Letter: One person can make a difference

Almost everyone recognizes that improving our local economy is one of the most important things we have to do to secure Hollister’s future. The question is what is the best way to reach that goal? While I support big, long-range projects, such as airport improvements and the Westside plan, which both have enormous potential, they often take a very long time to produce results and when only a few projects are on the table any problem can ruin years of planning or add decades to completion.
I believe the best way is improve our local economy is to try and capture the hundreds of millions of dollars in retail ‘leakage’ and bring more jobs to the county by dealing with issues across a board front by targeting employers, merchants, and entertainment. Five years ago the city government set the goal of determining why Hollister was in the bottom 20% of the state’s sales tax generation per capita, but that goal like so many others on the economic front did not get accomplished.
To get the economic program moving it is essential that it have adequate funding and top-level priority right alongside public safety. Economic security is as important as physical security for the residents and for the city; in fact, one pays for the other as is so painfully obvious. My theme is simple, Hollister is a great place to live – we need to make it great place for jobs, a great place to shop, a great place to play, and a great place to do business.
The total personal income for all of San Benito County was $1.96 billion a year in 2010. Hollister, with most of the commercial activity, has a General Fund budget of about $14 million. That is less than 1% of county’s personal income. The $2.2 million is regular sales taxes we received that year were only about one-tenth of one percent of county income even though sales taxes were applied on every taxable transaction, not just once. Unfortunately, even much of the tax take is not from discretionary spending, but due to the gasoline tax, an expense that directly hurts our commuters.
We have seen the positive effects of making an issue a top-level priority before. The Gang Prevention Task force went along for years hardly having meetings – then they reorganized, got serious, found the key person to do the job, and everything changed.
One person can make a difference and local government can do things when they have the incentive to concentrate on solving the problems. Only the voters can provide that incentive by insisting they make our local economy a priority in reality not merely in speeches.
Marty Richman, Hollister mayoral candidate