Wishing him success
After a long tenure running the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce, Mark Turner is stepping down to run for Mayor of Morgan Hill. We at the Silicon Valley Chamber Coalition would like to publicly express our deepest thanks to Mark for his contributions to our organization, his city, and the entire region.
The Chamber Coalition, comprised of 18 local chambers of commerce in Silicon Valley, serves as a unified voice on local, regional, state and federal legislative issues that affect business, the economy and quality of life. Mark, as CEO of the Gilroy Chamber, has been an active member of the Coalition for many years, and currently serves as its president.
In this role, he has been deeply engaged in significant local issues, and led the Coalition in efforts that have led to important County and State legislation that has directly helped small businesses struggling to survive, and improved the economic health of the Valley. These include grants and economic support for family-owned restaurants, rights for small businesses to keep them relevant and thriving, support for improvements to rail service and public transit, and programs for our region’s most disadvantaged populations.
To be effective, Mark has had to bring together diverse groups, communicate fairly and effectively, and organize courses of action that are bold, thoughtful, transparent and actionable.
He has done this locally for South County, especially during exceedingly challenging times for the area, as well as for the benefit of the entire county—leveraging local actions to maximize regional impact. Running for Mayor seems a promising way for him to continue to leverage these strengths, and to help business and the community at large thrive together.
We are grateful for Mark’s leadership of the Coalition, and wish him further success in the future.
Ken Johnson
Campbell
Peter Katz
Mountain View
Dawn Maher
Sunnyvale
Kim Mosley
Los Altos
Catherine Somers
Los Gatos
Charlie Weidanz
Palo Alto
CMAD (Can Make A Difference) for the community’s safety
There’s no separate left turn lane when exiting Highway 101 onto Masten Avenue in Gilroy, which caused a fatal crash when a father was hit from behind. Many accidents have occurred at that exact spot.
As Gilroy grows many cars pass through here at a fast pace. We need signal lights. Drivers getting off the freeway don’t yield, not noticing that Sixth Street is literally right off the highway.
Del Buono Elementary School closed therefore GUSD reassigned students to different locations and one of them is Rucker Elementary School, which is right off Sixth Street.
Please, you “CMAD” even if it’s just saving one father, mother, child, etc. One life is all that matters.
Yolanda T. Gomez
