Guest View

While 2006 was a year of great growth and learning for me, both personally and professionally, I am happy to see it go. It was a tough year for many locally as we struggled with the (in some cases, very) premature loss of some beloved members of our community due to malice or inattentiveness, and nationally, as we struggled through the loss and injury of soldiers involved in wars on two fronts that become ever more difficult to sustain, financially, practically, and morally.

There is definitely too much pressure on people to make meaningful New Year's resolutions these days. And it's always the same old stuff – massive, life-altering pledges guaranteed to consume your last drop of self-control: lose weight, spend less, save more, organize your home, stop (fill in the blank) drinking, smoking, driving in the carpool lane with an inflatable doll named "Greta."

Many people are passionate about preserving farming, and they try to achieve their goal with land-use restrictions that aim to keep parcels currently used for agriculture permanently used for that purpose. It's an expensive, primarily for the landowner, and ineffective effort.

My opportunities to observe the staff at Sobrato High School have shown me they are acutely aware of safety issues and really look out for the kids. In this school year alone that is barely half over, Principal Richard Knapp and his staff have interrupted a sexual predator trying to trick students, saved another from dying on campus from acute alcohol poisoning, and caught others who have been high or in possession of alcohol or narcotics. (And these are just what made the paper). When I think of what I need from an institution that educates my children, foremost is safety. From what I've seen, no private school could do better.

Today I would like to tell you that you did it! You survived the shopping, the baking, the office parties and even the tacky "I'm Santa's Vixen" t-shirt from your weird brother-in-law, Fred. Yes, that is what I would like to tell you, but unfortunately I can't because this is post-Christmas week, a.k.a. "What the Heck Happened Here – Did We Host a College Fraternity Hazing?" Because nothing short of a nuclear blast could account for this big of a mess.

Superintendent Edwin Diaz' announcement of his fairly certain departure from the Gilroy Unified School District gives me occasion to raise yet again some of the issues I've mentioned in the past that haven't really been answered well by either district in South County.

Close your eyes and picture this: A warm and cozy ... no, wait a minute. You'd better open your eyes or you won't be able to read the rest of your newspaper. Or worse, you might drift off to sleep and land face first in your cereal bowl, and then you'll be cranky and out-of-sorts the rest of the day.

I've pretty much discounted the reality (or rather, unreality) of the next few weeks of Christmas and am already looking forward to a new year. So is the governor it seems, as he seeks to devise a proposal that addresses the crisis of inadequate health care for the entire population of California. Because so many of California's non-profits are health care providers or greatly impacted by the ramifications of poor health care policies and practices, the California Association of Non-profits asked about what is going on around the state, particularly in the area of private and public partnerships.