On their last day in office, Dec. 3, 2024, the outgoing Mayor, Mia Casey, and her city council majority (Rick Perez, Dolores Morales and Tim Burns) approved a terrible General Plan. This Plan expands the city’s “Sphere of Influence” by 3,000 acres into the farmland surrounding Hollister.
It’s the template for the city’s development in the next 15 years. It would allow developers to build thousands of expensive homes along Fairview, Buena Vista, Union and San Juan Hollister Roads.
Expanding the “Sphere of Influence” enables future annexation of the 3,000 acres into the City of Hollister, with LAFCO’s permission. This is a loophole around Measure A, which voters recently approved with 55% of the vote on Nov. 5, 2024.
Approving a General Plan that’s a gift to developers is a slap in the face of voters by the outgoing Mayor Mia Casey and her city council majority.
Voters overwhelmingly removed them from office in November. Mia Casey lost by 64% of the vote and Rick Perez lost by 70%. Tim Burns lost by 2 percent. They cannot claim to represent the will of Hollister voters who strongly expressed their desire to slow growth in the recent election.
Outraged Hollister residents have started a referendum to collect petition signatures to overturn this disastrous General Plan. California law allows voters to overturn bad decisions by elected officials.
I urge you to help correct this injustice by signing the referendum petition ASAP.
Volunteers are working hard to collect enough signatures to qualify this referendum for the ballot. They can be found outside of many Hollister stores.
This New Year, please help to protect our community by signing the referendum petition. SAVE HOLLISTER FROM DEVELOPERS!
Fallon Greig
Hollister
If only it were true that we could force the State of California and our mighty Attorney General’s office into going along with the Measure A fantasy. Very wealthy cities with deep pockets have already failed at this. All residents of San Benito County will pay in the end. The General Plan had to be done by deadline to comply with rigorous state housing mandates. It was not rushed through at the end. If we don’t comply we will pay in many ways financial and worse ( think Builder’s Remedy). It was only a plan. None of the areas in this petition are even planned for sale with interested developers. Now we have our new Measure A to make it even harder to comply and anything we DO want here will never come, knowing the constant voting hassle involved. This includes tax money from businesses for all the silly things like roads & highschools & firemen ¶medics & police.Oh, and every new election costs taxpayers even more and it will accomplish NOTHING but huge fines & lawsuits from the state. You all should’ve done your research SBC residents. This was a mistake.
Angela is speaking the truth. They will charge us big fines if we do not add the amount of housing the State is requesting