Now playing in a metropolitan daily newspaper near you is a
drama worthy of a Hollywood screenplay.
Now playing in a metropolitan daily newspaper near you is a drama worthy of a Hollywood screenplay.
The story involves corruption, politics, infidelity and more, and it offers villains and heroes.
For two days the massive-circulation, multi-county San Jose Mercury News ran a “Special Report” detailing its view of recent San Benito County goings-on involving outgoing District Attorney John Sarsfield, the Los Valientes, former Pinnacle newspaper publisher Tracie Cone, and a cast of characters from Richard Scagliotti to Kate Woods to Ignacio Velazquez, and more.
Just to let us know how the story was going to go, the newspaper provided us the poster-quality headlines “Fury on the Range” and “Bitter Showdown,” complete with nifty graphics of barbed-wire beneath them. It is menacing stuff. It is Gary Cooper in “High Noon”-quality stuff.
Just to set the mood, the story provides us a lovely opening citing the “vast open land” and “cherry stands and strawberry fields” that greet all who enter – until “the mighty stench from a towering compost heap hits …” So much for the circle of life.
We are not here to offer a review. This epic was bigger than us. And anyone who comes down here and attempts to round up truth and common sense regarding the era of politics detailed in the stories deserves applause. Locals have been trying to make sense of it for years.
But we do, however, have an observation to make: All the Good Guys are outsiders and seekers of truth who rode into town and did their honest best to prevent this place from being riddled by the bullets of corruption, rampant growth, and hit-piece politics. The Bad Guys are old Good Old Boys who felt their way of life – greed, development, litigation – threatened.
It seems awfully simple. Is it?
As simple as San Benito County is always described by large outside interests. So charming and down-home. So everybody-knows-everyone’s business.
And to think we always believed San Benito County to be nuanced and complicated, like other populated entities in the nation. To say the town is filled with complex characters is not to excuse anyone’s actions or behaviors. It is to say that if you live in a place the heroes and villains probably aren’t always what they seem, and are probably shaded in different hues.
Some residents we interviewed found the stories “balanced and true.” Others said the county was, yet again, portrayed as populated by hopeless, ignorant hicks. Readers can decide for themselves.
Regardless, San Benito County was treated to Big Scrutiny. Some residents perceive us to be demonized by the attention. Which may be understandable when you’re treated to a title like “Fury on the Range.” We hope those folks don’t take the expose too hard.
Everyone else will sit back and wait and watch. And decide for themselves if this show deserves a sequel.
