The following events, organizations and people deserve either a
Thumbs Up or a Thumbs Down this week:
THUMBS UP: Mother’s Day isn’t until Sunday, but it’s never too early to start celebrating what the woman we love means to us. How valuable is Mom? The web site Salary.com offered an interesting perspective this week. As a cook, teacher, driver, facilities manager, nurse, household CEO and more, a stay-at-home mom would earn $1348,095 if she were compensated for all the elements of her job. And everything a mother with a job outside the house contributes to home and family translates to $85,939 beyond her paycheck. While the web site’s monetary estimates shed some light on her value, we all know that Mom is priceless. So remember to celebrate her this Sunday and every day of the year.
THUMBS DOWN: Organic giant Natural Selection Foods has been fined $95,000 by the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board for violating the terms of its permit to discharge wastewater at its San Juan Bautista plant. The company’s permit allows it to discharge up to 70,000 gallons of wastewater a day. But during 2005 and 2006, it discharged an average of 274,000 gallons of wastewater a day and on one day in July of 2005 discharged 582,307 gallons – more than eight times the limit. If the $95,000 that Natural Selection Foods will pay seems like a lot, consider that the company could have been fined $6.2 million for the violations.
THUMBS UP: The non-profit Collings Foundation is bringing three World War II bombers to Hollister Municipal Airport next week. For three days starting Monday, the public can get a good look at a B-17 Flying Fortress, a B-24 Liberator and a B-25 light bomber. The airplanes are rare pieces of American aviation and military history. Check them out. And if you happen to meet up with a World War II veteran there who actually served on a bomber crew, shake his hand and say thanks.
THUMBS DOWN: The understaffed Hollister Police Department had to turn down grant funding for a new officer’s position because it was unable to recruit someone to fill the job. San Benito County Sheriff Curtis Hill lined up the grant, which would have provided the police department with $165,000 to buy equipment and pay the salary of the officer, who would have focused on methamphetamine cases. The good news is that the sheriff’s office will be able to use the money for the same purpose.
THUMBS UP: San Juan Bautista is getting a new public restroom in its historic downtown and some think that might help the Mission City lure tour buses once again. Over the last six or seven years, tourist traffic in San Juan Bautista has fallen dramatically, business owners say. Local businesses and individuals are donating time, money, materials, equipment and labor to build the new restrooms, which City Manager Jan McClintock predicted would be open by this fall.
