”
As I try to sleep this hot August night, it’s those darn
crickets with their loud pulsating chirp, chirp, chirps. Let’s
storm City Hall with a
”
Down with the Crickets
”
appeal. And those crickets don’t even get minimum wage. They get
no wage.
“As I try to sleep this hot August night, it’s those darn crickets with their loud pulsating chirp, chirp, chirps. Let’s storm City Hall with a “Down with the Crickets” appeal. And those crickets don’t even get minimum wage. They get no wage.
It seems the comments against cannery noise are much more than that: they’re a venomous tirade against “outsiders” who complainers claim work for low wages for a few months, then go back to where they came from. As a retired cannery worker, I can tell you that many local people who own property here and pay taxes here are cannery employees and have been all their lives.
It rankles some that people are willing to work for low wages. Ideally, they should be paid $10 to $12 an hour. But people take jobs like this because they have to put food on their table and there aren’t any other jobs available.
Are we, then, to oust McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, the many pizza places, and any other business that pays low wages? Are we to hate people because they work in the cannery? I think not.”
“City Councilman Tony Band Wagon Bruscia decided to join the dog-pile on the cannery. He’s quoted as saying the cannery needs to be responsible and should be held accountable. Tony is tough on the serious stuff like noise pollution. But when it came to the murder of Ralph Santos Sr., Mr. Bruscia sat silent and never once used the words responsible and accountable as to the police department’s poor handling of that murder.
Priorities, Tony, priorities.”
“When Silicon Valley sneezes, San Benito County catches a cold. However, regional plans and programs (especially transportation) tend to lump us in with Monterey and Santa Cruz counties instead of looking north. Good news on the housing front this week: Fannie Mae’s Bay Area Partnership has decided to add San Benito County (plus Monterey and Santa Cruz County) to its nine county service area. Probably the new housing specialist in the Hollister Redevelopment Agency will add this information to the city’s Web site. New staff, new Web site and new programs mean we can move forward from the dismal situation I encountered last December — in Hollister City Hall I picked up a city flyer (a sheet of white paper with four bullet points) about housing programs and called the number given for the “First Time Homebuyer Program.” I was told the program was discontinued in 1998 and the city had been asked repeatedly to stop giving out the number.”
