The election for the Morgan Hill city council is Nov. 2, and
residents older than 18 have until Monday to register to vote. With
councilwoman Marby Lee running for mayor, and councilman Greg
Sellers not running, there are two seats up for grabs and eight
candidates running.
The election for the Morgan Hill city council is Nov. 2, and residents older than 18 have until Monday to register to vote. With councilwoman Marby Lee running for mayor, and councilman Greg Sellers not running, there are two seats up for grabs and eight candidates running. On Tuesday, we profiled Joseph Carrillo, Michael Castelan, Rich Constantine and Ken Galloway. Today we profile, in alphabetical order, Rick Moreno, Dave Mounteer, Lee Schmidt and Gordon Siebert. All eight profiles, as well as questionnaires filled out by the candidates, can be seen at www.morganhilltimes.com.
Moreno: Work with kids, inform the voters
Lifelong Morgan Hill resident Rick Moreno’s city council campaign platform includes preservation of what little farmland is left in the city, ensuring the public is safe, and promoting programs for youth to participate in the community and explore the business world.
“All communities need some farmland,” said Moreno, 58, whose family developed a number of properties in the city limits. He said he has “mixed feelings” about the city’s current plans for the southeast quadrant, where a complex of sports and recreation-related developments with some agricultural preservation in mind is planned.
Safety “in the parks, on the streets and in the schools” is an important agenda to Moreno, and he said that can start with children. Thus, as a council member he would work with the schools to implement a number of programs that involve kids in the community.
“I’d like to do something that would give them work experience and credit for classes, and promote small businesses (at the same time),” Moreno said.
When it comes to balancing the budget, “everybody should be accountable,” said Moreno, who cited his success as the previous owner of 17 small businesses as evidence of his own ability to stay within a budget.
“If there’s not enough money, we need to look at that and find other revenues,” Moreno said. It starts with “a plan,” and now it appears the city has several different plans for balancing the budget. Although Moreno has a plan in mind to improve the city’s finances, he is not yet ready to share it – “It’s all about making money,” he said.
He thinks the dilemma of high labor costs “starts at the top,” instead of with the rank and file public employees who take the hit at budget time. He would consider implementing a two-tier system for new and future hires and he supports renegotiating union contracts if the need arises.
Moreno said he is “open” to the current plans for downtown redevelopment and the Monterey Road streetscape. But other properties such as some empty lots in and around the downtown area would be ideal candidates for RDA funds. The city could also use such funds to create a “self-sustainable” pot of money for loans or grants to downtown small businesses that are struggling – which could be funded by some of the city’s business licensing fees.
Moreno’s family history in Morgan Hill is the root of his reasons for running for office.
“Being a voice for the people is one of the biggest things,” Moreno said. “I think we’ve got a great community, and everybody wants to be a part of it.”
Mounteer: City should live within its means
Dave Mounteer has lived in Morgan Hill for 32 years and raised his family here, but he has “some concerns” about the way the city is going, and that’s why he wants to be a council member.
Those concerns relate primarily to the city’s role in recent years as a developer of private property and elaborate recreation structures.
“The proper role of government is the protection of our rights, even at the local level,” Mounteer, 50, said. “When the city gets involved in development is when we see the priorities shift.”
He said maintaining RDA-funded facilities like the Centennial Recreation Center and the Aquatics Center with general fund tax dollars is inappropriate. Rather, he said, now that those facilities are in place their operations are “better left to the private sector” – even though the city “dodged a bullet” when the facilities started to recover most of the recreation department’s expenses.
“We’ve done some good things in town – the community playhouse, outdoor (concerts) at the community center, but it should not have been done at taxpayers’ expense,” Mounteer said.
If he were presented with the need for budget cuts as a council member, “everything should be on the table,” Mounteer said.
The public sector should operate more like private businesses in that respect, he said. That includes negotiating for salary reductions for city employees if needed, implementing a two-tier retirement system, and attracting new businesses here to “reap the rewards of a stronger tax base.”
“There are two ways to survive – cut expenses or look for additional resources,” he said.
But certain indispensable needs such as public safety and protection of citizens’ property should not be compromised. The proposed merger of Morgan Hill police with county law enforcement, for example, might make financial sense, but if it gets enacted it should be “because it’s the right thing to do – not because we’re out of money.”
While the Redevelopment Agency’s plans for a mixed-use project downtown were and remain a “splendid idea,” he thinks the purchase of properties currently containing the Granada Theater, Downtown Mall and Royal Clothiers should not have been done with public funds.
Rather, RDA money should be spent on the rehabilitation of blighted properties – a category that the Granada Theater, for example, does not fit into, he said.
Mounteer said his campaign motto, “Live within our means,” was inspired by the way he has always lived his own life, he said.
The executive director of 10 private schools run by Challenger schools in the Bay Area (though his five children attended Morgan Hill public schools), Mounteer feels he has the experience needed to tackle the city’s budget and public priorities.
Schmidt: Skills and experience should be top election criteria
Lee Schmidt, 55, said everyone who is running for council wants to preserve public safety and be fiscally responsible. But it’s up to the voters to determine who has the best skills and experience to carry out those ideas.
And Schmidt thinks he is best suited in that area. He spent 29 years in the automobile sales industry – 17 of those as general manager of a number of dealerships. For the last eight years he has been a real estate investor and developer, having built the only mixed-use office-condo complex in the city of Hollister, he said – a project that took him six months to develop from the day he acquired the property.
Because the private development process involved so many steps, and car dealerships are “like five businesses in one,” he has “multi-departmental” management experience – a must for being a council member, he said.
Schmidt said he chose to run because “the city is at a crossroads,” he said.
“We’ve been deficit spending for a couple years, and they’re projecting deficits (further into the future),” Schmidt said. “That’s not sustainable. You’re going to run out of money.”
Plus, he added the council needs new ideas because three of council members have served “forever.”
His top priority as a council member, Schmidt said, would be the police department which is understaffed. “They do the stuff you and I don’t want to do. For them to be understaffed is frightening,” he said.
And he would try to ensure the city remains responsible with public tax dollars.
“One of my core beliefs is government is for the people and by the people,” Schmidt said. “Tax money is the people’s money. The government has the responsibility to spend wisely.”
He would also pursue a “smart growth” strategy in the city – starting with attempts to lure businesses into scores of empty commercial spaces scattered throughout the city. And that includes focusing outside the downtown corridor – the area which now seems to get the most attention.
The use of the RDA has its benefits and drawbacks, Schmidt said. The city gets the property tax-increment revenue from the RDA, but only “at the demise” of other things. For example, the RDA built the Centennial Recreation Center and the Aquatics Center, but the taxpayers who don’t use them have to pay to keep them open and working.
“We spend a lot of money on things that get us nothing,” he added, citing the recent expenditure of $245,000 for a consultant to study Monterey Road streetscape options.
To deal with labor costs, Schmidt doesn’t see anything wrong with reversing the trend that public entities began during the dot-com boom of trying to keep wages in line with private sector salaries. Now that the boom is decidedly over, private businesses have had to cut back and cities should as well, he said.
Siebert: Long career in public works, finances
Gordon Siebert has lived in Morgan Hill for about 21 years, and perhaps became familiar with the city when he served as public works director in the mid-1990s.
At that time he oversaw a legacy of projects that eased the city’s growth such as the construction of Butterfield Boulevard and improving the sewer system, he said.
Now Siebert, 60, is running for council on a platform of a “new direction” to improve downtown Morgan Hill, balancing the budget and keeping the city safe.
Public safety can be improved with non-obtrusive, relatively inexpensive efforts such as better lighting on streets and in parking areas, and more recreation programs for teenagers.
Plus, Siebert wants to continue the city’s “community preparedness” efforts to facilitate residents getting to know their neighbors.
Siebert said based on what he has seen so far, he likes the city’s vision and strategy to redevelop the downtown – especially to include residential uses in the plan.
However, he would have pushed for going about the Third Street Promenade with some minor tweaks.
“I don’t think the city has listened as well as they could,” Siebert said. “(The Promenade) is an area that could improve.”
He said he would “love” to see an improvement and reopening of the Granada Theater, but he doesn’t think its operation would be economically viable without subsidies from the city.
He said any attempt to renegotiate union contracts or overhaul the retirement system for city employees should be approached with “careful analysis, and opportunities to share information between parties,” adding that he has experience in negotiations from his previous municipal and private business experience.
Siebert claims his extensive background as a municipal administrator – notably as city manager for Palos Verdes Estates, public works director for Rancho Palos Verdes and his experience in Morgan Hill – have given him a solid understanding of public budgets.
“Generally accepted accounting practices say you should forecast revenues conservatively and expenses generously,” said Siebert, who is a civil engineer now employed by Monterey County.
Prior to his experience in the public sector, Siebert owned and operated a publishing company for about six years, and a taxi cab company for about a year. Plus, he has been a consultant to cities for about the last 10 years.
“My professional experience will be very beneficial to advance the city’s agenda for things like flood control, transportation and working on the regional agenda,” Siebert said.
