Opinion

The November election is just six weeks away. Hopefully voters will keep in mind the liberties our founding fathers intended when they drafted the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. One ever important liberty was to ensure and preserve the freedom of religion.

Almost everyone recognizes that improving our local economy is one of the most important things we have to do to secure Hollister’s future. The question is what is the best way to reach that goal? While I support big, long-range projects, such as airport improvements and the Westside plan, which both have enormous potential, they often take a very long time to produce results and when only a few projects are on the table any problem can ruin years of planning or add decades to completion.

My name is Keith Snow I am 47 years old. I feel I still have a mind and ability to be a good mayor for the city of Hollister to serve you to the fullest extent. I will not let you down! I am very knowledgeable; I will make sure there will be a plat form of all areas for the city. I want to work with the county. I feel as a customer and citizen of the city that the water bill we pay every month is way too high. I think we should change the ordinance for the water bill rate. Another area to focus is our kids. There is a lack of communication between the city and the school district and communication is key! We need to all get on the same page.  Our children’s future is a must. We need to make sure they are safe and they are getting all they need in our school systems even working with parents. I want kids to know the true value of a dollar. Also a big issue is we are losing our children to obesity and bullying and that is definitely a concern of mine, which needs to be fixed in and out of schools. I want to be able to reach my goal and show you the people that we can do this; I have the confidence and dedication. I want to show the kids and all people that if you set your mind to do something you can achieve it.  I hope people can see I am a real person and I want to get our voice heard. I am working with Bret and Robert in the financial department at the city on the budget for about 2weeks now, and I think we are coming close to solving the problems, they like my ideas and we are working as a team and with just a little change and positive-ness we can fix things. I’ve always been good at contracts, projects and coordinating.  We need to think of the future, think ahead of what’s to come and resolve the problems.

Venturing into small county politics can be risky business. For example, according to various unofficial reports, the judge sentencing rural Colorado’s Alferd Packer to hang for cannibalism yelled, “Dammit, Packer – there were seven Democrats in this county and you ate five of them!”

I have heard complaints from parents that school homework is excessive. The research agrees with them. Respected education scholars, such as Alfie Kohn and Robert J. Marzano, have weighed in on the side of students and parents.  Researchers explain that excessive homework does not benefit children, often forces children to stay up too late at night, frustrates their learning, interferes with quality family time and there is no evidence that children’s education improves significantly with homework. Furthermore, if homework is supposed to close the “achievement gap” it does not, because students who have better resources at home benefit the most from homework.

I would like the residents in our community to support a Yes vote on Measure E. Like many Hollister residence I am a commuter and I came to this town because I found a community that fit what I needed and wanted in a hometown.

Thank you for printing this informative letter from the Superintendent of SB High School. As an opponent of Prop 13 way back when, I guess I can accept the disastrous results — “California is at the bottom of states in K-12 expenditures, both overall and as a share of personal income”; and “California spends about $9,000 per student, while New York, New Jersey and Connecticut spend $17,000 per student”; and “funding disparities lead to large inequalities in teacher and principal salaries and working conditions ... teacher salaries vary by a ratio of 3 to 1”; “Given the above, only 28 percent of students now graduate from a four-year college, far below the national average”.