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Ahead of local schools’ upcoming summer break, Hollister city officials are looking to engage with young bicyclists to address safety concerns raised by community members who say many don’t wear helmets or abide by road laws.
Hollister Mayor Roxanne Stephens said at the May 18 City Council meeting that she’ll work with City Manager Ana Cortez to host an event such as a pizza party to engage with the young riders on laws regarding wearing safety helmets, road safety and recreational activities for the youth.
No event or date has been set.
Cortez recommended hosting a pizza party to begin conversations with young bicyclists.
“We’ve had phone calls to the office from drivers who are concerned about the safety of those young people and the fear that a driver will hit one of these young bikers,” Cortez said.
She said community members also raised concerns about the lack of local activities for youth.
Stephens said the idea is to engage youth to inform them about safety concerns and to get feedback on what they need to ensure their safety.
She, along with other council members, said she opposed creating an ordinance to deal with the issue.
An ordinance is “just another way to enforce some things that will limit these young people’s ability to be out in the world and exploring and having a good time,” she said.
Councilmember Dolores Morales said she supported engaging with youth and understood the safety concerns some residents have raised. She also noted some of the community members have reached out to her voicing their discomfort with a group of kids hanging out on the street.
She said she supported kids spending time outside socializing and exercising rather than in front of a screen.
“We need to have some type of facilitated conversation with our community that perceives this or see it from a different light, versus how the young people see it,” she said.
Morales said that while it’s worthwhile to understand concerns about youth, any action the city takes needs to come with viable solutions.
“We’ve had a lot of town hall meetings where people have shared a lot of wonderful ideas and concerns and then nothing happened,” she said. “That’s where we lose trust and when people are becoming engaged in a process and then nothing happens, I think people really feel like that’s a slap in the face.”
Councilmember Rudy Picha said he supported the pizza party idea and said he felt it was the city’s duty to prevent accidents. He said that a few months ago a young bicyclist was hit by a car on Tres Pinos Road near Chase Bank.
“I think that’d be a great use of public funds,” he said. “There’s already [an accident] that happened and I’m concerned more will happen.”
He also suggested reaching out to other communities to address similar issues as well as asking community groups such as churches to partner with the city to inform the kids about safety risks.
Community member Maxwell Neff said the city should reach out to communities with established bicycle environments such as Davis. He said when he attended a UC Davis orientation, he also attended a bike safety session.
Neff said, “They sat us down with a local organization for bikers that said ‘Here’s what you do, here’s what you don’t do. Don’t die, please.’”
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