HomeMy WebLinkAbout1/26/2023 Item Public Comment, French
From:Jan French <
To:Community Forum
Subject:2023-25 Community Forum
This message is from an External Source. Use caution when deciding to open attachments, click links, or respond.
San Luis Obispo is one of only a handful of original California communities, those built around the missions,
the beginning of “European” culture in the western United States. As such, we who live here have a
responsibility to citizens and visitors – far beyond our local population – to protect, maintain and provide
academic interpretation for the historic structures that remain. Local adobes are tangible relics of a unique
population that developed at the confluence of multiple cultures – first peoples, Franciscan representatives of
a Rome-based religion, Spanish gentry and military, Mexican colonists, and European traders. Then came the
Americans.
La Loma Adobe may have been one of the first residences in this area, apart from the mission itself (dating of
the initial small adobe is now in process), and was touched by all of those diverse cultures through the people
who built, worked in, lived in and visited these rooms that still exist to this day. To ignore the value to State
and National interests of this particular City-owned piece of history, in favor of more vocal and temporary
pulls on the City’s limited financial resources, would risk a shame that would be impossible to justify.
Not only do we have the responsibility to protect La Loma Adobe itself, but we also need to develop a
sustainable way for the adobe to be accessible to students, historians and others who value evidence of the
origins of California’s diverse culture. Although that could become financially sustainable in the future, now
the adobe needs immediate care in order to compensate for the neglect that has occurred over past decades
characterized by ignorance of the City’s adobe’s importance, and short-sighted attention to immediate needs.
Please consider devoting an appropriate portion of the upcoming City budget to insure that the reputation of
San Luis Obispo as a culturally diverse and globally responsible community is maintained.
Jan French
th
1276 7 Street
Los Osos, California 93402
805-528-1066
1