Tag: ray friend

Councilman Victor Gomez is the latest city official to broach a spending plan in the event voters pass the Measure E sales tax extension.

While Hollister council members’ views vary on whether July 4 is the appropriate long-term time frame for the city’s air show, a majority of them appears intent on the timing for 2013.

The union representing Hollister firefighters recently issued a first-ever no-confidence vote for City Manager Clint Quilter and Fire Chief Fred Cheshire and has recommended that Cheshire be investigated and fired.

With the Hollister City Council last week officially placing an extension to the Measure T sales tax on the November ballot, the new executive director of the San Benito County Business Council attended the meeting and offered three terms under which the organization would support the idea.

It is understandable that three Hollister council members who are up for reelection in November have personal matters holding up their commitments, or lack thereof, to run on the ballot.

June’s election will have ballot measures for future changes to the structure of Hollister’s City Council to reduce the number of districts and add an at-large mayor elected by the entire city. I support these proposals and the related measure giving the mayoral position a four-year term. If they are approved, the city will eventually consolidate its five districts into four, each represented by a council member. Those members plus the new position of at-large mayor will constitute the five-member city council.

A couple dozen residents gathered in the Veterans Memorial Building Feb. 16, in hopes that their names would be among the first 30 called in a lottery for the second phase of a self-help housing developing on the west side of Hollister.

Councilwoman Pauline Valdivia tainted the debate last week about an affordable housing proposal by not only veering the discussion and making a ludicrous claim that there is no proof of illegal immigrants living on Hollister's west side, but also spuriously painting others as discriminatory in the process.

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.