HOLLISTER • SAN BENITO COUNTY
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Friday, September 15, 2017
sanbenito.com • Vol. 144, No. 37 • $1
Guitars Not Guns graduates twenty local youth in Hollister P2
LOCAL SCENE Coins of kindness
The students at Sacred Heart Parish School in Hollister are on a mission to spread a whole lot of kindness through a creative campaign to recognize acts of goodness in the community. Whenever a student sees someone doing something kind or generous, the person will be thanked and given a kindness coin. Students will have ten coins to distribute with the goal to hand out one coin per month and then to share their story on Facebook. Coins are wooden tokens inscribed with a simple reminder, “Smiles, kindness and love can change the world.” Dr. Rachel McKenna, the school principal, explained the kindness coins give students the opportunity to connect with the community in a special way. “This is Sacred Heart’s way of leaving a kindness footprint that will hopefully spread further and further,” she said. Check in with Sacred Heart Parish School Hollister on Facebook to see where the 3,000 kindness coins end up.
No tax
THE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE OF SAN BENITO COUNTY
SEPTEMBER 15, 2017
T OUT & ABOU OF CALE NDAR EVEN TS
El Teatro looks into the past with ¡Viva La Causa!
Roseann Hernandez Cattani
Applications for property tax deferment for the current tax year are now available. California’s Property Tax Postponement Program allows homeowners who are seniors, are blind, or have a disability and who meet income, equity, and other requirements to postpone payment of property taxes on their residence. The program returned in 2016 after being suspended by the legislature for seven years due to lack of funding. In the first year of the renewed program, state homeowners were able to postpone more than $2.2 million in residential property taxes. Last year, San Benito County had no assessments postponed, but the program could stand to benefit up to 50 households, according to Mary Lou Andrade, county tax collector. “We have 20,000 bills so the amount would be a minute percentage of that number. In past years, before the Great Recession, we only had a dozen max that would postpone their taxes.” Funding for the program is limited and applications will be processed in the order they are received beginning October 1. Applications and program details can be found online or by calling (800) 952-5661.
UNION SHOP A Union Army soldier and his family demonstrate the multigenerational aspect of the Civil War at a re-enactment Saturday at San Benito
County Historical Park in Tres Pinos. The three-day event drew crowds of spectators and hundreds of local elementary and junior high school students.
A war of remembrance
THREE-DAY CIVIL WAR REENACTMENT AT TRES PINOS Roseann Hernandez Cattani
Cause for Action PASTA MAKING P8 | EAST INDIAN DIET P19 | FOLLIES P20
Inside this issue: El Teatro Campesino
Nicholas Preciado Reporter
TURN TO PIZZA • A8
County residents affected by winter flooding spoke during Tuesday’s San Benito County Board of Supervisors meeting as officials discussed how to pay to fix a broken levee system. Unrelenting rainfall last winter overwhelmed
a Pacheco Creek levee system, flooding country roads and creating havoc for residents along Lovers Lane, as well as parts of Shore Road and San Felipe Road. Before the bulk of the storms hit county inspection teams discovered on January 12 a large breach in the Pacheco Creek levee. Multiple breaches would occur during subsequent storms.
James Pulfer, from the Resource Management Agency, said there were two significant breaches to the levee system, a 104foot long breach and an 80-foot long breach. “The most significant breach is on the south side of the levee with the 104foot breach,” Pulfer said. “That breach directly flows across Lovers Lane. The
of wood-fired oven used to 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
HOLLISTER CA. PERMIT #48
PAID
****ECRWSS**** Residential Customer
➝ Civil War, 4
Cake, anyone?
I asked how he thought the war was going. “We are in year three of this war now and heading north,” he said, his grey cloth cap, perched askew atop his head. “We just need to have a successful victory north of the Mason-Dixon line to prove the fine point that we are already our own country. What gives them the right to put an end to it?” An estimated 200 reenactors from throughout California and Nevada transformed the Tres
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
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COUNTY SEEKS EXEMPTION FROM LEVEE LIABILITY
Nick Lovejoy
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,”
to Lovers Lane in Hollister when the levee system failed.
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soldiers—greycoats, Union boys and a ragtag company of California militia, who fought in skirmishes among the 19th century buildings at the historical park to the delight of crowds of spectators. “We are here to secure the town against the rumpled Yankee invaders,” said a member of the Archer’s Brigade of the Northern Virginia Army. “We are expecting them to come over that ridge at any moment and disgrace you honorable women in ways that are unmentionable.”
Levee repairs left in limbo
LEVEE BREACH Winter rains brought excessive flooding
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create homemade, natural soaps. (People in the twentyfirst century can find her products on Etsy at “San Benito Soap Works.”) “This is how I would make a living as a sutler—a merchant who sold goods to the army,” explained Thompson. Thompson was one of an assortment of sutlers at the Civil War re-enactment at San Benito County Historical Park last weekend. Along with the broommaker, tintype photographer and dressmaker, they stood by and served
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
Soph surge
Smoke from cannon fire fills the air as soldiers in frayed blue uniforms scatter for cover. Stationed on either side of the park stand rows of white linen tents. And bustling to and fro, women and children, dressed in 19th century garb rush to prepare their mid-day meal. “I needed to figure out why I was a middle-aged
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
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woman following the army around,” said Civil War reenactor and Hollister resident, Becky Thompson. “There would not be civilians hanging with the soldiers, they would be in the nearby town. So I am a camp follower and I make soap, something the soldiers would buy or barter from me.” To barter for Thompson’s wares, perfect for removing gunshot residue and blood spatter, soldiers trade livestock they steal, said Thompson. She then uses the rendered fat to
➝ Levee Repairs, 4
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