Hollister merchants, inn-keepers, city officials and even
employees of the Free Lance have been inundated with calls from
people all over the country asking the same question: Will there be
a biker rally this year?
Hollister merchants, inn-keepers, city officials and even employees of the Free Lance have been inundated with calls from people all over the country asking the same question: Will there be a biker rally this year?
While it seems increasingly apparent there won’t be an official one, it is also clear city streets will still reverberate with the throaty roar of Harleys and the musky odor of leather, because the bikers are coming regardless. Hotel owners from here to Morgan Hill say that reservations for the Fourth of July weekend are rolling in. And they say most of them are probably coming from bikers.
So, if thousands of people on Harleys will still be making their way down San Benito Street over the Fourth of July weekend, there is an important question to ask Police Chief Jeff Miller: What will be done about public safety, and how much will it cost? We’d like to hear the answer at the next City Council meeting, when council members are slated to give the Hollister Independence Rally an up or down vote.
Miller has shed a little light on the idea of mutual aid – if people come to an unplanned event, the city can seek help in an emergency from neighboring departments at no cost – however he has declined to elaborate on how much local cop’s overtime will cost the city, and has not revealed any details of a safety plan if the event is officially canceled.
Considering the fact that the City Council canceled the Hollister Independence Rally Committee’s contract this year based on a $360,000 law enforcement bill that the group was unable to cover, Miller should give council members an estimate of what police protection for a non-event will cost the city.
And while he won’t detail how many cops he’ll have on the streets over the weekend for strategic reasons, he should outline a preliminary safety plan of what community members should expect over the weekend to both the Council and the public. Many people high-tail it out of town during the organized motorcycle event because they’re worried about biker-related violence.
The public has a right to know what the city’s police department is planning on doing if there’s no official event and an invasion occurs anyway.
Police Capt. Bob Brooks told the Free Lance recently that people say “bikers are nice people if you throw them a party, but turn into criminals if you don’t.”
So if there’s no party, what’s the plan to keep the criminals at bay and the nice guys happy?
