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 AROMASAromas DayDiscover this little gem of a community and find out what it has to offer on Aromas Day. Start the day out with a full grange country-style breakfast with eggs, pancakes, ham and sausage from 7 to 11 a.m. Check out the classic cars, enjoy a variety of acts on the main stage and stroll by the park for the Aromas Hills Artisans show. The highlight of the day will be the parade through town at 2 p.m. Admission is free, so come visit on Sunday, Aug. 28 from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., downtown Aromas. Visit aromasday.com for more information. HOLLISTERAntique AircraftMeet the proud owners of beautiful antique aircrafts from Stinsons to Cessnas and more at the Frazier Lake Airpark during its monthly display days. Frazier Lake Airpark is a privately owned, old-fashioned airpark positioned in a small valley between Gilroy and Hollister that hosts numerous classic antique aircraft. The public is welcome to visit every first Saturday of the month. The gate is open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on display days. Drive carefully and remember that aircraft have the right-of-way. Enter at 7901 Frazier Lake Rd, Hollister. Visit frazierlake.com for more information.Tomato-FestIf you have a thing for tomatoes and a love for wine, then get ready to enjoy yourself at DeRose Vineyards Tomato-Fest. Celebrating the tomato, or Love Apple as it was referred to in the 16th century, DeRose will be paring some of their limited release wines with house-made dishes highlighting their own fresh, vine-ripened tomatoes. Must be 21 and older. The tasting fee is $30. Head out to the vineyard on Saturday, Sept. 3 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 9970 Cienega Rd. For reservations call (831) 636-0100 or email [email protected]. MORGAN HILLPiano ConcertThe community is invited to join Advent Lutheran Church for a grand concert by pianist Andoni Bundros, who has dedicated his life to music through performance and teaching. Bundros has a M.A. in Music from San Jose State University and has been credited for his work at Gilroy Music Academy and St. John the Divine Episcopal Church. Come enjoy original compositions at a free performance on Friday, Aug. 26, at 8 p.m., at 16870 Murphy Ave. For more information contact Sherry at (408) 779-3551. THE VALLEYItalian FestaEnjoy everything from music to marionettes, fantastic wines to authentic Italian foods, crafts and live entertainment at the Italian Family Festa in San Jose. Come out and try your hand at bocce ball, experience the zany tradition of the Italian grape stomp and enjoy visiting the many arts and crafts booths. It’s “la dolce vita Italiana,” and a great day for friends and family. Bring lawn chairs or blankets for a full, free day of festivities on Saturday, Aug. 27 from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday, Aug. 28 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at History Park, 1650 Senter Rd, San Jose. Visit italianfamilyfestasj.org for more information. SAN JUAN BAUTISTAFlynn Creek CircusBe amazed by the talented cast of aerialists and daredevils at the Flynn Creek Circus, an all-human, surprisingly contemporary show. Enter the colorful vintage tent and witness amazing acts of juggling. Be awed by human feats on the flying trapeze, the aerial rope and the teeterboard. Get your popcorn and cotton candy and catch the final two days on Aug. 27 at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. and Aug. 28 at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. Look for the big top at the San Juan School Soccer Field, 2300 San Juan Hwy, San Juan Bautista. Tickets range from $12 to $50. Visit flynncreekcircus.com for more information.Living with AutismJoin Easterseals Central California for an evening celebration with family, friends, cocktails, barbecue buffet and live music under the stars at a private lakefront park. Top off the evening with the event’s featured speaker, Andrew Howard. Howard, 16, from Santa Cruz, will share his personal story of “Living with Autism and Thriving.” Tickets are $75, $20 for youth ages 6-18 and free for kids under five. The fun begins Saturday, Aug. 27 from 5 to 8:30 p.m. at McAlpine Lake and Park, 900 Anzar Rd. For tickets and more information, visit celebratingabilities.org.WATSONVILLEWings Over WatsonvilleHave an eye-in-the-sky kind of day with a family-friendly fun free time at the Wings Over Watsonville Fly-In. Check out the unique and historic aircrafts, watch the War Bird demos and listen to live music by The Convertibles. Meet the pilots who will be hanging around to answer questions. Families can visit the Kids Zone, go round and round on the Gyro Extreme or race down the colossal inflatable slide. Visitors will have an opportunity to vote in the People’s Choice Awards. Get out and vote for your favorite on Saturday, Sept. 3 from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., at the Watsonville Municipal Airport, 100 Aviation Way. Find out more at watsonvilleflyin.org.

Live Oak had one of those teams that was three to four years in the making last year.

The Dawgs are scratching at the gate ready to be let out. And they will finally get their chance tonight traveling to Overfelt.

The trial for Sierra LaMar’s suspected murderer will remain in Santa Clara County, despite his attorneys’ plea for a change of venue.

In response to concerns among local business owners, the Morgan Hill City Council at its Aug. 24 meeting declined to accelerate the statewide minimum wage increase that the legislature approved earlier this year.Chamber of Commerce President John Horner applauded the council’s decision on behalf of his organization’s members.“As a chamber, our view is that the most important area the community can further improve upon is relevant job training, particularly to address the acute need for middle skills employees,” Horner wrote in an email to chamber members Aug. 25. “We have local companies struggling to hire for jobs already paying $15/hr to $30/hr and we have local people struggling to live on less than those amounts.  Directing our energies towards closing that gap is an area where government, businesses and educational providers can and must improve our efforts and results.”Even before the state passed a law in April that will increase California’s minimum wage in annual increments to $15 per hour in 2022, Bay Area cities and counties—including Morgan Hill—have been studying proposals to raise the hourly pay rate higher and faster than that.The council began discussing the possibility of a local minimum wage several months ago. For much of that time, city officials have awaited a consultant study on the impact of a regional minimum wage on Santa Clara County, funded by the City of San Jose. That report was completed in May.In June, the board of the Cities Association of Santa Clara County recommended a regional approach that would raise the minimum wage in larger annual increments to $16.13 per hour by 2022. The board’s rationale for the accelerated increase is the cost of living rises faster in the South Bay than it does in other areas of California.The current state and local minimum wage is $10 per hour.No cities in Santa Clara County have yet adopted the association board’s regional, accelerated recommendation, according to Economic Development Coordinator John Lang.The discussion came back to the council Aug. 24, so the elected body could consider adopting a minimum wage modeled after the Cities Association’s recommendation. After hearing from the Morgan Hill business community, and while commiserating the fact the discussion turned into a “one-sided” argument in which the employees who rely on a minimum wage are seldom heard, the council decided to let the state approach reign locally.At the Wednesday meeting, business owners and their representatives warned that the higher and faster the minimum wage rises, the more likely they would be to lay off employees or increase costs.Sean Rositano of Morgan Hill-based Gryphon Financial was one of several business people who told the council that Morgan Hill should not be lumped into the South Bay region with cities such as San Jose and Palo Alto, where high-tech jobs and higher prices dominate the market. Gryphon Financial pays many of its employees a starting wage of $12 per hour, plus health benefits.“Don’t give in to being San Jose, where there are only high-end jobs and service jobs,” Rositano said. “Let’s keep providing mid-level jobs. We want to be an employer in Morgan Hill as long as we can, so we urge you not to accelerate the minimum wage.”Other business owners who spoke at the Aug. 24 council meeting said raising prices paid by the consumer is not the best way to recover increased costs in Morgan Hill, where customers are not as affluent as they are in other parts of the region.The chamber of commerce presented data it collected from its more than 500 members, indicating that local businesses are increasingly worried about the rising costs of labor. Of the 78 chamber members who responded to a survey on the topic, 63 percent said they would lay off employees if the city or region accelerated the statewide minimum wage increase.As a result, the chamber as an organization opposed the Cities Association’s proposal. “Although Morgan Hill clearly is part of Silicon Valley, our economic model and demographics are significantly different than other Silicon Valley cities such as Palo Alto or Sunnyvale,” reads a letter to the council from chamber officials.After the discussion, Mayor Pro Temp Rich Constantine lightly chided the bosses and owners who spoke against the regional proposal for not considering how lower-income residents might benefit from a higher minimum wage. He noted in the last 100 years, the federal minimum wage has risen only $9.84. A few years ago, a decision by the City of San Jose to raise its minimum wage to $10 per hour was preceded by the same threats regarding layoffs and business closures; but those fears never materialized.“We need to start thinking about the people (who) make the minimum wage and what they go through, and how we as a society can help them,” Constantine said. “When people have more money in their pocket, they spend more money. And when people spend more money, your businesses make more money.”Councilwoman Marilyn Librers said she is against accelerating the minimum wage increase because of its possible impact on the owners. “We need to encourage small businesses to come to Morgan Hill, be profitable and stay in Morgan Hill,” Librers said. “Let’s stay with what the state is doing. We are not the Peninsula. We are Silicon Valley, but we are a small town and we want to maintain that small town feel.”

Live Oak’s athletic department received a jolt as two long-time Acorns decided to step down from their respective positions touching off a fire storm on social media this past week.

Dear Red Phone,What’s all the roadwork going on in the shoulder and on the sidewalks of Monterey Road just south of Dunne Avenue?Red Phone response:That work is related to the long-awaited Monterey Road utility undergrounding project, funded by the City of Morgan Hill and PG&E. The city council approved a contract with Northern Underground Construction in July 2014 at a cost of about $1.3 million. In June 2016, the council amended the contract with a change order that reduced the size of the project and brought the cost down to about $1.13 million, according to city staff.The city is footing about $417,000 of that cost, with utility provider PG&E funding the remaining $709,000 cost of the Northern Underground contract. Specifically, the city is responsible for relocating water and sewer lines in the way of the project, and installing new streetlights, reads a June 1 city staff report.PG&E will fund additional work and costs related to the replacement of overhead electrical wires and transformers underground within the right-of-way for Monterey Road, the staff report added.The purpose of the project is to place all overhead utility service facilities—including electrical, Verizon and Charter wires—into underground conduits and vaults on Monterey Road from Dunne to about 500 feet south of Spring Avenue, Morgan Hill Public Works Director Karl Bjarke explained.“Since much of the contractor’s work is in the shoulder and sidewalk areas, (the city is) rebuilding the curb, gutter, sidewalk and asphalt portions of the roadway south of Dunne (Avenue),” Bjarke said. “Once the old PG&E poles are removed, there will be new LED streetlights placed along the roadway.”The project has been in the early planning stages for several years, delayed by complicated negotiations among the city, PG&E and other utility service providers involved.“Due to significant contract disagreements between PG&E and the other utility companies with wires on the poles (Verizon & Charter) and due to continually rising PG&E costs to perform necessary work, the city has struggled to get the project completed,” reads the June 1 staff report. “However, city staff and PG&E representatives have now agreed on a plan for completing the work in 2016.”The project is mostly funded through PG&E’s “Project 20A” program, which sets aside a portion of proceeds from local rate payers in an account designated for capital improvements in Morgan Hill, the staff report added. The city’s Project 20A account currently collects about $78,000 per year, and had about $2.3 million at the end of April 2015.PG&E’s “inflexibility” in approving 20A projects has resulted in further delays, according to city staff.The original proposed scope of the work would have placed the utilities underground all the way south to Cosmo Avenue. However, PG&E proclaimed an urgency to spend the Project 20A funds before the end of 2016 because their availability after that is uncertain. That forced the city and utilities to begin the work this summer, without enough funds for the original size of the project.

The Bay Area’s own rock opera has returned to its roots for a grand welcoming. Born of Green Day’s 2004 Grammy-winning prize for Best Rock Album, American Idiot premiered at Berkeley Repertory Theater in 2009, after lead singer and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong collaborated on the book with Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer. They added a few songs from other Green Day albums, a few lines of dialogue, and were off and running. Since then, American Idiot has travelled to Broadway, the smoky basements of British pubs, and currently is back in the Bay Area where it’s playing to sold out crowds—this time at City Lights Theater Company in San Jose. The production, directed by Jeffrey Bracco, was originally scheduled to close Sunday, Aug. 21, 2016, but has been extended for five more performances. American Idiot tells the story of three young men who struggle to find themselves in the suburbs during the darkness the brand new millennium, each turning in a different direction. Under the musical direction of Samuel Cisneros, all the leads—particularly the trio of friends at the heart of the story, Johnny (Joey Pisacane), Tunny (Andrew Erwin), and Will (Tarif Pappu)—roll out superb vocal performances. The entire cast bring Green Day’s familiar songs to life in a way that’s familiar, while still adding something fresh. In particular, “21 Guns” and “St. Jimmy” contain superb solos and powerful moments by the company. Together, scenic designer and production manager, Ron Gasparinetti, and lighting and projections designer, Nick Kumamoto, worked numerous functioning television screens into the set to create a sense of the time period. In other scenes, faded backdrops project to effectively create mood or demonstrate place or time period without distraction. The minimalist, multi-level set accommodates this 21 person cast on City Lights' relatively small stage. The actors make good use of the rolling set pieces, which help provide for seamless transitions and some of the production’s more inventive choreography. Onstage, the set incorporates a guitar, bass, and keyboard player, while another guitar and drums are hidden from view. Johnny and Will also play their own guitars during the show, adding another layer of intimacy to this 100-person venue where neither the music, the images, nor the characters ever want to let you go. Don't miss the last days of this performance. Aug. 24-27 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Aug. 28 at 2 p.m. Contact (408) 295-4200 or cltc.org for ticket information. City Lights Theater Company is located at 529 S. Second St, in San Jose’s SoFA arts district.

In a small, converted 1930s house on Main Street in Morgan Hill, with just enough room for a few tables inside and an outdoor patio for al fresco dining, locals wait to be seated at Sicilia in Bocca. Once seated, I am greeted with a basket of sliced, crusty bread and complimentary bruschetta—fresh tomato, basil and garlic, gently tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper on a crisp ciabatta—a perfect start to a real Italian dinner.