Former SLO County supervisor Shirley Bianchi recovering at home after pacemaker implant
Former county supervisor Shirley Bianchi, 91, is at home on her Cambria ranch and recuperating quickly after being hospitalized for seven days with an irregular heart rate. As a precaution, doctors implanted a pacemaker Jan. 16 to help steady her heart.
On Sunday, Bianchi thanked the many people who have sent get-well wishes and offered their assistance.
“It has been extremely helpful and heartwarming to know that people care,” she said.
Her return home had another prompt: “There was no way I was going to celebrate that inauguration anyplace else than at home with my family, she added. “It was so wonderful to get the former president elsewhere and the first woman elected vice president.”
Bianchi’s daughters Cathy, Mary and Ann Bianchi have been tag-teaming their mom’s care throughout the medical emergency and recovery period while also keeping tabs on their rancher/scientist dad Bill Bianchi, 91.
Daughter Jan Mills cheered her mother on from Mills’ home in Germany, where COVID-19 travel restrictions made it impossible for her to be by her mother’s side.
Wilshire Home Health has been providing regular on-site nursing service, as well.
Bianchi a strong San Luis Obispo County influence
Bianchi has been an active, influential participant in North Coast and county government for decades. She served two terms as District 2 supervisor through 2006, and prior to that, served two terms on the county Planning Commission.
In 1984, Bianchi was a co-founder of the Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County. More recently, she cofounded the Cambria Fire Focus Group and served as a trustee on the Cambria Community Healthcare District.
As county supervisor, she worked toward permanent restriction of development on the Hearst Ranch and helped to craft rules guiding or restricting development in various other areas of the North Coast and the county. Her wide-ranging other accomplishments include establishing a program to combat substance abuse by pregnant women and fighting to televise the supervisors’ meetings.
The Bianchis have long ties to the North Coast.
Bill Bianchi’s grandfather Celestino “Charles” Bianchi came to Cambria’s Santa Rosa Creek from Switzerland in 1878. In 1926, Shirley Bianchi’s grandfather Lloyd William Gregg bought what is now the Stepladder Ranch on San Simeon Creek Road.
Various members of both families have been on the North Coast and in San Luis Obispo County ever since; Bill and Shirley Bianchi have lived on part of Gregg’s original land purchase since 1979.
