Like the summertime smell of cooking tomatoes or the profile of
the mountains encircling us, Joseph Zanger Sr. seems an immutable
part of the local landscape.
Like the summertime smell of cooking tomatoes or the profile of the mountains encircling us, Joseph Zanger Sr. seems an immutable part of the local landscape.
Zanger’s family moved to the Pacheco Pass area before he was school-aged, and he’s been there ever since. Zanger and his brothers turned a roadside fruitstand into Casa de Fruta.
Calling the highway resort complex a truckstop is akin to calling Disneyland an amusement park. It’s a monument to hard work and entrepreneurial daring.
At 80, Zanger remains the fast-talking, hard-driving man he’s always been. Even when he was active in the family’s business operations, Zanger moved in some pretty elevated political circles. He was an instrumental force in seeing through installation of safety improvements on Highway 152.
And he’s still at it.
A visit to his hilltop home overlooking northern San Benito County a few days ago revealed a dining table swathed in paper. Zanger’s still got highways on his mind, and what he’s saying makes as much sense as it always had.
Caltrans has visions for our area, visions that do not necessarily reflect what’s best for area residents, but that may – or may not – be the cheapest solution.
Zanger’s always thought big, and this is no exception. Rather than dwelling on where the money might be found, he’s studied the best route. And he comes to the same conclusion that the county Farm Bureau did several years ago.
The best solution for regional transportation, for agriculture in the San Juan Valley and for commercial development is a route akin to what the Farm Bureau called the “Three in One Route,” a single, common route through northern San Benito County that pulls traffic from Highways 156, 25 and 152.
With the development of Gilroy’s big box commercial corridor around 152, the highway has become a weekly parking lot. Highway 25 has turned from a farm road into a major commute artery. Traffic on 156 backs up from Union Road to San Juan at peak hours.
A new route through largely vacant land, would open the possibility for commercial development, and could tie into an intermodal rail-trucking hub as well.
Zanger’s been waging his war one opinion at a time, inviting people into his home for a barrage of information that leaves skeptics little choice but to agree with him.
The idea of a new highway route, built to meet the needs of tomorrow’s traffic load, makes so much sense that I’d bet it will never happen.
But then, I didn’t reckon on Joe Zanger. He did it once on Highway 152, and I’d bet lunch that lightning strikes twice.
Here we go again
Oh boy. Last week I carped about negative campaigning after remarking earlier that things seemed pretty civil this time around. I chided Assembly candidate Ignacio Velazquez of Hollister for attacking his opponent, Salinas Mayor Anna Caballero, for representing a killer in the 1980s.
I still think Velazquez did not need to go there, but for the record, Caballero did briefly represent Gustavo Marlow as private counsel before his family’s financial situation prompted a judge to assign her as a public defender.
With the two candidates in a statistical dead heat (according to polling on both sides) Caballero’s camp went negative on Velazquez in TV and print pieces.
Sheesh!
Of course, the reason both sides are joining politicians from sea to shining sea in the attack ads is because they work. The electorate is already predisposed to think politicians are crooked, stupid or both and the ads play to that, seemingly confirming public suspicions.
The result is that some people stay away from the polls entirely. Others “pick the lesser of two evils.”
That’s a shame. At least we can take comfort in the Hollister City Council District 2 race, where incumbent Robert Scattini and Eugenia Sanchez built campaigns around their approach to the issues and around respect for the voters.
Where are the letters?
Once again, this newspaper has embargoed endorsement letters in the weeks leading to the election. As much as I like reading them, that’s policy. Thanks for bearing with us. We’ll return to the post-election letters-to-the editor craziness next week, so keep ’em coming.
Notebook is assembled by Pinnacle publisher Mark Paxton, with occasional contributions from other staff members as noted.
