I grew up on a prune ranch on Fisher Avenue bought in the 1930s by my immigrant grandparents, Gataeno and Anna Forestieri. My first job was picking 10 boxes of prunes to buy a lunch box when starting kindergarten. The year was 1960.
My brother Steve and I worked summers, weekends and part-time jobs. My parents were adamant that farming was not a feasible career for us. Steve and I found other careers—an engineer and court reporter, respectively.
Morgan Hill is a town rich in history, and my father helped build that image and was appointed to the Federal Prune Administrative Committee by Secretary of Agriculture Bob Bergland in 1980.
You must understand the past to see the future. The freeway placement, which my father Duke Forestieri fought, cut off our land to the west. Dad took on other people’s orchards to make ends meet for our family. He also pursued the idea of moving to Yuba County where prune farming was beginning. My father’s love of Morgan Hill instead kept him here. He continued to sharecrop but as Yuba County’s production increased, it drove the price of prunes down everywhere—including in Morgan Hill.
The cost of farming escalated in the Valley, as more and more restrictions were enacted, utility costs increased, and labor for harvesting became harder to find even though my dad paid top dollar and provided free housing for the seasonal workers.
My dad’s health began to spiral downward in his mid-70s. He gave up sharecropping and farmed only his land and the next door neighbor’s..
The pioneer farmers did not have stock options or golden handshakes; they had their families and their land. Dad joined others in working with the city in the 90s and early 2000s to carve out a plan for the pioneer farmers and include the needs of a growing Morgan Hill. Before he died in 2011, this plan was taking shape and he told me, “It lets people enjoy using our land, not just looking at it as they drive by, but to walk on it, play on it”.
This final plan has been worked on for over 15 years. It provides an area where kids who cannot afford traveling teams can improve their skills in many sports and have a better chance at the coveted spots on the high school teams.It will provide a place for community sponsored events, where families can afford the tickets for the whole family.
If this cohesive plan is not put into place, landowners will go their own way, creating a haphazard tapestry for financial survival, which will not enrich our children’s lives or improve the landscape.
I firmly support this plan for the SEQ.
Editor’s note: The Southeast Quadrant/Sports-Recreation-Leisure Urban Service Area expansion plan will be considered for approval at the March 11 meeting of the Local Agency Formation Commission. For more information, visit morganhilltimes.com or santaclaralafco.org.
