THE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE OF SAN BENITO COUNTY
JUNE 21, 2019
A supplement to the Hollister Free Lance
Gardening program provides job skills
SAN BENITO MAGAZINE INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Growing skills Career training program beginning to blossom
SBHS HONORED P2 | TRIAL DELAYED P4 | GUIDE DOG IN SCHOOL P8 CALENDAR OF EVENTS P8 | GARDENING P15 | REAL ESTATE P19
HOLLISTER • SAN BENITO COUNTY
A New SV Media publication
Friday, June 21, 2019
sanbenito.com • Vol. 147, No. 25 • $1
SJB hires new exec DON REYNOLDS TO TAKE OVER FOR ED TEWES Jaqueline McCool Reporter
➝ SJB manager, 2
Robert Eliason
The San Juan Bautista City Council was set to approve an employment agreement for a new city manager, Don Reynolds. Reynolds currently works as the assistant public works director in Salinas. Reynolds told the Free Lance he’s spent three decades in public service, working for 12 years in Moorpark before moving to Salinas. His start date is planned for July 2, according to a press release detailing Reynolds’ hiring. He is expected to be paid $132,000 his first year. Reynolds will succeed Ed Tewes, who acted as interim city manager after
OLD-TIME MELODIES Janet Martini entertained visitors to San Juan Bautista with tunes on her accordian.
History comes alive Robert Eliason
As San Juan Bautista embarks on a summer-long celebration of its 150th anniversary, visitors and residents stepped back to the town’s early days for the second time this month. After the June 1 Living History day, mountain men, Civil War soldiers, Victorian ladies, horse-drawn vehicles, old-time crafts and down-home recipes came to life again June 15-16 at the State Historic Park’s Early Days. On June 23, the party continues in San Juan Bautista as the Old Mission holds its annual fiesta in the state park with food, music and dancing. The fiesta celebrates the European migrant families of the Anza Expedition who passed through this valley in June 1776 on their way to establish the Presidio in San Francisco. For more information, visit https://www.san-juan-bautista. ca.us/community/celebrating_150_years/
FRONTIER SUN HAT Nine-year-old Zariah Smith showed how
kids 150 years ago kept cool in the summer sun.
SJB picks alternate school solar project PANELS WILL BE ‘LEAST IMPACT’ TO SAN JUAN SCHOOL FIELD Scott Forstner Reporter
The Aromas-San Juan Unified School District’s Board of Trustees has approved an alternative plan for the positioning of solar panels in the playing field at San Juan School as part of a three-school energy conservation project.
The board, after taking in concerns from the local San Juan School community and reviewing all options, last month approved “a version that was least impactful” to the playing field, according to one trustee. District staff will also work with the solar installation company, ENGIE Services U.S. Inc., to assess whether the panels can be placed in front of the school gym and out to the school parking lot
to possibly keep the San Juan playing field intact. Earlier in May, the board approved a $358,600 contract with ENGIE Services for the installation of solar panels at Anzar High School (2000 San Juan Highway in San Juan Bautista), Aromas School (365 Vega St. in Aromas) and San Juan School (100 Nyland Drive in San Juan Bautista). However, members of the San Juan school community—including parent
and former school board trustee Jose Flores— did not want the panels to be put on the playing field. Flores’ two children helped get 151 signatures from San Juan students and staff on a petition that opposed the solar panel installation in the field. At Anzar and Aromas, the solar panels will be located in parking lots and not in the playing field, where they’ll be placed at San Juan School. A facilities committee meeting
was held May 14 to further discuss the San Juan portion of the energy conservation project before the board voted May 23. At San Juan, two of the options are to install “approximately 650 linear feet of permanent perimeter chain link fencing to the east, west and south, 6feet in height, around the solar PV installation, which will tie to the existing fence to the north,” according to the contract.
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