Christian-conservative debate booth comes to Cal Poly

Author

Carly Heltzel
March 10, 2026

Good morning. It’s Monday, and I’m reading about the progress of Punch, the orphan macaque monkey who went viral, integrating into his zoo’s monkey society. Onto the five Cal Poly, SLO and California stories you need to know for today.

1.

A Christian-conservative Charlie Kirk-style booth stopped by campus yesterday, with a “prove me wrong” debate format and speakers so loud that the dean of students had to stop by and tell them to turn it down. Some 200 students gathered — some tried to debate, some stood by and clapped for the booth’s speakers and other yelled at students to go home, passed out a QR code to the school’s bias incident report, knocked over equipment and tore off part of a sign that read “trans people are mentally ill.”

2.

Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong said the university doesn’t share the data it collects from its 10 Flock Safety license plate reader cameras on campus and warned against believing misinformation about the cameras. Then, at an ASI meeting, a safety official also said that Cal Poly doesn’t share with outside agencies and had actively turned this function off, but if any agency gets a court order, Cal Poly would check with their legal team then hand over the information anyways. 

3.

Cambria and San Simeon each have separate community service districts that provide services like water and sewage to unincorporated parts of SLO County. Each has major issues like brine disposal and the lack of a long term functioning wastewater treatment plant — but they might be able to help each other out by funneling the brine one way and the wastewater the other. The most recent vote went through, but it was split 2-1, signaling future difficulties. 

4.

About 40,000 affordable housing projects in California are stuck in financial purgatory. Developers who have planned developments and even 461 projects that have gotten every necessary approval before construction sit idle, unable to fund the final budget that’s needed to break ground. In a state with a housing crisis, these idle projects seemed like the answers before stalling out. “There’s no exit route right now. It’s a bottleneck,” one official said. 

5.

St. Fratty’s partiers beware… there won’t be any mercy from SLO County’s district attorney this year. The DA said he will “aggressively and fairly” prosecute any party-related crimes to their fullest extent and will not offer any diversion programs to college students arrested. Same went for last year, when this no-nonsense approach first started. But Cal Poly is still putting up an alternative jail and sobering center on campus.