Opinion

Here are a few highlights in Santa Clara County government in 2018. New Animal Services Center Coming. Construction of the new center is scheduled to break ground in Spring 2019, with a move-in date of mid-2021. The new 37,000-square-foot building on 4.5 acres will replace...

When Frank Parra Sanchez passed away at the end of the year, Gilroy lost one of its heroes. According to his brother Ed Sanchez, USAF (ret.) Korean War vet, Frank was on Omaha Beach on D-Day. A month earlier in 1944 my Uncle Ben was...

Santa Clara County Executive Jeff Smith has a difficult time understanding just what has occurred in the past two weeks. His vision of leading a dramatic expansion and improvement of a public healthcare system is suddenly on the verge of hitting a brick wall...

Safe Routes to School had another successful year in Gilroy. The Gilroy Bicycle Pedestrian Commission along with Santa Clara County Public Health took a leadership position in getting all the stakeholders in the city to come together to form a Safe Routes to School...

Santa Clara County has improved the Mt. Madonna archery practice range, the flat portion by the parking lot where you sight in your bow. However, 30 percent of the course has now been declared unsafe by ignorant county employees. Despite no accidents in 60...

Dec. 1 was World AIDS Day, a time to reflect on the disease that still threatens and ravages lives in the U.S. and around the globe. Stories behind the Los Altos Story, a new book about Dude Angius, Gilroy High School Class of 1946,...

As area manager, I’m grateful for the article written about Operation Interdependence (OI) in the Nov. 9 Dispatch. If you have not seen it, pull it up online and read about all that this volunteer-based, 501(c)3 organization has done to support our deployed heroes...

To the editor, It was wonderful to see the excitement at the polls. While people were out voting in the midterms, local winery owners were also voting on our new board and officers for 2019. I have been most appreciative of the opportunity to...

Slow growth, the movement that rocked Gilroy’s City Council two years ago with new Mayor Roland Velasco riding the crest of the Measure H vote, is alive and well. While three of four incumbents in the Nov. 6 election won re-election by solid margins, one...

There were cheers last week about the record or near-record turnout levels in the midterm elections in California, and across the U.S. While the numbers were relatively high—approaching 60 percent in some California counties— they were properly qualified by adjectives such as “midterm,” “off-year”...