THE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE OF MORGAN HILL, GILROY & SAN MARTIN
A supplement to the Gilroy Dispatch & Morgan Hill Times
NOVEMBER 16, 2018
Stitcher’s Muse
Last stitching store for 40 miles
SOUTH VALLEY MAGAZINE INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Morgan Hill Needle Arts is the last of its kind
IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE P8 | GEORGE TROQUATO P17
VOTERS SAY YES TO GAVILAN P2 | RIVAS SPRINTS TO WIN P8 | SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES P8
THE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE OF SAN BENITO COUNTY
ESTABLISHED 1868
NOVEMBER 16, 2018
IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE P8
Navy Veteran Trish Graves
GEORGE TROQUATO P17
Psychedelic treatments for trauma
A supplement to the Hollister Free Lance
A New SV Media publication Clinical trial offers a way out of pain
SAN BENITO MAGAZINE INSIDE ISSUE gilroydispatch.com • THIS Vol. 151, No. 46 • $1
Friday, November 16, 2018
Mayor gets an ally on council Breakthrough Treatment
CAROL MARQUES ADDS ONE MORE SLOW-GROWTH VOICE IN GILROY By Jaqueline McCool Reporter
➝ Council, 12
Robert Elaison
In the Nov. 6 election for three four-year seats on the Gilroy City Council, there were no surprises. Not so for the single two-year seat. In the major upset of Election Day in Gilroy, incumbent Dan Harney lost to slow-growth advocate Carol Marques for the open two-year seat. Harney and Marques had engaged in a contentious campaign, with Harney raising more money and Marques banking on solid neighborhood support. Marques led by more than 2,000 votes one week after the election, in unofficial returns from the Nov. 6 vote. The three incumbents running for four-year seats all easily won re-election by wide margins. Marie Blankley, who was appointed to her council seat less than a year ago, won her first election and was the top vote-getter among all candidates. Dion Bracco and Peter Leroe-Muñoz both were re-elected. Gilroy voters were asked to select three of six candidates for the four-year council posts. Blankley topped all candidates with 7,882 votes, according to unofficial returns from 100 percent of city precincts. Candidates had gone to bed Tuesday with fewer than half of the votes
PEARL HARBOR VET’S WIDOW Mary Ann Collum keeps her husband’s legacy alive, giving out poppies at Gilroy’s Veterans Day ceremonies Nov. 11
WWII memories linger MARY ANN COLLUM, PEARL HARBOR VET’S WIDOW, KEEPS FAMILY MEMORIES ALIVE Bryce Stoepfel Reporter
Women’s Auxiliary, helping to organize fundraising dinners, like the Dec. 1 tamale and cookie sale at Veterans Memorial Building of Gilroy, and distributing thousands of red paper poppies on Veterans Day. Together with veterans and non-veterans alike, Mary Ann was at Sunday’s Veterans Day
remembrance service at the Veterans Memorial building on Sixth Street. Toward the end of the ceremony, Gilroy Mayor Rolan Velasco announced that he would propose that the Gilroy City Council rename First Street to Veterans Boulevard upon completion of repairs, and after approval from CalTrans.
Robert Eliason
On Dec. 7, 1941, everything changed in America. That Sunday morning, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the U.S Navy at Pearl Harbor, killing over 2,000 and dealing the United States a stunning blow. At that moment the United States was drawn into WWII, and Gilroyan Frederick “Bud” Collom was there. Collum, born in 1919 in Nebraska, was a Navy seaman at the time of the attack, working as a mechanic on a PBY-5 seaplane at a U.S. Navy airstrip at Kaneohe Bay when Japanese pilots attacked the base, destroying airplanes, buildings and equipment. Collom told the Dispatch several years before his death in 2009 about that harrowing day, when he helped feed ammo to a machine gun firing at incoming Japanese fighters. He would spend the next four years in the Pacific, including the battles of Coral Bay and Midway. The wartime stint became a career in the Navy that spanned from WWII to
Korea, and into the Vietnam War. “When a guy joins, his dream becomes the day he gets out,” Collom said in a 2001 interview with the Gilroy Dispatch. Collom became a pilot in 1947, and in his career, the Navy awarded him awarded National Defense Service Award (with one Bronze Star), an Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, a Vietnam Service Medal (with three Bronze Stars), among various other honors. Collom retired from the Navy in 1968 as a lieutenant commander after being in charge of a C-130 cargo plane that flew missions in Vietnam. After that, Collom worked as an instructor for Two Genes Aviation at the San Martin Airport. In 1989 Bud met his wife Mary Ann, a retired obstetrics nurse, who has served as a president of the Gilroy American Legion Women’s Auxiliary ever since. Together Bud and Mary Ann devoted countless hours to their four daughters, the American Legion and frequent trips to Hawaii. Mary Ann Collum recalled the day at their home when Bud died, Jan. 28, 2009. “He asked me, ‘Sport’--he called me Sport--‘are you going to be OK?’” Mary Ann said. “I said, ‘Sure, I’ll be alright.’ He turned his head slightly, and he died.” She continues to stay deeply involved in the American Legion
COLOR GUARD From left, Joseph Munoz, Dave Galtman, Gabe Perez
and Jose Delgado honor vets at Gilroy ceremony Nov. 11.
Thousands of local ballots are uncounted FINAL TOTALS FROM NOV. 6 COULD BE WEEKS AWAY By Barry Holtzclaw Managing Editor
On Monday, Nov. 12, schools, banks and government offices were closed—except employees of the Santa Clara County Clerk’s elections office. Like their counterparts across California—and in 6
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many other states—they were busy validating and counting bagsful of ballots mailed at the last minute. In California, Nov. 9 was the deadline for mailed ballot to arrive at county elections offices. Statewide, more than 4 million provisional and mailed ballots were still being counted late last week—more than 460,000 in Santa Clara County. Registrar of Elections Wendy Hudson,
spokesperson for the county Registrar of Voters, reported Nov. 12 that more than half those had been counted, and by the next day, she reported that approximately 84 percent of the more than 540,000 ballots cast Nov. 6 had been counted. That still left thousands of ballots to be checked and counted, leaving some Election Day hopefuls biting their nails, including those vying for two school board seats
and a city council seat in Morgan Hill. The turnout, estimated at 61 percent of eligible voters, would be a record for a non-presidential election year, both in the county and statewide. The high turnout, coupled with a record level of mail-in balloting, estimated at about 80 percent, and record registration numbers locally and statewide, accounted for the late glut of votes being counted this week, elections officials said.
Many vote-by-mail ballots had arrived on Election Day. Ballots must be run through scanning machines and verified to avoid duplicates, and provisional ballots must be checked, along with signatures on vote-bymail envelopes. The county expected to report daily updates on all races, at https://results. enr.clarityelections.com/ CA/Santa_Clara/92418/ Web02.220748/#/. ➝ Ballots, 4