South County Beat: Tricked-out A.G. cop car wins award

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• DUI checkpoint planned in Pismo Beach tonight

  DUI checkpoint planned in Pismo Beach tonight

  Authorities said they plan a sobriety checkpoint from 6 p.m. today to 2 a.m. Wednesday near downtown Pismo Beach as part of local law enforcement agencies’ annual winter crackdown on drunken driving.

  Pismo Beach police officers, along with the Arroyo Grande, Grover Beach and San Luis Obispo police departments, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office and California State Parks, will screen cars along southbound Highway 1 — also known as Dolliver Street — south of Frady Lane, south of the 7-Eleven store and in front of the Pismo Coast Village RV park, according to a Pismo Beach Police Department news release Monday.

  All vehicles will be stopped unless the traffic backup becomes too heavy. In that case, vehicles “will be selected by a preset standard to assure objectivity,” according to the news release.

• Longtime KSBY employee was struck and killed by car in Pismo Beach

  Longtime KSBY employee was struck and killed by car in Pismo Beach

  A 13-year employee at television station KSBY was struck and killed by a vehicle on Saturday as she was heading to meet friends at The Cliffs Resort in Shell Beach.

  Pismo Beach police said Tricia Rittger of Los Osos parked her car in a lot across from The Cliffs about 6:50 p.m. and was walking west across the street when an older model Ford SUV, heading south, struck her.

  A witness told police that Rittger looked north, saw the vehicle heading her way and increased her speed in an effort to make it across the street, police Cmdr. Jake Miller said.

• Pismo names couple Citizens of the Year

  Pismo names couple Citizens of the Year

  Pismo Beach Mayor Shelly Higginbotham and her husband, Dr. Robert “Sonny” Higginbotham, have been selected as Pismo Beach’s Citizens of the Year.

  They’ll be honored Thursday at the Pismo Beach Chamber of Commerce’s 2012 installation and awards dinner along with the Business of the Year and Volunteer of the Year.

  Shelly Higginbotham said she was floored by the award.

• Replacement in works for cramped Pismo fire station

  Replacement in works for cramped Pismo fire station

  When an emergency call is dispatched to Station 64 in Pismo Beach in the middle of the night, firefighters there rush through a familiar routine: Shake sleep from their eyes. Pull on boots. Leave four-bedroom modular home. Exit gate in the police department’s chain-link fence. Unlock fire station. Slip on gear. Jump in engine. Leave station.

  Because the firefighters sleep in the prefabricated home that’s been squeezed into the parking lot behind the police department and former City Hall building — not in the station — this routine can add one-and-a-half to two minutes to an engine team’s response time, firefighters at the station said this week.

  While that won’t change soon, the firefighters are one step closer to getting a new station. This week, the city’s Planning Commission approved construction of a new, 10,148-square-foot station. But actually breaking ground on the $4 million to $5 million station is at least a few years away because of a lack of money.

• Letters to the Editor 1/26

  Letters to the Editor 1/26

  Obvious city actions

  It’s obvious how our local cities got into this financial meltdown. It wasn’t caused by city employees asking for huge pay increases. It was caused by City Council members trying to be popular with employees and by city managers who didn’t speak out against unsustainable wages that would bankrupt their cities.

  The solution is equally obvious. Wages have to immediately drop to sustainable levels.