My Italian half crept in this week as I was thinking about
reporting daily
”
market takes a nosedive
”
stories on our Web site. I wondered if this is really how the
Godfather-popularized term
”
going to the mats
”
– i.e. the mattresses – came into vogue. That is, when there’s a
run on the banks and the market is tanking, you take your money and
stuff it in the mattress. Or, maybe it is just a reference to gang
warfare and putting mattresses up so flying bullets don’t get you,
and I’m just un po’ di fuori
anyway …
My Italian half crept in this week as I was thinking about reporting daily “market takes a nosedive” stories on our Web site. I wondered if this is really how the Godfather-popularized term “going to the mats” – i.e. the mattresses – came into vogue. That is, when there’s a run on the banks and the market is tanking, you take your money and stuff it in the mattress. Or, maybe it is just a reference to gang warfare and putting mattresses up so flying bullets don’t get you, and I’m just un po’ di fuori anyway …
Nosedive Niners are so frustrating for us faithful … but a good quip in the newsroom Wednesday night after our daily fun dose, the 5 o’clock quiz. The question: “What was the point differential in the worst whuppin’ in college football history when Georgia Tech beat Cumberland College in 1916?” The game score: 222–0, and our city editor, Robert Airolidi gets the drum roll for … “Yeah, Mike Nolan was the defensive coordinator.”
Anything but coordinated has been the saga of Bonfante Gardens. God bless you, Michael, but there have been many times I wish you had just set up a family fund through the Gilroy Foundation to shower deserving civic projects with dollars. But that is water and annexations and poor city planning under the train trestle bridge …
Chagrined, but perhaps not surprised, that the Council has formed an ad hoc committee to look into selling Gilroy/Bonfante Gardens to an international resort development firm. The dangling money is quite the devilish temptation, isn’t it? … So easy to slip into closed session … It’s not so hard to imagine the soothing voice whispering to City Administrator Tom Haglund and the Council … “You could fix the sidewalks, give out raises, hire more police officers without any painful cuts, spruce up the sports park …” How quickly they forget – did not the Council made an implied covenant with the people before opting to spend that $13,247,484.76 for the 536-acre theme park just seven short months ago? And that deal was that if the theme park failed financially, the community would be able to keep the property out of the hands of private developers and have incredibly beautiful acres for parkland to master plan and turn into a jewel for the benefit of all Gilroyans …
And for everyone’s benefit I quote from just seven short months ago … “Council members rallied together late January to unanimously approve the city’s purchase of Gilroy Gardens, and the close of escrow and final handshake came Friday afternoon. ‘Congratulations! The deed was recorded (Friday) afternoon, and the City is now the proud owner of an additional 536 acres or so of lovely property!’ wrote City Attorney Andy Faber in an e-mail to city councilmembers, city officials and consultants.”
Staying on top of the quotes, Councilman Dion Bracco called to indignantly utter the infamous words of thin-skinned politicos everywhere, “You misquoted me! … look it up on the tape!,” he ordered. I had taken a quote regarding the sidewalks from our council meeting story, used it in my column to illustrate how power can corrupt if one is not strong in character. In fairness, I reviewed the tape. Here is what Dion said at the meeting: “But when you get up here, you find out there’s a whole lot more to running the city than the sidewalks.” If you’d like to look it up on the city Web site it’s at the 35:40 mark. It’s a shame really, I liked Dion a lot when he was just a regular-Joe businessman running for Council who was outraged that the fire department nonchalantly spent $14K on a specialized water rescue boat and stored it in a warehouse. Somehow, this man of the people allowed the folks who purposefully overcomplicate everything in order to bamboozle elected officials and get their way, to bend his ear and feed him the pablum that has ensured a shameful lack of independence since.
During a fine walk with the dogs in the beautiful Gilroy hills early last Friday morning, I anticipated the coming rain and realized that the pup, Rocco, had never experienced water falling from the sky. It had been 202 days since the last rain, and that’s a mighty long time …
But not nearly as long as the existence of what my wife calls, without hesitation, “the stupidest corner in all of Gilroy.” Where be that? First and Church streets. Her cup runneth over for the utter lack of common sense when the city put in a dedicated turn lane and signal light in the wrong place. The light should have allowed cars traveling east on First Street to turn left onto Church Street toward St. Mary’s. As it is, it’s a nightmare back-up almost all the time with cars inching out and taking risky left turns in between the steady drip of cars heading west on First Street.
Far faster than making a left on Church St. are thieves in broad daylight. In the 6300 block of Snowberry Court a very good neighbor phoned police last Thursday at 10:25 in the morning, reporting that they had just witnessed two juveniles run out of a neighbor’s house carrying stuff. First of all, three cheers for the neighbor! Second, what in the world are a 15- and 16-year-old doing out and about stealing on a Thursday morning? The GPD nabbed them both – they are unfortunately Gilroy residents – and booked them on burglary charges. The moral of the story, besides being a good neighbor, is that if you see a kid who’s supposed to be in school on the street, make the call to police and let the officer determine if something inappropriate is going on. Making Gilroy a safe community isn’t just the job of police, it’s up to all of us to work together as this incident demonstrates.
Demonstrating that there are indeed random acts of kindness that make the world a better place was Raja Gosnell, the director of “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” who sat next to Eliot Elementary School teacher Jessica Chessani on an airplane and … well, read Kat Teraji’s column next door for the rest of the heartwarming story …
And we shall not let the celebrity connection to Gilroy die there. Gracious Gracie Garcia, she the owner of the tasteful store, Gilroy Antiques, at 7445 Monterey St. downtown, had a recent visit from Barbra, as in Streisand, who likes to buy glassware and thinks Gracie’s shop is the cat’s meow. The fun doesn’t stop there. Gracie’s granddaughter, Amanda Burns, got to meet the world’s best-selling female recording artist ever who came in with her husband James Brolin. And to top if off Gracie personally delivered the purchased wares to Barb’s home in Malibu and got a two-hour tour. “Fabulous,” said Gracie who said that she didn’t get to see Barbra while there, but that she called her toward the end of the tour to say thank you. “She said she was upstairs in bed with her husband,” Gracie said, “and I told her that I’d like to be upstairs in bed with her husband.” That’s Gracie – fire and humor in a dandy combination.
