Around Town … with Robert Airoldi: Girls inaugural flag football league is coming soon to South Valley

The new league offers girls an exclusive opportunity to join the flag football wave crossing the United States.

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By Robert Airoldi

We got some good news from Jeff Dixon who runs the South Valley Flag Football League. This spring, SVFFL is expanding its operations by adding a girls-only 5-on-5 flag football division. The new league offers 6-8, 9-11 and 12-14 age brackets, played on Sunday afternoons at Sobrato High School in conjunction with its existing co-ed flag football divisions.

The league offers girls an exclusive opportunity to join the flag football wave crossing the United States.

“Together with our partner, Gridiron Football, we are able to offer female athletes a chance to enjoy everything flag football has to offer,” league founder Dixon said. “The expansion of girls flag football is essential to the growth of the game and demonstrates that football is for all. Most importantly, the greater opportunity for young women to build the transferable skills football provides for achieving success in life.”

Registration is open now at www.southvalleyflag.com. Dixon encourages girls and women passionate about football to come play, coach and/or officiate. You can contact Jeff at [email protected] or follow at Facebook.com/SVFLAG.

The County of Santa Clara Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office launched an innovative online dashboard earlier this month that offers comprehensive case data as well as categorized and geographical breakdowns of all deaths reviewed by the office since 2018.

The state-of-the-art and technologically robust dashboard provides basic demographics — age, race, gender, ZIP code — as well as the cause and manner of death, with personal identifying information removed.

The dashboard also includes tools to assist in data research, covering specific areas such as cause of death, including homicides, suicides, accidents, and drug overdoses. There are analytic sections on deaths due to COVID-19, opioids, motor vehicle accidents, child deaths, deaths among the unhoused, and elderly fall deaths. GIS mapping shows deaths by ZIP code. A “John/Jane Doe” page provides case information and sketches for individuals who remain unidentified so the public can assist in identification.

“These case records and analytics provide a unique lens through which to examine different aspects of deaths in Santa Clara County, whether by cause, in a particular geographical area, or within a certain segment of the community,” said Dr. Michelle Jorden, County of Santa Clara Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner. She said the dashboard serves two main purposes: Providing real-time case data to researchers, law enforcement, journalists and the public; and providing immediate public access to maps and data sets that eliminate the wait-time for a California Public Records Act response.

The dashboard can be found at www.scc-mec.org. The county’s open data homepage is at www.data.sccgov.org/.

Gavilan Community College welcomes Rosie Zepeda as its new public information  officer. She served as the director of media, governmental relations and marketing at City College of San Francisco and has more than 20 years of experience in public relations, community  outreach, internal/external communications strategies, and government relations. She holds a  master’s in education from Herbert Lehman College, Bronx, N.Y. and a bachelor’s in theater arts, Spanish, with a minor in communication studies from Santa Clara University.

“Gavilan College’s rich history as a Hispanic serving institution, with core values for a more personalized experience, match my goal to serve and provide outreach for both of our unique South County communities,” she said in a press release.

Welcome to South Valley, Rosie! Best of luck with your new job.

Gilroy Lodge hosted local students Yael Guiterrez, Nikolina Reiner and Abigail McCowan and their families and teachers at the Americanism Essay Awards Family Night Dinner.

There were 70 Lodge members attending the dinner who heard each of the students read their essay.

Students who authored an essay received a certificate of participation. The lodge also recognized the students’ teachers and the principal for their encouragement of the students’ participation.

Get involved and share your ideas. Gilroy has several openings for civic-minded citizens on its boards and commissions:

• Arts and Culture Commission – 1 seat

• Open Government Commission – 1 seat

• Parks and Recreation Commission – 1 seat

• Physically Challenged Board of Appeals – 2 seats

To get an application visit: www.cityofgilroy.org/148/Boards-Commissions-Committees.