Guest View

Thanks to strong community and social media campaigning, the festival is enjoying increased visibility and geographic reach.

April 22 marks the 47th Earth Day—a day created to celebrate our planet, environment and wildlife. Every Californian has a story to tell about how nature has made their lives richer. For some, it is regional food, lakes and rivers, or a beloved local park. For others, it is the ties to ranches, working farms, forests or our magnificent public lands. The ecosystem is one of California’s greatest assets. We have a unique and diverse climate and geography, and some of the most extraordinary plants and wildlife in the world.Today, the fight for a clean environment continues with increasing urgency, as the effects of climate change become more and more apparent. Earth Day 2017 provides an opportunity for all of us to do something meaningful for our planet by giving back in our communities. Thousands of volunteers will be needed throughout California to assist with projects such as campfire center improvements, habitat restoration, native garden conservation, fence building, trail maintenance and beach cleanup.The idea for a national day to focus on the environment came to Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, after he took a trip to Santa Barbara following a devastating oil spill off California’s central coast. Upon returning to Washington, D.C., Nelson introduced a bill designating April 22 as a national day to celebrate the Earth. The date was chosen to help commemorate the birth of California naturalist and conservationist John Muir, who was born April 21, 1838.In 1970, the first Earth Day celebrations took place in hundreds of communities across the United States, bringing together millions of Americans who supported environmental reform.  By the end of that year, Earth Day had led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts.  By 2000, formal events celebrating Earth Day were being observed in 184 countries, and more than 500 million people participated in those events. It now is considered the largest secular observance in the world, celebrated by more than one billion people every year.Earth Day is a day of action designed to change human behavior and provoke science-based policy changes, and serves as a reminder to us that our planet’s future is in jeopardy. The science is clear: climate change continues to harm our planet and has led to rising sea levels, warmer oceans, rising global temperatures and increased incidences of extreme weather events. I encourage everyone to attend local Earth Day events, which are planned throughout the month of April in communities throughout California. Help do your part to restore and care for the places where we live, work and play…for this and future generations. Seize the opportunity to ensure that nature continues to sustain us in the 21st century.Monning represents the 17th Senate District, which includes all of San Luis Obispo and Santa Cruz counties, and portions of Monterey and Santa Clara counties.

Summer break just ended for youth across California. Some children savored the opportunity to participate in sports leagues, attend camps with friends or travel to new places. But for many other children, staying physically fit and academically motivated this summer was a real challenge.During the months of summer vacation, research indicates that, on average, children fall one month behind where they left off academically in the spring. This loss in learning during the summer impacts disadvantaged children the most, accounting for as much as two-thirds of the total gap in their academic achievement compared with their more advantaged peers.While falling behind academically during the summer, children also put on additional weight—equal to half the total weight gain acquired during the entire year.Currently, more than 70 percent of Americans age 17 to 24 cannot serve in the military, primarily because they are too poorly educated, are overweight or have a criminal record. As a retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General and a member of the nonprofit organization Mission: Readiness, I consider this a matter of national security.The good news is high-quality summer learning programs in our neighborhoods successfully blend academic instruction and other enrichment opportunities for youth. Programs like Building Futures Now (BFN) offer a five-week session to help narrow the achievement gap and prepare students for school in the fall. BFN focuses on students’ potential and offers intensive methods that improve students’ math, reading and writing skills, while balancing activities that are enriching and fun.Healthy meals and proper hydration are also key components to the program, and students are provided a selection of fresh fruits and nutritious meals to pick from daily.There are key challenges to programs like BFN. Many lack physical space required for students to engage in the 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity that’s recommended on a daily basis. Further, the costs of running quality programs continue to outpace funding.The state’s After School Education and Safety (ASES) Program supports quality after-school and summer learning across the state, serving hundreds of thousands of students each year. Hundreds of students remain on their waiting lists. Yet, since 2007 the California consumer performance index (CPI) has increased by 19 percent and the state minimum wage has increased 33 percent, while the ASES daily funding has remained at $7.50 per student per day.Due to funding issues, a majority of programs have cut staff hours and reduced services. Each of us can do our part by urging community leaders and public officials to advocate for additional resources for quality summer learning programs.Many school districts are already planning for next year’s programming and we must ensure that the summer of 2017 is not a season of brain drain and weight gain. Providing youth with effective ways to improve their academic skills and stay physically active during summer is just common sense, and will ensure they lead healthier, more productive lives.Jeffrey Lawson is a retired Brigadier General, U.S. Air Force and a Morgan Hill resident.

On Sunday, March 26, residents gathered at St. Catherine Church in Morgan Hill to receive educational information about immigrant rights. Morgan Hill Unified School District Superintendent Steve Betando was asked to speak about the district’s stance on the national immigration discussion and what MHUSD is doing to help students and families. Here is a portion of that speech, which can be read in its entirety on mhusd.org.

I love Morgan Hill for both its small-town community and its rural open space. Since I love open space, I also love the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority (OSA) and Measure T.

A recent study on Homeownership in Silicon Valley conducted by the Joint Venture Silicon Valley Institute for regional studies recently concluded, “Homeownership represents a significant portion of the overall wealth in Silicon Valley, but the gaping divide between wealthy and non-affluent households is reflected...

The City of Morgan Hill is set on selling an option they own, “Depot Center/BookSmart,” to City Ventures, a developer from Southern California. The company has developed many great projects but this one will not be good for Morgan Hill. This project will be a net loss for the community. A small group has offered to match the offer from City Ventures for the option and keep Depot Center as it is. If this happens the owners of Depot Center have agreed to do major repairs to the property and do everything they can to keep the present tenants intact.Several years ago the city bought this option for about $1.7 million. Today they are offering that same option to a developer for $100,000 dollars. So the price is set at $100,000. What will the community get for $100,000? You will get some townhomes and a small amount of retail space. Here is how I see it:Morgan Hill will only get 8 to 10 percent more property tax from the new project than they are receiving now on the property.Sales tax will be far less than what the city is getting now because they are only building 3,000 square feet of retail space. The property currently holds about 25,000 square feet of retail space.Existing tenants draw many more people downtown than the proposed project.Occupants of the residential component of the project will be gone all day at work, so that is a loss to downtown.Very few retail businesses will be able to afford the rents that need to be charged for new construction.There are more employees working at the current site than what is being proposed.Seven or 8 long-time businesses, which have supported the downtown for more than 100 years collectively, will be displaced. The City of Morgan Hill will spend up to $1 million in relocation funds (already earmarked by the city council).The city has developed a relocation plan that may help some of the tenants but will be onerous for others.They have no plan to keep these businesses downtown during redevelopment or to bring them back after. The downtown needs businesses just as much as it needs housing (maybe more!).The City Ventures plan for the Depot Center property is very nearly the same type of project (townhouses and a little retail) that was denied last year for the property adjacent to Depot Center and the new parking garage. If this type of development is not right for one, why is it OK for the other?I appreciate that the city has a lot to do and in a short matter of time but they shouldn’t cave in and put a bad plan into action just because time is short.Contact your elected officials directly, not through social media. Directly speaking them to them pulls more weight than sniping on Facebook.Cities need to keep older buildings for the reason Jane Jacobs said in her book, “The Life and Death of Great American Cities.”The following is an excerpt from Jane Jacobs on old cities:“If a city area has only new buildings, the enterprises that can exist there are automatically limited to those that can support the high costs of new construction...Enterprises that support the cost of new construction must be capable of paying a relatively high overhead—high in comparison to that necessarily required by old buildings.”Brad Jones is co-owner of BookSmart, 80 East Second Street in downtown Morgan Hill.