Community

Morgan Hill residents took advantage of the newly re-installed flagpoles outside the Community and Cultural Center to conduct a unique, traditional flag raising ceremony June 4.The ceremony started with an escort of the American and California state flags by Morgan Hill Police and Fire Department—as well as motorcyclists from the Patriot Guard Riders, American Legion Riders and Warrior Watch Riders—to the CCC at 17000 Monterey Road. When the flags arrived, they were “ceremonially” handed over to veterans with the American Legion Post 217, which is based in Gilroy and serves Morgan Hill residents, according to Morgan Hill resident Kirk Bertolet. The veterans raised the flags atop the flagpoles for the first time since the city moved them from their previous location along Monterey Road on the CCC grounds.Bertolet, a U.S. Air Force veteran and Patriot Guard Rider, organized the flag raising ceremony as a fulfillment of a promise to the community of Morgan Hill. He explained that a flag raising ceremony is a traditional way to honor and respect the flag when it is raised for the first time at a new location.When the city determined the flagpoles had to be removed from their original location in order to make way for new public artwork, they were initially going to be placed at the rear entrance of the CCC, facing the facility’s parking lot. Residents contacted City Hall “en masse” to object to this location, and urged the city to place the flagpoles prominently at the front of the facility, where they can be seen from Monterey Road and Dunne Avenue, Bertolet said.“The message to the citizens was the art was more important than the flagpoles, and that was the wrong message,” Bertolet said. “The citizens contacted the city and said the front is the best location. To honor that, I said I would do a flag raising ceremony, and I did.”The ceremony was attended by local elected officials, city staff and a wide range of Morgan Hill residents.Morgan Hill Program Administrator Anthony Eulo was invited as a guest speaker. He talked about the new water-saving demonstration garden surrounding the front of the CCC, which recently replaced the facility’s old landscaping.“We were delighted to see so many members of the community come out to celebrate our new flagpoles and our new garden,” Eulo said after the event.Mayor Steve Tate, who attended the June 4 ceremony, was one of the city officials who heard “in no uncertain terms” that residents wanted the flagpoles placed in their current location. “They wanted it to be like it was when the old Morgan Hill School was there. It was great to have that kind of engagement with the community,” Tate said.

With all voting precincts reporting and 65 percent of the ballots counted countywide, homegrown candidate Thomas Arnett held onto a steady lead in the race for an open seat on the Morgan Hill Unified School District board of education.

The City of Morgan Hill’s 9th annual “Splash 2 Dash” youth triathlon is still accepting competitors for the June 11 event at Ann Sobrato High School (401 Burnett Avenue).

CSR Cares donated $5,000 to One Step Closer Therapeutic Riding Inc.—a Morgan Hill charity offering therapeutic riding and other equine assisted therapy to children with physical and emotional disabilities.

Thousands of locals and visitors braved the heat to enjoy the food, crafts, live music, games and merchandise at the 37th annual Morgan Hill Mushroom Mardi Gras Saturday, May 28.Simren Toor and her three daughters, Morgan Hill residents for about nine years, were making their way through the vendor booths in the parking lot of the Community and Cultural Center early in the afternoon. They have attended the Mushroom Mardi Gras “every year” since they moved to Morgan Hill.“We enjoy all the local food. The kids like the games and meeting their friends,” Toor said of her daughters, Jasreen, 10, Hareen, 6, and Isha, 6 (the latter two are twins).“I like the music, and playing on the rides,” said Isha Toor. The three sisters attend Nordstrom Elementary School.The Mushroom Mardi Gras takes place in downtown Morgan Hill, centered around the grounds of the CCC, located at 17000 Monterey Road. The food, wine and art festival features dozens of vendor and food booths, offering a variety of cuisine—including the event’s namesake fungus prepared a variety of ways. Beer, wine and cold beverages are sold throughout the festival grounds.Vendors, live entertainment stages, and the children’s area can be found along Depot Street, including in the CalTrain parking lots. Vendors can also be found indoors at the CCC where, for the first time this year, a cooking demonstration stage hosted by a full lineup of local and celebrity chefs entertains and educates the crowds.Saturday afternoon, the chef duo Sakabozzo, stars of the Sakabozzo cooking show produced by GavTV and Charter Cable, elicited continuous laughs from the audience while offering instructions on how to prepare one of their gourmet creations.The main entertainment stage is located at the Downtown Amphitheater at the CCC. At 1:30 p.m. May 29 on the amphitheater stage, Mushroom Mardi Gras producers will present local high school students with thousands of dollars worth of college scholarships, the primary purpose of the nonprofit fundraising festival.The Mushroom Mardi Gras is always a big draw for out-of-town visitors. Vince and Laurie Hoke took a motorcycle ride from Fresno to Morgan Hill to enjoy the Mardi Gras. It was their first time attending the festival.“We’re here with a bunch of friends,” Vince Hoke said.Mike Bachman and Suzanne Wilson took the short drive from their home in San Jose to attend the Mardi Gras May 28. Bachman has attended the festival many times in the past, and Bachman has family in Morgan Hill.“We’ve just been walking around and enjoying the fun,” Bachman said.Over the last three decades, the Mushroom Mardi Gras has issued more than $860,000 in scholarships, $29,500 in mini-grants and $420,000 to participating school groups.The Mushroom Mardi Gras continues until 7 p.m. May 28. The event resumes Sunday, May 29, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The event is free, and parking is available at a number of lots surrounding downtown Morgan Hill, including the VTA lot and South County Courthouse on Butterfield Boulevard.For more information, visit mhmmg.org.

It’s clear skies ahead for the 2016 recreational boating season, which opened on schedule April 15 with optimism of remaining that way through the summer months and until Oct. 14.

Join local veterans and their families as they remember those who died while serving in the armed forces with a ceremony 9 a.m. Monday, May 30 at the Downtown Morgan Hill veterans memorial, at Monterey Road and First Street. The remembrance will start with a flag raising, followed by patriotic songs performed by local school children, a prayer, a reading of the names of Morgan Hill residents who have died during combat, a wreath- laying and a performance of Taps.

While Affordable Housing Week came to a close May 20, the City of Morgan Hill is preparing to implement and formalize its Below Market Rate (BMR) home development program.The city has had an affordable housing program since 1977, when voters approved the Residential Development Control System. That ordinance requires developers to compete for a limited number of annual building allotments by adding features to their projects that gain points. One way residential developers can gain points is by committing a portion of their proposed units for low- to moderate-income buyers.On June 1, the city council will consider adopting a formalized BMR program that wraps up existing policies into a single effort, administered by nonprofit contractor Nyanda & Associates, also known as HouseKeys.“What they’re being asked to approve is not new; it’s just tying it all up with a nice neat bow,” said Morgan Hill Housing Manager Rebecca Garcia.On May 18, the council approved a two-year contract with HouseKeys for $500,000 per year. The contractor runs a website, housekeys.org, that serves as a resource of information and services for potential affordable home buyers.A previous contract with the same nonprofit was approved for $272,000 for one year, which ends in July.The need for an increased contract cost is due to realizations over the last nine months that the city’s portfolio of 500 units will take more effort and resources to manage, according to city staff.Also on May 18, the council held an affordable housing workshop and declared the week of May 13-20 Affordable Housing Week.At the workshop, Mayor Pro Temp Rich Constantine noted he was pleased to see that Morgan Hill has more affordable housing units (500 out of a total of 13,241 households) than every city in Santa Clara County except San Jose (1,385 affordable units). But he said there is more work to do in a region where housing prices have reached levels that are increasingly prohibitive for many Silicon Valley residents.“Housing isn’t a privilege, it’s a right,” Constantine said. He noted that in Morgan Hill, it takes a combined family income of well over $100,000 to afford a new home. “It’s very important that we get affordable housing in Morgan Hill, because we want people who live here to work here. I want my firefighters, teachers and police to live in Morgan Hill.”For many years, the city’s affordable housing program was administered by the Redevelopment Agency. But the state shut down that agency in 2012. Since then, the city has searched for the best way to keep its BMR efforts organized, and staff thinks they have found the right match with HouseKeys.‘Huge’ programThe city’s contract with HouseKeys, a private nonprofit, pays for three full-time staff, plus half the salary of a city employee to administer the program, according to Assistant City Manager Leslie Little.“They process applications, qualify applicants...assist with refinancing and desale of properties, conduct homebuyer education classes,” Little said by e-mail. “They sell new (affordable) homes and resale homes, conduct lotteries of qualified applicants when a home is ready to be sold, they review public records for notices of default and anything else that may affect any BMR property every day…”The contractor also audits the city’s stock of BMR units annually, interacts with Homeowners Associations and help prepare grant applications and “much more,” Little continued.“It’s a huge program,” she said.The funding for the HouseKeys contract comes from a variety of city housing funds and former RDA loans. No general fund dollars are spent on the program.More affordable homes are on the way in Morgan Hill. In December, construction is expected to begin on a “non-contiguous,” 41-unit affordable rental housing project to be developed by EAH. Those units will be scattered on four sites throughout the city.Urban Housing Communities holds 39 building allocations, awarded in 2015, for another affordable project on the corner of Monterey Road and Bisceglia Avenue. The developer is in the process of seeking funding for the project, according to a May 18 city staff report.Affordable homes are restricted for sale to households with annual incomes up to 120 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI). The AMI in Morgan Hill is $74,400 for a one-person household, and $106,300 for a family of four. Affordable homes are further split into four categories characterized by the income level of permitted buyers: very low (0 to 50 percent of the AMI), low (51 to 80 percent AMI) and moderate (81 to 120 percent AMI).From 2007 to 2014, most affordable homes built in Morgan Hill were for moderate-income buyers (260 units), while very low-income homes accounted for 82 units.Regional crisis needs regional solutionsCity officials are so proud of their affordable housing program that they hope their partnership with HouseKeys can serve as a “model of best practices” for other cities, at a time when many experts acknowledge the Silicon Valley crisis needs regional collaboration.During Affordable Housing Week, affordable housing advocates—including event host and nonprofit SV@Home—focused on the need for a regional approach as a key solution to the problems many residents face in a region where rents increased by 60 percent from 2010 to 2014, and the median monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $2,800.SV@Home spokeswoman Alina Harway applauded Morgan Hill and other cities in Santa Clara County for approving proclamations supporting Affordable Housing Week. SV@Home and other advocates spent the week conducting 24 activities, workshops, seminars and discussions about how to achieve solutions.“We’re really inspired and motivated by the fact that it seems like there is a renewed focus” on affordable housing, Harway said. “Housing has been a problem in Silicon Valley for decades, but the situation has changed to the point that it’s not just a problem—it’s a crisis.”

House of Thunder Harley-Davidson motorcycle dealership invites the Morgan Hill community to support the men and women who have served in the military for an Armed Forces Day party Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 21.