Politics

Downtown Hollister just got more friendly toward pedestrians.

A Republican candidate for lieutenant governor made his view clear on the locally heated matter of fracking. Former state GOP Chairman Ron Nehring, now among challengers to Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom on the June primary ballot, believes petroleum exploration should be wide open and that Democrats are pushing for higher oil and gas prices by opposing fracking.

In San Benito County, 30 school district board of education trustee positions and three positions with the county office of education will be up for grabs this year in elections.

San Benito County publishes list for a total of $194,000 in unclaimed money

Faced with a trend of slightly tardy students, the Hollister School District will roll out a new policy next year: letters home to the parents of students who are chronically late to class by one to 29 minutes.

Hollister’s David Maynard led off Tuesday’s public hearing over a proposed fracking ban with a poem, telling residents in attendance, “Don’t be like Judas Kiss – unleash the abyss.”

Citadel Exploration this week received a state permit to use steam injection technology to extract oil from the Project Indian site in the Bitterwater area.

The county auditor Tuesday announced a sampling showed that 63.2 percent of signatures were deemed valid in the petition effort for a countywide fracking ban, which also includes barring all oil activities in rural designations.

County supervisors Tuesday voted 4-1 in sending a group’s proposed ordinance to the November ballot that would ban fracking and limit oil activities.

Hollister City Council members Monday approved the purchase of surveillance cameras for downtown.