HOLLISTER • SAN BENITO COUNTY
A New SV Media publication
Friday, December 1, 2017
sanbenito.com • Vol. 144, No. 48 • $1
DA to ask forensic specialist to look at Dabo case
LOCAL SCENE SJB holiday parade On Saturday it is San Juan Bautista’s turn to usher in the festive season with the 12th Annual Holiday of Lights Parade. Featuring marching bands, galloping horses and holiday floats by local community organizations, businesses and emergency agencies, the event will be topped off with a visit from Santa Claus who has been gracious enough to make a pitstop in the historic town just long enough to pose for pictures with every child in town. The parade starts at 5:30pm and travels along Third Street.
HOOPER, COPS CITE HIGH COST
Breakfast with Santa
Barry Holtzclaw Managing Editor
Before he ventures over to San Juan Bautista, Santa Claus will stop by the Veterans Memorial Building in downtown Hollister on Saturday morning to have breakfast with local children from 8 to 11am. The first 250 children under 12 years old are free. Otherwise it is $4 for youth, $7 for adults and $6 for seniors. Pictures with Santa Claus are $7.
Free concert
Robert Eliason
The 8th Annual Christmas Performing Arts Celebration is at 7pm on Saturday at the San Benito High School auditorium at 1220 Monterey Street in Hollister. The concert is free, but organizers ask attendees to bring a nonperishable food item for the Community Pantry.
Ain’t it bazaar
La Pastorela
Dad, sons win honors HOLLISTER’S NATHAN FORT AND FAMILY DOMINATE AT MARTIAL ARTS COMPETITION Roseann Hernandez Cattani Editor
It all began as a way to spend more time together as a family. Ten years ago, Nathan Fort was looking for an activity for his young son, Noah, to get involved in when they came across Ernie Reyes West Coast World Martial Arts, a system that combines traditional martial arts forms with acrobatics and choreography. “It is exciting and fun,”
times on People are Awesome videos, with up to 200 million views on Facebook. “It is cool to be able to travel around and compete and meet all kinds of people,” said Noah, a student at San Benito High School. The martial arts system also has Hollywood cred. Ernie Reyes Jr. developed the television series, “Sidekicks,” and played the pizza-loving hero in a half-shell, Donatello, in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies. “Because they have been doing this ever since they were little they have learned how to harness their adrenaline to jump higher, flip higher. I have learned those lessons from them,” said Fort, his sons beaming.
Yamamoto Hula Ohana. “I love how the atmosphere is so small and homely,” said Segura about the event as
families huddled together, sharing popcorn, bags of nuts or their own home-brought ➝ Lights On, 4
HOLLISTER CA. PERMIT #48
****ECRWSS**** Residential Customer
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
Yamamoto Hula Ohana dance group performs with her young students at the 27th annual Lights On Celebration in downtown Hollister on Saturday.
TURN TO PIZZA • A8
Roseann Hernandez Cattani
FESTIVE MOVES Jenny Camara-Ray, director of the
➝ Dabo, 4
Cake, anyone?
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
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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
San Juan resident:
chair in the mild early evening waited eagerly to see her grandchildren who were performing in the Hollister Dual Language Academy band. “I like everything, it’s awesome,” she said. Compared to last year’s festivities, which were marked with showers and a cold snap, the summer-like weather on Saturday created a welcoming atmosphere. Before the parade kicked-off at 5:30pm, a number of local performers sang and danced, enthralling the crowd. “They did amazing,” said Stephanie Segura, whose 9-year-old daughter America performed a Polynesian dance routine with local troop,
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,”
Hollister locals came out once again to cheer on their family and friends at the 27th annual Lights On Celebration last Saturday in the city’s downtown. A parade of floats festooned in lights marked the start of the holiday season as people lined San Benito Street to catch a peek and wave to a son, daughter, grandchild or neighbor. Hollister resident, Rosa Pulido, sitting comfortably on a lawn
SPORTS
DAZZLING FLOATS AND PERFORMERS A DELIGHT Editor
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competition roster, each compete in their own age division using props modeled after ancient Japanese weapons. Aiden is a pro at the kamas, a sickle-like weapon while Noah uses the bo or staff. And all the routines, lasting one-and-a-half to two minutes, are all done to music. But it is not just competing that keeps this family close. Through their connection to Ernie Reyes Sr., who developed the martial arts system, the family travels to gigs in Las Vegas, Florida and around the world as part of the Reyes’ demonstration team. They are also big on social media, having been featured multiple
Downtown lights open season Roseann Hernandez Cattani
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said Nathan Fort,39, last month at the family’s Hollister studio where the Forts give lessons to aspiring students of all ages. “You do twists, flips and spins. There are gymnastic elements intertwined with martial arts forms.” The family, including sons Noah, 14, Aiden, 12, and mom, Lisa, 33, had just returned from a successful run at the World League Finals XIII, where Fort and each of his sons made a clean sweep in their class and age division. “We just got back from the league world finals and on top of that had an amazing season this year,” said the proud dad. The members of Team Fort, as called on the
Soph surge
PAID
Hollister studio where they offer lessons in Ernie Reyes West Coast World Martial Arts, a form of mixed-martial arts.
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
El Teatro Campesino performs La Pastorela, the musical retelling of the shepherds’ journey to Bethlehem and the Holy Child after receiving a sign from the Angel of the Lord, but not before they find themselves beset along the way by the demonic followers of Luzbel. Told in all the color and pageantry that El Teatro Campesino is renowned for, La Pastorela, is taken to a higher level as it is performed in the evocative Old Mission of San Juan Bautista. Production in Spanish. Runs until Dec. 17. Tickets can be purchased online at brownpapertickets.com.
KNOCK OUT Nathan Fort and his sons, Aiden, 12, and Noah, 14, show off their multiple championship trophies at their
THE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE OF SAN BENITO COUNTY DECEMBER 1, 2017
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Joel Esqueda and Rolan Resendiz are men with a vision
A section of the Hollister Free Lance
The Hazel Hawkins Hospital Auxiliary presents the 39th Annual Winter Magic Bazaar and Luncheon on Wednesday, Dec. 6 at the Veterans Memorial Building in downtown Hollister. The free admission bazaar will be open from 9am to 3pm and feature craft vendors, vintage and thrift items, Christmas greenery and so much more. The luncheon at $10 per person will be served from 11am to 2pm and include: soup, french bread, salad, dessert and coffee or tea.
San Benito County District Attorney Candice Hooper said she will ask a special forensic accountant to investigate possible fraud or theft by county School Board President Mitchell Dabo, in connection with missing funds from a local charitable trust. But there is a catch. Hooper said she wants the Hollister Police Department to look into it first. “We have just begun to use the pro bono services of a forensic accountant on an unrelated case,” said the district attorney in a written response to an email inquiry from the Free Lance. “Once we get the [Dabo] case file submitted from the Hollister Police Department, we will ask the gentleman to look at it too.” On Tuesday, a 217-page binder containing the evidence gathered by John Clark of Morgan Hill, the foundation’s lawyer, and affirmed by a Superior Court judge at the Nov. 13 civil trial—including bank statements, canceled checks, emails and court documents detailing the systematic draining of funds from the charitable trust by Dabo—was delivered to Hooper’s office by the Free Lance. The binder includes copies of canceled checks from the trust signed by Dabo and evidence of electronic transfers from the trust to a Mitchell Dabo Associates bank account. The canceled checks include: · Numerous checks made out to “Cash” signed by Dabo, including one with “Hair Extensions. com” in the memo. The cash amounts ranged from $2,700 to $21,008. · Three checks, totaling $490,000, to the late Jack Tyler, a friend and former business associate of Dabo · One check, for $3,000, to Barbara Matulich dated three weeks after she died in March 2012. The former Hollister orchard owner set up the charitable trust with her husband, Tony, in 2001. Tony Matulich died in 2003.
ARTI-Culture paints the town
Inside this issue: ARTI-Culture celebrates one year BIKE ABOUT TOWN P17 | HOLIDAY SHOPPING P18 | REALTOR CHRIS WILLIAMS P21
said Jim ranch on walk from The ri complet the Fede Toll Cred with con of 2017. “The k