It’s been a rough week for the Red Phone with several anonymous
calls coming in to the Crimson Crusader.
It’s been a rough week for the Red Phone with several anonymous calls coming in to the Crimson Crusader. Yes, the Red Phone hears all, but only prints comments that have a name and phone number of the caller, and even then only at its discretion. Red Phone keeps the name and number confidential, but all callers must identify themselves if they want the Crimson Crusader to do their bidding – no exceptions. Have a question comment or concern? Call the Red Phone – always waiting, always online, always at 635-9219.
Net zero
A recent change to the Free Lance the Web site requiring users in San Benito County to subscribe to our print edition if they want to access the paper online resulted in a few calls to the Crimson Crusader this week. Here’s one:
“We go on the Internet and we cannot get your information any more from your newspaper,” she told the Red Phone. “We’re a little sad about that because we use it at our school and it’s of no service to us anymore.”
The new online access decision does have a few exceptions for entities such as schools. Call the Free Lance editor or city editor at 637-5566 to see if your organization qualifies. Free Lance subscriptions are available to the general public with online access. It’s a good time to buy with a special promotion offering a year of the Free Lance delivered to your door for only $51.48. If you’re a subscriber and want online access call our circulation department to receive your online code.
A new plan for downtown
Instead of the remodeling downtown Hollister, a caller has another idea.
“My message for the dilemma downtown is to bulldoze everything downtown and build houses and move all the businesses to the strip malls. Think of all the RDA money you would save. It’s ridiculous.”
Obviously a joke, but still worth a Red Phone comment considering the Crimson Crusader researched the confusing redevelopment laws. According to Hollister’s redevelopment project coordinator, Bryan Briggs, the redevelopment agency was created in the city in 1983 to eliminate blight – defined as areas in a city that are underutilized, and the agency must use its funding to eliminate blight or face penalties from the state. The city manager and the redevelopment agency creates projects approved by a board and the downtown beautification project was accepted as an area that needed to eliminate blight. If the caller’s facetious plan was actually put into action, the city would still need to establish other projects to spend the redevelopment dollars. RDA funding comes from property tax increments. It seems to the Crimson Crusader that revitalizing our struggling downtown is a worthy endeavor to spend these funds. Creating an attractive downtown area does improve our community, even if the work is unpopular in the eyes of some readers.
