Opinion

It will be interesting to see how San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales

Spring is coming. The weeds in my back yard are growing where the grass died last summer. The sodded area next to The Vault is growing very well. The numbers of decorated utility boxes and murals are growing. New houses are growing all around Hollister. Even the potholes on Fourth Street between San Benito and Monterey streets are growing.

The rural community has borne the brunt of California’s economic downturn, including high unemployment rates and a lingering recession. Now is not the time for the California Air Resources Board to increase the cost of gas and diesel by 16-76 cents per gallon as a part of cap-and-trade regulations. While the goal of improving California’s environment is important, targeting consumers by increasing fuel prices is the harshest, most vindictive way to do so.

Come on Congress, insist that the president and the justice department release two documents on torture.

I was aghast to read that Hazel Hawkins CEO Ken Underwood is

He sat in the bookstore, reading. His long hair, beard, lanky

One of the Hollister Free Lance Water Cooler panelists was quoted in the paper as saying “Unions, which were a god send to working people in the past have become too powerful today.”