Businesses are happy with their environment in Morgan Hill,
according to a survey conducted by the Chamber of Commerce of the
more than 1,200 Morgan Hill businesses.
Businesses are happy with their environment in Morgan Hill, according to a survey conducted by the Chamber of Commerce of the more than 1,200 Morgan Hill businesses.
“We wanted to get the poles on the economy in Morgan Hill,” said Sunday Minnich, executive director of the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce. “We asked if businesses were happy in Morgan Hill, who is looking to expand and the trends for the past few years.”
The surveys went out in June, and were due by August.
Since then the chamber has been reading through the responses about growth and how satisfied businesses are about the services offered by the city and the chamber.
The chamber has gone through the surveys and will be meeting with those who were identified as needing the attention and help the chamber can offer.
The businesses targeted for individual meetings were those who indicated that they would like to expand or were unhappy with city and chamber services or felt there was a barrier to growth.
“The ones that we felt were at risk of moving out of Morgan Hill, or looking to expand, were the ones we targeted,” Minnich said. “We will meet with them to see what is hindering growth, why the barriers exist and how we can better serve them.”
The chamber was looking to get information to see how the businesses were doing and whether or not they need any individual attention.
“They are doing better than we thought,” Minnich said. “There are quite a few looking to expand in Morgan Hill.”
Among the businesses expanding in Morgan Hill is Bank of America, which recently opened a new branch on the north end of Morgan Hill.
Morgan Hill has also seen the opening of the Comcast call center that brought more than 400 jobs to the city when it arrived late last year.
When representatives of the chamber meet with these businesses, they will go over what problems exist, and if they can work out any solutions for them, according to Minnich.
The meetings will begin in January and will continue over the year at a rate of about three meetings per month.
Addresses for the survey, sponsored by the city, were obtained through the business licenses.
Minnich says that the surveys and meetings should be a regular occurrence, perhaps as often as every other year.
The survey was last conducted back in 1997, but Minnich says that it should be something that needs to be done every couple of years.
“I feel it needs to be done more than every five years,” Minnich said. “If we do it every other year, we can make sure we have the information to make Morgan Hill a viable place to do business.”
