HOLLISTER • SAN BENITO COUNTY
A New SV Media publication
Friday, November 10, 2017
sanbenito.com • Vol. 144, No. 45 • $1
Supervisors drop plans for big pay raise
LOCAL SCENE Veterans Day Parade Saturday
PUBLIC OUTCRY AT 56-PERCENT HIKE INFLUENCED THEIR DECISION TUESDAY
The Veterans Day Parade on Saturday, Nov. 11, starts at 1:30 p.m., and is the finale for a morning filled with community events. This year, Hollister residents Richard Castro and Dolly DeVasier will be honored as the grand marshals.Spectators will enjoy watching patriotic floats, classic cars, equestrian units, school groups, scouting groups, emergency agencies, marching bands and much more.
Nicholas Preciado Reporter
San Benito County supervisors changed their minds this week, and voted unanimously against giving themselves a 56-percent pay raise. The Board of Supervisors last month had given preliminary approval, on a 4-1 vote,
The day’s events will begin with a breakfast hosted by the local chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens at 7am at the Hollister Community Center. The Veterans Benefit Fair will take place at the Veterans Memorial Building at 10am.
to increase their salaries from $48,000 to $75,000, prompting a public outcry. The first pay increase vote had followed board approval of new employment contracts with 3.5-percent raises for county employees. The labor bargaining groups had negotiated with the county for months over wage increases, county health care contributions to help offset increasing costs and continued holiday office closures. Supervisor Robert Rivas was the sole dissenter at the October
vote. He called Tuesday’s vote “democracy at work.” “I did vote against this proposal last time, but even though I voted against it people still called, pissed off at me for some reason,” Rivas said. “I’ve always felt that this issue does have merit, but at the same time, as many have suggested, our policy needs to be driven by data.” All of the county supervisors indicated they’d heard from their constituents within the last two weeks, objecting to the pay hike. “We heard you and got a clear message,” Board Chairman Jaime
De La Cruz said. “While we’re the Board of Supervisors and the buck stops with us, unfortunately on this subject matter when it pertains to salaries, it shouldn’t be at this level. I’d suggest maybe a committee of citizens should come up with the idea and let the recommendation come from them.” Between the end of October when the potential pay raise was first endorsed and the Nov. 7 meeting, supervisors met with the heads of labor bargaining ➝ County Salaries, 14
At 10:30am, banners will be installed on the light post in the Veterans Memorial Building Plaza and along San Benito Street that honor individual local active duty military personnel. State Assemblymember Anna Caballero will be a speaker for the memorial ceremony. At noon before the parade, the public is invited to a barbecue lunch at the Veterans Memorial Building, where veterans eat for free.
Pacific Brass Band Sunday Head to the Pacific Brass Band in Concert in Hollister on Sunday, Nov. 12. The annual joint concert featuring The Pacific Brass Band and the Rancho-Maze Combined Middle School Band will be presented from 2 to 3:30pm at Rancho San Justo Middle School, 1201 Rancho Dr, Hollister. For more information, visit pacificbrassband.org.
THE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE OF SAN BENITO COUNTY
NOVEMBER 10, 2017
OU T & AB OU T OF NDAR CA LE EN TS EV
VFW Post 9242 sends holiday care packages
Hollister Honors Inside this issue: Hollister sends gifts to soldiers
BACKPACKER’S RESPITE P10 | VETERANS DAY OBSERVED P14 | THE GRAPEVINE P16
PAID
HOLLISTER CA. PERMIT #48
CELEBRATE WITH DANCE Graceful dancers of the folkloric dance group Esperanza del Valle celebrate Dia De Los Muertos at the playhouse stage of El Teatro Campesino in San Juan Bautista last week.
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said Jim Brumfield, whose 14-acre horse ranch on San Juan Highway is a short walk from the site of the planned bridge. The riverbed crossing will be funded completely with federal money from the Federal Highway Administration's Toll Credit Highway Bridge Program, with construction slated for the spring of 2017. “The key to a better transportation
TURN TO BRIDGE • A8
LOOK FOR IT ON THE WEB
An advocacy organization that re college instructors across Califo symbolically walk out of the clas what they call a significant pay d
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Thanksgiving. La Pastorela was passed down to El Teatro via oral recitation by the grandmother of one of the members. The actors used to perform it for free on the streets in various forms including, in one incarnation, a puppet show. The El Teatro Campesino company performed its annual Dia De Los Muertos Celebration and Procession last weekend, with
dance performances by the Folkloric dance group Esperanza del Valle. An original musical play began at the playhouse parking lot and made its way through the historic town. El Teatro founder Luis Valdez wrote La Pastorela, which just opened at Denver's Su Teatro. Valdez first met Cesar Chavez when he was six, growing up among the migrant workers of
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
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A bi-annual tradition returns to Mission San Juan Bautista on Nov. 24 with the longest-running presentation of El Teatro Campesino, La Pastorela, a musical retelling of the
trek of the shepherds to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus. The Nov. 24–Dec.19 pageant offers stirring action, vivid colors, and robust humor, all presented with the live music and dance of the renowned 52-year-old San Juan Bautista theater in the mission basilica. The Teatro’ annual Christmas play opens on the day after
TURN TO PIZZA • A8
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San Juan resident: ‘Like our own
Reporter
KATIE HELLAND •REPORTER khelland@freelancenews.com
Byline Byline
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,”
CHRISTMAS SHOW OPENS AT MISSION ON NOVEMBER 24
Project planned for Y Road
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La Pastorela returns to stage
Cake, anyone?
The San Benito County Eliason chapterRobert 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
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
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
A section of the Hollister Free Lance
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Delano, California, where the United Farm Workers movement took root in the nonviolent strikes and grape boycotts of the '60s and '70s. El Teatro Campesino was founded in 1965 as the cultural arm of the United Farm Workers with the "full support of Cesar Chavez. For more information, visit elteatrocampesino.com.
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