THE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE OF MORGAN HILL, GILROY & SAN MARTIN
A supplement to the Gilroy Dispatch & Morgan Hill Times
JULY 20, 2018
Healing Touch Local practitioner Jeannie David helps people heal
Alternative healing in Gilroy
SOUTH VALLEY MAGAZINE INSIDE THIS ISSUE
WINE P16 | FARM-TO-TABLE P17
ESTABLISHED 1868
A New SV Media publication
Friday, July 20, 2018
THE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE OF SAN BENITO COUNTY
JULY 20, 2018
gilroydispatch.com • Vol. 151, No. 29 • $1
Hollister Recreation brings color to the city Four school A supplement to the Hollister Free Lance
Hollister Recreation brightens the streets
SAN BENITO MAGAZINE INSIDE THIS ISSUE
board seats up for grabs in Gilroy in November Clouds of Color WINE P16 | FARM-TO-TABLE P17
PICENO SEEKS RE-ELECTION; MIDTGAARD READY TO PASS THE TORCH Scott Forstner Reporter
➝ GUSD, 13
Bryce Stoepfel
As a retired Gilroy Unified School District educator and current Board of Trustees president, Linda Piceno has helped sculpt much of the local education landscape. And she’s not looking to change that anytime soon, as she confirmed with the Dispatch last week that she will seek a second four-year term on the school board. Piceno said there are many important and challenging decisions ahead for Gilroy Unified, and she wants to have a part in those discussions. “The first (reason) is I suspect that this next term, this next board will be the board that selects the next superintendent for the district,” Piceno said. “Debbie Flores is not going to work forever, although we would like her to. I suspect sometime in the next four years she will retire, so I would like to be on the board when that happens.” Piceno has a long
BUMPER CROP Ken Christopher stands with some of 4,000 pounds of garlic that he will deliver to the Gilroy Garlic Festival.
Garlic is big business GARLIC FEST IS A $3.5M OPERATION, BOON TO GILROY’S LOCAL ECONOMY By Bryce Stoepfel Reporter
What started in 1979 as a small community food festival centered on the small, stinky, cousin of the onion has since turned into a world-recognized, Guinness record-holding, multimillion-dollar destination that helped put little Gilroy on the map. The
Garlic Festival is a non-profit, but it's also big business–not just for the festival itself, but the entire South Valley, along with one of Gilroy's most recognizable companies, Christopher Ranch. The Garlic Festival has been the biggest weekend in Gilroy nearly every year for the past 40 years. Organizing the festival is a yearlong job. Executive Director Brian Bowe, who is paid $140,630 a year, along with an assistant executive director and a part-time receptionist, are the only paid staff at Gilroy Garlic Festival Association, Inc.
As with the Garlic Festival weekend itself, planning the event depends heavily on volunteers, who staff the board of directors along with various planning committees. With volunteer and paid staff together, the Garlic Festival brought in $3,119,746 in revenue last year, according to its annual 990 report to the Internal Revenue Service. With $2,750,975 in expenses, the festival had $368,771 excess revenue over expenditures in 2017. One of the most enduring
hallmarks of the Garlic Festival is volunteerism. More than 4,000 volunteers are expected to donate their time working at the Garlic Festival this year, and aside from community spirit and fun, the festival’s volunteer equity program uses their hours worked to determine how much money is donated to the volunteers’ charity of choice. Last year, volunteers worked to accumulate $271,901 in donations to various local charities. ➝ Garlic, 8
Opposition to Islamic center continues ENVIRONMENTAL REPORT DOES LITTLE TO EASE TENSIONS IN SAN MARTIN By Jaqueline McCool Reporter
6
58015 02001
0
South Valley Islamic families are beginning to see their long-awaited plans to build a mosque and community center in San Martin come together, but some vocal
San Martin residents continue to oppose the project. The pros and cons of building the proposed Cordoba Center were discussed July 11 at a special meeting of the Santa Clara County Planning Commission to hear comments on a draft environmental impact report. Many of the comments reflected the continuing culture clash in this unincorporated community of 7,000 along U.S. 101 between Gilroy and Morgan Hill, rather than the specifics of the EIR. The
200-page report identified few negative impacts of the construction project. The South Valley Islamic Community, which serves Muslim families residing in South Santa Clara County, has been meeting in a converted barn in San Martin since 2001. The community purchased the land for the new worship center in 2006 and has re-submitted plans three times. In 2012, plans for a mosque and community center were unanimously approved by
the county planning commission and Board of Supervisors. But when neighbors sued to block the project, the Islamic community voluntarily withdrew, re-submitting plans for a larger facility and offering to fund an EIR. Six years later, the center is again a few months away from final county approval. The center is to be built on Monterey Road neighboring Llagas Creek, on the highest ➝ Cordoba Center , 5