Politics

The Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters' Office will host a candidate session, which is free and open to the public, from 10 a.m. to noon July 14 inside the auditorium near the ROV Office located at 1555 Berger Drive, Building 2, in San Jose.

With election day approaching, voters have several state propositions from which to choose. Below is a brief description of each of them. For a deeper dive, visit voterguide.sos.ca.gov/propositions. Proposition 2 Public School and Community College Facilities Under Prop. 2, the state would sell a $10 billion bond...

The Gilroy Gardens Chinese light exhibit ‘Lumination,’ which was scheduled to end in November, has been extended until Jan. 8. The nighttime show of Chinese artistry made with tens of thousands of colored lights, has drawn tourists from all over and added to the park’s hours of operation. It will be open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. through most of December. It will be open every night from Dec. 16 to Jan. 8—but not Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Check gilroygardens.org for tickets, daily events and  schedules. 

The yearlong saga surrounding a lawsuit brought by former Gilroy Fire Division Chief Edward Bozzo and current Fire Division Chief Phillip King against the City of Gilroy has come to an end.

In a contentious battle between two Morgan Hill residents, Santa Clara County Board of Education incumbent Claudia Rossi held a more than 9,000-vote lead over first-time challenger Gino Borgioli for the Trustee Area 7 seat as of Nov.13, according to  unofficial results from the...

The landmine-like potholes on First Street are on the way to being fixed, years ahead of schedule and after years of complaints.Mayor Perry Woodward, with support from Councilman Dan Harney and former city traffic engineer Henry Servin worked out a clever system to have license registration fees that go to the state shifted quickly to Gilroy’s street of most need.Without their efforts, the work might not have begun until 2021, but it will now be finished—if the last hurdle is cleared—by the middle of next year.“It’s the worst street in town,” said Woodward. “This needs to happen. It should have never gotten this bad. It’s been neglected by Caltrans for so long, we have a crisis. I’m glad we will get this addressed when the rain stops.”The potholes on First Street are one of the biggest complaints by the city’s residents. The trouble is, the street—which is also known as Highway 152—is maintained not by the city, but by the state, and it isn’t as big a priority for them as it is for the locals.Caltrans didn’t even include the street on its current list of repairs and it couldn’t be added until 2020-2021. The three Gilroyans, led by Woodward, who sits on the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority board, are in the process of getting the board to front $5.5 million for the repairs, which will then be repaid by license fees, speeding up the process.The roadway will be worked on into the spring, as the state adds water, sewer and electric lines under it. Then, beginning in April, new pavement will be added.“It’s fantastic news,” said Harney, who is running for council in Nov. 8. “It s a big deal. If Perry and I hadn’t done that, we’d still be stuck where we were. The way it is now, we can’t even repave the potholes.”While the proposal has been approved by the VTA, it still needs Caltrans approval, which Woodward is working on. He is optimistic about that final step.The city also set aside $2.5 million to fix some of the other worst streets in town at last week’s council meeting. Those streets are being decided by a computer model that ranks streets most in need of repair.

You might have to ring the bell a few times next time you visit

All three of the fatally wounded victims of the July 28 mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival were young people visiting Gilroy, attending the festival with family or friends.  Stephen Romero, 6. Keyla Salazar, 13. Trevor Irby, 25. Stephen Romero lived in San Jose. His identity was...