News

The Gilroy woman found guilty of second-degree murder on July 30 for killing her daughter and husband in an alcohol and drug-fueled car crash will spend the next three decades inside a California prison.

When someone walks through the doors of the Gilroy Compassion Center, they are instantly considered family to the staff and other patrons who share or have experienced similar plights.

The City of Gilroy is looking for volunteers to fill 27 open seats on 13 different City boards, commissions and committees, according to City Clerk Shawna Freels. From the Arts and Culture Commission to the Open Government Commission to the Planning Commission, most positions have a term between two and four years of service.

The Santa Clara County Farm Bureau’s first-ever Farm to Table Harvest Celebration, held Nov. 2 amid the picturesque Uesugi Farms landscape in San Martin, was a vibrant testament to the richness and diversity of South County agriculture.

GILROY — On Wednesday night there were no Cougars or Mustangs, just neighbors and friends.

The Staples office supply store in Cochrane Plaza will be closed for the next few weeks while damage from a recent fire is repaired, according to staff at the Gilroy Staples branch. Fire crews responded to the fire about 6:38 a.m. Nov. 2, according to CalFire Battalion Chief Brandon Leitzke. The fire started in the section of the store, at 1023 Cochrane Plaza, where copy machines are displayed and sold, Leitzke said. The fire set off automatic sprinklers in that section of the store, causing extensive water damage. The cause of the fire is unknown, Leitzke said. The Morgan Hill store “should be open by Thanksgiving,” said Cecilia Mora, a cashier at the Gilroy Staples store. The Gilroy Staples is located at 8840 San Ysidro Ave.

That smoke over an area near Hollister Hills is from a controlled burn. The burn Thursday was set to wrap up around 4 p.m., according to a Calfire spokesman, Jonathan Pangburn.

The Gilroy boys water polo team lives to see another day.

California labor regulators this week offered to “negotiate” lower fines for three Morgan Hill farmers who were stuck more than a year ago with hefty penalties for what area farming and legal advocates considered minor violations, according to one of the legal advocates. Janelle Orsi of the Sustainable Economies Law Center, which has supported the three growers since they were cited, said Wednesday that a manager from the California Bureau of Field Enforcement contacted her to negotiate to lower the fines.“He said the (Department of Labor Standards Enforcement) has been giving the cases a good deal of attention and they would like to negotiate lower fines for all three farmers,” Orsi said. Last week the Times reported that the three farmers - Xay Duc Hoang, Fanny Tam and Siu Wah Mok - have spent the last year seeking some reprieve from the fines for labor violations which would have siphoned away significant portions of the farmers’ incomes. The farmers grow Chinese vegetables, a crop category which generates about $4 million per year countywide, according to the 2013 Santa Clara County crop report.Plus the growers, who speak little or no English, felt the state inspectors didn’t make an adequate effort to ensure the growers understood their requirements, nor to understand certain aspects’ of the growers’ operations.The violations were mostly related to incomplete or incorrect information on their wage statements for their employees. Local farming and legal advocates said the violations did not harm anyone, and the growers simply made “honest mistakes.” In Hoang’s case, for example, regulators imposed a fine of $9,000 for his cited violations. His household income is about $55,000. Mok was imposed a fine of $3,000, and his income is about $13,000. Legal advocates also suggested the citations against all three farmers were even illegal, as they cited the wrong labor code they allegedly violated. Last week Hoang, represented by an area attorney offering his services pro bono, filed an appeal to his fine in the local district court, Orsi said. “I’m not sure what the DLSE is considering as far as offering to lower the fines,” Orsi said. “We believe the farmers should not have to pay fines at all, given the mistakes and problems with the cases. At the very least, I do not think any of the farmers should have to pay more than $250 each, since that is the statutory fine that can be imposed per violation.” Orsi has been on labor regulators’ case about the fines constantly in recent weeks. She wrote a letter to Labor Commissioner Julie Su last month listing the many ways she thinks the citations and fines are misguided and excessive, and contacted Su’s office every day for a week before an appeal was filed on behalf of Hoang. Su could not be contacted by press time.