The good side of a moratorium
Pinnacle’s article of July 4 announcing the end of the building
moratorium treated the news as wholly good. But we should also be
mindful that new development and growth have big downsides.
As a resident here, the respite from growth has been welcome.
While traffic, congestion, and our overloaded infrastructure have
not improved much, they have not worsened much either. In the long
run, existing residents bear many of the costs of growth. Realize
that growth of any kind cannot go on forever. At some point
something will limit it, and probably not something nice.
The moratorium and the downturn in the real estate market have
inflicted hard lessons that the City Council and Supervisors will
do well to heed. They should be very judicious, and not rush to
gratify every builder clamoring for a permit.
One more point. With so many stores vacant in our shopping
areas, and downtown languishing, we do not need new commercial
development.
John Blake
Hollister
The good side of a moratorium
Pinnacle’s article of July 4 announcing the end of the building moratorium treated the news as wholly good. But we should also be mindful that new development and growth have big downsides.
As a resident here, the respite from growth has been welcome. While traffic, congestion, and our overloaded infrastructure have not improved much, they have not worsened much either. In the long run, existing residents bear many of the costs of growth. Realize that growth of any kind cannot go on forever. At some point something will limit it, and probably not something nice.
The moratorium and the downturn in the real estate market have inflicted hard lessons that the City Council and Supervisors will do well to heed. They should be very judicious, and not rush to gratify every builder clamoring for a permit.
One more point. With so many stores vacant in our shopping areas, and downtown languishing, we do not need new commercial development.
John Blake
Hollister
Dare to dream of DMB
As a local citizen, I attended a San Benito County Board of Supervisors meeting on July 1. When the DMB project was discussed at the meeting, there were several people who spoke against it. That got my attention because I looked around the meeting and most of us were not young. These negative comments encouraged me to speak out in favor of the project because it made me realize that San Benito County has not changed that much when it comes to jobs and progress. The young people are just not staying around.
Some people want this county to stay the way it was 50 or 60 years ago. San Benito has so many organizations but few are united to work together for our county. We need a leader who is not afraid to help us move on, to help us put our heads together and work for the health and economic well-being of our local people.
As a native of this land I say, we don’t own this earth. As an American, I know we have boundaries, limited time and space. I believe that we should be united to help our economy.
DMB is one developer that has tried to involve people from the community to help with their plans for this new town. They have shown that they will use the best of our San Benito past as well as many new ideas. But for some, local politics or fear of change drives their opinions. It will take a full county review before their project will even come to the voters to decide. The voters can then say yes or no once they have all of the information related to this new community.
Let’s work together in good faith to bring new fresh ideas and positive people to the table who can bring progress to our beautiful county. All this comes from a dreamer who owns nothing, regrets only that I am over 60 and might not be around long enough to see a great project like the DMB project come into this county.
Victoria Montoya
Hollister
Comparing apples to steroids
In your July 11 issue Andrew Matheson wrote an editorial complaining about the use of advanced technology in sports like swimming, pole vault, etc. He called it cheating and compared it to the use of performance enhancing drugs. I’d like to point out one particular difference: the new swim suits aren’t threatening to the health or life of the swimmers, or the young kids who try to emulate them. Any sport that uses an object as a tool is bound to have improvements on the tool as well as improvements to the athletes.
I don’t see anything wrong with that. Perhaps Mr. Matheson would advocate for pole vaulters to return to using fresh saplings rather than manufactured poles, running on dirt tracks rather than the rubberized asphalt tracks now used, swimming naked so the suit can’t have any effect. If the tools are available for anyone, then no one is at a disadvantage. And again, I emphasize that drugs are harmful to both the athletes and the young folks who look up to them. It’s a whole different issue!
Steve Johnston
Hollister
Have your words and eat them too?
Mary Zanger gives us another zinger. She opines, “If California were invaded, we, like the Iraqis would fight back.” Two interesting observations. One, she constantly talks about her peaceful ambitions, but continually uses words like “fight.” Second, California and the nation has been invaded by 40 million illegal aliens and no one is fighting back, least of all Ms. Zanger. Obama recently opined that if Americans go to Europe, we should learn the appropriate language over there, but that if Americans “visit” what’s left of America, they should learn Spanish. Which is it Obama, and Mary? Of course they want it both ways, because that’s what it is to be a progressive, to have one’s values (if they can be called that) to be constantly shifting to stay in power and dissolving every last fiber of the constitution and individual liberty.
Mark Dickson
Hollister
Thanks for real war heroes
I was pleased with your excellent article on Mateo Rebecchi, the Iraq Veteran Against the War and his fellow resisters (Pinnacle, July 4). The number of people at this last-minute event indicates the interest in and consternation about this war and how it is affecting our community and thousands of other small towns in the U.S. All three vets talked of the casualties, mental and physical, not just of American soldiers but of the over one million Iraqi civilians that have died in this conflict. One seldom hears mention of the “other” in the mainstream news.
I was quite intrigued by one gentleman’s question to Mr. Sanchez? He asked him if he heard about the “three e’s of the military?” He then told George that the “three e’s” were “economics, education and ethnicity.” George got what he meant immediately and agreed that the military depends upon having a pool of poorly educated, economically distressed people of color for their recruitment.
So what’s new? Wars throughout history have been planned by the rich and powerful, financed by the middle classes and fought by the poor and disenfranchised. As the Universal Soldier intones, “When will we ever learn?” Thank God for thoughtful, courageous and ethical human beings like the three young men we heard last Friday.
Natasha Wist
Hollister
The real victory in Iraq
Some 155,000 American families contributed to “Operation Iraqi Freedom” in June 2008. We had to borrow $12 billion to support these contributions. Now Mobil, Exxon, Shell and BP have “No Bid” contracts in Iraq. 153 American families made very serious contributions to allow these contracts. Thirty Americans were killed and 123 wounded during the month of June. A long-term occupation of Iraq will be necessary to allow the oil companies to benefit fully from their no bid contracts. Is this the Bush- McCain victory?
Frank Crosby
Morgan Hill
Coaches, parents should hold their tongues
The Hollister Little League and All Stars were founded to be a positive experience for each child, a place where the children could not only enhance their ball skills, but also learn the concepts of teamwork, self-esteem and respect. How are the children to learn to respect their teammates and others, while the same adults who are supposed to be coaching them and teaching them, are ruthless and hurtful when speaking about the children.
As a parent of a 10-year-old who plays for the Hollister Little League and All Stars, I am appalled and angered as to how some of you parents (you know who you are) can sit around and talk so negative about the children. Why don’t you instead talk about and focus on the positive impact the children (my child) has made on the team? Why would you talk about my child or any other child in such a cruel and distasteful manner?
How dare you sit around and make an issue of an innocent child’s behavior when I myself have witnessed you fighting amongst yourselves and participating in unsportsmanlike behavior. What kind of role model do you think you are being to the children in the league and to your own children by participating and condoning such behavior?
Whatever happened to the positive role models that you are supposed to be when you took on the responsibility of a coach or as a parent whose child participates in the league?
Lupe Mata
Hollister
A waste of tax dollars
The county transit system provides transportation for San Benito County citizens around the county and to Gilroy. It is a black hole for taxpayers’ money and a good source of greenhouse gases.
The number of riders on the County Transit Friday afternoon rush hour routes at San Benito Street and Fourth streets has increased. There have been two passengers on the 38-passenger bus the last several weeks. That is double from several months ago.
If these diesel powered ($5 a gallon) monsters get eight miles a gallon in stop-and-go traffic, they discharge the equivalent of three pounds of carbon dioxide every mile. That is 1.5 pounds per passenger mile per this unscientific survey.
An item on the consent agenda of the Thursday, July 17, meeting of the Council of San Benito County Governments (COG) is to request a quarter million taxpayer dollars to purchase two more of these monster buses.
Is COG oblivious to the hardships posed by the current increase in cost of fuel? Are they not aware of the hysteria about greenhouse gasses? It appears COG has no concern for the citizens who pay their salaries.
This comes just a few months after COG recommended the Traffic Impact Fee on new houses be raised to $23, 800 a house.
COG is a dangerous unelected government body without accountability to the voters of San Benito County. It appears to have a goal of expanding its empire. Our Board of Supervisors and City Councils should curtail COG’s power and limit their scope. COG is a poster child for bureaucracy gone wild.
Marvin L. Jones
Hollister
Listen to your heart
This letter is for people in their 80s. A few years back I got involved in a conversation that really got my attention. One of the persons I got in a conversation with came up with a story that after you hit 80, you don’t have to worry about what you say or do. Being 80 I find this story to be a bluff. I find that when you become this age, you have to proceed with more caution. Easy to fall in the trap! If you go through life with ambition and not succeed after the age of 80, your chances are pretty slim.
No matter how healthy you are at the age of 80, our heads don’t think so far. The eyes get weaker. That is why we wear glasses. Usually our hearing fails. A lot of us are using hearing aids. Our teeth start to decay. After tooth implants, maybe a denture, cavities the chewing is not so good, even tastes change. I used to add and divide in my head faster than most people could do with a pencil but not anymore. I used to count from 100 down to one, just as fast as one to 100 but not as good anymore. This is just an example of being 80.
Running is out of the question. Lucky if you can walk straight. I do 20 minutes on my treadmill, walk briskly but be sure my hands are on the bar. The other day when I was coming from the doctor’s office for my examination, the waiting room was full. As I walked out, someone who knew me asked, “Amadeu, what is the diet?” Without hesitating I said, “More pills. I left everybody laughing. I feel that the way to take life after 80 is in a joke. To take looking to the future too seriously, you might go bananas. It’s the ones that live into the 90s or 100 that I am sure they have stories to tell, only if they can remember.
After we live 80 years, a good heart beats 2,943,560,000 times, if I am right, not counting millions of gallons of blood. We all feel that sometimes it tries to tell us not to push too much. It is tired. It is a mistake not to listen.
Amadeu Lima
Hollister
Thanks for a safe grad night
I would like to thank the community for stepping forward and helping us make the Safe and Sober Grad Night a success. I would also like to thank all the people who volunteered that evening. The event could not have run without their donation of time throughout the night.
Sober Grad Night had 349 seniors attend out of 574. This event would not be possible without the support of the businesses, community groups, and private citizens who made monetary donations, raffle prize donations, helped with fundraising events and donated their time to chaperone that evening. In this issue of the Pinnacle is a list of our supporters. Please patronize these business, thank the organizations and supporters of Sober Grad Night. They are an asset to our community.
Hydie McDonald
Sober Grad Night
