Gavilan invites the public to shape the future of higher
education in SBC
As Gavilan College trustees and staff prepare for the first in a
series of community input forums to begin planning for a new
Hollister campus, neighbors to the campus planned for a now-vacant
field near Fairview Road and Airline Highway may be on the trail of
a potentially deal-breaking development.
Gavilan invites the public to shape the future of higher education in SBC
As Gavilan College trustees and staff prepare for the first in a series of community input forums to begin planning for a new Hollister campus, neighbors to the campus planned for a now-vacant field near Fairview Road and Airline Highway may be on the trail of a potentially deal-breaking development.
Several residents of Harbern Way claim to have seen San Joaquin kit foxes on and around the site. Many of their homes abut the proposed site of the college.
The cat-sized fox with enormous ears is federally listed as endangered, and that makes the parcel considerably more complicated to develop.
College spokeswoman Jan Bernstein-Chargin made it clear that, while site issues will be on the table, there’s much more to be discussed.
“It’s going to be a facilitated process,” she said. “Some of the questions are not going to be site specific. What kind of a campus does the community want? We’re just hoping people come to the forum because that’s the way to make it work.”
Bernstein-Chargin promised that a biological assessment is definitely a part of the college’s plans. A full review has been ordered from David J. Powers and Associates, an environmental planning firm, that will include biological, hydrological, traffic and habitat evaluations.
The board of trustees and college staff have already demonstrated a willigness to listen. When it was announced that the college was eyeing a site near Hollister Airport, public outcry prompted a second look at properties.
Bernstein-Chargin invited people to dream a little.
“There are 109 community college campuses around the state, offering 300 different programs. Do they want agriculture, construction, winemaking? We want people to tell us not just what’s needed now but what’s needed for the community and its economy 20 years from now.”
Still, some of the college’s possible neighbors are nervous.
While they make no pretense that they would rather not have a community college next door to their now-rural homes the fox, nearby tiger salamander habitat and a healthy population of greater roadrunners have them concerned. Though roadrunners may be charismatic birds, they have no special status. Tiger salamanders, on the other hand, are classed as threatened. Loggerhead shrikes, a small songbird that preys on insects, birds and small rodents, are commonplace. Their numbers are in rapid decline elsewhere.
Neighborhood residents will be represented at the community forum, planned for Thursday, Sept. 20 from 6-8 p.m. at the Veterans Memorial Building in Hollister.
Mark Dickson has lived on Harbern, a dead-end road surrounded by five-acre parcels, for about seven years.
An outspoken property rights advocate usually, Dickson chooses his words deliberately, with scientific precision. It’s no surprise that he works with the Stanford Human Genome Center.
“We’d rather have 5-acre housing develop,” Dickson said. “I think it’s disingenuous on the part of governments that they would be able to change the zoning so easily. It bothers me that the government has more equal property rights … than a private individual.”
When he moved in, kit foxes frequently traversed his property, but he located no active dens. He has not seen any of the foxes on his property in some time.
Nearby resident Jackie Mendizabal and her family have seen one as recently as three weeks ago, they claim. They have carefully preserved brush piles on their small herb farm because foxes have sheltered in them.
Mendizabal’s home writhes with life. Two large dogs greet visitors, chickens and a duck share a coop. Birdlife is abundant, no doubt attracted by a small pond on the site.
“We’ve been here since ’95 and I knew we had something because our chickens were slowly going away,” she said. “It was about then, I would say, we noticed they were living in those little dens on our property.”
But she, too, is frank about more fears than loss of habitat.
“I’m worried about the lights being there and they’ll probably be on all night because of parking areas and athletic fields,” she said, also citing concerns over noise and increased traffic. “I’m kind of worried about burglaries with increased activity – that may be paranoia.”
Mendizabal’s family has a financial concern as well.
“We’re registered organic and you have to have a buffer of a certain distance,” she said. “We’re thinking they might be spraying and that concerns us. To be organic you have to have clean soil for three years.” She worries about application of weed killers or chemical fertilizers on the college’s landscaping. Other neighbors operate hobby farms, and the family’s herb-growing areas are at the back of their property – hard against the site eyed for a college.
Neighbor Cindee Colman thinks a college is a boon to Hollister and San Benito County, but she questions its location.
“Why put it in a residential place is my feeling,” Colman said. You have Ridgemark across the road, and Fairview road – why have more traffic? I don’t think a campus at that location is a good idea.”
“I think a college is wonderful if its in the right area,” she said, adding that she would prefer to see it closer to Hollister or at the northern edge of town.
Lights are another concern of Dickson’s.
“I can still see the Milky Way out there,” he said. “I question that … I can continue to enjoy both the quiet and the stars.”
Dickson ticked off a laundry list of some of the other wildlife he’s seen in the neighborhood. White-tailed kites nest in a neighbors tree. Other raptors – including a golden eagle that eyes his chicken flock – are abundant. He said there have been several mountain lion sightings in the past year. Tule elk are often spotted nearby, but not on the college site.
But Dickson’s deeper concern is philosophical.
“I don’t like the fact that it’s an out-of-county administration,” he said. “It worries me about the lack of San Benito control over work in our community. The location is not near people who would use the campus. There are many campuses that are junior college-based that do not have full service campuses. I realize Hollister is going to grow and probably double by the year 2050.”
“It just bothers me that they’re going to dramatically change the footprint of what was already in the plan when people bought their property.”
The plan for the campus is the result of the passage of Measure E in 2004, which provides for the purchase of a site for a future San Benito County campus.
