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Friday, December 15, 2017
gilroydispatch.com • Vol. 150, No. 50 • $1
BUSINESS: Ex-football player rushes food delivery P2 City board openings generate too few applicants
LOCAL SCENE Come out and pay tribute to vets Saturday Gilroy’s Chamber of Commerce is joining with others across the country to honor veterans by placing wreaths on their graves Saturday at 9am. “Wreaths Across America” has become an important tradition during the holiday season to honor those who have served the nation. The ceremony will take place at Gavilan Hills Memorial Park and St. Mary’s Cemetery, both at 1000 First St.
COUNCIL HOPES LONGER DEADLINE WILL ENCOURAGE MORE APPLICANTS
Shop last minute local crafts Anyone looking for that special gift you can’t find anywhere else should check out the three-day local crafts sale at the Gilroy Center for the Arts Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The show goes from 3pm to 8pm Friday; 2pm to 8pm Saturday; and 11am to 2pm Sunday and is really the place to buy one-of-a-kind local gifts.
Bryce Stoepfel Reporter
Cupertino and, less than a year later, deployed at five other hotels: Crowne Plaza Silicon Valley, Aloft Silicon Valley, The Grand Hotel, Residence Inn by Marriott LAX, and Holiday Inn Express Redwood City, all of which still have the robots, the company said. By Jan. 2016, Savioke had raised $17 million in venture capital funding from Intel Capital, EDBI, Northern Light Venture Capital, Morado Venture Partners, AME Cloud Ventures, and Google Ventures and moved its headquarters from Santa Clara to San Jose. Today, Savioke has contracts for over 100 robots in North America, Singapore, Japan, and Europe. Relay has made more than 165,000 deliveries and navigated
The city council has extended the deadline for applying for boards and commissions into next year, after a record low number of people showed up to apply for the jobs last week. According to Mayor Roland Velasco, there has never been such a dearth of applicants for the various boards and commissions. “People are busy,” Velasco said. “Work, family and other commitments may prevent someone from applying. If you want to make Gilroy great, you have to participate.” He said Gilroy also has more committees than some other cities and that might be thinning the number of applicants. Bike and Pedestrian Commision Chairperson Zach Hilton offered another reason why participation levels are low. “It’s because it’s not a local election year,” Hilton said. “It’s also because some of the commissions and committees don’t do a good job sharing with the public who they are and what they do. They also don’t participate more publically with the city council. You can look at the city council website and see their minutes, but very few have a strategic plan where you can see
➝ Robot, 10
➝ Commissioners, 13
Gilroy Foundation Grants
DECEMBER 15, 2017
OU T & AB OU T OF NDAR CA LE EN TS EV
A section of the Gilroy Dispatch & Morgan Hill Times
REAL R2D2 The Hilton Garden Inn’s robot, named Archie, helps hotel marketing manager Mary Pastorini,
decorate the hotel’s Christmas tree. The robot can carry anything that fits into its top cargo space.
R2D2 for room service GILROY HOTEL IS AN EARLY ADOPTER OF NEW TECHNOLOGY Brad Kava Editor
The newest employee at Gilroy’s Hilton Garden Inn never sleeps or eats. And with the opening of the latest Star Wars movie this week, he’s bound to have plenty of young fans. He’s a three-foot-high, 100pound robot named Archie, who delivers room service food and items to guests and he looks a lot like R2D2, only quieter. He navigates elevators and threads through guests walking around the halls or lobbies of the 137room, four-story building. Right now he delivers packaged products, but the plan is for him
Photographic artist Julianne Skai Arbor bonds with nature
DEVIL’S DANCE FLOOR P10 | JOHNNIE’S GIRL BOUTIQUE P16 | GARDEN CHICORY P20
Inside this issue: Tree Girl signs book
THE NEW GILROY PRIDE GROUP HAD A SPIRITED COMING OUT AT THE CHRISTMAS PARADE Bryce Stoepfel Reporter
For Gilroy Pride, the 2017 Christmas Parade was a comingout party of sorts. The organization, which started only six months ago and has 178 members on its 6
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to have cooked panini sandwiches before too long. “You can tell when kids are checked into a room,” said Mary Pastorini, the hotel’s director of sales and business development. “They keep calling and ordering stuff so they can see him get on the elevator. They love him.” Archie is the brainchild of a San Jose CEO, Steve Cousins, PhD, and other engineers from renowned robotics think tank, Willow Garage, who started the hotel robot company Savioke in 2013. The company calls the robots, Relay. The company’s founders came up with the name while gazing out a window at an oak tree, a “savvy oak,” which is how the name is pronounced. Savioke launched the first Relay pilot in August 2014 at the Aloft
Pride adds color to parade
THE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE OF MORGAN HILL, GILROY & SAN MARTIN
Tree Spirit
Brad Kava
Since 1982, the Gilroy Foundation has awarded over $7.4 million in grants and scholarships. Foundation grants have made a positive and powerful difference in every sphere of life in the Gilroy community: strengthening our schools, improving health, appreciating the arts, enhancing technology and protecting the environment. The 2018 Grant Cycle opens on Dec. 1 and closes on Jan. 31, 2018. All registered nonprofits, GUSD schools, and Gilroy City program are eligible to apply for a Gilroy Foundation grant that will serve the Gilroy community. To apply, download a current grant application, available at www.gilroyfoundation.org. Grant application, supporting documentation and copies must be submitted to the Foundation by posted mail, postmarked no later than Wednesday, Jan. 31. Organizations are notified of their status by the end of March. Grants are awarded at the Annual Meeting and Charitable Giving Program in April. Contact lgaffney@ gilroyfoundation.org with any questions about the grant application process.
Facebook page, was out, loud and proud in a city that had never had a Pride group. The group’s members weren’t sure what the reaction would be to their rainbow clad floats and marchers. “They totally loved us,” said Gilroy Pride’s de-facto spokesperson Freda Kogan, an outspoken former New Yorker, “People were saying that we were so brave and that Gilroy needed a group like us.” Little else has been as smooth. Challenges include a row with the
with the Gilroy Unified School District, an argument with the mayor over homelessness, social media hate, law enforcement and a high school bully who drove a truck onto a sidewalk chasing an out-of-the-closet teenager on her bike. They carry on. In a lot of ways, Rachel, Freda Kogan’s 17-year-old daughter, is a typical teenager. She isn't, but that has little to do with ➝ Pride Parade, 8
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