Ambrosio Martinez, a worker at El Modeno Gardens, waters a row of potted plants Wednesday morning. San Benito and Santa Clara counties are coping with the water shortage in different ways.
Business and government leaders Friday morning got a glimpse of a potential evolution for downtown along with ideas to better market the district and pay for possible improvements.
Consultants with Irvine-based RBF Consulting laid out the final pieces of a more-than-year-long process to develop a new strategy plan for downtown before a breakfast crowd at Paine's Restaurant. The city, Hollister Downtown Association and local businesses put up the $200,000 cost to hire the company.
Just 15 miles separate Hollister and Gilroy, but farmers in the adjacent towns have been affected by the state's current drought in entirely different ways.
California is struggling with a complex situation that includes protection of the threatened Delta smelt species, water rationing, proposed bond measures, the lowest level of spring rainfall on record, fields left fallow by local farmers - while proposed state legislation would bring a bond before voters to generate almost $10 billion toward fixing the problems.
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