No citizen’s arrests, but we’re dispatching a battalion of brickbats to the Grover Beach City Council for summarily slamming the door on a proposed merger of the Arroyo Grande and Grover Beach police departments.

The cities already have combined their fire departments, but it looks like asimilar arrangement for police services is DOA.

At a meeting this week, Grover council members unanimously objected to the idea of contracting with Arroyo Grande to provide police services to Grover.

“This is kind of Arroyo Grande taking control of the police services, and I don’t think the residents of Grover Beach would appreciate that,” Councilman Bill Nicolls said.

That may be true, but we suspect that when someone is in need of a police officer, it doesn’t much matter whether said officer is from Arroyo Grande, Grover Beach, Pismo, Oceano — or some combination thereof — as long as the police officer is prompt, efficient and courteous.

Arroyo Grande’s proposal may not be the ideal setup from Grover’s standpoint, and we agree that Arroyo could have been more diplomatic in its approach. But we believe some form of consolidation makes sense, both to cut costs and to improve coverage. Officials from Grover and Arroyo must think so, too, or they wouldn’t have raised the idea in the first place.

So, Grover, instead of sending Arroyo a “thanksbut-no-thanks” letter, why not continue negotiating for an agreement that would more closely mirror the fire department merger?

Spare a dollar for the hungry?

Next Friday, June 1, is Hunger Awareness Day, and we’re proactively awarding helping-hand bouquets to all county residents who take the time to donate abuck or two to help feed hungry families in SLO County.

While $1 may not seem like alot of money, it’s enough to provide seven meals. And keep in mind, there is power in numbers; if every county resident donates just $1, that will generate more than $250,000 for the Food Bank. It also will make a huge difference for the growing number of hungry people in our communities.

Donating is easy; there will be several donation sites set up around the county on Hunger Awareness Day. A complete list can be found at http://www.slofoodbank.org, or call 238-4664 for more information.

Students prove support for WOW

At the risk of sounding redundant, we were wowed by the way Cal Poly students rallied to save WOW this week.

We’re talking, of course, about Cal Poly’s Week of Welcome — asmorgasbord of orientation activities for new students that has traditionally included trips to downtown SLO, hikes, visits to the beach and other off-campus adventures.

All that seemed in danger this week, however, when Cal Poly’s assistant director of student life and leadership mistakenly informed WOW student leaders that the off-campus portion of the orientation program had been eliminated.

The students quickly mobilized; they had circulated a petition and were calling for a protest when they learned that reports of a ban on off-campus WOWing were wrong.

In fact, Cal Poly administration says it’s working to make WOW better than ever. That’s good. New students should be made to feel welcome in all SLO County communities, not just on campus. After all, incoming freshmen will be here for — what? — four or five years, at aminimum.

So lug out the welcome mats, toss the bouquets and, by all means, make sure that WOWies see all that our fine county has to offer before they start hitting the books.