What a year it’s been, and what a year is in store: the Morgan
Hill City Council will discuss these two topics during its annual
goal setting workshop today and Saturday.
What a year it’s been, and what a year is in store: the Morgan Hill City Council will discuss these two topics during its annual goal setting workshop today and Saturday.
The retreat will take place at 8:30 a.m. in the El Toro Room at the Community and Cultural Center, 17000 Monterey Road. The council will review its goals and accomplishments for 2008 before discussing possible goals and projects for 2009.
Sure to color the discussion is the budget shortfall. Earlier this month, the council approved $2 million in ongoing annual cuts, including yet-to-be negotiated reduced labor costs, a.k.a. foregone raises, and three layoffs. More cuts are likely to come.
The council will also sit down with Gilroy’s city council Saturday to discuss “items of mutual interest or benefit.” The council plans to discuss possible joint ventures between the two South County cities, which may include combined fire services, a dispatch center, recreation services and environmental services.
The council’s major initiatives for 2008 were thrown awry by the financial climate. Those initiatives were public safety services, downtown redevelopment and flood protection.
The first two were pursued by the council through measures – only to fall at the feet of voters in the November General Election. Both measures – one to boost police services by adding a utility tax and the other to allow flexibility to downtown redevelopment by adding 500 residential units unbound by the city’s growth control system – failed. City officials have said the utility tax failed thanks to the economy and that the downtown redevelopment measure may have failed because citizens didn’t see the need for new housing when existing housing isn’t selling.
Meanwhile, continuing a trend it started with the December 2007 purchase of the Granada Theater and Downtown Mall for $8.6 million, the city’s Redevelopment Agency snapped up six other properties for $11.1 million in 2008 and has begun dreaming up developer-friendly projects for the land.
As for the flood protection initiative, in April the city sent Mayor Steve Tate to Washington D.C. to lobby politicians to vote in favor of setting aside money for the Upper Llagas Creek Flood Protection Project.
The project, a joint venture with the Santa Clara Valley Water District and the U.S. Corps of Engineers, extends about 13.6 miles from Buena Vista Avenue upstream to Wright Avenue and would provide protection to the city’s urban corridor.
Once completed, the project would provide flood protection for 1,100 homes, 500 businesses and more than 1,300 acres of agricultural land in southern Santa Clara County.
Other 2008 council goals likely to be pursued in 2009 were to “build a sustainable community” through fiscal responsibility, economic development, “smart growth” land use, housing and transportation policies and environmental protection, and to improve the policymaking and governance process.
