From sewage spills to bullying developers to robotic roosters,
San Benito County overcomes another year of maddening and kooky
events
By KATE WOODS
Pinnacle Staff Writer
Looking back on 2002’s top news events in San Benito County is
like watching a cross between a tragi-comedy and theater of the
absurd.
Looking back on 2002’s top news events in San Benito County is like watching a cross between a tragi-comedy and theater of the absurd.
Hollister’s sewage system, which state officials and local citizens warned was overburdened by the city’s poor planning, finally proved critics right. More than 15 million gallons of wastewater spilled into the San Benito Riverbed in May, ending with a $1.2 million fine and an indefinite moratorium on all construction.
The disaster further fueled public sentiment against unchecked growth, already a hot issue, and resulted in a landslide victory in November for a city growth cap.
There was the year-long simmering rage between then-mayor Tony LoBue and current Mayor Brian Conroy, Councilman Tony Bruscia’s efforts to make Hollister, already a city of characters, a City of Character, and the revenge of Pat Loe, who 10 years after her growth-cap measure failed, won a supervisor’s seat in a landslide on a responsible growth platform.
Speaking of growth, even San Juan Bautista got into the act by passing a strict cap and an ordinance against chain stores.
On a sad note, the community lost water rights advocate Howard Harris, former supervisor Enos Silva, horse trainer Mervin Spotswood, David Hyman, a longtime clothier, and recent San Benito High School graduates Jeff Conte and Ryan Perry, who reminded us that Highway 25 still isn’t safe enough to handle its traffic.
And oh, yes, who could forget the state’s plan to put flapping robotic chickens in the historic Castro Breen Adobe?
So many to chose from, but here are our top 10 stories of the year.
1. Sewage, sewage everywhere
County officials had a hard time not saying “We told you so” to city officials when Hollister’s sewage pond No. 6 ruptured in May, spewing forth 15 million gallons of secondary treated wastewater into the San Benito River. The flood of effluent was the culmination of years of mounting sewage capacity problems for the city and prompted state water officials to issue a moratorium on all construction, even economic development, in the city. It wasn’t the end of Hollister’s sewage nightmares. The state board also levied a $1.2 million fine on the city.
In September Hollister officials went before the Regional Water Quality Control Board pleading forgiveness for their build-like-there’s-no-tomorrow attitude. The final insult came when, after seven hours of discussion and excuses, Councilman Tony Bruscia left the meeting early after requesting that the city’s hired sewage attorney read a message for the board. “Double the fine if you must, but let’s put the money to work accomplishing good!”
The board gladly complied by slapping the city taxpayers with a doubled fine of $1.2 million, an indefinite building moratorium and a timeline for sewage fix projects, but not before calling the City of Hollister a “bad actor.”
As if that weren’t bad enough, countless Hollister toilets continue to erupt in sewage backups because of the overloaded and archaic sewage lines. And oh, let’s not forget the day the water main broke in downtown Hollister, flooding streets, sending water seeping into businesses and giving Hollister critics more ammo against development.
2. Highway 25 deaths, safety improvements.
Despite 18 previous deaths on Highway 25 over the previous two years, two popular San Benito High School graduates put a familiar face on tragedy for too many people in February. Ryan Perry and Jeff Conte died when their former classmate, speeding toward Gilroy, lost control near the Z-Best plant and plowed into an oncoming car. While all of the accidents have been tragic, this one – with victims known and beloved by so many people in the community – seemed to galvanize resolve to implement safety improvements. Within months safety work had begun to widen the shoulders and the median on the two-lane road.
3. The trouble with Corbin
Many local investors of Hollister’s Corbin Motors Company were, to put it mildly, shocked by news about the electric car company’s years of alleged mismanagement, firings, hostile takeovers and allegations of putting out an unsafe, unreliable product. After four years of production and stockholder meetings full of rosy promises, the makers of the mod-colored egg-shaped Sparrow had sold only 285 of the problematic cars – and 215 had been recalled. Dealers and investors were left holding the bag while president Tom Corbin was still cruising town, not in a Sparrow, but in a company-leased Bentley.
Today, the embattled company is fending off a slew of lawsuits and is under investigation by the state Department of Motor Vehicles.
4. Award Homes sues
Undoubtedly the most divisive, most controversial story throughout the year was Award Homes’ aggressive and ongoing attempts to build their 677-home subdivision on Fairview Road. It started in January when, in an effort to take public heat off themselves, the City Council quietly voted to give City Manager George Lewis the power to make all future decisions regarding the housing development. Guess what the first decision was? Lewis gave the thumbs up to the West of Fairview plan of services, which at that point had become a hot potato thrown back and forth between LAFCO and the city.
True to form, Award Homes started suing — before a decision was even made by LAFCO. They first sued Planning Director Rob Mendiola for allegedly delaying the annexation process of their project, then decided to lump in LAFCO commissioners Bob Cruz, Richard Scagliotti, San Juan Bautista Mayor Priscilla Hill – and then the entire County of San Benito into the lawsuit, with a demand for $57 million in lost profits.
Needless to say, LAFCO denied the city annexation of the West of Fairview development because of Hollister’s failing infrastructure, namely, the crumbling sewage system. The vote came after Hill removed John Hopper from the board and nominated herself, some believe in an attempt to seat a slow-growth majority.
Award Homes further angered the community when it was revealed that they were attempting to coerce the Hollister School District into taking over 53 acres of row crops from a longtime resident, who doesn’t want to sell, through “eminent domain,” in order to help fulfill the developers’ dream.
The lawsuits drag on.
5. Motorcycle madness
This year’s Hollister Independence Day Rally was another profit-maker for some businesses in the city, but the event was marred by an undercurrent of danger due to a deadly Hell’s Angels/Mongols shootout at the Laughlin, Nev. rally just months before. After the rival biker clubs vowed retaliation, Sheriff Curtis Hill went into preparatory defense mode to keep the rally safe. The California Highway Patrol had hundreds of officers on standby – just in case.
Hollister Independence Day Rally organizers said the sheriff was pulling a “Chicken Little,” and when the rally ended – peaceably, to the relief of all — HIRC further snubbed regional lawmen when they took out a thank-you ad and neglected law enforcement, which had spent thousands of extra overtime-hours patrolling the county during the rally.
Supervisor Rita Bowling publicly blasted HIRC at the next supervisors’ board meeting, which kicked off another back-and-forth bickering session between HIRC supporters and the board. Bowling ended it all by threatening to send the county’s law enforcement bill to the organization.
6. Bob Valenzuela leaves
Many cried (and a few cheered) when longtime local gadfly Bob Valenzuela closed his video store, loaded a U-Haul and split for retirement amid the dazzling spotlights of Hollywood. Bob’s Pinnacle column, Thoughts While Not Shaving, was a source of weekly guffawing to many in the community because it was a tell-all about local political gossip.
Bob’s the one who coined the term “The Two Tonys” (councilmen Tony LoBue and Tony Bruscia, the former for defending development and the latter for his patronizing method of talking down to his constituents). He called outgoing Supervisor Rita Bowling “Madame Hussein” (and the only politician with the “canacas” the size of bowling balls), and other politicians outright “assholes.”
Bob’s video store downtown had every hard-to-find movie ever made, and most of the movers and shakers who rented them also came with stories of political intrigue that most always made it into the following week’s column.
Most local politicians took Bob’s Thoughts in stride and even laughed at Bob’s take on their own foibles in the public spotlight, but a few went ballistic. The most notorious of Bob’s dissenters was former mayor and councilman Joe Felice, who launched a public Internet attack on Bob and the publisher of this newspaper. And we all know the ending to that story.
7. San Juan protects heritage
Earlier this year it seemed that not even historic, quaint San Juan Bautista – population 1,600 — would be able to fend off developers and carpetbaggers any more than Hollister had been able to over the past 10 years. But apparently the Mission City got a rude awakening after two housing developments were approved by a predominantly pro-growth city council earlier this year.
It prompted San Juan slow-growther and rabble-rouser Rebecca McGovern to gather more than 125 signatures on a petition calling for a 1 percent growth cap in the tiny town that prides itself of being a slice of 1880s living history. The ordinance, which would allow for only six new houses within the San Juan city limits a year, was approved by the council. In November, voters ousted Councilman John Hopper, and Robert Quaid failed to seek reelection. The voters reelected Mayor Priscilla Hill and opted for new councilmen Art Medina and Chuck Geiger, both part of the town’s slow-growth movement.
Weeks later, when news arose of a Disney-like plan to re-do the historic Castro-Breen Adobe house in the Mission Plaza, San Juan citizens showed up in force to vocalize their disgust. Speakers – including the modern-day Breen family — ridiculed the State Park’s plan to place robotic animals and cardboard cutouts of the Breen family inside the historic structure for the purpose of amusing fourth graders. The state park has gone back to the drawing board with its interpretive plan.
Last Monday, in response to public outcry over the possibility of a Subway Sandwiches food chain coming to town, the new council passed an urgency ordinance banning any new chain franchise businesses in the town.
8. Hollister voters slow growth
San Juan wasn’t the only municipality in San Benito to slow development. After three years of defending Award Homes’ West of Fairview development, former councilwoman Peggy Corrales was ousted at the polls and replaced with County Marshal Robbie Scattini, who has promised to keep the reins tight on growth and work on the city’s inadequate infrastructure.
In the same election, 70 percent of Hollister voters overwhelmingly approved a grass-roots initiative to limit new houses in the city to 244 a year – a heavy-handed cut from the days of watching nearly 600 homes a year spring up like mushrooms.
In another and related referendum on growth, Hollister residents elected Pat Loe to the Board of Supervisors in a landslide in the March primary. Loe fills the District 3 seat – one entirely in the city limits – vacated by Rita Bowling’s retirement. Loe lead the failed fight in 1990 for Measures L & M, which would have kept Hollister’s growth in line with the state’s – about 3 percent a year – instead of the nearly 80 percent hike it experienced in the 1990s. Apparently, voters now believe she was right.
9. The gang plague
It started with the blossoming of illegible graffiti on just about every wall, fence, window and even a few cars in town. Then there were drive-by shootings last summer and unsolved gang-related murders – six between Hollister and Gilroy alone.
It took a voluminous in-depth story in The Pinnacle exposing the surging gang violence in the area to make city officials and the Hollister Police Department admit there was even a problem. Just weeks after the story was published, a summit was held between all arms of local law enforcement, including District Attorney-elect John Sarsfield, the County Sheriff’s Department and the Hollister Police Department. Residents and businesses are on the lookout now for suspicious gang activity, and, according to other news reports, the public’s war against the senseless activities of gangs seems to be catching on all over California.
In an effort to clean up graffiti, the probation department and Juvenile Hall join forces to send youngsters into the streets to paint over graffiti as part of their community service sentences.
10. City-county war
It had been ongoing for years but seemed to escalate the moment former mayor Tony LoBue took the gavel at Hollister City Hall a year ago. The city and county fought over everything from funding for the joint animal shelter to whether the city should build a new sewage treatment plant without asking those potentially affected to be a part of the process.
The feud reached a peak mid-year when LAFCO and county planning director Rob Mendiola were sued for trying to do the job the city had neglected – ensuring that the city could provide necessary services to the Award Homes development it had approved. The county was vindicated when the city’s sewage system failed, spilling 15 million gallons into the San Benito River, but revenge was anything but sweet as the foul liquid headed straight for unincorporated San Benito County territory.
Ultimately, San Benito County sued the city in November when it began working on fixes to its sewage system without performing environmental assessments.
LoBue took advantage of every opportunity to publicly criticize county officials, and even blasted Supervisor Bob Cruz at a LAFCO meeting, when he spoke without city council authorization.
The day after LoBue’s reign ended last month, city and county officials vowed to bury the hatchet.
