Without a doubt, 2016 was a year of big change in Morgan Hill. Downtown got a huge makeover, generating frequent and ongoing discussion among the community. A wildfire raged in the hills of western unincorporated Morgan Hill, prompting an outpouring of concern. Local elections saw changes in the compositions of two of Morgan Hill’s most influential governing bodies, and a growth control measure was approved that could result in a significant slow-down in residential development starting in 2020.
In this edition, we take a look at the good and bad of the past year, and what’s in store for 2017.
New downtown
Arguably the biggest changes in Morgan Hill in 2016 happened downtown, where construction continued throughout the year to bring the neighborhood a facelift, courtesy of $25 million in leftover Redevelopment Agency funds.
The biggest changes and additions include a new three-story, 273-space parking garage; street resurfacing and utility undergrounding on downtown side streets; and a new and improved Monterey Road streetscape. In 2017, residents and visitors will also see three new parks in the downtown.
Private builders are working on bringing more business downtown too. Frank Leal just reopened the Granada Theater in December and is in the process of building the four-story Granada Hotel on Monterey Road. The Opa! Group is building four new restaurants at Monterey and Third Street; these are expected to be open before fall 2017. City Ventures and Weston Miles Architects are building new residential-retail projects at two different sites downtown. And Dan McCranie will build a retail-restaurant building with rooftop dining where the city’s temporary pop-up park exists now on Second Street.
Freshly opened earlier this month are Orange Theory Fitness and Coffee Guys on East Third Street, adjacent to the new garage.
This makeover was not without its criticism. Most notably, the public art aspect of the downtown garage— specifically the Tarantula sculpture by Napa artist Gordon Huether—was widely lampooned by frequent downtown visitors as an extravagant use of money.
Other residents are eager to see more pedestrian safety improvements downtown, which city staff says are coming in 2017.
End of an era
Dennis Kennedy, a former longtime Morgan Hill mayor and mentor to a generation of public servants, died March 28 at the age of 77 due to complications from a brain tumor.
Before Kennedy became mayor of Morgan Hill in 1992, he spent several years influencing the city’s growth control measures that continue to determine at what rate the city will grow. Those who knew Kennedy best say he lives on in this work—and in his leadership in recreation services—that make Morgan Hill the unique, tight-knit community that residents enjoy.
“His imprint is all over this town, no matter where you go. He will long be remembered,” Bernie Mulligan, a Morgan Hill resident who knew Kennedy for more than 40 years, said shortly after his death.
Kennedy went on to serve as mayor from 1992 to 2006. He continued to remain active in South County politics and community advocacy until he was appointed to the Santa Clara Valley Water District Board of Directors in 2013, to the seat vacated by Don Gage. He then won election to that seat in 2014.
His legacy will live on. In late 2015, when Kennedy was suffering from a brain tumor that he battled for 10 months before his death, the city named the Morgan Hill Dennis Kennedy Aquatics Center in his honor.
Arnett a double winner in 2016
Live Oak High School alumnus Thomas Arnett, an educational researcher who travels the country in search of innovative programs, jumped onto the local education scene in April when he announced his candidacy for a vacated school board seat.
Arnett, who overcame some mudslinging regarding his wealth of campaign funding from an East Coast nest egg tied to Teach for America, won over his hometown voters to defeat a retired classified union boss in June in what was Morgan Hill Unified School District’s final at-large election.
Then, in what was a quick turnover, the married father of two moved his family to a different part of town in order to qualify for his designated trustee area spot in the Nov. 8 election. Similar results followed as Arnett won in a landslide to secure a four-year term on the governing body, where he was then voted by his board colleagues as vice president.
New school board election system brings change
Shifting away from the traditional atlarge to a trustee boundary area election system for the first time in November 2016, MHUSD’s governing body was forever changed.
A candidate for school board had to reside within one of seven school district trustee areas in order to run for that seat and only residents living in that area could vote in that particular race.
In the inaugural runs, two challengers, Mary Patterson and Teresa Murillo, won four-year terms while incumbent Tom Arnett won his second election and first extended seat time.
The local school board now has three female representatives, also including the newly appointed president Donna Ruebusch.
The community is waiting to see what kind of relationship the board will have with its new members in 2017 after a tumultuous 2016 in which most was spent with a 3-3 split between six trustees. However, Rick Badillo and Bob Benevento who were on opposite ends of that divide are no longer on the school board. Badillo lost his trustee seat to Patterson and Benevento did not seek re-election in November.
Shakeup on the council
The Morgan Hill City Council survived a busy year that included a testy election campaign that started nearly a year before the Nov. 8 balloting, and the resignation of a beloved colleague toward the end of 2016.
Former Planning Commissioner Rene Spring unseated two-term veteran Councilwoman Marilyn Librers, and topped the field of five candidates in the vote tally for the race for two council seats. Mayor Pro Temp Larry Carr came in second place Nov. 8, holding onto his seat for a fourth consecutive term.
Spring ran his campaign, starting in 2015, on a slow-the-growth platform, responding to the fatigue that many Morgan Hill residents have been feeling in the face of new construction that has ramped up since the Great Recession of 2009.
Mayor Steve Tate easily dispatched his challengers—Kirk Bertolet and Joseph Carrillo—in the Nov. 8 mayoral election to win his sixth two-year term in office. Tate, 72, has said this will be his final term as mayor.
Then on Dec. 8, Councilman Gordon Siebert announced his resignation halfway through his second term on the council.
Siebert’s replacement will be appointed by the council’s remaining four members before the end of January.
Growth control wins
Despite a vocal campaign by an apparent minority of residents to defeat the latest update to Morgan Hill’s long-standing growth control ordinance, Measure S was soundly victorious at the Nov. 8 polls.
The Residential Development Control System update will cap the city’s population at 58,200 for the year 2035, and set a maximum number of annual housing allocations at 215 (allowing the council to set that number lower any year up to 2035).
Local man lives another day, survives sudden cardiac arrest
David Fulcher, a 68-year-old retired teacher and military veteran, was taking a martial arts class with his grandson when he suddenly collapsed to the floor Sept. 27.
That’s where one of the most inspiring story of 2016 began.
Sensei Rowdy Hall, founder of the Renkishin Dojo, immediately started Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) on Fulcher until local paramedics arrived on the scene.
An Automatic External Defibrillator was used on Fulcher, who received about eight electric shocks to his body before regaining consciousness. After stints at two area hospitals, Fulcher was able to return home to his family.
Land use woes
After more than a decade of planning, city officials and landowners in the Southeast Quadrant suffered a crushing defeat of their effort to extend city boundaries around a portion of the rural areas on the east side of U.S. 101.
On March 11, the Santa Clara County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) rejected the city’s plan to extend the Urban Service Area around 229 acres of farmland and develop a Sports-Recreation-Leisure district in the area. The plan included an Agricultural Mitigation Policy that would require any future developers in the SEQ to pay a fee toward the permanent preservation of farmland elsewhere in the district. The city’s plan would have also paved the way for the San Jose Diocese’s St. John XXIII Catholic High School near Tennant and Murphy avenues.
However, LAFCO rejected these proposals on a 5-2 vote, out of fears that the plan would encourage urban sprawl, discourage infill development and destroy farmland and open space.
The sudden fall of Silicon Valley Flex
Out of the blue, although there was some smoke prior to this fire, one of Morgan Hill’s charter schools abruptly closed its doors just weeks before the start of the 2016 school year. Hundreds of parents of Flex students were sent scrambling to find new schools in a short period of time.
The main source of Silicon Valley Flex’s failure, according to school officials, was the rescinding of funds from its online program provider K12, which had ongoing legal problems itself after an investigation into its practices that was conducted by the Attorney General’s office.
Teachers rise up for higher wages
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way with the past amicable working relationship between the two sides, but MHUSD’s district officials and teachers union leaders are at odds over salaries.
One percent separates the Morgan Hill Federation of Teachers’ 10 percent pay hike demand and the 9 percent raise being offered by district negotiators. However, neither side is budging and this one won’t be resolved until after a Jan. 23, 2017 sit-down with a mediator.
Board meetings in 2016 will be hard to forget with teachers detailing their personal financial struggles due to the high price of living in South County; the union head accusing district leaders of hoarding reserve funds instead of paying out their most critical employees; and even students offering an insight into the dysfunctional classrooms with unqualified educators at the helm.
Controversy surrounds new school site proposal
Peet Road and contaminated soil samples on a 10-acre property donated to the school district from a local family for the purpose of building a new elementary school continue to bring out fears in some neighboring residents and board members.
District leaders remain confident that the problem will be solved by removing 38,000 tons of toxic soil that is riddled with a harmful pesticide known as dieldrin from the site. They are betting nearly $2 million on their plan that has yet to be approved by state environmental experts.
However, some vocal residents are not sold on the idea and are concerned that by digging up the soil that it will endanger neighborhoods when it goes airborne. Others aren’t so sure the site will ever be suitable for a $30 million school since a previous cleanup only provided a temporary fix.
A brand new Britton planned for new year
While one new school site has been marred by controversy, another plan to build a brand new Britton Middle School on the current campus was given the board go-ahead in late 2016 and is expected to break ground sometime in 2017.
District leaders and facilities staff outlined a $50 million plan to transform one of the most dilapidated schools into its marquee site at the gateway into Morgan Hill. This massive deal includes a $20 million student center/library in its layout just north of the downtown.
Loma fire
One of the state’s biggest wildfires of 2016 occurred in the remote hills west of Morgan Hill, starting Sept. 26 near the intersection of Loma Prieta and Loma Chiquita roads. The blaze scorched more than 4,500 acres of vegetation and a dozen homes before firefighters had the flames fully extinguished in early October. No human casualties were reported in the fire.
For weeks, Morgan Hill residents could see giant clouds of smoke hovering over the steep hills that overlook the western side of the South Valley. This visual and reports of human and animal evacuations prompted hundreds of residents to step up and help those affected by donating time, money and merchandise to the displaced.
Trial coming up?
After another year of delays, the trial for Antolin Garcia Torres, Sierra LaMar’s accused murderer, is finally expected to start in early 2017.
Sierra disappeared March 16, 2012, at the age of 15 while she was walking to her school bus stop from her home near Palm and Dougherty avenues in north Morgan Hill. She was a sophomore at Sobrato High School when she disappeared.
Garcia Torres, 23 of Morgan Hill, was arrested in May 2012 on suspicion of kidnapping and murdering the teen. He has been in custody at Santa Clara County Jail ever since.
Sierra’s remains have not been found.
Garcia Torres’ next hearing date is scheduled for Jan. 3, where jury selection for the upcoming trial will continue.
