Dear Editor, Everyone would like a nice downtown! Like Santana
Row!! Let’s ask ourselves: why do people like and go to Santana
Row? Morgan Hill wants to create a
”
cozy
”
downtown, and there is a lot of construction going on to
accomplish this. First we need to get rid of the flooding when it
rains!
Dear Editor,
Everyone would like a nice downtown! Like Santana Row!!
Let’s ask ourselves: why do people like and go to Santana Row?
Morgan Hill wants to create a “cozy” downtown, and there is a lot of construction going on to accomplish this. First we need to get rid of the flooding when it rains!
Here are a couple of other ideas. This one the Sunnyvale Downtown Association brought about in their town. Their jazz series, comparable to our music series or other festival, decided not to have food booths. The idea they had is to get the food from the restaurants (and we have many good ones). This could go a long way toward creating goodwill with eateries that sometimes see business drop during such festivals. (I do not see much food from Morgan Hill eateries at the Morgan Hill festivals). Diners can order from a “master menu” that includes items from the eateries, they have the food delivered to tables maybe at the Community Center, or the new Third Street. It is delivered in compostable packaging, so the event stays zero-waste.
Also Morgan Hill eateries could offer prix-fixe dinners; this is happening at some Santana Row eateries.
How about some classical music? I am the President of the South Valley Symphony, in existence now for the 36 season, and hardly anyone in Morgan Hill I believe knows we exist! We would love to play in town (we usually play at Gavilan) but do not get much support here when we have played. Have carolers or a choir sing at the Christmas parade. This is why people go to Santana Row; the beautiful ambiance, flowers (love our flower beds), surroundings and food. We can create all this here and the young people will come back as well. I have lived here 31 years.
Kristin Carlson, Morgan Hill
No link between income level and the tendency to be a rotten neighbor
Dear Editor,
As someone who has worked to provide services to homeless people in the last 12 years, I’ve seen my share of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) and fear-mongering, but really, this takes the cake. What is egregious is the use of information that ranges from partially correct to flat out wrong to mislead the community.
In a population of 34,600, the draft Housing Element proposes to build 688 units of housing over seven years for low-income people who make between $53,500 and $84,900 a year. The plan also calls for twice that number affordable to incomes greater than $126,000. Keep in mind, this is new construction. Glenn Ritter makes it look like we’re just teeming with low-income units, when in fact, we still don’t have enough to meet the need so that good people who contribute to our community can stay here.
I just shake my head at the irony that Ritter, a city employee with generous taxpayer-provided benefits on top of a taxpayer-provided salary, which are the hardest things for the city budget to accommodate every year, calls this income group “resource sapping.”
It’s extremely sad that a person claiming to “preserve the quality of life we have come to enjoy in our town” does so by spreading misinformation about a salary range that is made by young professionals, teachers, police, nonprofit workers, and young families just starting out. Affordable housing not only gives them financial stability, but also a strong motivation to improve their homes and neighborhoods. Adding to the discouragement are the assumptions of some online writers, decrying that housing built to be affordable to this income level will “attract thugs.” What?
I truly appreciate the complaint Mr. Ritter and his other neighbors have publicly reported about their neighborhood. I grew up with rotten neighbors (as a child, I witnessed both my parents beaten, as a simple “talk to the neighbors” confrontation escalated, and the Santa Clara County sheriff’s department must have crates in their archives of the number of law enforcement visits to our home as they came out to mediate conflicts for years after. Forty years later, “for sale” signs in my neighborhood still leave me beset with a bit of anxiety over who will move in). However, even with that experience, I can attest there is not a direct link between one’s income and their tendency to be a rotten neighbor.
I ask the community members of Morgan Hill to be more clear-headed – at the very least, correct – and open-minded about this issue. Many talk about how great a community Morgan Hill is. But if our only measures of what make Morgan Hill great are simply high income levels and high home prices, then Morgan Hill isn’t great at all, not even good.
Dina Campeau, Morgan Hill
