Tag: san benito county

On the heels of a failed road tax measure, county supervisors for now are saying no to the possibility of a general sales tax in unincorporated areas.

Supporters of the Measure P road tax didn't have quite enough gas for approval Tuesday.

Mark Medina raised and spent more than opponent Mark Starritt through the latest filing period in the race to succeed Margie Barrios as District 1 county supervisor, records show.

While most of Santa Clara County might be the Valley of the Heart’s Delight, one San Benito County family believes the “flavor zone” for a rare kind of apricot is Hollister.

The three-year legal dispute between the San Benito County Water District and McAlpine Lake over water pumping rates went to court last week. And if the district succeeds in cutting off the lake’s underground supply, the recreation facility’s owner, Randall McAlpine, says it could force him to close the lake to the public.

The County’s affordable housing program is not logically constructed. The San Benito County Planning Commission recently had a notably fair and informative workshop on affordable housing. Yet in the end they were not presented with the options they needed to make a program that works, especially in the unincorporated areas where, for political reasons, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors has traditionally shunned high density housing. Affordable housing programs are often illogically constructed starting with the erroneous idea that nothing the county does impacts the market; the opposite is true.

Most county planning commissioners this week supported instituting a 15 percent affordable housing requirement on new developments more than six years after suspending income-based mandates here.

A consultant hired by city and county to provide outreach on public services during a push for three separate sales tax increases contended her group does not take part in election advocacy. But the president of a taxpayer watchdog organization bemoaned the activity as “fraught with controversy.”

After city council members voted 4-0 on Monday to pursue a sale for development on the last large public grassy plot in downtown, Hollister Mayor Ignacio Velazquez took to Facebook to express his frustration and encourage community action.

Still depressed about the Hollister council’s decision to sell the city’s most prized public square for another condo development and a rooftop for sipping wine? There’s a way to get over it.