Latest news with #Bozzo
San Francisco Chronicle
2 days ago
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
After tragedy, a beloved Bay Area festival shut down. Now it's back — but it'll be different
Greg Bozzo stood amid the towering redwoods and lush green hills of Gilroy's Christmas Hill Park, blinking back tears as he wondered aloud: When it mattered most, did he do enough? Nearly six years ago, Bozzo — a tall, gray-haired man with relentless energy — was at this same park, getting ready to break down the 41st annual Gilroy Garlic Festival, when he heard a pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. He glanced up. Droves of people were fleeing what he later learned was a gunman, dressed like a soldier with an assault rifle, near the inflatable slide. What Bozzo witnessed over the next 45 seconds — pure chaos as he rushed toward the slide to help; festival-goers frantically tending to the wounded; people crying out for their loved ones — has stuck with him. 'I refuse to recognize that I'm an emotional person,' Bozzo said while discussing that shooting, which killed three people, including two children.'But this? This one gets me.' Last year, despite having no political experience, Bozzo ran for Gilroy mayor. At the crux of his campaign: a promise to help himself and others heal from the horrific events of July 28, 2019, by reviving the city's iconic festival. For the four decades before its abrupt and tragic closure, it had been an essential source of local pride. Now, about seven months after Bozzo was narrowly elected, he is among a small group of community leaders responsible for the festival's comeback. And the big question for most Gilroyans isn't whether resuscitating the event was worth it. Rather, it's whether a scaled-down version can provide the Silicon Valley suburb's roughly 60,000 residents the closure they need. What's clear is it will feel different. When the three-day festival arrives July 25 at Gilroy Gardens' South County Grove, it will be somewhere other than Christmas Hill Park for the first time since its founding in 1979. It will also be a fraction of the size. Long known for drawing crowds of more than 100,000 people, this iteration is limited to 9,000 guests. Tickets sold out within six hours. 'I think we're ready for this festival so we can show that we can turn the page and move on,' said City Council Member Tom Cline, who served as Gilroy Garlic Festival Association president from 2019 to 2021. 'Boston got to have the Boston Marathon the year after the bombing, and we just weren't able to do that.' Just as that marathon is more than a race, the Gilroy Garlic Festival became more than a place to eat and listen to music. People planned their summer schedules around it. By transforming Gilroy's garlicky stench from a punchline to a point of honor, and raising millions of dollars for charities, the event came to embody the principles residents say they value most: hard work, hospitality, community. With those festivities now shrouded by tragedy, organizers hope to usher in a new era while reminding visitors of their decades-long heyday. Among the many familiar attractions set to return are free samples of garlic ice cream, garlic-themed arts and crafts, and 'Gourmet Alley,' where pyro chefs fire up gigantic skillets loaded with such garlic-infused dishes as shrimp scampi and pepper-steak sandwiches. The ultimate goal: grow this reimagined event in coming years to the point where Gilroy feels like itself again. 'Gilroy is the garlic festival,' said Gilroy native Patrick Carr, who teaches at a middle school in nearby Watsonville. 'And, it wasn't just what put us on the map. It was supposed to be our safe space.' During his recent visit to Christmas Hill Park, Bozzo leaned against his white pickup in the parking lot as he gazed at the patch of grass where the inflatable slide used to sit. In the more than 2,000 days since he found himself about 100 yards from an active shooter, Bozzo, 58, has confided in people he trusted about the complex emotions triggered by the incident. Those conversations helped him acknowledge his nagging what-ifs for what they are: signs that he hasn't fully moved forward from the tragedy. 'Rationally, I know there was nothing I could do,' Bozzo said. 'But when you go through something traumatic like this, you can't help but question yourself.' As the 2019 festival was winding down on a warm Sunday evening, 19-year-old Santino Legan crept along Uvas Creek, then used bolt cutters to sneak through a fence. After raising an AK-47-style rifle he'd recently purchased in Nevada, he began shooting at festival-goers gathered near the inflatable slide. On top of the three people he killed, Legan wounded 17. Many others, like Bozzo, were left with less visible injuries. Though Legan is believed to have had possible links to the white supremacist movement, authorities couldn't identify a specific motive for the shooting. Perhaps the closest they'll come to knowing what compelled Legan was his four-word response to someone who'd asked him amid the mayhem why he was doing this: 'Because I'm really angry.' The rampage ended less than a minute after it started when, while under fire from police, Legan took his own life. Witnesses recall feeling like the violence had lasted forever. Christian Swain, lead vocalist of the local cover band TinMan, was midway through Grand Funk Railroad's 'We're an American Band' when the shooting began close-by. He tossed his microphone, raced off a 5-foot stage with his bandmates, dropped to his hands and knees, closed his eyes and asked himself: How could this be happening? Gene Sakahara, a retired educator who'd attended the festival since its inception, remembered having a similar thought. After he grabbed two of his young grandsons, Sakahara guided them behind a large barbecue grill and, while clutching a chef's knife, watched for the shooter. Nearby, at the slide, Bozzo heard a woman screaming for her daughter, in Spanish. Almost immediately, he realized that her daughter, 13-year-old Keyla Salazar, had been killed. Before the woman could see her child, Bozzo directed her toward other family members. Salazar, a San Jose resident, had been an aspiring animator. Legan's two other victims were Stephen Romero, a 6-year-old San Jose boy who loved Batman and Legos, and 25-year-old recent college grad Trevor Irby. The Chronicle's attempts to contact the families of Salazar, Romero and Irby were unsuccessful. Within a week of the Gilroy massacre, mass shootings at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, and a busy entertainment district in Dayton, Ohio, seized national attention. Since then, nearly 4,000 shootings involving multiple homicides have occurred nationwide. Whenever a mass shooting hits the news cycle, many Gilroy survivors feel thrust back in time. 'The events of that day have never fully left me,' Swain said. 'Just when I think I've moved past it, I hear about a shooting at a mall, a church or even another festival, and I'm reliving it all over again.' To some, the way to cope seemed obvious: try to replace the memories with more positive ones. Yet, even as two copycat garlic festivals sprouted in the Central Valley, Gilroy's failed to relaunch. In the wake of the shooting, the event's insurance liability spiked from $1 million to $10 million — a prohibitive sum for its grassroots operators. A lawsuit filed by five of the wounded alleged that poor planning by the city, the festival association and the festival's security firm had made the shooting possible. Then the pandemic arrived. By April 2022, festival organizers were announcing that the event could be canceled for the 'foreseeable future.' Through it all, the festival association tried to keep the spirit of the event alive — and maintain the brand. There have been farm-to-table dinners, golf tournaments, concerts, even a drive-through popup at a Presbyterian church meant to mimic 'Gourmet Alley.' 'The thought of giving up was just too tough for us to stomach,' said Cindy Fellows, the festival association's president last year. In November 2023, a judge dismissed the shooting victims' lawsuit. Soon, the city dropped the festival's insurance liability to $4 million. The following April, Bozzo, a landscape contractor well-known for his community involvement, announced his campaign for mayor. Like many of his neighbors, he felt the city hadn't done enough to resurrect the festival. And, as a former festival association president who'd worked the event his entire adult life, Bozzo figured he was as equipped as anyone to troubleshoot any challenges. Within days of his swearing-in, Bozzo appointed himself to a seat on the Gilroy Gardens Board of Directors, which allowed him to act as a sort of mediator between festival organizers and the city-owned venue. 'As soon as Greg became mayor, I noticed that the overall attitude shifted throughout town about the festival,' said Paul Nadeau, the festival association's current president. 'Before, there were a lot of preconceived notions that the city didn't want it, so it just wasn't going to happen. Greg campaigning on bringing the festival back was really big in making people believe, 'Hey, maybe this really canhappen.'' Bozzo's campaign theme also forced residents to face an uncomfortable question: What is Gilroy without the garlic festival? Nestled at the intersection of two concrete paths, on what locals call Christmas Hill Park's 'ranch side,' three boulders symbolizing those killed flank a huge palm tree. Surrounding this small garden, a wooden fence has 17 markers — one for each person injured. Though Bozzo helped the city construct that memorial, he seldom visits it. Occasionally, while talking about what many Gilroyans still consider the worst day in town history, he remembers just how raw those feelings remain. 'We can't let some crazy guy determine our community's fate,' Bozzo said. 'It's time to have our festival back. It's time for us all to heal.' Community leaders founded the Gilroy Garlic Festival in 1979, after the president of a local college became incensed about a tiny French town proclaiming itself the real 'Garlic Capital of the World.' Within a few years, that celebration of all things garlic was packing the 51-acre Christmas Hill Park the last weekend of each July, receiving write-ups in national magazines and changing people's perceptions about its eponymous allium. Despite being a widely used cooking ingredient, garlic had long been stigmatized as stinky, working-class and old-world. Notorious for the pungent odor that wafted from the garlic processing plants on the east side of town, Gilroy had a similarly unsavory reputation. But the more the garlic festival ballooned in popularity, the more people appreciated the plant for its versatility and flavor. Some culinary experts touted the eclectic dishes from 'Gourmet Alley' as the ultimate showcase of garlic's unifying power. And it wasn't just cuisines that garlic was bringing together. By the time Gilroy-based Christopher Ranch solidified itself in the 1990s as the nation's premier grower of garlic, the festival was going global. Gilroyans love recounting stories about encountering someone in a far-away land who, upon meeting them, shot back some variation of the same response: Gilroy? The garlic capital! For a place some consider Santa Clara County's last bastion of agriculture, the garlic festival represented far more than a quirky niche. It was a reason for residents to puff their chests. Gilroy's official logo features a lowercase 'g' with a garlic bulb depicted as the curly tail. On the side of a prominent building downtown, a giant mural asserts the community's 'garlic capital' status. 'Back when I was a kid growing up in Gilroy, coming from a town that smelled like garlic was embarrassing,' said Sakahara, a lifelong Gilroyan who teams up with Greg Bozzo's father, Sam Bozzo, at every garlic festival to form 'SakaBozzo,' the crowd-favorite cooking demonstration duo. 'Now, thanks to the garlic festival, it's chic to reek.' The festival also brought much-needed tourism to a community often on the brink of a fiscal crisis. For at least three days every year, city leaders could bank on full hotels, gas-station lines and swarmed diners. Though Gilroy is creating a new executive-level position tasked with attracting new businesses and boosting sales-tax revenue, it has no easy way to replicate the cash infusion the festival once offered. Then there's all the money nonprofits and schools have lost without the festival. Throughout its 41-year run at Christmas Hill Park, the garlic festival was Gilroy's biggest fundraiser, generating a total of more than $12 million for local charities. In the process, it pioneered a creative business model. At the end of each festival, event leaders divided festival proceeds among the organizations that supplied several thousand volunteers, doling out checks that covered hourly wages for every worker. For some groups, those four- or five-figure payouts were an indispensable part of their annual operating budgets. 'It has been an ongoing, significant challenge for us to replace the money we got every year from the festival,' said Kelly Ramirez, president of the Gilroy Rotary Club. 'For the first time this summer, we sold fireworks. Of course, that's not as profitable as the garlic festival was.' All these years later, Ramirez can feel her heart drumming in her chest when she discusses the shooting. She had been in a nearby retail booth when Legan opened fire. Another volunteer in her booth was wounded. Like Ramirez, Swain thinks a lot these days about how lucky he is to be alive. Had the shooter just turned a bit to his right, Swain said, he would have seen the stage where the members of TinMan were 'sitting ducks.' Now Swain is preparing to finish what he started. He had only gotten to the second chorus of 'We're an American Band' before TinMan fled offstage. Though the crowd will be smaller, and the venue will be different, Swain and his band are set to perform July 26, at the end of the new-look event's second day. Since its last garlic festival, TinMan has ended dozens of shows with 'We're an American Band.' The next performance figures to be the most memorable. 'I don't care that fewer people will be there this time,' Swain said. 'When my band finally gets to finish that song, all the memories will flood back. It'll feel cathartic. It'll feel right.'
31-05-2025
- Sport
Northeastern edges Bethune-Cookman 4-3 in elimination game of Tallahassee Regional
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Gregory Bozzo hit a go-ahead home run with two outs in the ninth inning and Northeastern held off Bethune-Cookman 4-3 on Saturday in an elimination game of the Tallahassee Regional. No. 2 seed Northeastern (49-10) awaits the loser of Saturday's second game between top-seeded host Florida State and Mississippi State. The third-seeded Bulldogs beat Northeastern 11-2 in the regional opener to snap the Huskies' 27-game win streak, which had been the nation's longest current run. Bozzo homered on a 0-2 pitch from Wildcats reliever Yoansell Diaz (5-5). Jack Doyle reached on a throwing error and moved to second on a balk before scoring on an infield single by Ryan Gerety for a two-run advantage. Brett Dunham walked the first two batters he faced in the ninth. A fielding error led to an unearned run before Dunham struck out leadoff batter Darryl Lee with runners on second and third, and retired Andrey Martinez on a groundout for his sixth save. Jordan Gottesman started for Northeastern and allowed a run on five hits in five innings with six strikeouts. Charlie Walker (4-0) allowed a run on two hits and struck out five in three innings of relief.
Winnipeg Free Press
31-05-2025
- Sport
- Winnipeg Free Press
Northeastern edges Bethune-Cookman 4-3 in elimination game of Tallahassee Regional
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Gregory Bozzo hit a go-ahead home run with two outs in the ninth inning and Northeastern held off Bethune-Cookman 4-3 on Saturday in an elimination game of the Tallahassee Regional. No. 2 seed Northeastern (49-10) awaits the loser of Saturday's second game between top-seeded host Florida State and Mississippi State. The third-seeded Bulldogs beat Northeastern 11-2 in the regional opener to snap the Huskies' 27-game win streak, which had been the nation's longest current run. Bozzo homered on a 0-2 pitch from Wildcats reliever Yoansell Diaz (5-5). Jack Doyle reached on a throwing error and moved to second on a balk before scoring on an infield single by Ryan Gerety for a two-run advantage. Brett Dunham walked the first two batters he faced in the ninth. A fielding error led to an unearned run before Dunham struck out leadoff batter Darryl Lee with runners on second and third, and retired Andrey Martinez on a groundout for his sixth save. Jordan Gottesman started for Northeastern and allowed a run on five hits in five innings with six strikeouts. Charlie Walker (4-0) allowed a run on two hits and struck out five in three innings of relief. Edwin Sanchez started for the Wildcats (37-23) and allowed two runs on five hits in seven innings with seven strikeouts. ___ AP college sports:
CBS News
26-02-2025
- General
- CBS News
Bay Area home building in Wildland Urban Interface areas increases residential wildfire risk
A data analysis by the CBS News Data Team shows a growing number of Bay Area homes are facing increased wildfire risk. In the 1990s, about 917,000 homes in the Bay Area were in Wildland Urban Interface areas, or WUI. Those areas are on land that sits on the edge or within wilderness, putting it at high fire risk. By 2020, there were 1.2 million homes in the WUI, a 27% increase. In some areas, more than 80% of homes are in the WUI: Lake County: 95% Marin County: 88% Mendocino County: 87% Napa County: 84% In terms of growth, Alameda County saw a 40% increase in the number of homes in the WUI (between 1990 and 2020). Contra Costa County saw a 33% increase in the same time frame. In Alameda County, about 1 in 3 homes are in the WUI. In Contra Costa County, about 2 in 3 homes are in the WUI. The city of Brentwood, which has a population of 65,126, saw a 23x increase: 1990: 395 homes in the WUI 2020: 9051 homes in the WUI Andy Bozzo, a battalion chief at the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District, knew well about the WUI even before he was a firefighter. Bozzo, a biology major in college, wrote about "forest succession in a wildfire environment" for his final senior paper. "Most plant species [native to California] are born to burn. They're evolved to burn and live in a fire environment. We also need to evolve to live in a fire environment in California. That can be tough sometimes," Bozzo said. "Now, we're creating these dense neighborhoods and pushing really deep into these wildlands that it's just a fact of life… When you push into wildland, you're going to have higher encounters with things like wildfire." Last June, the Empire Fire sparked near homes in Brentwood, including Rodney Griffin's. Griffin, who moved into his Brentwood home in 2002, said it was the worst fire he'd seen from his home. "We've had fires within a couple of miles of the place that I've often watched from upstairs burn, but none have really quite threaded our home quite like (the Empire Fire)," Griffin said. "We could've had quite a lot of destruction." No homes or structures were destroyed in the Empire Fire, which was fully contained after burning 250 acres. "[These neighborhoods are] beautiful. They have beautiful views. But in the summer time, if a fire gets a good head of steam, it can spot ahead of itself," Bozzo said. "That's what we worry about in neighborhoods like this." Separately, for the first time in 15 years, Cal Fire also released a new fire-risk map for the Bay Area. The red areas on the map represent very high-risk fire zones. Sonoma County saw the biggest increase with that designation, while Oakland saw its fire hazards reduced. Homeowners in the danger zones will eventually have to use more fire-resistant building materials and landscaping and create a five-foot "ember-resistant" zone around their homes. In the Los Angeles wildfires earlier this year, fences fueled the spread of the flames. The state will also require fences that connect to homes to be made out of something other than wood.
Yahoo
04-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
CHEP North America CEO David Cuenca is Among Longstanding Leadership Appointments Made in 2024 to Drive Customer Centricity in 2025 and Beyond
Supply chain solutions company elevates customer experience and innovation through seasoned executives ATLANTA, February 04, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CHEP, a Brambles company and global leader in supply chain solutions, continues to reinforce its customer-focused efforts by appointing experienced internal talent to key executive positions. In July 2024, David Cuenca, formerly the CEO of CHEP Europe, transitioned to the role of CEO of CHEP North America. Since then, the company made additional appointments, including Frank Bozzo as Senior Vice President & General Manager of CHEP Canada and Pallecon North America & Europe, and Chad Connors as Vice President of Operations for the North Region, CHEP U.S. These strategic appointments underscore the company's dedication to leveraging seasoned leadership to enhance its operations to best serve its customers. As CHEP continues to innovate and invest in its infrastructure, these leaders will play a crucial role in ensuring the seamless delivery of state-of-the-art supply chain solutions, fostering a customer-centric culture that prioritizes resiliency and sustainability. Manufacturers and retailers will benefit from each leader's wealth of supply chain talent and knowledge, which spans numerous industries and businesses of all sizes regionally and globally. David Cuenca, CEO, CHEP North America: Since joining CHEP in 2000, Cuenca has held a range of leadership roles in the organization throughout Europe and Latin America. Now, he'll leverage his extensive global pooling experience to elevate the North American market, which has the most expansive regional network of service centers and supplies more than one million pallets per day to customers. Under his leadership, CHEP will continue investing in what matters most to customers and stakeholders to create a smarter and more resilient supply network. Frank Bozzo, Senior Vice President & General Manager, CHEP Canada and Pallecon North America & Europe: In this role, Bozzo adds Pallecon Europe to his scope while continuing to support the CHEP Canada and North America Pallecon businesses. During his 22 years at CHEP, Bozzo has worked to improve the organization, starting with pallets in Canada and expanding his responsibilities to include Pallecon containers in 2022, where he continued to challenge the status quo to achieve record success in North America. With a steadfast focus on his people, customers and retail partners, Bozzo fosters a collaborative culture that continuously drives success. Chad Connors, Vice President, Operations, North America, CHEP U.S.: Connors steps into this role from a senior director position, following his continued positive contributions to the organization throughout his tenure in various leadership roles. With a robust background spanning more than 25 years, Connors has experience in engineering, automation, tech systems, operations, strategy and sales. His extensive industry knowledge enables him to provide exceptional support to his teams, colleagues and customers, ensuring best-in-class service. These three leadership appointments support CHEP in delivering quality service and solutions to the approximately 300,000 partners it serves worldwide. The continuity of its executive team also reflects the company's longstanding position as an industry leader and trusted partner for more than 60 years. About CHEP CHEP is a global leader in supply chain solutions. Together with producers, manufacturers, retailers and logistics partners, CHEP advances the smart and sustainable movement of goods across more than 60 countries. Powered by its share, repair and reuse network of pallets, crates and containers, CHEP helps businesses optimize their supply chains to reduce costs and minimize the environmental impact of their operations. CHEP pairs its leadership in circularity, which helps tackle emissions, waste and single-use packaging, with a focus on resilience, to build future-ready supply networks through data, scale and collaboration. With its operational excellence trusted by the world's top brands, CHEP primarily serves customers in the consumer staples (e.g. dry food, grocery, household products, health and personal care, fresh produce and beverage), retail, automotive and general manufacturing industries. A part of the Brambles Group, CHEP manages ~347 million pallets and containers through a network of 750+ service centers, employing approximately 11,000 people worldwide with its largest operations in North America and Europe. For more information, visit View source version on Contacts Rachel Barclay Sr. Manager, Corporate CommunicationsCHEP North America+1
