Hollister’s mayor is the chief executive of the city. The mayor runs the City Council meetings, signs city documents and has equal voting rights with other City Council members. The office is currently a two-year term. The candidates running on Nov. 8 are challenger Mia Casey and incumbent Ignacio Velasquez.
Mia Casey, 61, lives in Hollister with her husband and family. She left Hollister in 2004 for work but returned in 2016 to be close to her newborn granddaughter. She is retired and currently volunteers at a local nonprofit, San Benito Citizens for a Brighter Future, she helped found. She spent 20 years in the legal field in a variety of positions, from paralegal to managing a large staff. She also spent 10 years in the public sector serving at a community college in the president’s office. Casey has not held public office before and is running in part because after moving away and returning a decade later she felt the city had the same issues as when she left. She believes that if elected, she could make real change by working inside City Hall.
BenitoLink: Regarding wastewater at the proposed Gavilan campus, the city says it does not want to connect the school to the sewer system. What is the main issue here and how can it be resolved?
Casey: The main issue here is obstruction by the mayor, who used a parliamentary procedure to block approval of the connection of the sewer. Gavilan College is adjacent to the Fairview Corners Specific Plan, which was approved for development back in 2012. His main objection seems to be the Fairview Corners plan, yet he is blocking our college from being built. I find this interesting since the mayor served as a county planning commissioner in 2012, and during the April 18, 2012, planning meeting he recused himself from voting on the Fairview Corners project because he had some kind of personal conflict. It begs the question, does that personal conflict still exist? And is this personal conflict the reason he is fighting to stop Gavilan and this project when he has allowed others to hook up to the sewer system?
Documentation and history show the intent between the county and city to allow the college and Fairview Corners to be hooked into the system. Even the Roberts Ranch development was required to install larger sewer pipes in order to handle sewage that would come from these hookups.
Some of the claims I’ve heard about not wanting to create a ‘precedent’ with sewer hookups outside the city limit do not hold water (pun intended). Santana Ranch has been allowed to hook up to our system. The future San Juan Oaks project is going to be allowed to hook up to the system. Now, we have the city of San Juan Bautista being allowed in. Why block the Gavilan campus? The new sewer system was built as a regional plant—it was meant to serve the region, not just the city—and it has the capacity. The benefit of letting these approved projects be connected is that the city receives large impact fees that will pay down the bond balance that is owed on the sewer plant. As it is paid, the huge sewer bills residents are seeing should go down.
The majority of voters approved two bond measures so a campus could be built here. Constituents have spoken very clearly they want this campus and that message should be respected. The vote by the mayor and Councilmember [Rolan] Resendiz does not respect the citizens’ wishes and is forcing an unnecessary and environmentally unfriendly septic system workaround. This is bad for our environment and ultimately, they are costing taxpayers, since delays increase construction costs and reduce the funding available to build out the campus.
I feel the city should honor its prior commitments to allow the Gavilan connection to the sewer. If elected, I will work with the council and LAFCO to ensure the campus gets hooked up and do whatever is in my power to make sure this campus gets built for our students!
There are many new chain businesses coming to the east side of town while older downtown businesses are struggling. What can be done to boost downtown commerce?
There are a number of things which will encourage folks to come back to our downtown. One of my top priorities is to continue the rebirth that has begun with the new Community Foundation Building and the mixed-use building currently under construction. I want to seize on that spark and revitalize and beautify downtown, so it is inviting and attractive. We can work on making it more business-friendly to help new businesses get established easily and fill up the empty storefronts. It needs to be easy to navigate, walkable, and with ample free parking nearby.
I am hearing from so many residents a real dissatisfaction with the current one-way street and back-in parking design. Also, while most generally like the idea of outdoor dining opportunities and feel they were important during the pandemic, they feel the parklets are too big and take up a lot of space on the street and do not look like permanent structures. This is something that the City Council should consider as we look at ways to benefit and improve our downtown and bring more residents back. It is very clear our shops and restaurants benefit when we have events downtown like our parades. I’d like to see our City Council Events Committee work closely with the Hollister Downtown Association and Chamber to see how we can develop additional yearly events to draw people to our downtown.
Development within the city continues but infrastructure and public transportation remain subpar. How can this be fixed?
It is important to keep infrastructure as a priority in our budget. However, we also have a real opportunity right now for sizable grant funding through the $1 trillion Infrastructure and Jobs Bill approved by Congress this year. The program is focused around infrastructure, roads and transportation, so there are many possibilities. I would like to see the city collaborate with the county to seek funding specifically to improve/overhaul our County Express transportation system.
The city and county are sharing the cost for a consultant to seek grants, but I believe we need to do more and be very aggressive about going after the funding we want. We can also team up with local agencies and nonprofits for specific funding areas and leverage some of our local talent with experience in grant writing to help our efforts. The city has missed out on funding in the past and this is a once in a generation opportunity. While it is difficult to compete with larger cities, there is a program called the Local Infrastructure Hub, which was created to help smaller cities and towns compete for this funding. It was put together by Bloomberg Philanthropies, in conjunction with the National League of Cities and the United States Conference of Mayors (among others). It offers great resources and support to help us achieve our funding goals!
How would you balance development with maintaining the unique character of the community?
This is such a beautiful place to live, and despite all of our growth, we still have small town charm. It must be honored and intentionally preserved.
Revitalizing our downtown will certainly help with this. However, each new development must be considered individually–whether residential or business/commercial projects. How does it fit here? Does it make sense for our community? What are the impacts? I know the trend across California is for denser housing models. However, this concerns me as I do not want to see high rises coming into our city. I think we would have to be careful when putting in denser housing to not change our rural and open feel. We certainly have opportunities for infill projects which will help limit sprawl.
My degree from Sonoma State is in liberal studies, with an emphasis on sustainability and sustainable business models. I look through the lens of sustainability when considering projects and consider a sustainable model for business called Triple Bottom Line theory. In a regular business, we only look at the bottom line which is profit. However, sustainable models consider a triple bottom line. It consists of 3 Ps: People, Planet and Profits. You must consider not only the profit, but how this impacts our planet (our environment) and our people (the community). It is a good business model that adapts easily in considering development projects.
If elected, how will you keep in touch with Hollister residents?
One of the biggest complaints I have heard from residents is a lack of communication from City Hall. Transparency and accountability are very important to building and keeping public trust. Residents want to not only be kept informed, but also want their voices heard and respected. It is actually one of my four top priorities–to build a solid communication plan that will keep residents informed and engaged. With my background in marketing and communication, I am committed to developing better communication to our residents, and since I am retired, I have the time needed to get this done. I plan to achieve this through a number of methods: a regular newsletter and summaries of recent council meetings, town hall meetings, frequent updates on the website, as well a solid social media presence to disseminate information and allow for dialog.
Ignacio Velazquez, 57, is a the business owner of American Electrical Services and has lived in Hollister for 30 years. He is married with two teenage children. He is the current mayor and has held the position since 2012. He has said he ran for the office to help solve the financial problems the city of Hollister was having at the time.
BenitoLink: Regarding wastewater at the proposed Gavilan campus, the city says it does not want to connect the school to the sewer system. What is the main issue here and how can it be resolved?
Velazquez: The reality is that the sewer issue is not about Gavilan College, it is about housing developers wanting to build hundreds of houses in that area and trying to force the city to give them sewer service by claiming it is for Gavilan College. This area is in the county and outside of the city’s sphere of influence and is an example of more leapfrog development. Leapfrog developments lead to more traffic and infrastructure issues. In the past, rules that prevented these types of leapfrog developments were simply ignored by county supervisors and have created the problems that our community is now experiencing. The solution is for the county to stop approving badly planned developments in rural areas where there is no infrastructure.
There are many new chain businesses coming to the east side of town while older downtown businesses are struggling. What can be done to boost downtown commerce?
The downtown area has seen an increase of over $10 million in retail sales over the last few years and the city as a whole has seen an increase of over $100 million in retail sales. There has also been an increase of over 500 new jobs in the city over the past few years. Over the next few years we expect to see retail sales increase by an additional $300 million. Outdoor dining at our local restaurants has also been a huge success and has led to much more foot traffic in the downtown area.
Development within the city continues but infrastructure and public transportation remain subpar. How can this be fixed?
For several years, I have been warning about the consequences of overdevelopment and the negative impacts that come with it. In 2015, I made it very clear to both City Council members and county supervisors that the continued approval of large developments would lead to major traffic issues and stress on our infrastructure. Yet, there are still those that continue to mislead the public into believing that more growth will somehow solve the traffic and infrastructure issues. The answer is very simple, slow down the growth and focus on the issues we have rather than creating new ones.
How would you balance development with maintaining the unique character of the community?
Once again, the answer is very simple: slow down the growth and focus on all the beautiful things we have to offer. We need to protect our prime agricultural land from developers that insist on trying to turn our community into a mini San Jose. Developers have been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to control local officials and it’s time to take that power away by approving initiatives such as Measure Q.
If elected, how will you keep in touch with Hollister residents?
I’ve always enjoyed meeting and communicating with local residents. Each month I hold town hall meetings on social media and I also encourage residents to contact me directly with any questions they may have about local issues.
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