Rita Bowling was my supervisor when I moved to San Benito County
as part of the San Jose commuter community. Until that point in my
assorted years as a property owner, I had never had occasion to ask
a public official for help. My only experiences with elected
officials were as sources for stories in faraway places.
Rita Bowling was my supervisor when I moved to San Benito County as part of the San Jose commuter community. Until that point in my assorted years as a property owner, I had never had occasion to ask a public official for help. My only experiences with elected officials were as sources for stories in faraway places.
So when an issue arose in District 3, which included my property at the time on the northwest side of town, I opened the telephone book and found Bowling’s name listed with her address. A public official with a listed telephone number was a foreign concept to me then.
Leery of intruding with my public problem at her private residence, I wrote a letter to her home. The moment she received it, she called me back with support and an invitation to address the board.
And that kind of service is why Rita Bowling, who retires on Tuesday after 16 years spent serving the citizens of San Benito County, was elected four times by the voters without hardly even campaigning.
See a problem, tackle it. Hear from a citizen, address the concern.
Accountability by an elected official ought not to be something that surprises us, yet it does. Bowling took her responsibility to the citizens to be her most important one. It’s why she never accepted a campaign contribution and, for that matter, placed only a handful of homemade plywood campaign signs around town. She did not want to be beholding to anybody other than the voters. If voters wanted her, she reasoned, they’d vote for her whether she knocked on their doors – or not. If they didn’t, well that was fine, too, she always said around campaign time.
Now she goes out of office on her own terms after pinching pennies for taxpayers and bluntly telling department heads, speakers, the sheriff and anyone else what she thought, often cutting comically to the quick.
Before she leaves office I have a public apology to make to Rita. Back in 1997, some of you may recall, elected officials were in a tizzy over the upcoming 50th anniversary of the motorcycle invasion of Hollister. During a practice run the year before, the sheriff’s office actually placed sharpshooters on the roofs of downtown businesses. Bikers, everyone seemed to fear, probably from watching too many reruns of The Wild One, would rape and pillage the community. At a supervisor’s meeting leading up to the event, Bowling said she wanted the county’s two ambulances reserved “for taxpaying citizens.” In a column for the San Jose Mercury I urged visitors to bring their W-2 forms in case they needed a ride to the hospital.
The point I had missed by writing that sarcastic line was the very thing that Rita Bowling has stood for during her four terms on the county’s governing body. She is for the welfare of San Benito County and its citizens above all else. If an outsider tries to cause harm or diminish the quality of life, heaven help them if Rita gets wind of it.
“This is God’s Country,” she often said in voting against something she felt would detract from the county’s beauty.
I’m sorry I didn’t “get it” back in 1997. Now that I know Rita Bowling, she will be the standard by which I’ll measure future politicians and their passion for the communities they serve.
