I thought I had seen the worst in journalism portrayed by your
so-called
”
newspaper.
”
But with this latest sensationalist
”
Bob Cruz Shocker,
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you’ve truly outdone yourself.
Cruz coverage was a disgrace
Dear Editor,
I thought I had seen the worst in journalism portrayed by your so-called “newspaper.” But with this latest sensationalist “Bob Cruz Shocker,” you’ve truly outdone yourself.
Mr. Kosmicki, I am very familiar with the issue you attempted to write about regarding the Ferreira “Anotti” retirement home development. I was at every city council meeting, every county board meeting, and every planning commission meeting during this vitriolic time when real estate moguls Marilyn and Richard Ferreira applied for it. The file photo your paper chose to use in the story showing the last of the county servants who tried to save this region from rampant unchecked, uninfrastructured growth – former supervisors Richard Scagliotti, Bob Cruz and the former tireless Planning Director Rob Mendiola – was snapped during the regional water quality control board meeting in 2002 after these three officials repeatedly and repeatedly warned the City of Hollister that the county and city’s poor infrustructure (that means, for starters, decrepit sewer lines, broken water lines and decaying inadequate sewage cleaning capacity) could not withstand anymore of the unchecked growth that city leaders had been hellbent to allow, fobbing the consequences on the taxpayers of this cash-poor county. Sure enough, sewage pond No. 6 busted into the San Benito River bed in May of 2002, and those three heroes attended that Salinas state water board meeting to find out how the water board was going to tell us how to stuff it. I know, I was there at that meeting that lasted nine hours, in which former City Councilman Tony Bruscia dared the state to “double the fine.” They did double it.
You guys never have a reporter at any government meeting anymore, and at no absurd trial like this last ditch attempt by Los Valientes attorney Michael Pekin to dirty up the good name of these former civil servants and bilk the county taxpayers out of more nuisance lawsuit defending money. But the moment Pekin or one of his superfluous witnesses makes an outrageous statement about a former managed growth supervisor (Bob Cruz) about a “bribe,” – an opinion-based inanity that has nothing to do with the litigation at hand – you jump on it like flies on cow excrement.
Mr. Kosmicki, you were not there when the sane, managed growth-minded former board of supervisors held that special evening public hearing when they had to painfully tell the greedy Ferreiras that the county didn’t have the infrastructure to accommodate their project demanding to build hundreds of new high-end, senior-living homes. They told the Ferreiras and all the developers standing in line that night the same sad news. I was there. I taped it. I wrote copious notes. The Ferreiras hired people to hold up signs saying stuff like, “We need senior housing,” etc. – at the meeting, for the news cameras, words these people knew not what the meaning was in English. I know this fact because I interviewed the paid “protesters” – in Spanish, as I know that language. Supervisor Cruz told the developers that the only way they, as a board, could accommodate and approve the project and annex it into unincorporated county law was if the Ferreiras paid for the necessary infrastructure to the county; hence, your claim of $1,000 per unit. You made it sound in your story as if Cruz demanded that money for himself!
You claim you listened to the recent trial transcripts. What twaddle! Hey! Did you bother listening to the county hearing meetings of the summer/fall of 2002 when all this went down?? No, you didn’t.
I am ashamed as a county resident of what you did to the Free Lance, a publication that told the real news 100 years ago around here. It is obvious to me you pulled that story out of your hat, without any true research, just to smear up the supervisorial campaign of Bob Cruz’s wife, Marian Cruz. Shame on you. You and your paper are a disgrace to this community.
Kate Woods, former investigative journalist for The Pinnacle (nine years), New Idria
Bad timing for Marian Cruz
Dear Editor,
There is a yard sign on West Street that recommends a vote for Marion Cruz for supervisor. It says, “It is all about integrity.”
The sign went up about the time the Free Lance broke the story about her husband, Bob Cruz, being accused of requesting a bribe for $170,000 while a member of the board of supervisors. That was bad timing.
Marvin L. Jones, Hollister
