Guest view: Referendum cost is ‘too much’
On Feb. 17, the Morgan Hill City Council once again displayed a lack of foresight and financial wisdom in handling Ordinance 2131. You might recall that last spring, voters signed a petition to suspend the ordinance that would change the zoning for a three-acre parcel of land on Lightpost Way and Madrone Parkway from “light industrial” to “general commercial.” The petition required the zoning change to be approved by the voters before it could be enacted. Instead of following the California Constitution, the city terminated the petition in an attempt to aid an out-of-town developer who bought the land cheaply. That developer will now make a windfall with the city council rezoning the land to commercial, which is worth more. Now the city is being sued by the Hotel Coalition for failing to abide by the requirements of the Constitution. Who will pay the bill to defend the city? You, the taxpayer.
Religion: Have a healthy summer—It’s the ‘religious’ thing to do!
Aah! Summertime! Here we are, many of us stretched out in front of the television set, munching on snacks, with our iPhones stuck in one hand while playing video games with the other. Perfect, right?
Actually, we should answer no! Summer has a higher purpose!...
Guest view: Take advantage of water conservation incentives
If you have been considering changing your landscape to make it more drought tolerant, now is the time. Last month, the Santa Clara Valley Water District Board of Directors voted to continue supporting higher rebate amounts for water conservation programs until next June.In most of Santa Clara County, you could be eligible for a rebate of $2 per square foot of converted landscape. In Palo Alto, Morgan Hill and San Jose Municipal Water’s service area, local cost sharing makes the incentives even larger.Our landscape conversion rebate program is one of the many conservation programs that is helping us through this drought. More importantly, it will help us manage dry periods for years to come. We are working to save nearly 100,000 acre-feet of water a year by 2030. That’s enough water to fill Lexington Reservoir five times.Fortunately, the response to this program during the drought has been overwhelming. From July through October 2014, about 410,000 square feet of thirsty lawns have been converted. The conversion of another 1.4 million square feet of grass is in process.Some people mistakenly believe that a drought-tolerant landscape only means a cactus or rock garden. In fact, our program allows a long list of approved plants, shrubs and groundcovers that are lush, flowering and very colorful. More and more, these types of landscapes will become the norm in our region, in place of lawns that requires mowing, fertilizers and frequent watering.In addition, the water district offers rebates for irrigation equipment that can help you reduce your water use. This includes weather based irrigation controllers, rain sensors, high-efficiency nozzles, dedicated landscape meters and efficient sprinklers. Those rebate amounts have been increased as well. About 90,000 pieces of irrigation equipment have been replaced or are in the process of replacement.To find out about our water conservation programs and their eligibility requirements, visitwww.save20gallons.org or call our water conservation hotline at (408) 630-2554. The water district strives to make the application process as easy as possible, but it is important to check the program requirements before starting any project.The board also extended our call for water use reductions of 20 percent until next June. Despite all the recent rain, our local reservoirs and our groundwater levels are still severely depleted. It will take many more significant storm systems to make up for the three long years of dry weather.Much of this county’s water is imported from outside the county. Those water supplies depend on the Sierra snowpack and the conditions at key state and federal reservoirs such as Lake Shasta and Lake Oroville. State officials estimate that we will need precipitation rates of 150 percent of normal before those reservoirs will recover.As a result, the state has issued an initial forecast for the amount of water it can deliver to our county in 2015 of only 10 percent.The bottom line is that we will start 2015 with far less water than we had at the beginning of 2014. It is essential that we continue saving, rain or shine, for the foreseeable future.—Contact Dennis Kennedy, who represents South County on the SCVWD Board of Directors, by email at [email protected].
