Kyle Chak's Blog: July 2020

Monday, July 20, 2020

EXCLUSIVE: Chacho's moving into the former Morgan Hill Times building

The Morgan Hill Times, a community newspaper serving the Morgan Hill community for many years, now has another new tenant moving into their former building.

I have now learned that Chacho's, which had a downtown San Jose presence for many years, now has another location getting ready to open in the South Bay. They have put up a sign at 30 East Third Street in downtown Morgan Hill, which was previously occupied by Huntington Station. Huntington Station has been serving customers for just 10 years before Huntington Station owners Dan and Debra Creighton announced their closure due to not being cost-effective. Locals described Huntington Station as the Morgan Hill version of the "Cheers" hit television series. Cheers itself was co-produced by Paramount Television in the 1980's set in the Boston area.

A date has not yet been set as to when Chacho's in Morgan Hill will open, so stay tuned.

Thursday, July 2, 2020

Chak's Investigation: Morgan Hill's Hard Stance on Illegal Fireworks - Maximum Fine?

Much of Santa Clara County, in the heart of Silicon Valley, has a hard stance of illegal fireworks. Only the city of Gilroy allows for "safe & sane." But in my investigation, the city of Morgan Hill is much tougher than most of Santa Clara County in regards to the fines for illegal fireworks.

The city of Morgan Hill has taken a very tough stance on illegal fireworks, including the "safe & sane" due to the hills prone to wildfires. In fact, parts of the city lies on the hills near the Anderson Reservoir and the dry grass in parts of the unincorporated areas of Morgan Hill are prone to fires. Morgan Hill has a much tougher stance on preventing fires from happening within their city, and in social media posts, remind people that setting any type of fireworks would lead to a $5000 fine, jail time, and/or probation. But remember that this is a maximum fine (minimum fine multiples by $500 times the number of times a resident is caught setting off illegal fireworks).

So how does the city of Morgan Hill compare to other cities in Santa Clara County when it comes to addressing fines for illegal fireworks?

The city of San Jose only imposed a minimum of $500 fine and a maximum of $1000 for setting off illegal fireworks within their city limits. That is only 1/5 of the fine that residents in the city of Morgan Hill would be paying.

The city of Santa Clara is a bit lighter on the issue, at $300.

The city of Gilroy has a fine up to $1000 for repeat offenders, despite that "safe & sane" fireworks are allowed in that city.

The cities of Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Milpitas, and Mountain View have not addressed the max fine they imposed when I tried to look up information of similar sorts.

The rest of Santa Clara County, which includes Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, San Martin, Saratoga, and all unincorporated parts of Santa Clara County are under jurisdiction of the Santa Clara County Fire Department.

At the time of publication of this blog, the cities of Los Altos, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Milpitas, Mountain View and the County of Santa Clara have not responded with the maximum fine for illegally setting off fireworks.

So far, out of all the cities I tried to reach in regards to illegal fireworks and the fines for using them, only the city of Morgan Hill has the most intense punishment, especially for the most repeat offenders. In all, only four cities in Santa Clara County have stated their fines for illegal firework use. I'll update as soon as the cities listed above have a set minimum and maximum fine.

E-mail: chak595301@gmail.com

Twitter or Instagram: @KyleSChak

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Let's all work together to ensure our celebrations are free of fireworks this year! <a href="https://t.co/QFXkww9Ni6">https://t.co/QFXkww9Ni6</a> <a href="https://t.co/tOvp6OgoVe">pic.twitter.com/tOvp6OgoVe</a></p>— City of Morgan Hill (@CityofMorganHil) <a href="https://twitter.com/CityofMorganHil/status/1278462680416821251?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Chak's Editorial: Reflection on KSBW President and General Manager, Joseph W. Heston

Although I was born in San Jose, I have lived in San Martin all of my life so far, watching from an antenna that is only 24.9 miles in radius from the KSBW transmitter at Fremont Peak. (I eventually went on a field trip close to that location where the transmitter is, but unrelated.) KSBW-TV 8, which is located just 1/2 mile from Highway 101 on John Street at Abbott Street in Salinas, has been around since September 1953 and was originally affiliated with all major television networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and DuMont) until 1960, then NBC and CBS until 1969 when KSBW remained as an NBC affiliate to this day and has led the way to where KSBW had remained the leader - even today. But as a long time viewer of local news on TV as a kid, I'd sit around and watch current events unfold as it happens.

KSBW president and general manager Joseph W. Heston announced in an editorial on June 12, 2020 that he plans to retire after more than 20 years at the station that spans more than 30 years at Hearst Television. Heston has been top notch overall in his role in creating a local ABC subchannel while maintaining KSBW's primary NBC affiliation on it's primary subchannel, but sadly had some unfortunate downsides on my end in regards to his countless amount of editorials heard on KSBW.

Before KSBW was owned by Hearst, there was news coverage each night but only at 5 (since the late-1980's), 6, and 11, and initially between 30 and 90 minutes in the mornings (since the late 1980's) and an 11:30am newscast later on, something that to me was unusual at the time of a midday newscast. When Heston took over as president and general manager of KSBW, his first editorial I can recall indicated that while "editorials are not part of the news", the issues he raised may also be among any viewers who watch him each Friday night and over the weekend. This was long before social media came into play, and the Internet was only in it's early stages of high speed. KSBW over the years have gradually evolved from just morning/evening newscasts each weekday and evening newscasts on the weekends to both morning and evening newscasts, 7 days a week under Heston's leadership. That accomplishment of a weekend morning newscast was successful with that launch in 2006, a first for the Monterey Bay market covering the northern part of the Central Coast.

The biggest accomplishment under Heston was the launch of Central Coast ABC on April 18, 2011 - that was the 240th market to be affiliated with ABC, just a couple of months before NBC affiliate WALB in Albany, Georgia launched an ABC on their digital subchannel. The ABC subchannel launched at 3:03am that morning, and I did record on my DVR the moment that KSBW welcomed ABC during it's morning newscast now running from 5 to 7am. I recall then-morning meteorologist Lee Solomon having too much fun not only doing the weather forecast, but also stoked that KSBW is welcoming ABC for the first time in about 5 decades. The same can be said for Dan Green and Erin Clark as well during the evening newscasts.

Not all of KSBW's editorials by Joseph W. Heston were everything that is accomplished. My personal pick for the worst editorial under his leadership was back in Feburary 2009, when KSBW produced an editorial that then-Salinas police chief Daniel Ortega called out Heston for his bias targeting the Salinas Police Department, in which then-reporter Brittany Nielsen (now a weekday morning news anchor) says that Daniel Ortega accused evening news anchor Dan Green of "theatrics." I hope that in a future editorial, KSBW will replay that editorial that I believed was biased against the Salinas Police Department before Heston retires from KSBW.

I hope that before Joesph W. Heston retires from KSBW, he would see this message and read this message from me. I can't wait to see and react to KSBW's next President & General manager, who will continue on the quest of keeping the traditions that KSBW had, including telethon events like "Share Your Holiday."

E-mail: chak595301@gmail.com

On Twitter or Instagram: @KyleSChak