THE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE OF SAN BENITO COUNTY
MARCH 23, 2018
San Benito Magazine inside this issue
UT & ABO R OF NDA CALE TS EVEN
OUT
A supplement to the Hollister Free Lance
Patrick & Pastor Linda Lampe
Hollister Community Outreach empowers
Hospitality with Heart THE STOMPING GROUND P6 | THE MOTHER OF INVENTION P14
San Benito Magazine INSIDE THIS ISSUE
THIS WEEK: Poppy Jasper screens Luis Valdez’s ‘Ceasar’s Last Fast’
HOLLISTER • SAN BENITO COUNTY
A New SV Media publication
Friday, March 23, 2018
sanbenito.com • Vol. 145, No. 12 • $1
New school at Fairview could open in 2 years LOCAL, STATE FUNDS WOULD PAY TO EASE OVERCROWDING Scott Forstner Reporter
Bryce Stoepfel
A 12-acre plot of land within the Santa Ranch development is being eyed by Hollister School District officials as the site of a new multi-million dollar elementary/middle school. District officials said this week they are in negotiations for the site of a new campus they say will be needed to accommodate Hollister’s population growth. Supt. Lisa Andrew said the 12 acres, surrounded by new Anderson Homes, were set aside by developers for the purpose of building a school. Although the district has not acquired the land, it has already put out bids to select a design-build construction firm. “We’re shooting for August 2020 to open the school,” Andrew noted. “To accomplish that, we would need to break ground this August-September.” The incoming bids range between $48 to $78 million, according to Andrew.
MARS HILL MOMENTS Angela “Jula” Prak, a manager at Mars Hill, says that Mars Hill is a small coffee shop with
a big living room. As a non-profit business, Mars Hill’s profits go to employees, bills, and the rest goes to charity.
Mars Hill offers a place
COMMUNITY GATHERS AT CORNER COFFEE SHOP IN HOLLISTER
➝ Mars Hill, 8
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abortions. The centers, which were created to convince expectant mothers not to have abortions, stress adoption alternatives and offer free pregnancy tests. Christine Vatuone, executive director of Informed Choices, was in Washington, DC Tuesday, and was not available for comment. Brigette Blair, director of the
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
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
LEARN WITH REAL PROJECTS FROM TOP FIRMS.
rights of their affiliates, which include Informed Choices of Gilroy and the Hollister Pregnancy Center. The highly anticipated case is being watched closely by more than 300 of these anti-abortion counseling centers in California, which for more than two years have been required to provide positive information about
TURN TO PIZZA • A8
The U.S. Supreme Court justices Tuesday heard arguments in its first
abortion-related case under President Trump, and “pregnancy centers” in Gilroy and Hollister were center stage. In a story that led nearly every major national news report on Tuesday, lawyers for the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates pleaded their case that a 2015 California law violates the First Amendment free-speech
Cake, anyone?
staff think of themselves as a small coffee shop with a big living room. Or perhaps more accurately, your grandmother's house. “We like to think the décor is thrown together, nicely,” Prak said. “”We want it to look like someone’s living room or someone’s grandmother’s living room. It’s very eclectic.”
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
San Juan resident: ‘Like our own
7
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,”
PREGNANCY CENTERS JOIN BATTLE TO OVERTURN CA LAW, CITING FREE SPEECH Managing Editor
58015 02002
“The location was kind of hand-picked by God,” Prak said. “”We’re right by SVS and Hope Services, so Mars Hill has become a daily outing for them. They can come in here and be part of the community without feeling like a burden." It’s more than a coffee shop. Compared to the square footage they have, about 4000 square feet, the
Supreme Court hears local pleas
By Barry Holtzclaw
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Solar revisions
Mars Hill, the little coffee shop with a large living room—as they like to say—is in its 10th year, and
come here and relax, use the bathroom and have a glass of water.” Mars Hill is a nonprofit business, owned and operated by inChrist’s Church. The name comes from the Bible, referencing the Apostle Paul's Sermon on Mars Hill in Acts. Like the Mars Hill of ancient Athens, Mars Hill Coffee is meant to be a place for people to gather.
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
Reporter
SPORTS
Bryce Stoepfel
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
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aside from serving fresh roasted, good coffee, it appears that it's the place’s heart and soul that keeps the non-profit thriving. “People ask, what’s in it for us?” said Mars Hill manager Angela “Jula” Prak. “As a team, we want to give back to the community. We see a lot of hurt and broken people. We know a lot of the town’s homeless population by name. They are free to
Hollister Pregnancy Center, declined to comment. Informed Choices has moved back and forth between Morgan Hill and Gilroy for three decades, and most recently relocated to Gilroy, at 66 1st St. The Hollister center is at 483 5th St. There are more than a dozen similar centers in Santa Clara ➝ Supreme Court, 2
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