Editorials

Self-interests were on full display last week at the San Benito County board meeting, where officials gave priority to politics over public safety.

While leaders can always improve on considerations of ethnicity in  schools, San Benito High School Trustee Raymond Rodriguez took a superfluous leap in contending differing drug-awareness presentations  – one in English, the other in Spanish – were a reflection of  institutional racism.

Are you interested in healthy people and communities in San Benito County? National Public Health Week is an annual opportunity for everyone to take a few days to think about, celebrate and take action to improve the health of all of us. This year National and San Benito County Public Health Week is April 2-9.

The Hollister School District's request for a class-size waiver and  extension of a contract for an optional fiscal adviser - who acts as  a five-figure “final set of eyes” - underscore a cultural acceptance  of fiscal irresponsibility.

Last year, Governor Jerry Brown signed SB X2, which requires California’s utility districts to provide one-third of their total electricity from “renewable” sources by 2020. At the media event held for the signing of the more onerous Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) program, the Governor and the bill’s author, Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), spoke of how great this would be for California as a world leader.

As San Benito County and Hollister struggle with huge deficits and intractable long-term costs and debts that cannot be supported by revenues, it is time for the incumbents facing reelection - and those aspiring to their positions - to define the issues and explain details of their agendas.