Too close or too far away? That is the question about the site
near the airport for a Gavilan College Campus in Hollister.
It’s appropriate that members of San Benito County’s pioneer
Breen clan articulate the policy issue for the rest of us.
Editor,
Too close or too far away? That is the question about the site near the airport for a Gavilan College Campus in Hollister.
It’s appropriate that members of San Benito County’s pioneer Breen clan articulate the policy issue for the rest of us. President of Gavilan’s Board of Tustees, Judge Tom Breen, likes the Airport site, because, he says, “we’re planning a campus … for 25 and 50 years from now.” Christine Breen opposes the site, because, she says, “The Gavilan Board’s decision … is contrary to the city’s revised General Plan, which places an emphasis on ‘Smart Growth’ principles. Smart Growth emphasizes reduction of automobile dependence through the development of pedestrian and bicycle-friendly communities, preservation of open space and farmland and infill within city centers rather than sprawl.”
Pondering these conflicting observations in the echo of the Measure G debate, I can’t understand how the Gavilan Board came to this decision. To be sure, as Dr. Kinsella points out in his defense of the Airport site, the land is cheap. But that’s only because the decision puts no value on Hollister’s need to do what it must do to make it a city worth living in – it has to build a downtown that has people on its streets after 5pm! For that matter, it could use more people on its streets during the day!
Colleges and downtowns are made for each other. They are natural life forms that grow together to form healthy and energetic communities. Society ultimately depends on their unique economic and intellectual and cultural collaboration. The great cities of the world, and of this country, make this abundantly clear.
Some may like the idea of waiting ’til the cows come home for Hollister’s jump start into the vigorous civic and cultural life it requires to stay afloat in the 21st century. But the echoes of the arguments of Measure G have convinced me that this county agrees on two things about its place: It wants rural character and open space, and it wants Hollister to be a strong economic and cultural engine as the secure foundation upon which that landscape vision rests. To separate Gavilan and Hollister for 25 to 50 years is not the way to respond in good faith to what the Measure G vote count told us of our community’s best and deepest felt interest.
Thank you for keeping us focused on this issue.
Rich Morris, San Juan Bautista
