A welcome-aboard bouquet is on its way to new county Supervisor Debbie Arnold, who will be sworn in on Monday. We’re also delivering a big bouquet of SLO-grown wildflowers to outgoing Supervisor Jim Patterson, in thanks for eight years of dedicated public service.

We suspect that Jim will find many ways to continue contributing to his community. Whatever those may be, we wish him the best.

Rossi has work to do at trailer park

We don’t believe that businessman/real estate investor Rob Rossi is entirely to blame for the dilapidated condition of his Mission Trailer Park in downtown SLO. Some of the privately owned trailers are obviously in bad repair, and it’s up to the individual owners to deal with those.

But park owners are responsible for the condition of laundry rooms, grounds and other common areas, and on that score, Rossi falls short. He points out that the trailer park is safe, but that’s setting the bar awfully low. Sure, the park is old, it’s small and its longterm future may not be certain, but it’s still the place that many people call home.

We don’t expect a showplace, but Mission Trailer Park is an eyesore, and for that, Rossi gets dinged with a clean-up-your-act brickbat.

Kudos to the Poly float team

Flowers are probably the last thing that Rose Parade float builders want to see right now, so we’ll skip the blossoms and offer the Cal Poly float team a congratulatory balloon bouquet for a job well done.

In case you missed Tuesday’s Rose Parade, the Cal Poly float — a joint project of students at the SLO and Pomona campuses — won the coveted Bob Hope Humor Trophy. The colorful float, “Tuxedo Air,” featured a flight team of penguins trying to launch a “pilot” penguin down a flower-carpeted ramp.

A welcome to the year’s first baby

Finally, we greet SLO County’s first baby of 2013, Dylan Keith Villers, with a baby’s breath bouquet. Dylan was born at French Hospital at 3:16 a.m. on Jan. 1. Congratulations to the lucky mom and dad, JoVahna Estrada and Russell Villers of Cambria. What a special way to ring in the new year.