Lon Allan

For more than a year, a small group of Atascaderans have been meeting regularly to plan a big party for 2013: the centennial celebration of this community carved out of a Mexican land grant by Eastern publisher Edward Gardner Lewis in 1913.

The issue of whether state hospital police officers should be allowed to carry guns comes up every so often. I have addressed it a couple of times over the past 35 years as a reporter and an editor. As an editor, I opined that hospital police should carry guns just like their counterparts in the state prisons.

I always get nervous when work comes to a screeching half on some project in Atascadero. I have more than 40 years of watching things move slowly here in the Colony with which to justify my concerns.