The long, dry spell ended this week when a deluge of residents
took the first steps toward filing as candidates for school board
and city council.
The long, dry spell ended this week when a deluge of residents took the first steps toward filing as candidates for school board and city council.
Four people have declared an interest in the Morgan Hill School Board and three women are mulling over running for the two council seats now held by Larry Carr and Hedy Chang.
Carr has said he would run for a second term. Chang said she will decide soon whether or not she will run for a third four-year term on the council.
The filing deadline is Friday, Aug. 6. If Chang decides not to run, the Registrar of Voters extends the deadline for council to Aug. 11 to give others a chance to file papers. Because the three incumbents are not running, deadline for school board is also Aug. 11.
Even though Councilman Greg Sellers is only mid-way through his second term, he is challenging Mayor Dennis Kennedy for the job of mayor. If Sellers were to win, his council seat would be empty. If he were to lose, Kennedy remains mayor for another two-year term and Sellers will complete his four-year term of office.
Because school board meetings have been contentious for months, there has been great interest in who would undertake the job.
Three Gavilan College seats are up for grabs, one each in the Morgan Hill, Gilroy and San Benito County areas.
Tom Breen, a retired judge and current trustee representing Hollister, has picked up his papers but hasn’t returned them yet though he said he would.
Mark Dover, who is completing his first term representing the Gilroy area, also says he will run for re-election.
Morgan Hill area Trustee Leonard Washington’s seat is also up in November. Washington, a part-time social science teacher at Evergreen Community College, has not made an official determination if he will run again. He will have until Aug. 6 to decide.
Bob Griesinger and Peter Mandell have filed for four-year seats on the Morgan Hill School Board.
Griesinger, 43, a resident of Coyote Valley, decided to run after prompting from friends who told him to run. He is the project manager at Silicon Valley Paving out of Coyote. He has been in construction for 20 years and most of his experience with school districts has been in construction.
Griesinger has two children, one of whom attends Live Oak High School. His son, 18, attends the University of Oregon at Eugene. His daughter, 16, will be a junior.
Mandell is an IBM manager with daughters, 11 and 12, who will attend Britton Middle School in the fall.
Mandell said the district is not living up to its potential and needs a change.
“There is a lack of leadership at the top,” Mandell said. “The district needs to set goals and find ways to meet them.”
Mandell said he has been involved heavily with the elementary school where his daughters attended.
Three others, Morgan Hill residents R.G. Cassibba Jr., Michael Davenport and Kathleen Sullivan, have taken out papers but have not filed them.
Over at City Hall, Realtor Susan J. Hughes, Julia G. Starling and Marby Lee have all picked up papers. Starling said she will file today and Lee is seriously considering a run. Hughes did not return phone calls on Thursday.
Hughes lives in a remodeled, expanded Victorian house near downtown.
Lee, a young mother with a toddler, said she will decide by next week whether she can balance the needs of her family with the requirements of a council position.
“Time is a consideration,” Lee said Thursday. “I want to do a good job and wonder if I have the time.”
She said is concerned with what happens in Morgan Hill.
“Sometimes what happens isn’t what the citizens want,” she said.
Lee said she was concerned also about the lack of shopping opportunities and is in the forefront of the effort to lure Trader Joe’s to town.
Lee is an eloquent speaker who spoke up for residents trying to keep the new Ford Store from being built on Condit Road, even though she lives on the west side of town, a few blocks from City Hall.
And she was a recent proponent trying to convince the council to build the new library in the Civic Center neighborhood. Her pleas were heard, along with several other residents, and council members all changed their votes and abandoned plans to build the library in a downtown site.
Lee is a graduate of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a degree in graphic communication.
Starling is a long-retired mother of four, grandmother of six who mostly raised her children alone.
“I must have done something right,” Starling said, “because not one has ever been in trouble and they all have good jobs.”
Starling works part time as a yard supervisor at a Morgan Hill school, and volunteers at The Grange, helps out with elections, has worked with Toys For Tots, the Coalition on Aging and often helps other seniors out.
“I’m young at heart,” Starling said. “I think very modern and am open minded – to an extent.”
She says she strongly believes in doing the right thing and would definitely make that a key to a council position.
Starling grew up in San Jose, graduating from San Jose schools and Faith Bible College. She moved to Morgan Hill 10 years ago when she was successful in joining the “sweat equity” program that built her house in Sunrise Meadows.
“I know my neighbors,” she said.
Starling said she is concerned that many of her neighbors don’t know about the recreational opportunities available for kids in town. She also likes the slow-growth attitude of Morgan Hill, wants to preserve open space and encourage business investment in the city.
City Clerk Irma Torrez said she would be pulling papers to run again and City Treasurer Mike Roorda has turned in his paperwork. No one else has indicated an interest in those two elected positions that have four-year terms.
