Put kids back in schools
About two months ago, I wrote an editorial about how if kids didn’t return to school this fall they never would. I am sure many people thought I was crazy, but with each passing day it is looking more and more likely that students will never go to school again.
The hundreds of millions of dollars spent in bond issues to build and fix up schools in San Benito County will be wasted.
Parents, you MUST ABSOLUTELY let your board members know in no uncertain terms that you want your kids in school this fall. If you don’t want your child to go to school then opt for distance learning and see how far behind your child will be at the end of the next school year.
Let’s look at the facts. As of July 7, there are only 37 active cases of Covid-19 in San Benito County out of 60,800 residents. There are zero hospitalizations; there have been only two deaths—none since week 14 of the pandemic.
There have been zero confirmed Covid-19 deaths in the state of California in the under 18 age group (source: San Jose Mercury News daily coronavirus tracker).
There were 3,920 suicides in California in 2018 (the last year there is data for) in the 15 to 24 age group. This means that as of today thre is a zero percent mathematical, statistical chance of a student dying from Covid-19 in California, but there is a very significant chance they might die from suicide or drug abuse; and if they sit on the couch and do nothing later in life diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
If you really want the truth, and really are afraid for your children, those officials, politicians, physicians, pundits and others who say that kids must stay home from school in order to be safe are lying to you. They are safer at school than they are at home.
Don’t put up with it; call, email, write and make your voice known to your school board members.
Respectfully submitted,
Randy Logue
Hollister
Get informed on Strada Verde election
RE: Strada Verde/K. Kosmicki/red flags Free Lance July 10
About Strada Verde, be alert! It seems that these developers prefer to risk the ballot and depend on an ill-informed electorate. We have had very little information on this project until Kollin Kosmicki reported on their documents. Few would plow through 139 pages; Kosmicki did.
For starters, this huge, nearly 3,000 acre project—if it passes the ballot—will save a bundle by hopscotching over the required Environmental Impact Report. Voters beware.
The Strada Verde Project hopes to take advantage of taxpayer funded widening and improvement projects on Highway 25. Needless to say, that commute time is already nightmarish.
Zone changes from agriculture to commercial/industrial with possible residential is concerning, but something else really bothers me. There are those who downplay the value of the environment and overlook a challenging situation.
The area involves recently restored San Benito River, bringing back steelhead and also percolating clean water for us by filling our groundwater aquifers on which we all depend. Marshland on the property functions as the lungs of the land by exhaling CO2 while housekeeping for numerous species of aquatic life. Maintaining these watery places keeps us healthy.
A healthy environment supports healthy creatures. An unhealthy environment with unhealthy creatures can be the source of disease for humans. I have in mind the mutation of viruses and bacteria. Animal viral disease can transfer to humans. It has occurred in the past. An example is smallpox.
Currently, it is the coronavirus migrating from animals to humans causing this pandemic. Keeping our environment healthy should be understood as primarily keeping humans healthy.
For more reasons than explained here we voters need to be thoroughly informed on this issue.
Mary Zanger
Hollister
