Pinnacle Editorial View
Eugenia Sanchez and Robert Scattini could hardly be more
different, but in the end, voters in Hollister City Council
District 2 are left with the toughest of choices. Do they opt for
experience and an encyclopedic knowledge of the city and its
environs or enthusiasm and a different kind of experience
entirely?
Pinnacle Editorial View
Eugenia Sanchez and Robert Scattini could hardly be more different, but in the end, voters in Hollister City Council District 2 are left with the toughest of choices. Do they opt for experience and an encyclopedic knowledge of the city and its environs or enthusiasm and a different kind of experience entirely?
Incumbent Scattini has devoted his life to public service. A Highway Patrol officer for 20 years, Scattini went on to serve as county sheriff. He is now county marshal, and is near the end of four yeas as a councilman and mayor. Sanchez is a teacher and single mother, who has served on the Hollister School District Board of Trustees and is now its president.
But beyond those differences, both candidates are remarkably similar. Both serve on the city’s Anti-Gang Task Force Advisory Committee. Both support Measure R, a sales tax measure intended to preserve existing city services. Both oppose Measure S, which would begin the approval process for a development of more than 4,000 homes north of Hollister. Both place renovation of the city’s wastewater treatment system and an end to a state-imposed moratorium as the most critical issue before the district and the community as a whole. Both would like to re-examine the 244-home-per-year allocation system now in place in the city.
In the end, the Pinnacle gives the narrowest edge to Sanchez, primarily for one reason: Scattini by his own admission is tremendously overburdened by competing responsibilities.
In addition to serving as mayor and county marshal, Scattini has served on every committee relating to getting the wastewater treatment plant project moving. He is on every intergovernmental committee the city is involved in. His work as marshal often leaves him on the job during evenings and weekends, yet in four years he has not missed a single city council meeting.
Scattini is leading efforts to resurrect the annual biker rally, and has assembled a citizens’ committee that is seeking a professional promoter to turn the event into a revenue boon for the city, rather than the headache it’s been. That alone is an enormous task. Scattini’s stand is courageous. With a long history of costing the city money, it would be easy to walk away from the rally. But Scattini maintains the vision and optimism it will take to turn it into a success.
Scattini is so busy that he readily acknowledges he has scarcely had time to campaign. As Hollister prepares to launch its revitalization with the lifting of a four-year-old moratorium – probably in 2008 – the council will have ambitious work before it.
The city’s recent General Plan update begins the process of implementing a new vision for Hollister, but it’s only the beginning of an arduous process.
Sanchez already knows her constituents, having knocked on doors and visited throughout her district. She lives in one of the homes originally built for low-income tenants, and her parents live nearby.
The west Hollister district is comprised mostly of the city’s largest mobile home park and by subsidized housing built in the 1970s and early ’80s. Its population is 78 percent Hispanic. Fluently bilingual, Sanchez will be able to communicate fluently with all her constituents. Most important, she has the time to devote to what is becoming nearly a full-time job.
One thing resonates through a conversation with Sanchez about the issues: consensus. Noting the city’s growth cap is in conflict with state mandates, she suggests meeting with state officials to craft compromise. While she opposes Measure S, if voters approve it, she said her concern would be ensuring a community with the greatest benefit to the most possible people.
We can count on Scattini to maintain the commitment to community that he’s demonstrated all of his life, and we wish him success in the rally effort and as county marshal. Given such a strong alternative, we hope voters elect to give Sanchez a chance to contribute as well.
