Guest view: Be aware of your water
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...
Guest view: May is Water Awareness Month
The most straightforward definition of drought is the simple mismatch between the amounts of water nature provides and the amounts of water that humans and the environment demand. This mismatch causes California to be in perpetual drought.
Even when we receive a lot of rain in California,...
Guest view: Our Water Supply, The Elixir of Life
Winter storms brought significant snowfall to the Sierra Nevada and other California mountains in December. Snowpack is critical for the state’s spring water outlook because when the snow melts it runs downhill into streams that fill reservoirs that hold about 30% of the state’s...
Guest view: Funding the childcare industry supports working women
With a lack of societal and government support during the pandemic, women are having to make some tough decisions. In the U.S., more than 2.3 million women have left the labor force since the start of the pandemic as shown in research done by...
Guest view: Special interests destroy our community
Benjamin Franklin said there were two things certain in life: Death and taxes! When it comes to special interests’ involvement in influencing our government, I can add two more certainties: Bad policies and more taxes to cover the costs of those policies.
To be clear,...
Guest view: Farmworker housing should be priority
By Kollin Kosmicki
San Benito County must address the severe farmworker housing shortage.
As a journalist in the early 2000s, I examined heartbreaking farmworker housing conditions in Hollister. Multiple families, sometimes dozens of residents, often packed into small homes and poverty-stricken conditions.
The situation already reached a...
Guest view: Sign up for vaccine on My Turn site
By Kollin Kosmicki
San Benito County experienced two significant milestones this past week with regard to Covid-19.
For one, we moved from the most restrictive “Purple” tier to the less restrictive “Red” tier for state guidance. This allows us to permit such activities as dining, fitness...
Guest view: Community has a voice in planning for second high school
Throughout the fall, San Benito High School District has engaged in an outreach effort to encourage community feedback regarding the need for a second high school.
To date, as we enter the second half of our K-8 Parent Listening and Awareness Sessions at 10 local...
Guest view: Time to remove police from schools
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).
Guest view: ‘Topping off’ ceremony a milestone for Gavilan College
With sincere gratitude, I reflect on the truly historic “topping off” ceremony that took place on Jan. 17, 2024. The significance of this day marked a symbolic milestone in the construction of Gavilan College’s San Benito campus, as the last steel beam was placed....