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Triano followed up Butler's performance quite nicely Tuesday

The public has little understanding of the complex CalPERS retirement system, yet it is one of local government’s largest expenses with annual estimated costs of more than $10 million a year, 30 percent of payroll, for Hollister and San Benito County combined. Some of the highest costs are side deals where public agencies pay all or a portion of the employees’ premiums. This problem belongs to local politicians who know it does not show up in the salary tables and therefore avoids public scrutiny. The upshot is that many members contribute little or nothing to their CalPERS retirement. CalPERS is really two systems, one for most “Miscellaneous Employees” and one for “Public Safety Employees.” Both offer a “full retirement” at a young average age, but at extremely different levels.

Are you going to purchase stocks in 2011? If your answer to that

You may have heard commentators and professionals talk about a

One of my pet peeves is how people often call forth the condemnation of the Founding Fathers upon modern-day America, as if the men who founded our nation were demigods, filled with a divine moral soundness and evangelical wisdom formed by the deeply puritanical society of colonial times. The leaders who shaped our nation’s path would shrink in shock at our modern political idolatry. They would insist we take them out of the temple of worship and instead see them as human beings, as people with flaws and prejudices shaped by the culture of their time.

Gas prices continued to rise in San Benito County and around the state Monday, after a dramatic spike over the weekend that increased prices by up to 30 cents from Friday to Saturday.