Columnists

Cordevalle deserved better than the finish it got on Sunday to close out the 2016 U.S. Women’s Open.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, a group of us followed the Wine Trail of Santa Clara Valley and stopped in at Kirigin Cellars, which has been making wine on the property since 1916. There are so many things to love about Kirigin Cellars: to start with, their expansive property comprises rolling vineyards, over 1000 rose bushes and 100 sequoia redwoods.

Kevin Heath and the Limelight Actors Theater continually bring well done, enjoyable theater to Gilroy. “Other Desert Cities” is a comedy-drama and not an easy piece to deliver, yet Heath and his company of top Limelight alumni actors bring in a first-class production.

Here at the height of the Christmas season, we’ve kicked it into overdrive. Since Thanksgiving, we’ve been decorating and organizing, gift-finding and wrapping, crafting and baking. House lights are up, stockings are hung, Christmas trees sparkle with magic, as if delivered by Santa himself. In the background we envision an appropriate accompaniment to our colossal efforts: the Boston Pops Orchestra’s playing of the “Hallelujah Chorus.”

What a month we’ve had downtown!On June 10, the new pop up park made its debut to incredible enthusiasm and was an instant hit—you’ll see people having a good time there pretty much all day long. This is a concept that deserves a permanent home, but I wonder if a fancy permanent home will have the same charm and personal feel of this overnight success; it feels like we put it together with our community pride.Later, on June 23we celebrated the opening of the downtown parking garage, completion of the street improvements, and all of the downtown art. The parking garage is really, truly, finally done! The tarantula is lit and a hit. Poppy Jasper is always beautiful, but a three-story version is a truly remarkable sight. There is now so much art downtown that a walking tour had to be conducted to show it all off. The street improvements make the street scene feel festive all year round, and the median now feels like a park. Did you submit a name for our tarantula in the naming contest?The Downtown Visioning Summit closed out the month, and I felt that it recapped everything that happened earlier in the month. City staff put together what I felt was the finest overview of what has happened recently and what is about to happen downtown. There were two panels made up of real people that we could relate to. I think many of these folks are the new visionaries and as different as their approach may be, the vision seems to be consistent: we are going to have a lot of people downtown and most of them will be walking, hopefully from their nearby downtown homes.The Visioning Summit really opened my eyes; the new development coming downtown is pretty exciting stuff. There was an overwhelmingly enthusiastic buzz in the attending crowd. Now I’m sure a few were not enthused about what is coming but there seems to be a strong sense that the community is ready for the coming changes.We’re now in July and an event that the community has been working on for almost a year is here: the U.S. Women’s Open Golf Tournament! Women golfers from around the world arrive with their huge media presence, so be prepared and smile a lot when you’re roaming Morgan Hill the next few days.This event holds the potential to give us unprecedented exposure on the world stage, but even if we don’t get the anticipated exposure we know that we should have a hopping downtown while we entertain the best women golfers in the world.Not a bad month for little ol’ Morgan Hill huh? Oh yea, there was this little street thing and parade that I’ll discuss next time…John McKay is Interim President of the Morgan Hill Downtown Association, a city planning commissioner and co-founder of the Morgan Hill Tourism Alliance.

In case you haven’t heard, the Morgan Hill Downtown Association is hosting the gourmet food trucks of Moveable Feast Wednesdays on Third Street for a six-week trial.Approximately 2,000 people came downtown the first Wednesday (Sept. 14) and about 1,000 the second week. These numbers almost perfectly matched event predictions provided by Moveable Feast’s Ryan Sebastian and Gilroy’s Downtown Association’s Melanie Corona.Having empirical testimony provided by our neighbor to the south who promotes their downtown like we do was key to our decision to take the plunge in Morgan Hill. We had entertained the idea of bringing in the gourmet food trucks in the past but we needed to be sure that we would not harm the downtown’s existing businesses.We were told there were so many visitors to Gilroy’s events that crowds overflowed into the restaurants and bars. Apparently, not everybody finds what they want on a truck or wants to wait in line for their food, and many want an adult beverage before or after they eat. Gilroy’s businesses were so happy that they asked for their trial run to be extended.After hearing from Melanie, listening to Ryan again, and visiting Gilroy’s Moveable Feast event we felt that the time was right to give this a run of our own in Morgan Hill.We would bring in the trucks on a Wednesday evening since it is generally recognized as a slow night for downtown businesses. We would close down East Third Street and take advantage of the parking garage plaza for dining and gathering, with live local musicians providing background music. We would save parking spaces in the garage for the local residents and thank them for putting up with the inconvenience.Two weeks in, I think we can comfortably say this has been a success. Trucks are selling out and several restaurants have seen noticeable increases in business. The worst I’ve heard is there has been no business increase in some restaurants and most of the crowds show up too late for many of the retail shops.One of the things we were told was the event would be the place of social gathering with long lost friends meeting for the first time in ages. I didn’t buy it. Sure enough, there I was hearing over and over again the greeting of friends who hadn’t seen each other in a long time. I saw friends I hadn’t seen in ages.The social aspect is every bit a part of the gourmet food truck scene as the food itself.Another nice thing that happened was two of the truck operators showed an interest in looking for a brick-and-mortar home for their business in Morgan Hill. I wasn’t expecting that, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. We are developing a reputation for having a fun downtown.I hope the rest of the trial events go like the first two. Maybe we can make this a long-term series of events with the potential to become a regional draw.If you haven’t been to one of these events I encourage you to come down Wednesday night through Oct. 19 and see what it’s all about. You might just see an old friend you haven’t seen in ages or maybe make some new ones.John McKay is president of the Morgan Hill Downtown Association, city planning commissioner and co-founder of the Morgan Hill Tourism Alliance. He can be contacted by email at [email protected].