Tag: san benito county california

Whew, it’s been a busy couple of weeks down here in South County; I haven’t even had time to write my column! And, with the way the weather has been this year, it looks like it’s going to get even busier as lots of folks are already starting to ship their cattle due to the lack of rain this year. We haven’t even had a real winter this year.

    A new National Park Service report shows that more than 246,000 visitors in 2010 spent $4.8 million in Pinnacles National Monument and in communities near the park. The spending supported 58 jobs in the local area.

I had to choose between meetings last Tuesday night; San Benito County was meeting about its $5.3 million budget deficit while Hollister was meeting about its $3.5 million shortfall. I didn’t check to see if California was tackling its $9.2 billion deficiency or the federal government its $1.3 trillion problem. I’ll leave the state and federal issues for another time just to note that those are only the deficits they are willing to acknowledge publicly.

The City of Hollister is saddled with two of the region’s highest CalPERS employer contribution rates now and into the future with costs exceeding more than $3.1 million next year, according an analysis of 24 local area valuation reports.

A judge Thursday ruled the man accused in the 2007 killing of a 20-year-old Hollister woman is mentally competent to stand trial, set to start Monday morning.

About a year after the allegations went public, the Diocese of Monterey has settled a lawsuit involving suspicions that a former Mission San Juan Bautista priest in 2005 sexually abused a then 14-year-old member of the Madonna Del Sasso parish in Salinas.

The man accused in the 2007 killing of a 20-year-old Hollister woman contended in court Thursday he was incompetent for trial proceedings, and a judge gave him a week to return with a doctor’s recommendation on his mental status.

The most frequently asked question I get about government is this – if we’re so broke that we can’t afford essential services, why are so few people concerned about the money we waste due to bad decisions or excess spending? I always give the same answer - it’s the brother-in-law effect. I’m going to explain the brother-in-law effect, then you can retain this column and the next time we err and no one cares, just take it out and read it.

A car slammed into an 18-wheel tanker truck Monday morning, sending the Ford Mustang's driver to the hospital with injuries.