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HOLLISTER • SAN BENITO COUNTY

A New SV Media publication

Friday, September 8, 2017

sanbenito.com • Vol. 144, No. 36 • $1

17 Gavilan West Nile virus found in San Benito County P2 football players are booted from team STUDENTS TOOK PROHIBITED PERKS, SCHOOL SAYS Cheeto Barrera Sports Editor

➝ Gavilan Football, 8

THE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE OF SAN BENITO COUNTY

SEPTEMBER 8, 2017

T OUT & ABOU OF CALE NDAR EVEN TS

A section of the Hollister Free Lance

Bustling Scene Hollister’s late-night hot spot

RAPAZZINI WINERY P8 | BAMBOO GARDEN P18 | REALTOR LORI ROBITAILLE BIASCA P20

New county roads czar

JOHN GUERTIN TO HEAD RESOURCE MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT Nicholas Preciado Reporter

HOLLISTER CA. PERMIT #48

➝ RMA Director, 4

****ECRWSS**** Residential Customer

make his pizzas. In starting the business, he is also bringing a taste of his family’s home country to his family’s hometown in Hollister. The Felice family is from the Calabria part of Italy and has deep roots in San Benito County as well. With the opening of Forno, meanwhile, Hollister will once again

send the matter over to the ballot box for local voters to decide. “I appreciate they’re finally acknowledging the signatures and referendum are valid,” said Mayor Ignacio Velazquez, who led the charge for the referendum. “I hope they do the right thing so we can move forward and work with the public on something for the entire community to give us a vibrant downtown.”

TURN TO PIZZA • A8

council as to whether to submit that petition to a referendum or to decide to nullify the resolution that approved the development and disposition agreement with regards to the 400 block.” The city council will consider the petition at their next meeting on Monday, September 18. At that time, the council could vote in open session to either rescind their decision to sell the vacant lot to the Community Foundation for San Benito County and the Del Curto Brothers Group or to

Cake, anyone?

of Pleasanton-based engineering consulting firm 4Leaf, Inc. With Guertin at the helm of the agency, the two consultants will finish out the remainder of their contract with the county, which ends on March 15, 2018. “We’ve had a difficult time recruiting and having an employee last in that post around a year or so,” Supervisor Robert Rivas said by phone Tuesday. Rivas knows Guertin from his time working for

The San Benito County chapter of the national nonprofit organization Birthday Cakes 4 Free started last spring and group members have been bringing cakes, cupcakes and muffins to low-income seniors and children ever since then. Since the group started in June, its members have delivered about five cakes a month to the Emmaus House, Chamberlain's Children Center and the assisted living facility Whispering Pines Inn. Now they're looking to expand to individual homes in the county. A2

Solar revisions

City leaders Tuesday inched closer to deciding the fate of the vacant 400 block in downtown Hollister. In closed session at the

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Hollister City Council meeting, council members decided to discuss Mayor Ignacio Velazquez’s successful petition to halt development on the city-owned parcel at a meeting later this month. “Action was taken by a vote of 4-0,” announced City Attorney Soren Diaz. The mayor was not part of the discussions. “The city council instructed the city clerk to submit, at the next regular board meeting, the petition per the 400 block referendum for a decision by the city

San Juan residen

Project planned for Y Road

KATIE HELLAND •REPORTER khelland@freelancenews.com

HOLLISTER

A $16 million bridge stretching 900 feet across the San Benito River is planned to connect Y Road and San Juan Bautista. But in this rural area, the number of people it will serve is small. “It's like our own bridge to nowhere,”

PETITION TO HALT DEVELOPMENT WILL BE CONSIDERED AT SEPTEMBER MEETING Reporter

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with cannabis-related processes. “Since it’s a land use process, we’ll be processing permits and taking the lead on any enforcement from a code enforcement perspective and working with the sheriff ’s office,” Guertin said. When Brent Barnes, the agency’s former director, resigned last March, the department was in the midst of a major restructuring. To fill the gap left by Barnes, the County Board of Supervisors hired Larry Perlin and James Walgren

City leaders to discuss 400 block future

Nicholas Preciado

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Where there’s gaps, we’ll come up with new procedures. I want staff to be clear on what their role is and how to get people through the process faster. We want to be clear to the community how this works.” The Resource Management Agency is a mammoth department that administers a wide array of critical county functions including issuing building permits, planning, street maintenance and code enforcement. The agency will also assist the county

The company vying to build a 247-megawatt solar farm in Panoche submitted a draft supplemental environmental impact report addressing plans to examine impacts under a revised, reduced proposal. PV2 Energy filed the supplemental draft EIR on Dec. 23. The prior company overseeing the project, Solargen Energy, had an initial EIR approved by the county board in late 2010. A5

SPORTS

The San Benito County department in charge of street repair has been as rocky as the roads it oversees. Six months ago the director of the Resource Management Agency abruptly resigned and was replaced by a pair of consultants.

That move by county policy makers in March did not go down well with local union representatives, but now it seems there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that light is new agency director, John Guertin. “I’m looking to bring some stability to the department,” said Guertin, whose first day on the job occurred last week. Previously, he worked at the Monterey County Resource Management Agency for nine years. “We’ll be looking at policies and procedures.

Soph surge

PAID

DEAR LEADER John Guertin takes the reins of the mammoth Resource Management Agency where he will oversee a host of critical San Benito County functions including code enforcement, planning and the new cannabis regulatory system. His first day on the job occurred last week.

A year ago, Brad Sparrer was the No. 5 player in the lineup on San Benito High’s golf team. But entering the 2015 season—practice starts on Feb. 1—the 5-foot-8, 140pound sophomore will likely be the Haybalers’ No. 1 player. Sparrer’s meteoric rise came the good old-fashioned way: hard work. B1

PRSRT STD US POSTAGE

Inside this issue: Hollister House

Robert Eliason

Gavilan College removed 17 out-of-state football players—all but one of them African American— from the team and campus last week, claiming the athletes had received improper transportation, housing and food benefits and were improperly recruited. They all lived in the same three-bedroom house in Hollister, rent free for the month of August on the condition they would buy school and housing supplies and start paying rent in September. Two assistant coaches were placed on administrative leave pending an investigation and one of them resigned. The students claim the college removed them out of racial bias and the administration found an excuse to throw them out of school. They said the school treated them like “thugs” and “criminals,” including having seven cars of Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Deputies and Gilroy Police called to the school the day they were told they were kicked off the team. The players said they were forced to hand over their phones to the administration, forced to give the

➝ 400 Block, 4

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