Politics

The Gilroy Foundation gave out $621,250 in scholarships this year to Gilroy students

Bill Monning and Luis Alejo cruised to election wins and form the region's legislative delegation for at least the next two years.

Voting has begun in the Nov. 8 general election, as voters throughout California will receive ballots in the coming days—and can drop them off, completed and signed, at authorized locations now through Election Day. Elections officials in Santa Clara County began sending ballots in the...

The Gilroy City Council will vote on hiring Gabriel Gonzalez as the new city administrator on Monday, giving him a salary of $210,000 a year and a car allowance of $4,200 a year.Gonzalez, 46, a CSU-Fresno graduate and Santa Cruz native, has had five jobs in the past six years. He was the city manager of Rohnert Park from 2010-2013, then moved to Kansas to be near his daughter and worked as city manager for the town of Augusta for five months. Back in California, he was the interim finance director for the city of El Monte for five months before moving up to assistant city manager there, where he remained for a year.Since July he’s been a management consultant for Management Partners, a national consulting firm.Earlier in his career he worked for six years as the city manager of Mendota and for three years as a manager of the Clinica Sierra Vista, a Central Valley healthcare provider for low-income and rural workers. He was finance director for the city of Arvin for six years, starting in 1995, according to his LinkedIn profile.Gonzalez was acclaimed for his work in Rohnert Park, reducing the city’s debt from $9 million to $2.2 million, according to a report in the Community Voice newspaper. He was said to have cut costs and created a 10-year plan to manage the budget.“One of his favorite mottos is ‘if the money’s not in our bank, we don’t spend it.’” the paper reported him saying.Rohnert Park City Councilman Jake Mackenzie lauded Gonzalez for helping turn the city around when it was on the verge of bankruptcy. "He has done yeoman's work; he has guided us through some very real fiscal crises and set us on a good direction for the future," Mackenzie told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat on the manager’s departure in 2013.The city’s then mayor Pam Stafford also praised him in that newspaper. “He came in at a time when we knew that what we needed to do is get financial stability, and we're well on our way to that,” she said. “He did a great job.”Former Morgan Hill city manager Ed Tewes, has served Gilroy on an interim basis since September 2015. The city manager before that, Tom Haglund, left after seven years totake a job as general manager of the Tuolumne Utilities District in Sonora, where he has a second home.Gonzalez was picked by a council subcommittee that included Mayor Perry Woodward and councilmembers Terri Aulman and Daniel Harney. The city had been looking since September and pared 29 applicants down to six, who participated in extensive interviews.Gonzalez has a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from National University and a Masters of Public Administration from CSU-Fresno.

A 48-year-old Cupertino woman who ran for the position of Santa Clara County sheriff in the June 7 primary election has been charged with perjury for allegedly saying she had the law enforcement experience required to qualify for the job, prosecutors said. Anh Colton, who...

The Gilroy City Council this week narrowly voted to defend the city against a lawsuit that claims it has violated state housing laws by declining, so far, to approve a 501-unit residential project proposed on Las Animas Avenue.  Following a July 29 closed session discussion...

Although ballots are still being counted by election officials, updated results for the Nov. 6 election have the likely passage of Gavilan College’s $248 million Measure X bond as well as the election of three new members to the school’s governing body. “This is a very exciting...

Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen announced Dec. 5 that he will deactivate his office's Twitter account due to the recent rise in hate speech on the platform. In a statement, Rosen called on other district attorneys around the country to leave Twitter in...

With incumbent Marie Blankley narrowly leading challenger Greg Bozzo for the Gilroy mayoral election, neither candidate was ready to declare victory as of Wednesday morning.  The latest results in the Nov. 5 election show Blankley ahead of Bozzo by 200 votes, or a total of...

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