Columnists

Last time we talked about creating a PLAN to make our contract: pause to consider our objective, look at our winners and losers and analyze our alternatives. Now, we put our PLAN into action.

Art is not only coming; it is already here.I’m sure most of you are now aware that in the next few months we will soon double, triple, or possibly quadruple the amount of public art we have in town. It’s hard for me to say since apparently there’s more public art in Morgan Hill than you might think because it’s not all obvious. Most of the new art will be much more obvious.All of the attention right now is on public art but we have a lot of the other kind too. What do you call that, private art?In many of the businesses in town, most notably restaurants, you will find local art that has been placed there for your enjoyment and purchase. Some of this art will grab your attention with bold colors or designs while others remind you that there is a quiet place in the library that could use that painting (we all have libraries, right?).The local art was placed in those businesses by the Valle Del Sur Art Guild that is based right here in Morgan Hill. The guild was formed over 4 decades ago and includes several dozen members. Now you can see their work thanks to over 14 partner businesses participating in their Art Around Town program. Their art can also be viewed periodically at the Community and Cultural Center (CCC).Art on the walls of the CCC is also coordinated by the El Toro Culture and Arts Committee. This group also helps with events to spark an interest in art in our youth and push to keep art in the forefront of our community.A new art gallery is opening up downtown. Morgan Hill Art Gallery on Second and Monterey is an example of one of the components long discussed as missing in our downtown business mix—an art gallery where diners and shoppers can spend some time browsing and shopping for art. This gallery also happens to be associated with the Valle Del Sur Art Guild and will feature locally created art.We are fortunate to also have many other local artists who are not associated with any guild or association in our community. Several of these artists will gain new or additional exposure in the community as they release their Downtown Placemaking Art Mini-grant winning work. Many of our artists are not just hobbyists and you will find some of them in art exhibits around the country. A second mortgage might be needed to purchase some of their work.We have an abundance of all forms of art in our community whether it be painted, sculpted, photographs, music or otherwise. Like so many other things happening in Morgan Hill there appear to be opportunities, or opportunities in the making, to let more of what is already here grow and shine.Again, for a community of our size we fight above our weight class in the arts. We just need to stop and pay more attention to it.I think that this is the year that art, like so many other things, will start to find its proper place in the community.Please enjoy what we have and support the arts.—John McKay is a longtime Morgan Hill resident, city planning commissioner and a member of the Morgan Hill Tourism Alliance.

About three weeks ago a group of us were having a Friday dinner when we heard police car sirens passing by over and over again. A little while later we start hearing the chirps and buzzes of messages being delivered to our faithful little electronic tethers to reality. C’mon, on a Friday night?Seems that something was happening at the Britton Middle School carnival right around the corner. Details were kind of sketchy at the time, but apparently someone had a knife and then half the world’s police showed up and things got ugly. Or something like that.More information arrived in the news the next morning—on the radio. Police officers were injured by several minors, eight arrested, one youth tazed, carnival cancelled and $20,000 in fundraising to support classroom related projects lost.Once again, something bad happened in Morgan Hill and the entire Bay Area gets to dwell on it with us. Can’t we get a break?So, we had a student with a knife at a carnival where police intervened, a mob got ugly, some police were assaulted, some young hoodlums went to jail, and the carnival was shut down.Can you find the good in all of this? One of my friends pointed out some things that we, in Morgan Hill, should appreciate. So here I go.First, someone noticed a knife being exchanged between two young males and they called the police, two of which were already on site patrolling the carnival. When approached, the young male with the knife handed it over without incident. No problem.So then the guy who first supplied the knife is approached and wants to tango with the MHPD and a crowd joins in.This is the smart part of dealing with the stupid part.Instead of possibly escalating the issue with the few MHPD officers on site with any number of defensive and offensive weapons at their disposal they reach for their—radios.This is the part I needed made clear to me.The MHPD brought in neighboring law enforcement agencies not to overwhelm the riotous crowd with lethal force, to but to be in large enough numbers to use the least amount of force possible for the situation.But until all of those other agencies showed up, things were getting pretty dicey. This is about the time some other police departments haven’t done so well. You see it on the news with shootings and complete riots.Apparently our officers were very cool in the face of all of this. Whether it’s training or hiring the right personnel, this discipline and cool headedness is now, to me, the face of our police department: cool and level-headed enough to think of calling in greater numbers to avoid violence and then remaining cool until they show up. They were surrounded by a mob and some officers were actually assaulted.With the possibility of someone greatly harming an officer or grabbing a service weapon, there are some who might say that deadly force is appropriate here. I can only imagine that if you’re afraid and freaking out you might turn to the last resort, deadly force, and the courts have in some cases said that it was appropriate. Not in Morgan Hill.Some are hungry for headlines like “Carnival at Middle School Ends with Officers Hurt”.I like “MHPD Diffuses Escalating Situation with Professionalism”.