Guest View

One of the more encouraging recent announcements at a San Benito County Board meeting happened Aug. 8 when supervisors learned about a new partnership to provide local residents the option to buy annual memberships for air and ground ambulance needs if they arise.  Of course,...

The best chance for Hazel Hawkins Hospital to survive this fiscal crisis is for district leadership to embrace outside professional guidance—an objective third-party consultant—to develop a business plan in order to stabilize a deep structural deficit while pursuing an acquisition partner.  In my role as...

The San Benito County Board of Supervisors at the latest meeting initiated efforts to significantly strengthen the county’s illegal dumping ordinance to deter those activities.  Supervisor Dom Zanger and I had requested this formal consideration, and I have been pushing for more action with regard...

I’m pleased to announce that due to my consistently vocal advocacy, the county is moving forward on plans to repave the segment of San Juan Highway that runs along Anzar High School.  This long overdue project could start as early as this summer, but the...

There comes a time when each of us comes to terms with aspects of life that can change our views and challenge long held beliefs. For me it is the present issue of police in schools (school resource officers).

California’s drought is not over despite a bounty of snowfall and rain over the past month: California’s snowpack—a critical source of water—is 150% of average for early January. But it’s not enough to bring an end to the severe drought and water shortages. California still needs about another...

This supply limitation along with the state’s tendency to change course—such as Blue Shield taking over vaccine administration in about two weeks—have left our Public Health Services department without the ability to communicate an immediate, firm plan. Our residents, as a result, have felt left in the dark.

A coordinated effort has been underway to make false claims about specific public officials. It’s clear their motivation is to discredit elected officials who support slow housing growth—a movement favored by a vast majority of local residents.  It’s no coincidence those behind this effort are...

May is Water Awareness Month. It’s also the start of our irrigation season when water use starts to go up dramatically. Over 60% of residential water use is for landscape purposes in the summer.   This is especially important since we are in the grips of...

The Western United States is experiencing one of the most extensive and intense droughts on record. January through April were the driest first four months in California’s recorded history, the state’s largest reservoirs are at critically low storage levels, and the state’s snowpack level...