EDITOR: One recent night I had the good fortune of going to the
new Central Park Library in the City of Santa Clara. As you may
know, Santa Clara has its own library system.
EDITOR:
One recent night I had the good fortune of going to the new Central Park Library in the City of Santa Clara. As you may know, Santa Clara has its own library system. This library is new and is a beautiful structure built within a concept that fits the ideal location of a library.
Unlike the council’s consideration of a downtown location formerly the Sunsweet Drying Yards, where traffic considerations, safety issues, potential pedestrian/vehicle conflicts and restrictions to size, future expansion and parking exist, the Santa Clara’s new library is located in a large park complete with picnic tables and playing fields, and has a major indoor recreation center to one side with the Santa Clara International Swim Center on the other side.
This library exudes the rare out-of-the-box thinking and the tremendous effort and planning it takes to come up with concept that features related things a library-goer would do. To have an indoor recreation center, athletic fields and swim center with shared parking close to a large full featured library has really given this community a sense of common ground and a reason for community pride.
The Central Park library does not serve as an after-thought to any special interests as this downtown proposal obviously implies. Instead it has become yet another pillar in the quality of life in Santa Clara. That is what a library should be. The Santa Clara library has been consistently ranked as one of the top 10 libraries in the United States. Recently it was ranked fourth by Hennen’s American Library Rating Service. No other West Coast Library achieved a top 10 rating. So we know this concept is on the right track.
In Morgan Hill, the Civic Center site could have the potential of being even better than the Central Park Library due to its proximity to schools and its public transportation and ease of access. If developed properly, a park and an indoor recreation center can be built on this parcel. No library location has a location as safe, picturesque and tranquil as ours in the shadow of El Toro Mountain.
What about our downtown? The reason I was at that Central Park Library in Santa Clara was it was sponsoring, in conjunction with Kaiser Permanente, a men’s health fair. We do that. Why not use our previous $20 million investment in downtown to help downtown. Can’t we use the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center to draw more people to our downtown?
Why isn’t the city pro-actively seeking events that draw a crowd which would be more conducive for business in the downtown instead of Sunday weddings and church meetings? Why doesn’t the management facilitate a seminar on preparing Asian cuisine or a men’s health faire or fitness seminars, etc.? These events would provide the types of situations and people who would be interested in shopping or dinning downtown during breaks or after the event.
It is clear this Sunsweet location at Third and Depot streets does not serve the library’s purpose. It just seems we are throwing money at this downtown situation again. It does not seem right to pander to library patrons and children to support downtown, sacrifice another $20 million and worse yet, subjugate an institution like our public library to become a tool when a properly managed Community Center which is already there in place which can serve as an enhancement to downtown better than a library. Why not follow the example provided by the City of Santa Clara and strengthen yet another pillar, another institution which we can say improves the quality of life in Morgan Hill.
Jon Y. Hatakeyama,
Morgan Hill
