Opinion

 "FRAUDSTER" LABEL UNFAIRA few weeks ago you ran a headline and article calling people who want their children to go to Christopher High School “fraudsters”.  I think that is unfair.A very rich local man has built a palace of a school with every amenity that could be thought of including “legacy seating.”  This is wonderful for the rich kids who get to go there, but for the rest of Gilroy it’s not so great.  I know this man also donated some money to Gilroy High School, but there are a lot of us Gilroy citizens who do not think that the donation was equitable to what Christopher High School has become. The City Council should have made sure that both high schools had similar attributes and were on a par.  I have talked to quite a few people about this and so far everyone agrees with me.  Who can blame people for wanting their kids to have the best? Marjorie ApelGilroy“IRRESPONSIBLE”I am a labor and delivery nurse at St. Louise Hospital. I was also co-owner and founder of The Loft Family Enrichment Center in Morgan Hill. I am writing this letter in response to the recent announcement of the closing of the labor and delivery unit. The hospital claims it plans to provide some training to its ER staff to handle pregnant patients who come to the ER for treatment. Years of maternal health specialty training is needed to know how to identify emergent situations correctly. How can you recognize something if you don’t know what it looks like?I’m not afraid for the mothers who come to the ER and deliver normally as birth is a natural process and nature knows what to do without assistance over 90 percent of the time. But what about the rare obstetrical emergency that may have subtle outward signs that only maternal health trained professionals would recognize and which requires immediate recognition and an immediate life-saving mad dash to the OR to save the life of either baby or mother or both.Not one single life lost is worth this incredibly irresponsible decision made by a charity hospital which runs the ONLY labor and delivery unit in an area with a population of 100,000 people!Christine Newberg AromasIGNORE VOTERS?Why did the General Plan Advisory members largely ignore the results of the highly participated Community Workshop held at Eliot School in February?  The plan a large majority favored, to preserve agriculture and open space around our City Limits, would have been more economical to implement and provided the benefits of less air pollution and water conservation.All three alternatives presented by the consultant to the GPAC would provide enough room for population and job growth, but Alternative 3 for compact growth was clearly superior in several ways.  I refer readers to the gilroy20/40.com website  to look at the summary from Workshop #4.  See what YOU think, then attend the special Planning Commission meeting on Thursday, April 30th to let the commissioners know.  If enough people speak up, the Planning Commission will feel supported in making its own recommendations to the city council.Connie RogersFormer Gilroy City Council memberIT’S NOT POLITICSMayor Don Gage said they are outraged about the $483 million deal with the Prime (Healthcare) company. First of all, attorney general Kamala Harris is not playing politics! The only one talking politics is Mayor Gage. This deal has nothing to do with Harris running for higher office, nothing, period. Second, the mayor and the city council are out of touch, they don’t know the difference between a non-profit hospital and a for-profit hospital! All I can figure is they don’t care about ripping off the pubic, including poor people, veterans and the handicapped. For-profit means for-profit. Third, I don’t trust the mayor or city council. They have tried to rip us off before. Remember the elections! I would love to see another non-profit hospital here in Gilroy, but to use politics and the future of our families as a talking point is ludicrous and petty! Three hundred conditions, really Mayor Gage? Is that a fact or is this Prime talking? Let the public see the Prime contract, if this mayor and city council are open and very transparent, then let’s see the facts. Come on guys, show us why you’re so outraged—if not, why should we trust you?Daniel GarciaGilroy

It’s a wonder every member of the city council isn’t sent packing by recall elections, since it appears all won their seats under a city ordinance that’s flat-out unconstitutional.

It was a call from Pat Vickroy of Gilroy that brought attention to the problem of trash in and along Gilroy’s waterways and just who’s responsible for gathering and hauling it away.

The move by the Daughters of Charity Health System to sell Saint Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy and De Paul Medical Center in Morgan Hill might be the Roman Catholic religious order's best decision since it was founded in France in 1633 by St. Vincent de Paul to care for the poor.

It’s part of the American compact that citizens expect those sent to law-making bodies to represent their wishes.

New Dispatch hooks readers

Poets celebrate

Three months after the Daughters of Charity Health System named their preferred buyer for medical facilities in South County, city councils in Gilroy and Morgan Hill still are mum

Library a true community resource

I am not a train expert, and I won’t pretend to be, so please excuse me if my terms and expressions are more slang-like than official. I am writing in response to a recent tragedy that struck my community just two days ago. It was just nine days into 2015 when a 54-year-old Gilroy man was struck and killed by a Union Pacific railway maintenance vehicle. This accident occurred at the intersection of Masten Avenue and Monterey Road, one I frequent every day on my way to school and work, and again on my way home. I cross this intersection with my 15-month old daughter in the car. With my 8-year old siblings in the car. My mother, my father, my grandfather, my neighbors—we all cross this intersection and its railroad tracks on a daily basis. And now I can’t help but question mine, my family’s, and all the members of my community’s safety crossing these tracks. This fear is not of the trains or the maintenance vehicles, but rather, of Union Pacific itself.