Dear Editor, I had occasion to attend last week’s Monterey Road
Improvement Workshop, hosted by the city and conducted by Peter
Callander Associates (consultants). I am not against
considering
”
improvements
”
to Monterey Road (the city defines the specific area as the
stretch between Main Street and Dunne Avenue).
City needs to provide costs for downtown Monterey Road designs
Dear Editor,
I had occasion to attend last week’s Monterey Road Improvement Workshop, hosted by the city and conducted by Peter Callander Associates (consultants). I am not against considering “improvements” to Monterey Road (the city defines the specific area as the stretch between Main Street and Dunne Avenue). The consultant presented an approximately 30-minute PowerPoint presentation, covering the history, the challenges, the potential solutions, other cities’ downtowns, computer modeling, sketches, the types of tree grates and benches, the color and materials palette, etc. The amount of detail was impressive, except for the glaring omission of cost. Cost was only addressed as ranking the seven proposed variations from “lowest” to highest” in a hand out, without any dollar amount what so ever, affixed to them.
After fielding some questions from the public, the attendees were asked to vote on the specific proposals as well as their preferred amenities. When I asked for a cost breakdown, or even a relative comparison between the iterations, I was told that it was “too premature in the process, that it hadn’t yet been done, that this was just to see what the citizens wanted.”
When I queried how this was to be funded, I was assured “that there is lots of money out there, including grants, etc. and that it wouldn’t be a problem.”
Perhaps it is just me, but I find it incredible that the city would ask people to “vote” on the project without providing ANY financial information, or even the relative costs of one scenario to another. Just vote for it in a complete vacuum. It’s akin to going into an auto showroom and being told to pick out any car you want, with as many options, without regard to price, because, “we can work that out later, no problem, honest … really!”
No doubt, at a future City Council meeting, the “results” of the community’s preferences will be presented to the city as “this is what the citizens asked for.” Even though no one had the slightest idea if they were voting for something that cost $1 million or $100 million. I believe that the city is paying these consultants approximately $250,000 to conduct these workshops and provide the preliminary designs. These are trained professionals, who no doubt have a very good idea of what those projects cost, or, at least, should. Yet, they could provide myriad of options for street lights and benches and finishes, but not a scintilla of information concerning costs.
It is disingenuous, if not outright duplicitous, on the city’s part, to float and promote these projects in a vacuum devoid of costs and the plan for funding.
The fact that they don’t provide the information is either an indication of their incompetence to run a project of this magnitude, or, a telling insight as to their contempt of the taxpayers.
I call on the city council and city staff to provide that vital information in any future “workshops” or public meetings concerning this project.
Frank Manocchio, Morgan Hill
It’s time someone represented the people of this country
Dear Editor,
They say they need to cut Social Security to balance the budget, but they have enough money for tax cuts for the rich. They tell us we can’t afford to extend unemployment but when the rich need bailed out there’s trillions of dollars. They say we need to cut Medicare but we are fighting two useless wars and there’s plenty of money for that.
I’m not sure if I’m more disgusted with the Republicans’ position of grabbing everything for the rich or the Democrats caving in on everything, even when they still control the Presidency and the Senate.
It’s too bad that is a so called “Free Society” that there’s no one representing the interest of the people.
Marc Perkel, Gilroy
