Cheers: to both Live Oak and Sobrato high school football teams
for successful seasons.
Cheers to both Live Oak and Sobrato high school football teams for successful seasons. Live Oak, which started the season 0-4, pushed the top-seeded Terra Nova Tiers to the brink of upset, only to watch the first-round playoff game spiral out of control and into one of the most heart-breaking losses in recent history. Their strong play down the stretch allowed the Acorns to finish at 4-7.
Sobrato’s second post season run was brought to emphatic end by their former head coach. Despite the crushing 48-0 loss to Wilcox High School, the Bulldogs finished 8-3, their best record in school history. Congratulations to LOHS coach Jon Michael Porras, SHS coach Nick Borello, their staffs and players. Best of luck next year.
Jeers to the Association of Bay Area Governments – which administers the city’s insurance plan – for taking their sweet time in helping the Ludewig family, which runs the Pumpkin Patch and Christmas tree farm at their Monterey Road property.
About 40,000 of gallons of raw sewage, enough to fill a large swimming pool, flushed over the front lot and adjacent 10-acre lot Oct. 13, ruining a $10,000 investment in pumpkins they hoped to sell, then use the profits to buy Christmas trees to sell this holiday.
And while the city has admitted guilt and pledged to pay the family back for damages, Tache Ludewig lamented the drawn-out process. There’s “no capital, there’s no profit,” he told reporter Natalie Everett. “I just need to hear something. One day feels like a week to me. I don’t want to have this roll over into my Christmas season.”
Cheers to Morgan Hill resident Jon Persing, who has refused to pay last year’s groundwater extraction charges to the Santa Clara Valley Water District after a Santa Clara County Superior Court ruling in April said the charges are unconstitutional and violated Proposition 218 because the water district failed to secure voter approval for the property related fees.
“How can this be legal(?) (A)nd I have to imagine many of the other local well owners out there are wondering the same thing,” Persing wrote in an e-mail to the Times last week. “I can only think that (the district’s) intention is to collect the money … and settle for refunds down the road without interest, but it doesn’t seem legal or ethical.”
Meanwhile, a ruling in the remedy phase, which ended more than a week ago, was announced Monday and resulted in an award of $4.6 million to the plaintiff, Great Oaks Water Co.
Jeers to all who are responsible for the late opening of the Live Oak High School Theater, which was scheduled to open Monday night. The $5.3 million renovation project began in April 2008, and was expected to take about a year.
But delays abounded in the project, resulting from mishaps from a state inspector filling deviation notices, miscommunication between project managers and the district, and State Architect of Record delays thanks to furloughs and vendors going out of business midway through, according to Morgan Hill Unified School District officials and construction manager TBI Construction.
At long last, the Live Oak Little Theater now features classrooms for theater and band students, a lobby and a ticket booth. In front of the theater is the amphitheater with a leveled concrete and grass seating area. Finally.
Cheers to Frys for bringing a PGA Tour event to South County. Less than a year from now, Tiger Woods could be spending a week in South County to compete for the roughly $900,000 top prize in the Frys.com Open.
The 2010 PGA Tour fall series event will be played at CordeValle golf course in San Martin, about six miles south of downtown Morgan Hill.
Economic development directors and public officials in Morgan Hill and Gilroy said a high-profile sporting event such as a PGA Tour stop would be a boon to the local economy.
Frys spokesman Manny Valerio estimates the Frys.com Open’s total impact on South County – in the form of retail and hospitality sales, as well as tax revenues – to be about $20 million in one week.
