Ombuds is going away

Author

Carly Heltzel
October 02, 2025

Good morning. It’s Thursday, and I’m reading about 32, this year’s Fat Bear Week champion who is 1,200 pounds and very appropriately nicknamed Chunk. Onto the five Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and California stories you need to know for today.

1.

Cal Poly’s Student Ombuds Services will no longer exist come next Monday after 15 years of serving students who needed an objective resource in conflicts with professors or the university. A statement said there are “a variety of new programs that fulfill similar functions” and the discontinuing of Ombuds was meant to streamline those inquiries, but it failed to provide specifics about where students can actually go. Plans for Ombuds’ new offices in the renovated library remain up in the air. 

2.

CalFresh’s Healthy Living program that provided nutritional cooking classes to college students lost funding in the Trump administration’s “Big Beautiful Bill” through a domino effect of federal and state funding. One facilitator said the program, while not well known, has a large impact on the students it served, and called the cut “absolutely devastating.” 

3.

Central Coast food banks are bracing for the impact of the government shutdown, stocking up for an influx of federal workers whose paychecks are currently on hold. In 2018 during the last shutdown, people flocked to get free groceries and meals as financial hardship fell upon furloughed and employees. Federal workers will receive backpay when Congress approves the spending bill, but workers living check to check may have to turn to these nonprofit resources soon.

4.

Monterey County is cracking down on vacation rentals in an all out war against Airbnb-like platforms. Coastal affordability seems like an oxymoron more than ever, and officials hope to discourage people from driving up home prices just to rent them out. New ordinances dictate that only 4% of the unincorporated county’s housing stock can be short-term rentals, which are any residences rented out more than three times per year. That eliminates dozens of rental options in the area.

5.

HGTV released its list of the nation’s “most charming” downtowns, and a few Central Coast spots made the top. Pacific Grove in Monterey County ranked the highest of California’s listed towns for its quaint Main Street and ocean views. Carmel-by-the-Sea made the list with a special mention of its Christmastime spirit, and Solvang rounded it off with its classic Danish architecture and appeal.