A big day at a little airport
Though we haven’t read about it in the newspaper, your readers
should know that Hollister Airport is an important part of this
community and of the area.
May 23, the airport was buzzing with activity! Cal Fire aircraft
were flying frequently, helping with the Summit Fire burning
thousands of acres of land in Santa Cruz. This was the closest
airport from which they were flying, coming in earlier than usual
for fire season.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger flew into the airport also. His
entourage met him there with four SUVs with blackened windows to
take him to Gilroy’s Christmas Hill Park where the fire’s staging
area had been set up. Before he left Hollister Airport, the
governor’s jet was refueled at Gavilan Aviation and the
”
Governator
”
toured some of the aircraft waiting on the tarmac for clearance
to fly to Watsonville Airport for the annual airs how. (Due to the
airport’s proximity to the Summit Fire and the smoke the 23rd was
the first day of the air show.)
Hollister was well represented at the air show. Last year’s
grand champion of the 2007 air show was a meticulously restored
Stearman N 450-SH which adorned all the advertising, T-shirts and
all collectable memorabilia for the air show. It had been restored
by Hollister Airport’s Vintage Wings and Wheels.
It was a shame that none of this information was ever reported
in the local press. Hollister Airport played a vital role in the
fire and air show in Santa Cruz County and will continue to do so
in the future, for this and surrounding counties. As a regional
airport in the national transportation system, Hollister Airport
will always serve a vital role for emergencies, natural disasters,
staging for air shows and an important part of the history of Naval
air stations and World War II.
May 23 was quite a memorable day at Hollister Airport!
Ruth Erickson
Hollister
A big day at a little airport
Though we haven’t read about it in the newspaper, your readers should know that Hollister Airport is an important part of this community and of the area.
May 23, the airport was buzzing with activity! Cal Fire aircraft were flying frequently, helping with the Summit Fire burning thousands of acres of land in Santa Cruz. This was the closest airport from which they were flying, coming in earlier than usual for fire season.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger flew into the airport also. His entourage met him there with four SUVs with blackened windows to take him to Gilroy’s Christmas Hill Park where the fire’s staging area had been set up. Before he left Hollister Airport, the governor’s jet was refueled at Gavilan Aviation and the “Governator” toured some of the aircraft waiting on the tarmac for clearance to fly to Watsonville Airport for the annual airs how. (Due to the airport’s proximity to the Summit Fire and the smoke the 23rd was the first day of the air show.)
Hollister was well represented at the air show. Last year’s grand champion of the 2007 air show was a meticulously restored Stearman N 450-SH which adorned all the advertising, T-shirts and all collectable memorabilia for the air show. It had been restored by Hollister Airport’s Vintage Wings and Wheels.
It was a shame that none of this information was ever reported in the local press. Hollister Airport played a vital role in the fire and air show in Santa Cruz County and will continue to do so in the future, for this and surrounding counties. As a regional airport in the national transportation system, Hollister Airport will always serve a vital role for emergencies, natural disasters, staging for air shows and an important part of the history of Naval air stations and World War II.
May 23 was quite a memorable day at Hollister Airport!
Ruth Erickson
Hollister
Don’t blame teachers for district woes
My name is Gene Matera, and I am a retired math and science teacher at San Juan School. I am writing (belatedly) in response to your article of Feb. 15, regarding Aromas-San Juan District budget shortfalls. I was our teacher’s union lead negotiator for some years prior to my retirement, and I would like to say that the article was very well and accurately reported. But I wanted to share some things, since the problems persist.
First, blame for budget problems is often ascribed to an “unaffordable labor contract,” a quote from the county superintendent. The district actually spends less than the state average, in percent of total expenditures, on salaries and benefits. The pay scale is below that of nearby districts, yet fiscal crisis is the norm. Staff layoffs have been the immediate solution to all budget woes in recent years, and, combined with the relatively low salaries, have decreased the quality of education in the district.
I would like to point out to you something that is rarely mentioned in discourse about school budgets, and is a general problem statewide: rarely do school districts have personnel with the fiscal expertise to manage a budget in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. Organizations of a comparable scale, either public or private, have accounting departments and CEOs with academic degrees in business, but school districts are led by administrators with degrees in pedagogy. Furthermore, district administrators typically rely on low-paid administrative assistants who laboriously enter the budget data into the computer programs provided by the state, but often have very little real understanding of each of the myriad of individual budget items. Often, neither district administrators nor trustees have the extensive expertise required to manage such large fiscal operations. Many districts are fiscally managed by people who couldn’t tell you the difference between a budget, a financial statement and a balance sheet.
Organizations employ various strategies to deal with budget shortfalls, such as having their accountants make spreadsheets with each expense tracked over time, in order to follow every dollar. School districts with budget problems just lay teachers off, or deny them adequate raises, lacking the financial acumen to do a thorough budget analysis. Districts manage to operate in the black when revenues are increasing in good economic times, but many break down miserably when revenues tighten. Salaries and benefits inevitably take the first hit, being the simplest solution, if not the best.
Some districts, however, do manage to survive in lean times and still offer pay scales superior to surrounding districts. They do so with sound fiscal management, with leadership that understands basic accounting procedures, where every line item is accounted for and tracked and questioned. These are the districts that pay well, and that don’t have yearly budget crises. Aromas-San Juan Unified, on the other hand, is one of the lowest paying districts in the county and yet is often in fiscal crisis. The fiscal problems are not caused by high salaries and benefits. Relatively high pay improves a district in many ways, whereas low salaries begin a downward spiral. I watched it happen to Aromas-San Juan, as it went from being the highest paid district in the area to one of the lowest over a 10-year period. It is unfair to the teachers and staffs of Aromas-San Juan to blame an “unaffordable labor contract.” There is no doubt that times are tough, but that’s when we most need fiscal expertise. Many districts are unequipped to manage these levels of finance.
Gene Matera
San Juan School teacher, retired
