More communication between downtown business owners, festival
organizers, the Morgan Hill Downtown Association and the Morgan
Hill Chamber of Commerce is necessary to continue to have a vibrant
core.
More communication between downtown business owners, festival organizers, the Morgan Hill Downtown Association and the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce is necessary to continue to have a vibrant core.
The current communication gap in the planning of special events downtown is further upsetting many merchants who complain their businesses have begun to suffer due to loss of revenue and liability issues created by the celebrations.
An added concern for the merchants is the lack of parking enforcement along the side streets of Monterey Road. They’re frustrated by the city’s inability to enforce downtown’s many 20-minute parking restrictions. It seems ridiculous to have parking restriction signs on downtown streets if they’re not going to be enforced.
The merchants feel that if the city followed the examples of cities such as Pacific Grove, Carmel, Los Gatos, Monterey and Capitola, which make hundreds of thousands of dollars through parking enforcement, it would earn needed money to fill its coffers. It’s a missed revenue source.
The merchants also complain that the recent Independence Day and Mushroom Mardi Gras festivals are not profitable for them and that they bring the wrong kind of crowd into town, a crowd that wants to drink and party and not invest money in their establishments.
They also that they don’t get first right of refusal of tents set up during the celebrations, meaning event organizers cater more to outside businesses than to local ones.
Decisions to close Monterey Road throughout the year to observe these festivities must be carefully made and planned, and those impacted by the closures should be consulted. The street is shut down now so much – in May for the Mushroom Mardi Gras, in July for the Independence Day festivities, in September for the Taste of Morgan Hill, and then in December for the Christmas parade, that one is left wondering why the city’s guidelines for having special events don’t limit its closure.
If the city is going to promote downtown businesses, it needs to revise the guidelines for carrying out these events.
After listening to so many of them complain about the city’s special events guidelines, the chamber, the downtown association, and festival organizers, we recommend an immediate meeting between all parties involved to hash out the issues.
We believe it’s in the city’s best interest to include in that meeting Garrett Toy, the city’s director of business assistance, and Ted Fox, president of the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce.
These two community leaders can help arbitrate the differences between the parties.
The disjointed, emotional bickering going on between the characters in this drama needs to end. We need everyone at the negotiating table willing to listen and make compromises. They need to stop operating in a vacuum.
No business owner should have to fight organizors to get to their places of employment during downtown festivities. Seven-days notice to downtown merchants before large events such as the recent Independence Day celebration is grossly inadequate and against city guidelines that require them to give merchants and residents an event plan 45 days before the celebrations. Event organizers need to stop assuming the merchants know what’s being planned and how it’s going to affect them.
Events such as the Taste of Morgan Hill should become a model, as it’s being praised because it gives a portion of proceeds to the chamber, which benefits the merchants. It becomes a win-win situation.
All those involved should form a committee to plan all downtown events and make recommendations giving everyone affected a chance to express concerns, which should be seriously considered and respected, even when set aside or overruled by a majority vote.
The wedge that exists between all factions in the downtown event planning debate needs to be closed through true communication. Not addressing this issue will only continue to create loss of membership in the downtown association and the chamber and deepen the rift among the involved parties.
