDC brought the earlier lawsuit that resulted in the suspension of all U.S. reactor licensing and re-licensing decisions until the NRC completed a study of the environmental impacts of the long-standing failure to site a repository for disposal of spent reactor fuel. Now the groups have sued again, charging that NRC had failed to meet federal safety and environmental requirements and failed to comply with the Court’s decision.
Momentous Decision on WRF Looms
by Jack McCurdy
Nearly twelve years after a state agency ordered Morro Bay and Cayucos to bite the bullet and replace their decrepit, polluting, wastewater treatment plant with one that will do all the things a modern plant can do. It will produce recycled water, for a big example, that won't pollute the ocean with unprocessed sewage. The Morro Bay City Council is on the verge of doing what past Councils failed to do and has cost the city untold millions from delays. That money is gone forever from Morro Bay taxpayers' pocket books. Read More
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