With just a few days left before Tuesday’s election, challenger
Reb Monaco believes his campaign for the San Benito County Board of
Supervisors has picked up the kind of public momentum that will
carry him through to election day.
With just a few days left before Tuesday’s election, challenger Reb Monaco believes his campaign for the San Benito County Board of Supervisors has picked up the kind of public momentum that will carry him through to election day.
“Compared to the primary, I’ve gotten a lot better support from the public,” Monaco said. “I feel the momentum in my campaign has become better.”
Monaco, a teacher in Hollister for the past 32 years, said he is running for the Board’s Fourth District because he cares about the community and he can help bring about the kind of change in the county that it will need to face current and future challenges.
“I’ve done a lot of door-to-door campaigning and I have a general feeling that people really want change,” Monaco said.
Part of that change includes helping the community come to grips with the problems presented by continued growth.
“Growth is still an overriding concern but I think people would also like to see the city and county get along better,” Monaco said.
He said there are several other issues he’d like to tackle if he is elected.
“One of the first things I’m committed to is creating some sort of manned South County (sheriff’s) substation to cut down the response time,” Monaco said.
His concern is that without a sheriff’s substation located somewhere south of Tres Pinos, it can take 40 minutes to an hour for deputies or medical crews to get to the scene of an emergency in the county’s southern areas.
“That’s just too long,” Monaco said. “A lot of things can happen in that time.”
His call for a south county substation is not intended to be a jab at Sheriff Curtis Hill, Monaco said, but the amount of distance a deputy stationed in Hollister has to cover in an emergency is just too great.
“I’d also like to look at developing the county’s historic park,” he said. “There are some great individuals working out there and there is a lot of work out there that can be done out there to improve the park.”
Monaco said he has repeatedly proven his commitment to the county by his extensive list of volunteer service, which includes serving as a volunteer firefighter, a member of the original county arts commission, the Saddle Horse Show Association, a docent at the San Juan Bautista State Park and president of the Hollister School District Teachers Union.
Monaco said that unlike some other races on the ballot, neither he nor incumbent Supervisor Ron Rodrigues have resorted to the use of dirty politics to make their point.
“I like to stick to the issues on the campaign and I think Ron has done the same,” Monaco said. “I saw no reason for it and I’ve known Ron for a number of years. I’ll never say anything bad about him.”
