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Raley's said Friday it's offering to buy out 100 store

The life and legacy of Cesar Chavez was celebrated with mariachis, an Aztec ceremonial dance and a moving speech by the late labor leader’s son, Paul, on April 2 at the first annual Cesar Chavez Day Breakfast in Gilroy.Hosted by local nonprofit Community Agency for Resources, Advocacy, and Services (CARAS), the breakfast and fundraiser was one of a multitude of events held across the country in recognition of what would have been the civil rights leader’s 89th birthday.Paul Chavez, one of Cesar and Helen Chavez’s eight children and president of the Cesar Chavez Foundation, told the gathering at Old City Hall restaurant that his father, even as he forged a social movement that resounded with people across the nation, was a normal person and would have been uncomfortable with all the attention.“Actually, he would be uncomfortable today; he would want us to be out organizing,” he said.Paul said it was his father’s personal experiences—working as a migrant farmworker and suffering from systemic racism while serving in the U.S. Navy—that informed his beliefs and compelled him to fight for social and economic justice, rather than any particular political ideology.There was no political ideology, he said, it was personal.Paul told of how his father, who grew up in a small town outside Yuma, Arizona, had to leave school to labor as a farmworker to help support his family, whose fortunes fell during the Great Depression.The experience affected him so deeply that 40 years later, Cesar Chavez could point out to his son the orchards he had worked in or a particular bridge he had slept under while toiling in the fields.“It’s this kind of upbringing that made him realize they needed more than a union, but a movement,” he said.Cesar Chavez would go on to found the United Farm Workers Union with Dolores Huerta, who in her 80s continues to support labor causes, and lead a successful grape boycott that would bring farmworker issues to the awareness of mainstream America.But, Paul said, for his father, the movement was never just about grapes and lettuce, it was about people.Cesar Chavez went on to establish the first credit union for farmworkers and a cooperative gas station with a mechanic. He also created a burial fund.Paul said his father wanted to address the needs and hopes of the community.Twenty-three years after Cesar Chavez’s death, 11 states now honor his birthday as a holiday. The UFW call to action, “Si Se Puede,” is part of today’s political lexicon.“I’m very proud and honored to see the memory of Cesar Chavez kept alive,” said Ernesto Olivares, a guest at the breakfast and officer of the Latino Family Fund, a project of the Gilroy Foundation. “We need to keep up the fight for social justice and farmworker rights as there are issues that still need to be addressed.”

In case were thinking that another downtown Gilroy business bit the dust, what was once Desero Tequila Town in the old Strand Theatre at 7588 Monterey St. shut down last month – but it’s still going to be a restaurant.

The snowball effect is taking its course as the second annual “Treats for Troops” drive successfully doubled its cache of goodies for a good cause.

Someone who purchased a Mega Millions lottery ticket in Gilroy won $92,554 during the Jan. 3 drawing - but that person isn't aware of his/her good fortune, or just hasn't gotten around to claiming it yet.

MORGAN HILL—Gavilan College broke ground Friday on a major expansion that will bring thousands of students to a new campus in San Jose’s Coyote Valley and focus heavily on law enforcement and public safety training classes.State Sen. Bill Monning and Morgan Hill Mayor Steve Tate helped cut the ribbon on the 55-acre parcel purchased for $18 million.Phase One of the project, to be completed within the coming year, is the construction of five modular buildings and a parking lot. This phase has an estimated cost of $21 million, of which about half will come from Measure E funds. The college has contracted Gilbane Building Company for the first phase. The new campus’s location, on Bailey Avenue in Coyote Valley, is convenient for students commuting from Morgan Hill or South San Jose.The expansion will provide a public safety training facility for individuals studying to become police officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians and 911 dispatchers.“Ten percent of Gavilan’s enrollment is public safety,” college spokeswoman Jan Bernstein-Chargin said. “Enrollment is about 5,600 right now.”The South Bay Regional Training Public Safety Consortium has been headquartered at Evergreen Community College since its founding in 1994. It’s composed of 10 colleges spanning from San Mateo County to Monterey County, partnering with regional law enforcement agencies to train students. Gavilan’s new campus is the latest instance of pulling together resources between colleges.Gavilan plans to have classes scheduled for fall 2016, with general education classes, selected based on student demand, held in the evening for students who work during the day. The Gavilan board anticipates that a future increase in enrollment at the campus—projected to be as high as 10,000 in 30 years—may prompt the Coyote Valley campus to become its own college.Gavilan president Steve Kinsella said he had been unsure whether he would be able to see the Coyote Valley campus begin within his lifetime. Kinsella, retires in June after 13 years as college president.The land Gavilan purchased in San Benito County will be also be used for expansion of the college. That project is currently in habitat-mitigation, a phase of expansion that also delayed the Coyote Valley campus.Gavilan currently has campuses in Morgan Hill and Hollister, both of which serve about 300 students. Like the Coyote Valley campus, the future San Benito County campus may eventually become its own college.

Vallejo is set to become the largest California city to declare