The Hollister City Council hoped that the public would not notice their desire to spend several million dollars to double the capacity of the Hollister Wastewater Facility to allow for more developments. It turned out that over 80 Westside residents did notice what the city was up to and showed up at the city meeting to voice their anger and frustration with the city council.
Councilman Rolan Resendiz, who represents the Westside of Hollister, pointed out that the doubling of the sewer plant was unnecessary and was only being done to allow for more developments along Fairview Road and other parts of the county. Mayor Mia Casey and Councilwoman Dolores Morales tried to convince the audience that the upgrade was necessary because of a previously approved project by the county at the San Juan Oaks project and for sewer service to San Juan Baustista.
Councilman Resendiz pointed out that even with the new connections of the county project and the San Juan Baustista sewer service connection that there would still be plenty of capacity for several years, which was confirmed by staff. Mr Resendiz then asked city staff if there were any discussions of also providing sewer services for more developments along Fairview Road, which was also confirmed by city staff.
Mr. Resendiz then asked both Mayor Mia Casey and Councilwoman Dolores Morales to disclose the thousands of dollars they have received from developers and special interest groups that have been trying to develop the Fairview corridor and other parts of the community.
Councilwoman Dolores Morales and Mayor Mia Casey immediately tried to silence Councilman Rolan Resendiz, which led to many in the audience voicing their anger at the city council. Councilman Resendiz continued to demand that both Mayor Mia Casey and Councilwoman Dolores Morales disclose their conflicts of interests. “These two want to spend millions of tax dollars to pay back developers that supported them in their campaigns and everyone in our community needs to know that they work for developers, not us”. The item was eventually approved by a vote of 4-1 with only Councilman Resendiz voting against the item.
The following meeting brought an effort by Councilwoman Dolores Morales and Mayor Mia Casey to hire an outside investigator to see if there was anything in Councilman Rolan Resendiz background to keep him from voting on certain issues and also to censure him as a way to punish him for his comments at the previous meeting. Councilwoman Morales has even gone so far as to claim that she feels that she is being harassed and stalked by Councilman Resendiz.
Mr. Resendiz, commented that he will continue to expose what is really going on in the city and how developers and special interest groups own both Mayor Mia Casey and Councilwoman Dolores Morales. He then said, “developers are doing everything possible to get their developments approved as quickly as possible and they have their friends at City Hall to get it done”.
