If you’ve been hopping in the car and driving to Gilroy for your
holiday shopping, Hollister Mayor Tony Bruscia wants you to
reconsider.
Hollister – If you’ve been hopping in the car and driving to Gilroy for your holiday shopping, Hollister Mayor Tony Bruscia wants you to reconsider.
“Every time we go and spend a dollar in Gilroy, we’re spending a dollar for them to have more police or more firemen,” Bruscia said. “And that’s money that’s not going towards those programs here.”
Bruscia has always encouraged residents to shop locally, touting the financial benefits of spending money in town to the small crowds at City Council meetings. Now, in search of a larger audience, he has put together an educational program on CMAP community television that will tell locals exactly where the money they spend in Hollister goes and why it’s so important to local programs.
The TV program is in final editing today and should start airing on CMAP as early as tomorrow, according to Bruscia. It will be between 15 and 30 minutes long, and will hopefully be aired once a day, he said.
Bruscia and a team from CMAP went to about a dozen local businesses to show the public what kind of shops they operate, what kind of merchandise and services they offer, and get their insight as to how money spent locally helps the community’s finances, he said. Business owners interviewed included the owners of San Benito Tire, She’s women’s clothing store, and The Elegant Touch restaurant, Bruscia said.
“What we’re doing is not a commercial. It’s an opportunity for them to say, ‘Look, we have everything from petite to plus-sizes.’ That’s just telling people what they do. A lot of people think the only place to buy clothing is Target, and that’s just not the case,” said Bruscia, who helped with behind-the-scenes production work and interviewed the business owners for the program.
San Benito County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Theresa Kiernan said the chamber would like to see the fledgling program expand, eventually extending its message to include businesses throughout the county. Kiernan said she’d also like to see several more programs made with the same message so they could be put on rotation on CMAP and the program wouldn’t become played-out.
“I’m really hoping he makes more, and I think he’s hoping, too. Because the bottom line is that no matter how we look at it, anything we do or don’t do in this county directly affects us,” she said.
Bruscia said the program, which will be called “Keeping It Local,” should begin airing on Dec. 8 on CMAP.
Jessica Quandt covers politics for the Free Lance. Reach her at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or at jq*****@fr***********.com.
