Sister city supporters, library friends reach compromise
Morgan Hill – The city’s civic organizations are all getting along again.
Library supporters and sister city advocates have found common ground on a design for the new Civic Center Plaza that will preserve the plaza for the library and commemorate Morgan Hill’s relationships with cities in Mexico, Ireland and Italy, and perhaps soon in Japan.
“I think everybody worked together well and I think we reached an agreement that everybody feels is a pretty good one,” George Nale, of the Sister City Association, said.
Anxious to find a spot in town to publicize the sister city relationships, the association wanted to install publicity material and other information about the sister cities on a set of six benches designed to look like stacked books in front of the library scheduled to open next year.
But that idea met with strong resistance from the city’s Library, Culture and Arts Commission and Friends of the Morgan Hill Library, whose members want the space to be devoted solely to the library.
The debate had dragged on since last fall, but this month, the groups reached a compromise to honor the sister cities with engravings on a “language learning” wall at the opposite end of the plaza.
Final design details have not been set, but the wall will include quotations in six languages, English, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, French and German. The Sister City Association is putting together a proposal to include quotations from famous literature, maps of the cities, and other information, depending on space.
“Quotes from literature would be fine,” said Carol O’Hare, of the friends group. “We’re very pleased that the language learning wall will also be used to help promote sister city relationships.”
The sister city group is not an official city body, but has strong ties with city leadership. In addition to the Civic Center Plaza display, the association is also working to get display cases installed at the Community and Cultural Center. The cases will be filled with memorabilia from the three cities.
The city will break ground in March on the new library, scheduled to open in spring 2007.
