A downtown creek walk is a win for all residents

Dear Editor,

The age of providing as much natural and open space in and around urban areas is here. Morgan Hill is emerging as a community that will be known for its embrace of the outdoors. We are fortunate to have so much of the natural countryside still intact all around us. Llagas Creek is part of that and can serve as an added amenity to the long planned flood control project (PL566). Protecting the parts of the riparian habitat that still exist along it today, while at the same time providing a natural setting within an urban context not only connects more of the dots in our trails and paths network, but offers another opportunity for business development along the way. A recent letter to the editor raised the desire to have an art walk. Art displays along the trail or in strategically placed pocket parks could provide an ideal natural setting to display local art.

In other words, a creek walk means everyone wins.

So financially, how does one make this happen? As the Times pointed out in a Nov. 29 article (Linear park proposed for downtown), the trail project must be considered only as a separately funded project from the Federal Government’s standpoint. However, what needs to be made clear is that the creek trail is intended to be approached from a separate funding source, something the Morgan Hill Creeks and Trails Committee has been researching. As an example, funding for the “Three Creeks Trail” project which runs through San Jose came from two sources that could be available to us in Morgan Hill.

The devil in any project is in the details. What we need right now is to make sure that the project has a location to proceed, then we can get to the details. The current plan by the Santa Clara Valley Water District to move flood waters in a tunnel away from the downtown, leaving the creek bed intact is one which will make the creek walk a possibility. Of course we support this option and hope the community will too.

As a committee we will continue in our efforts to work with the city to find out what issues may arise from this trail development so we can all proactively work to resolve them. This won’t happen overnight so let’s be patient and provide the best possible progressively built project it can be for this worthy city.

Swanee Edwards, MHCTC, Morgan Hill