Caitlin Robinett Jachimowicz, 33, is the newest member of the Morgan Hill City Council. Her colleagues appointed her to fill a vacant seat in February, for a term that will expire at the end of 2018.
Jachimowicz lives in the newly created east Morgan Hill council “District D.” She is married to Joshua Jachimowicz. The couple has a 2-year-old daughter “with another on the way,” she said. She grew up in Morgan Hill and graduated from Live Oak High School. Caitlin and her husband are lawyers who met while they were attending Santa Clara University School of Law. Both are practicing attorneys.
Jachimowicz is a lifelong musician and an avid dancer who taught swing and salsa in college. She enjoys gardening and spending time outside with her family.
“I love to travel, but the more I do, the more I’m convinced that our little corner of the world is the best on Earth,” she said.
She agreed to answer a few questions from the Times about her experience as a councilmember so far, and her ideas on how to address some of the city’s biggest challenges.
What has your experience been like serving on the council since you were appointed in January? In what ways has it been different than you expected?
It’s been a wonderful experience to be able to serve on the council. I love my hometown so much, and my experience has helped me to appreciate it even more. It’s an incredible amount of work, which I expected.
But what I didn’t expect is that the work is made that much easier by city staff and community members who have made me feel so welcome and helped get me up to speed. I have had a couple people comment that they were surprised at how quickly I was able to jump into things, but that is a direct reflection of the way I’ve been supported by the city and community.
The council could very easily be a full time job, and often feels like it, when we are representing our community in the region as a whole.
You are a Morgan Hill native who, like many, moved out of town after high school to pursue educational and career opportunities. What made you and your family decide to return to Morgan Hill?
I really wanted to give my daughter the opportunity to have the kind of childhood that I was fortunate enough to have. Morgan Hill offers a kind of quality of life that is not easy to come by. To convince my husband to move down to Morgan Hill, I used to tell him, “the sky is bigger” here. And it is. You drive south from San Jose, and the sky opens up to reveal a place that’s safer, cleaner, more open and full of a community spirit that is hard to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it.
I grew up walking to school, learning patriotic songs, eating ice cream during the Friday Night Music Series and knowing all my neighbors. I wanted that for my family, and I also wanted to work to preserve that sense of community.
As a council member, what can you say or do to encourage today’s younger Morgan Hill residents to stay in town, or return after they have completed college and/or explored broader opportunities?
One constant topic of conversation at our council meetings and regional assignments is “affordable housing.” But that term is relative in a place where the median home price is more than $900,000.
We have a housing crisis in the Bay Area, and Morgan Hill is no exception. What I can tell you is that we are trying to balance our controlled growth initiative to keep our community spirit while providing a diversity of housing options—like townhouses, apartments and smaller lots—so that people will be able to try move back home to the community they love.
The entire council, and city staff, is committed to finding affordable housing solutions. We have a lack of 25- to 35-year-olds living here, which is not good for long-term sustainability. We need to do better at providing affordable places for our young people as well as decent job opportunities so they can stay in the city. But of course, we want to try to balance those needs with the quality of life our smaller town provides.
The city has spent about $25 million since 2015 to improve downtown Morgan Hill. How do you feel about the results so far, and how do you see the downtown contributing to the local economy when current ongoing private projects are complete?
I’m very excited about the progress we have made to revitalize downtown. The basic issue is this: many cities get the bulk of their revenue from property taxes. In order to have a vibrant and successful city, we need to come up with alternative revenue sources because we want sustainable growth.
A lot of the opportunities for other revenue sources are interconnected; we can bring in tourists to visit the wineries, and stay in the hotels, but then those tourists need places to eat. We can bring in restaurants, but for the restaurants to be successful, they need to be busy more than just on the weekends. We can have some high-density housing close to the city center to fill those restaurants and shops, but then we need to be able to provide enough parking for everyone else.
Every one of these issues is being tackled, and discussed regularly. I think we are just beginning to really see the fruits of that labor.
Besides the economic sense it makes, I am very excited to spend more time downtown myself. I think it’s just one more way to connect with your neighbors if you can shop and eat locally.
What excites you the most about the future of Morgan Hill as envisioned in the city’s recently adopted Morgan Hill 2035 General Plan Update, voter-approved growth control update and the ongoing Downtown Specific Plan?
What excites me the most is that we have a clear vision for the future. And, I think that vision is a beautiful update to that idyllic community I grew up in. We are still going to be a small city with large, open spaces, safety for our neighbors and pride in our community. But we are going to continue to improve the quality of life for the people who live here.
My daughter, Penelope, will still sing patriotic songs on the Fourth of July Parade, and attend the Mushroom Mardi Gras. But those special events won’t be the only reason for her to visit downtown. My hope is that the downtown will be just as vibrant and successful the rest of the year.
Data show that while Morgan Hill’s population of working residents grew by more than 30 percent from 2002 to 2013, the number of jobs available in town grew by only about 3 percent. What is the best thing the city can do to create more jobs in the city limits so new and existing residents can work in Morgan Hill?
Earlier this year, the City Council approved our Economic Blueprint, which focuses on four key industry areas and outlines ways to attract employers to Morgan Hill. I think through that process, we have now announced to employers, companies and businesses out there that we are interested in having them in Morgan Hill and are willing to take steps to ensure that happens.
The next and most important step is to work on our telecommunications capability in Morgan Hill. Faster and more reliable internet will help bring businesses and jobs to Morgan Hill, but also is just something that is sorely needed for our current residents.
A recurring headache for many Morgan Hill and Bay Area residents in general is traffic congestion. Has this had a notable impact on the local economy that you have been able to discern?
Yes. Traffic is a huge problem for us. As I have said before, it’s a safety issue, an issue for our quality of life and of course it impacts our local economy.
There are plenty of people living in south San Jose who would love to go to dinner at Odeum or Ladera Grill (both in downtown Morgan Hill) on a Friday night, but aren’t willing to sit in traffic to do so.
The larger issue is that the Bay Area has outgrown our freeway system and does not have the support of an adequate public transit system. But what we can focus on locally is bringing more jobs to Morgan Hill, to help keep people off the roads.
These economic issues are interconnected. Focusing on jobs and our telecommunications capability will help the economy and help relieve the traffic congestion. Those things will not fix the problem completely, but we can nudge the needle in the right direction.
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Population: About 44,000
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Racial diversity: 65 percent white; 33 percent Hispanic; 10 percent Asian; 6 percent mixed; 1 percent African American; 15 percent “Other”
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Land area: 13 square miles
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Licensed businesses: 2,961 (includes 1,143 outside the city limits that conduct business within Morgan Hill)
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• 419 business licenses issued by City Hall during fiscal year 2016-17
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38: Median age
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$92,487: Average adjusted gross income, 2011
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47: Percent of households that earn more than $100,000 a year
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3.06: Average household size
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*Numbers data throughout the “Pride & Progress” section is compiled from a variety of sources, including the 2010 U.S. Census, Morgan Hill city staff and city planning documents, including the General Plan 2035 Update and the Economic Blueprint.
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Homes: 12,950
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Home sales prices:
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• Median Morgan Hill home sales price June 2017: $860,000
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• Median sales price June 2016: $782,000
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• Average sales price June 2017: $916,065
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• Average sales price May 2017: $868,250
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Working residents, 2014: 17,777
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Available jobs in Morgan Hill: 12,442
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Jobs-to-working residents ratio: 70 percent
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While the number of available jobs increased to 15,723 in 2015, the ratio of jobs to working residents has declined steadily from 105 percent in 2008 to 70 percent in 2014, according to the U.S. Census.
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Percentage of residents who work in the city they live in:
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• Morgan Hill: 28
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• Gilroy: 35
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• Santa Clara County: 38
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Jobs to housing ratio, 2010:
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• Morgan Hill: 1.42
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• Santa Clara County: 1.53
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• Nine-county region: 1.3
