Opinion

I think it is shameful and unfair to all the students, parents and the entire Morgan Hill Unified School District that they have not “fixed” their pool that they claim has a “chemical issue.” That being said, why did they not fix this during...

The theatre department of Foothill College with director Bruce McLeod at the helm has taken on Thornton Wilder’s second Pulitzer prize play, Our Town, a sweet simple story of life as it really is in the fictional town of Grover’s Corners in the early 1900s. Using a plain set with just a table and some chairs and a ladder, the story covers childhood, courtship, marriage and death in three acts. The story brings the folly, foibles, happiness and tragedy of everyday life to the top of the rim of existence and touches the imagination.

Dear Morgan Hill Planning Commissions, City Manager, and City Council Members, I am writing you to ask that the city support the new proposal from Trammell Crow on Cochrane Road. I believe that Trammell Crow is practicing good faith and that is reflected in the...

For Amtrak's 50th birthday, instead of lighting 50 candles, we ought to give recognition to the taxpayers and have one candle for each dollar in taxpayers' subsidies that have been paid to it. Of course, then if we start that annual tribute, to be fair,...

Last week was a big week in the world of planning for our community. The Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce, Morgan Hill Downtown Association and the Morgan Hill City Council all held their annual planning retreats.Every year, most organizations will spend an extended period of time really focusing and digging into understanding what it is they do and how they are going to do more of it and do it better.Looking to both the past and the future are all part of creating a meaningful and attainable vision.We spend time looking at the past to see how we did; most of what I’ve seen has been pretty good in my opinion. 2017 was a pretty good year if you believe in constant planned improvement in how we operate as a community. I mean this in the broadest sense with things like seeing public art going up, the Friday Night Music Series blowing up, the increased popularity of the downtown, expanded industrial activity, fundraising events reaching new levels in quality and effectiveness, our Fourth of July and Holiday Lights parades growing and adding definition to who we are, public parks with private partnerships opening downtown; the list goes on and on…We will spend a lot of time gazing into a future that is incredibly bright. That bright future could look different to each person in an organization, and must be distilled to ones they can agree to champion as an organization. Courses to a vision must be charted by mere people, often volunteers that practice a level of good common sense that is not so common these days. I would even call our city councilmembers elected volunteers with their level of compensation.Advice from professionals in the different fields of interest is usually available in Morgan Hill, but ultimately it is really up to the dedicated amateurs to make decisions and chart courses to the visions of the future.So I guess what I am working toward is giving recognition to all of those people that work so hard to make this community what it is in so many ways.Thank you to the city council for the countless hours of work that so often go un-thanked. Thank you to the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Association, Independence Day Celebrations, Kiwanis, Historical Society, AAUW and more…Thank you for paying attention to the past and seeing a vision for the future of Morgan Hill.Thank you for having the courage to make decisions that might ultimately prove to be wrong because no one makes all of the right decisions except for the one who makes none, and then they already made one bad one to begin with…Thank you to the professionals who help guide us amateurs. Thank you for putting community ahead of self. As far as I know, not one of you has made a fortune from all of your hard work, contrary to what some may say.Thank you to all of you who are considering joining the ranks of our volunteer community.Thank you to all of the volunteers of all types that make Morgan Hill truly community driven.John McKay is president of the Morgan Hill Downtown Association, a city planning commissioner and co-founder of the Morgan Hill Tourism Alliance. He can be reached at  [email protected].

A few months back I got an email from a friend who said she would like to talk to me about the Poppy Jasper Film Festival. I kind of thought, “Poppy Jasper Film Festival”—didn’t that film festival kind of fade away a year or so ago?

Have “The Safe Neighborhood and School Act” (Prop 47) and “The Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act” (Prop 57) made our communities safer? With a significant increase in property crimes and other criminal activity, one can make a strong case that Prop 47 and 57,...

If Bay Area housing stakeholders are to ever address factors that have led to construction delays and the rise in costs for constructing desperately needed housing, we must delve deeper into how a well-intentioned law has inadvertently led to difficulty in producing sufficient housing....

I would like to join the many voters in Morgan Hill that agree with John McKay’s “Our Town” commentary (from the Sept. 15 edition of the Morgan Hill Times) regarding district elections. Not only is district voting a travesty, but it is an insult to every voter in our city!We do not need to be told how to vote or who to vote for. The fact is, our city council has enjoyed amazing representation of the diversity of Morgan Hill. When we had a choice to vote someone out of council and vote for a new candidate, we did. This district voting scheme is just that: another way for losing candidates to force themselves on the voting public!Look at what has happened at the Morgan Hill Unified School District! In the last election, we had one district with only one candidate, because other very qualified candidates lived outside that district.District elections narrow our choices and may very well force the voters to send an unqualified candidate to office.On the MHUSD board, we have a split board that rarely, if ever agrees with one another, and we have a board member that we know very little about that ran unopposed from her district. We, in Morgan Hill, deserve better than this on our school board and at city council!Please don’t insult our intelligence with district elections and term limits. Let the voters decide who is best qualified and aligns with our values in order to address the complicated issues we face.This insult is being forced upon us because of a few losers that ran and did not win want an advantage to their losing cause.A threat of a lawsuit is a challenge, not a reason to roll over and give these losers an advantage. Shame on us!Ever Onward,Swanee EdwardsMorgan Hill