Opinion

One of the first things I did when I started my tenure as health officer last July was to get information about our county. I read everything I could find about San Benito. I grilled everyone who would entertain my questions. What are our demographics? What makes us sick? Where do we get health care? And, because we now know that social and economic factors play critical roles in determining health outcomes: What is our unemployment rate? How many of our youth go on to higher education? Do families have support networks to tap into during difficult times? I was trying to create a cohesive picture in my mind of who we are and what problems we face, a picture which would then lead to prioritizing the work ahead.

To understand the hazards of excessive debt read last week's

Before supervisors think about asking countywide taxpayers to fork over more of their hard-earned money in an attempt to help solve their deficit problems, the officials should examine prospects for a “catch-up tax” that would put the county's sales tax for unincorporated areas on par with that of Hollister.