Opinion

Fellow Army veteran remembers KennedyMay I add to the chorus of praise for former Mayor Dennis Kennedy, to touch on another of his contributions.Fifty-two years ago, in 1964, Dennis and I served as fellow 1st Lieutenants on a mud-steeped old Luftwaffe air base near the West German-East German border outside Kassel, Germany. Dennis was the Executive Officer of our HAWK Missile Battery, which was armed with 110 men and 36 air defense missiles pointed east.Dennis was a superb officer, a tireless worker with the painstaking precision of the engineer that he was. I still have the mental image of him laboring at his desk, always the last officer to leave other than the night's duty officer.He was exceedingly generous to me, lending me not only his sports car once to drive the many kilometers to Group Headquarters in Kaiserslautern but also his tan summer dress uniform when I took a few days leave to see my parents in Cincinnati. The uniform still hangs in my attic closet.Dennis and I bonded immediately, in part because two of his friends back in California—Norm Matteoni and Bob Saxe—had been law school classmates of mine at Notre Dame.While no one was shooting at us in those mid-60s Cold War days, the duty was long and arduous. We officers pulled 24-hour duty several days a week, in addition to regular 10-hour days, often in the worst weather Northern Germany could throw at us. Through it all, Dennis Kennedy served his country admirably, always bearing that upbeat smile and a high sense of duty.When Dennis rotated back to the states for his Army discharge, I succeeded him as Battery Exec. To the surprise of none of you who knew him, the transition was seamless. Everything was in perfect order. It was an incredible privilege to serve with him and I cherish the memory.Edmund AdamsCincinnati, OhioSV Flex issues approach resolutionA recent Morgan Hill Times article, “Silicon Valley Flex Academy charter in danger?” (April 1 edition) was misleading and used out-of-date information.First, there is no adversarial relationship between the Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE) and Silicon Valley Flex Academy. We are two educationally minded entities working together to find solutions to temporary complications.Second, the information in the Times’ article was outdated as it was based on information almost 30 days old. The staff of both SCCOE and Silicon Valley Flex have been communicating extensively since then and meeting to resolve all issues, a fact confirmed by both Silicon Valley Flex and the SCCOE staff. All issues have been resolved or are in the process of being resolved.Finally, it is important to note that the school’s educational practices and results were not called into question and the school was recently approved by the SCCOE board for a new term of five years.We have visitors from all over the world come to see our model. With every visit, we are celebrated for sharing this extraordinary model and the successes it has brought our students academically. As we continue to work with our colleagues at the SCCOE in resolving both the issues presented and their genesis, we will focus on continuing the provision of an outstanding education for the students, families and local community.Caroline WoodHead of School, Silicon Valley Flex AcademyEditor’s note: Full videos of the March 2, 2016 and Nov. 4, 2015 county board of education meetings—where the discussion of operations and finances at SV Flex took place—can be viewed on the SCCOE website sccoe.org.

We can all claim to be this or that but I never thought that I’d ever claim to be a marathoner.On Nov. 9, 2016, I became a marathoner along with six fellow members of the Morgan Hill Planning Commission and several city staff members.On Nov. 8, the voters of Morgan Hill had overwhelmingly approved Measure S, which meant that the Planning Commission had to immediately get to work crafting a competition manual representing the values and desires of the Morgan Hill community.This competition manual would be the document developers and builders of residential developments will use to indicate where they will build, what desirable amenities they will include, and how much they are willing to donate to worthy needs in the community. Points are available for things like creating open space and being environmentally prudent with our resources as well as making our new developments look nice and be comfortable places to live.Each competitor can commit to their version of what is best for Morgan Hill and. An objective system will be in place to determine which ones are the best by a points score. More desirable commitments equals more points you get, and that score could win you allocations (permission to build a single dwelling unit).This isn’t the first time this community would benefit from the residential development control system (RDCS) competition. We have benefitted from decades of this kind of development regulation. Each previous iteration of the RDCS competition manual was refined to reflect the values of the community at that time, and this one is no different.The new competition manual takes the voter-approved Measure S and embodies what the voters indicated they wanted. Things like a lower number of dwelling units allowed to be built and eliminating spikes in construction, like we’ve been seeing the past few years.The commission met 20 times to create the competition manual basically from scratch. The goal would be to create a new manual, not just a refinement of the last one, and streamline it to make it simpler.Over those 20 meetings we discussed and debated how the needs and wants of the community would be met. We debated and then debated again, sometimes to the point of frustration, yet we always kept our goal in mind and cooperated to the end.We got into the weeds. Repeatedly. But in those weeds were the details which now make up the new RDCS Competition Manual.So we didn’t get simpler, but I think we got a pretty good document that should achieve its goal of getting great projects for Morgan Hill.   The City Council will soon decide whether or not the new competition manual is ready for prime time but it’ll be in this fall’s competition that we’ll see if the first goal of the manual works in deciding who gets allocations.But the final test will be in the following years when we see if we get the kind of projects that this community wants. My money is on getting that great community.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 reached at [email protected].