“Ding dong the Witch is dead!” The witch in this case is the Hollister Redevelopment Agency. For example, imagine, if you will an agency which agreed to rent the entire Porter House for $4,000 per month to house a handful of employees; a $5 million downtown firehouse for a handful of firefighters; please. It becomes all too apparent that spending practices are grossly out of whack. The RDA is a spending engine! And the City of Hollister simply cannot afford an indulgent RDA.
Racial tensions and segregation concerns over an affordable housing proposal on the west side added to an already chaotic public hearing Tuesday, as city council members repeatedly traded barbs with speakers and fostered an open, heated dialogue that defied open-meeting rules.