Community

With a targeted opening date of January 2016, Morgan Hill’s newest hotel, La Quinta Inn & Suites, hopes to kick off its operations a couple weeks before Super Bowl 50 and thousands of ravenous football fans touch down in the Bay Area.

Neighborhood Clean-up Day, conducted by GreenWaste Recovery in cooperation with the County of Santa Clara, is scheduled from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. Sept. 19 in San Martin.

Standing at more than 14,500 feet in elevation atop Mount Whitney with his father and uncle, 10-year-old Morgan Hill student Neil Shah gazed down upon the picturesque, mountainous terrain of Sequoia National Park.

After watching multiple sclerosis strip her uncle of his independence, going from walking and driving alone to using a wheelchair and being bedridden, Gilroy High School junior Allison Jordan is raising money to cure the disease.

PG&E will host a series of open house meetings in South County to inform residents and answer questions about the proposed “South County Power Connect” expansion of its power grid—a project that includes a new substation in southern Santa Clara County.The project is in its early planning and outreach stages, according to PG&E spokeswoman Mayra Tostado. The utility company hopes to gain approval for the expansion from the California Public Utilities Commission by 2019, after which construction will begin.Not only does PG&E plan to build a new electricity substation, the utility company proposes two new transmission lines to connect the substation to the power grid. It also intends to upgrade existing lines in the area.PG&E has not identified a preferred location for the new substation, Tostado said. Site selection will be part of the planning stages that will continue over the next three years. The CPUC, which has sole jurisdiction in California over the siting of transmission lines and substation projects, will decide the final location and route following a review process that provides numerous opportunities for public input and an environmental study.The company says the system expansion and upgrades will improve efficiency, reliability and safety of electrical service for 43,000 customers in South County.“South County Power Connect is a key component of our efforts to help meet the needs of the region’s residents and support continued economic growth in the region,” reads a statement from PG&E. “The region’s rapid growth has driven the need for new investments in the electric system. The power grid in this area does not have the capability to reliably serve the significant growth that is projected over the next 10 years.”The electricity provider cited the growth of the wine and agricultural industries in the region as contributors to the need for utility improvements.The open house meetings will take place at the following times and locations in South County:• 4 to 6 p.m. Sept. 22, at the Wings of History Museum clubhouse, 12777 Murphy Ave., San Martin;• 5 to 7:30 p.m. Sept. 24, at Las Animas Veterans Park Recreation building, 400 Mantelli Drive, Gilroy;• 4 to 6:30 p.m. Sept. 28, at the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center, El Toro Room, 17000 Monterey Road, Morgan Hill.

Nearly 2,000 people and 150 classic vehicles were in downtown Morgan Hill Sept. 13 for the fourth annual British Fall Classic, a car show that celebrates automotive feats from across the pond and raises money for charity.Jaguars, Rolls Royces, Bentleys, a Lagonda worth more than $1 million and even a London taxi were on display during Sunday’s public viewing of the two-day car show.“We had some beautiful cars,” said Bill Hiland, owner of On The Road Again Classics in Morgan Hill, one of the sponsors of the event. “It’s fun, and everybody has a good time.”The classic started Saturday, when about 60 cars and their drivers (as well as some passengers) embarked on a 60-mile tour through South County’s back roads to Kirigin Cellars winery in Gilroy. The tour ended at Hiland’s shop on Joleen Way with a wine reception for car show entrants.Then on Sunday was the public viewing of the classics, which drew 150 vehicles and between 1,500 and 2,000 spectators, Hiland said.Hiland estimated the Fall Classic raised about $7,500 for Community Solutions, a local nonprofit that provides services for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking.Also sponsoring the event were Ladera Grill restaurant, Heritage Bank and Ebay. Guglielmo Winery provided wine for the event.

Morgan Hill nonprofit The Edward “Boss” Prado Foundation is accepting donations of clothing and other items to help northern California residents who have been impacted by wildfires that have forced thousands to evacuate their homes. Cecelia’s Closet and Food Pantry, which is run by the Prado Foundation, is the local collection site. The biggest needs for fire victims include hygiene products, blankets, flashlights and food, according to Prado Foundation co-founder Cecelia Ponzini. These items can be dropped off at Cecelia’s Closet, 35 Peebles Ave. Morgan Hill resident Misty Burke was preparing to truck a load of donated items up to the fire victims Thursday afternoon, but foundation co-founder Cecelia Ponzini said she will continue to collect items that can be delivered at a later date or donated back to local needs. And the aid effort is truly collaborative, Ponzini added, as local businesses, the Morgan Hill Kiwanis Club and Girl Scouts Troop 62224 are helping with the transportation of the donations. Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in response to the Butte Fire and Valley Fire, which have been raging since last week in Lake, Calaveras and Amador counties. Thousands of structures—including hundreds of homes—have been destroyed by these fires, and thousands more are threatened. More than 20,000 residents have been forced to evacuate their homes due to the ongoing wildfires.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority will host a series of open house meetings in the Bay Area in the coming weeks to update residents on planning for the project that will zoom through Morgan Hill.A Sept. 23 meeting will take place at the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center, 17000 Monterey Road. The open house will take place from 4 to 7 p.m., with a formal presentation by HSR staff at 6 p.m.“The California High-Speed Rail Program represents a significant investment in northern California’s transportation system, which will not only improve connections within the region and to the rest of the state but also provide a range of environmental, economic and community benefits,” reads the announcement from HSRA.Planning for the HSR’s Northern California Corridor, between San Francisco and Merced, has been underway for several years. Environmental analysis and preliminary engineering are just beginning.Information presented at the meetings will include possible rail system alignments and station locations under consideration, according to HSRA staff. Attendees at the meetings will be able to ask questions and submit comments.Other HSRA open house meetings coming up in September will take place at the following locations. All meetings will take place 4 to 7 p.m., with a formal presentation at 6 p.m.:—Sept. 8 at the Commonwealth Club, 555 Post Street, San Francisco;—Sept. 15 at the Roosevelt Community Center, 901 E. Santa Clara Street, San Jose;—Oct. 7 at the Burlingame Auditorium, 850 Burlingame Ave., Burlingame.Small Business Certification workshopsThe HSRA will also host a series of free Small Business and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise certification workshops in northern California in September.These will provide “hands-on technical assistance for on-the-spot online certification from the California Department of General Services.The workshops will take place at the following locations:—10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sept. 8 at the San Francisco Library, Latino Room, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco;—10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sept. 23 at the Martin Luther King Library, 150 E. San Fernando Street, San Jose;—10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sept. 29 at the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce, 580 Castro Street, Mountain View.

County officials will present the “Santa Clara County Fairgrounds: Market Oppportunities Draft Final Report” from 7 to 9 p.m. at a Sept. 15 public meeting. The meeting will take place at the Fairgrounds’ Fiesta Hall at 344 Tully Road in San Jose.The report provides a starting point for the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisor’s dialogue on future uses of the 150-acre site. The Board of Supervisors will hear the report at their meeting in late September.“The Santa Clara County Fairgrounds property is an important community asset,” Board President Dave Cortese said. “The future use of the site warrants extensive and careful consideration by the community and the Board of Supervisors. This initial report is a good starting point. We still have a long way to go to create a vision for its future.”Since October 2014, the county has gathered feedback and ideas from the community and various stakeholders; interviewed individuals and organizations who have brought forward early proposals for some portion of the Fairgrounds; completed an existing conditions report on the facilities; and evaluated the operations of the current Fairgrounds.The consulting team of C.H. Johnson Consulting also has conducted a market assessment of support for various uses at the Fairgrounds, and looked at how those uses may or may not fit together.“We have insisted on a transparent and visible process to reinvigorate the Fairgrounds,” District Two Supervisor Cindy Chavez said. “That’s why we have collected thousands of individual opinions from the public over the last year—and now we want the public’s input on this report, too.”The county has done a variety of community outreach efforts for this project, including a combination of community booths at regional events, a community workshop, stakeholder meetings and a multilingual online survey.More than 2,700 people have participated in person and over 2,800 have taken the online survey, according to county staff. The administration is exploring commissioning additional statistically reliable surveys.Final Drafts of the consultants’ reports are available for review by the public in advance of the Sept. 15 community meeting at sccgov.org/fairgrounds.

Exactly what caused a wild pig harvested in Morgan Hill to turn bright blue on the inside remains a mystery, but two state experts have a consistent and convincing theory.A reddit.com user by the name of “GlendilTEK” posted the discovery on the social media site Sept. 8, with a link to photos of the unusual pig. The user said his or her in-laws shot the wild pig on their ranch in Morgan Hill. The in-laws cut open the pig and found its fat was a fluorescent blue color throughout its body. The animal’s muscle and organs did not appear to be discolored, GlendilTEK noted.The reddit user has been seeking input from the online community as to how the pig turned blue on the inside, and even sent a sample to University California, Davis for research.A spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said experts have “occasionally” seen previous cases of wild pigs exhibiting a similar discoloration of their insides. In those cases, it was determined the affected animals had likely consumed chemicals that contained a blue dye.“Pigs eat pesticides and rodenticides, and it stains the fat of the pig,” said Fish and Wildlife spokesman Andrew Hughan. “We recommend not eating the animal, and you should try to dispose of it so it doesn’t get back into the environment.”Robert Poppenga, a veterinary toxicologist with the California Animal Health and Food Safety at UC Davis, agreed the pig might have been exposed to an “anticoagulant rodenticide.”“These things have happened in the past,” Poppenga said.He added that the dye itself is probably not harmful to surviving pigs. But he doesn’t recommend letting scavengers get into an affected pig’s carcass.“I would probably dispose of the carcass if possible, where it’s not left out for other animals to feed on,” Poppenga said.Neither Poppenga nor Hughan are familiar with the specific details of the case of Morgan Hill’s blue pig.If the UC Davis lab receives a sample of the pig tissue from the Morgan Hill rancher, researchers could examine the item to determine a specific cause.Hughan added that Fish and Wildlife would like to speak to the rancher who discovered the discolored pig in order to obtain a sample that department staff can test on their own.This newspaper attempted to contact GlendilTEK for more information including the exact location of the blue pig, but has not heard back from the reddit user.