Morgan Hill City Council still deciding how to handle Civic
Center bench dispute
Morgan Hill – Sometimes, it’s the little things.
After two weeks of negotiations between library supporters and sister city advocates, and 30 minutes of occasionally testy debate in city council chambers last week, the future of the new park benches in Civic Center Plaza remains an open question.
And a larger problem remains unsolved: how to get the community aware of, and engaged in, Morgan Hill’s sister city relationships.
“It’s absolutely critical and important that citizens participate in the program,” Mayor Dennis Kennedy said Monday. “The goal is to build relationships citizen to citizen from each city around the world, to build bridges, to break down barriers of misunderstanding. There are many good reasons to have these relationships.”
But as Morgan Hill’s sister city network has expanded, community interest has not.
City leaders and sister city supporters are struggling to find ways to publicize and honor the cities in Mexico, Ireland and Italy, and boost public interest. But the latest idea, to incorporate the cities into benches at the new public library that will open next year, has met surprising resistance.
“I hadn’t realized how adamant the various commission members were about not having the sister cities at the library,” said Einar Anderson, the chairman of the city’s Library, Culture and Arts Commission. “It came as surprise to me, but there was a consensus that the library wasn’t the place to have it.”
To members of the Sister City Association, which gets some financial support from the city but is not an official advisory committee, and city councilmen, the plaza that will be built along with the library is the perfect spot to commemorate the sister cities.
“This is the civic center plaza,” Kennedy said. “What more appropriate place is there for the recognition of our sister cities?”
But Chuck Dillman, former president of the sister city association who now sits on the library commission, thinks any display belongs at the Community and Cultural Center.
“That’s where we entertain sister city people when they come here and I think it will get more exposure there,” Dillman said. “The biggest issue is to find funding and a design that everyone would support.”
Dillman’s idea is to modify the fountain at the community center to include some type of tribute to the sister cities, but the city doesn’t have a budget for that kind of project. The city could, though, include a sister city design at the civic center plaza at little or no cost.
Councilman Larry Carr suggested that the benches, which will be cast in the shape of books, could be designed to look like volumes from the sister city countries.
“The books can have titles reflective of our sister cities,” Carr said. “I can’t think of anything more important for kids to learn except diversity and tolerance and the things that characterize our sister city relationships.”
But despite broad agreement on the role of the benches, the council was reluctant to overrule the recommendation of the library commission and did not demand that sister cites be included in the design.
Councilman Steve Tate, who later said he thought it makes sense to honor the cites at the civic center plaza, argued passionately at the meeting that the council should adopt the view of the library commission, and Carr called the library commission “disingenuous” for claiming that the plaza was only ever intended for library use.
The council did, however, leave the door open for such a decision. When the plaza project goes out to bid this week, it will call for six benches of an uncertain design, meaning tributes to the sister cites could be added later.
And as the city continues talks with Japan to add a fourth sister city, there are few firm plans to pique the public’s interest. But some help was offered this week by one of Morgan Hill’s biggest employers.
The Anritsu Co., a Japanese manufacturing firm that employees about 500 people in Morgan Hill, has offered to donate two display cases to show off the sister city memorabilia now crowding Kennedy’s office. The display cases will likely be installed at the community center.
“It should be on display where the public can see it, but we have nowhere to put it,” Kennedy said. “That’s a really wonderful gesture. That’s great.”
