Time for tough moves
The New Year will see a new mayor and city council. As people
make New Year’s resolutions, I sincerely hope the new mayor and
city council follows suit.
Time for tough moves
The New Year will see a new mayor and city council. As people make New Year’s resolutions, I sincerely hope the new mayor and city council follows suit.
As shown by the results of measure “U” and the defeat of councilwoman
Peggy Corrales, Hollister residents expect a positive change.
Plenty has been said about the lack of communication from the city staff and city manager to city council members. Information gets to council members late or short of substance. The present city manager is retiring in January and this would be the time for the new mayor and city council to review those on city staff that have and are not performing their jobs as expected. It is time for a house cleaning.
Almost weekly, a council member will tell the media, “we have had problems and it is time to move ahead.” So, without cleaning their own house, the city council will sit with a name change only and the problems will only become larger. No positive change will come to the City of Hollister. Keeping those on staff who have led this city into the financial ruin that exists today is bordering on being criminal. The additional cost to the residents of Hollister through inept staff personnel has been astronomical for a small community. If Hollister were a corporation, it would be bankrupt.
The structure of staff accountability must be altered. Some changes are politically unpopular and certain members of the city council will never have enough fortitude to make those important changes. Now, if not the new mayor, will at least one council member do the right thing by taking the high ground and starting the process of making changes at staff level necessary to move
Hollister “ahead”?
Paul Grannis
Hollister
Parents must fight gangs
Thank you so much for your recent article on gangs (The Gang Plague, Dec. 5). It’s a problem that we can no longer ignore. In my opinion the first step is to make parents responsible for their children’s actions from the very beginning.
Many parents of gang members either live in denial or just don’t care. Take, for instance, an old neighbor of mine whose teenage son use to scrawl XIV through the dust on the garage door and carved the same thing into a tree on the front lawn (the number 14 corresponds to N in the alphabet and stands for Norteños). I went to go confront her about some vandalism that was done to my car after my husband told her son and his friends to quit parking in our driveway and to stop leaving their garbage in the shrubs that separated our yards. She said she had no idea who did it and denied her son being involved with any gang activities.
Give me a break! Take notice of the signs. The way they dress, the friends they hang out with, the things they say and do. We must take an active role in our children’s lives. I am the mother of four children, two of them middle school students. I make a daily effort to find out who they are hanging out with at school, know where they are at all times (yes parents it is possible to do that!), and make sure they stay busy. Is this easy? No, of course not! But I do it because I love them and because it is MY RESPONSIBILITY!
(Name withheld by editors for safety issues)
Gang crackdown must be priority
I want to thank you for your articles last week regarding the ongoing
and growing street gang problems we are experiencing. These are exactly the problems I was referring to in the Views piece I wrote for this newspaper recently.
It is nice to hear that I am not the only one that has the guts to speak out about how law enforcement in this county needs to reprioritize their efforts in our community. These are real problems that affect innocent people. People who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is exactly the point I was trying to make when I wrote that our taxpayer money could be better spent addressing our local concerns, as opposed to the “knee jerk” approach law enforcement took during our last Hollister Independence Rally. This is why I argued at the Supervisors meeting that I did not believe it prudent that we continually send officers around the country to these so-called motorcycle gang seminars when all we really need to do is send them to Gilroy to learn about the problems that affect us locally.
When I refer to law enforcement I am not referring to the individual officers or even the department heads within the departments. Many of these officers have the same concerns we have but their hands are tied do to the demands put upon them by the lack of resources needed to do the job efficiently. Where the real problem lies is with our elected officials, who are in essence the law enforcement’s bosses. These are the people who must dictate on their constituents behalf our concerns and priorities. It is ONLY by voicing our concerns that these problems will be addressed. And then if that does not work, then it is time to replace our elected officials by the power of the vote.
Mark Maxwell
Hollister
Shop downtown Hollister
This Christmas season make a difference in your community. Shop where you live. By shopping locally you can make a large impact in your community by keeping your tax dollars here. If you haven’t already heard – SBC gets less money back from the state than any other county. We are on our own when it comes to support from the state, so let’s work together to support our businesses while at the same time keeping our dollars in our community.
Take a stroll through Historical Downtown Hollister and enjoy what many communities can only wish for: unique and quaint shops in beautiful historical buildings. The owners are all local residents who treat their customers like family.
For sporting equipment stop by Muenzer’s, family owned and operated for generations. Need help finding the perfect diamond? Nobody does it better than Mr. Maddux. For gifts, Kelly’s has a great selection that will keep you busy for a while, if you’re looking for women’s clothing stop next door and say hi to Sheila, owner of She’s. Sheila will have exactly what you need and have it wrapped up in box before you can decide what you want to eat at the Hard Times Cafe, a ’50s-style diner across the street from She’s.
No downtown is complete without a lingerie shop and our downtown is lucky to have one of the best, Boutique de Lingerie, located in the new Klauer building. Boutique de Lingerie will keep you coming back for more and more. Drapoel’s a little further down the street has everything a beautiful SBC woman could want: shoes, purses, clothing and much more, just tell Debra what your looking for and she’ll have you walking out the door with a smile.
No one can make a shopping trip complete with out stopping by the famous Dorothy McNett’s, so famous she even has her own TV show. This is the home of the happy cookers, with everything you need for the kitchen and I do mean everything. Dorothy’s is so big she even has a huge wine room.
Make this the year that you take a break from the chain stores and malls and enjoy all the beautiful things your town has to offer. The best benefit about shopping in town is all the new friends you’ll make.
Ignacio Velazquez
President
Hollister Downtown Association
HFD, Nob Hill deserve kudos
I would like to thank the Hollister Fire Department for coming to my rescue Saturday afternoon when I locked my keys in my car with my baby still in her car seat at Nob Hill. They were there within minutes and were very kind and very quickly opened the door for me. I would also like to thank James and employees at Nob Hill who immediately helped me by letting me use his cell phone to call 911. He stayed with me, flagged down the fire truck and just made me feel better. I appreciate everyone’s help so much. I am only living in Hollister temporarily, and I must say that I have found everyone to be very kind and friendly here.
Cheryl Moore
Hollister
The cost of SJB plumbing
I am writing this letter to the public for assistance. Not monetary
assistance, but advice. Where to turn. I opened a gourmet waffle shop in
San Juan Bautista last April. Being a new restaurant within a tourist town,
I depend on my weekend’s revenue to pay the bills and make a living.
In September, on a Sunday morning, I arrived at work at 6 a.m., to get ready for my busy day. Everything was fine. The waffle house was filled all
morning until 10-ish, when someone from the city came into my shop and demanded I shut down. He informed me there was a broken water main and they had shut down the city’s water supply. I asked him when it happened and how, and he informed me it broke at 3 a.m. No warning to the restaurants so we could’ve prepared and brought water in if need be.
Because I had no other water source, I had no choice but to close and lose a day’s wages. I billed the city for the amount lost that day both in revenue and for my worker’s wages. I have yet to collect or even receive a letter of apology from the city.
This past Sunday, again, I went to work early, as I knew I had a party of eight or so that was expecting waffles by 7:30. When I opened my door, I took one step into this little restaurant only to be standing in a foot of water. It seems that Dona Esther’s restaurant had backed up into the waffle shop. We share an adjoining line that was never revealed to me.
I had to remove everything within the waffle house, wait for a plumber and then sanitize everything. The walls, the floors, the tables and dishes. It was requested that I pay half of the plumber’s fees. So, I not only lost out on serving 50 plus customers that day, but I was closed while Doña Esther’s was open and operating. My staff and friends, cleaned from 6:30 a.m. until
4 p.m.
Twice I was closed down. Not by anything I’ve done. I believe in both
instances, the responsible parties should reimburse me for the day’s wages and pay for the plumbing. I’m just not sure where to go for this help. Where is support for the merchants?
Terry Powell
San Juan Bautista
