Opinion

As part of a nationwide protest through Families Belong Together, we, the members of SURJ South County (Showing Up for Racial Justice) are hosting a rally, march and day of action on Saturday, June 30, 9 to 11am along with local civic leaders, community organizers, activists and concerned citizens, at the Community and Cultural Center (17000 Monterey Road) in Morgan Hill.This movement is to let the Trump administration know that we do not agree with their policies and efforts to separate families at our borders. We also want to let immigrant members of our community know that we stand behind them and will do whatever we can to support them.This president believes that our country can inflict the trauma of separation on children without recourse. We need him to know that we stand with all families in America. Our members are rallying and marching until we no longer have a President Trump because we believe every child is a gift to this world with limitless possibilities.We are appalled by the actions taken by our government. These families have been through so much to reach our borders. They deserve to be treated with dignity and compassion. As a country we need to do better than this.Our members intend to speak up as much as possible about what we see as the unraveling of America right now. Among our group are immigrants who came to this country and were welcomed and made to feel at home. We want that hand extended to others, especially those in need of a safe harbor. Isolating children from adults who care for them is the worst torture we can imagine.We feel it’s important that voices from communities both small and large—rural and urban—will be joining with those across the United States who are also protesting the federal government’s atrocities against families along our borders.We will also be registering voters, because we want to remind people that America is supposed to be a democracy and we all need to use our voting voice.Many of us are parents of children as young as those being ripped apart at our borders. We can’t and won’t stop thinking of the more than 2,000 children separated from their families by the Trump administration. We are horrified at the lack of plans in place to reunite the children with their parents. This all happened on our watch. History has its eyes on all of us.Our rally is a start to ask: What are we going to do to correct this injustice? What can we as a community do to fight against centuries of injustice and to prevent further injustices from occurring? Our families will stand together with the families affected to say “¡Ya basta!. Enough!'Join us.This guest view was written by SURJ members Katie McGinty Ruiz, Gemma Abels and Jenny Kirchoff. For more information about the June 30 rally, visit facebook.com/events/445428659203124

Last month I took a nice motorcycle ride through the great American Southwest. This trip allowed me to reflect on life a bit here in our little community.

The Morgan Hill Unified School District Board of Trustees’ decision to withdraw a parcel tax proposal for the November ballot rather than share a piece of the pie with two local charter schools revealed much about the long-seething relationship between the district and the charter schools.Cutting through the political gamesmanship, where cordial public greetings and interactions mask true sentiments, it is safe to say the school district and charter school officials genuinely distrust one another. It doesn’t take any inside information to draw that conclusion.At a June 19 meeting, where a 5-1 vote reversed an earlier decision and prevented a $1.5 million-per-year parcel  tax from going before voters, Board President Tom Arnett said “irreconcilable differences” keep the district and charter brass from agreeing on just about anything.Unfortunately, Arnett, who sits on the board until the end of the month but whose children were in the charter school pipeline until recently, was correct in his assessment. Using a parcel tax proposal to repair years of bad blood was a pipe dream of some well-intended trustees.All sides—the school district, Charter School of Morgan Hill and Voices College-bound Language Academy—are to blame in this one, and they all miss out on valuable funds that could have helped better educate students, improve facilities and limit looming budget cuts to staff and programs.The MHUSD trustees also should be included in the blame since the decision was ultimately theirs to make. Board Vice President Mary Patterson, one of three trustees to change her vote from one meeting to the next, spoke to this, admirably falling on the sword by blaming herself and the entire school board for failing to procure a final parcel tax resolution for the Nov. 6 ballot.But from the district’s “I’m taking my ball and going home” approach to both charter schools’ laissez-faire, noncommittal maneuvering in the days that followed the initial May 15 vote (later overturned), the $75 five-year parcel tax measure never stood a chance. Whether it would have passed, with or without charter inclusion, will never be known.Board members and officials left the door open for developing a future shared parcel tax measure, but it remains a longshot at best considering the parties involved. A memorandum of understanding is necessary, as Assistant Superintendent Kirsten Perez said, before any tax revenues can be adequately shared and allocated. That seems unlikely considering that the district and Charter School of Morgan Hill (the district is the local charter’s authorizer) have yet to come to terms on an MOU based on their five-year pact.This, along with the mutually distrustful relationship between MHUSD and Voices, shows that because of “irreconcilable differences” between the district and charter schools, they should develop their own separate parcel tax proposals. That is where the district was headed in May, and represents a good “new” starting point.

Nearly 29,000 San Benito County adults were registered to vote in the June 5 primary. In neighboring Santa Clara County, the number of registered voters was a record, approaching 850,000. The “turnout”—the percentage of registered voters that actually cast ballots—was considered above average for a “primary in a non-presidential election year.” Regardless of the counties’ size, the turnout was about the same in both: 42 percent.

I just returned from a solo motorcycle trip across the great Southwest. Traveling mostly two-lane blacktop, there were few distractions other than the iconic, beautiful countryside.

CalFire, the Morgan Hill Fire Department and the South Santa Clara County Fire District will be conducting the annual Fill the Boot campaign for muscular dystrophy patients and research on June 8, 9 and 10. We will be at the intersections of Monterey/Tennant, Monterey/Main and Cochrane/Madrone to collect money that helps send kids to summer camp and fund research.We look forward to seeing you out there!Herb AlpersMorgan Hill

On May 27 at about 10:15pm, a major incident involving a person being stabbed occurred in downtown Morgan Hill in front of our business. On behalf of the Acevedo family and all of the staff at The Hill Bar & Grill, we are extending our deepest sympathy for those involved and are hoping for everyone’s full recovery.At the time of the incident a physical altercation had erupted near our front door involving multiple people. Our security staff, in an effort to keep our customers safe and prevent anyone wishing to do others harm inside our business, shut the doors and placed staff members at each door. No altercations, incidents or injuries occurred on or in The Hill Bar & Grill.Our security staff, along with members of the public, called 911 emergency services to report the incident.During the altercation, a person who was not a customer or had been in our establishment prior to the event was unfortunately stabbed, and again we are sending our deepest prayers for their full recovery. This person was stabbed by another person, who also was not a customer of ours nor was inside our establishment at the time of the stabbing or prior to the event. While we have no knowledge of who these persons were, our security staff were able to verify that neither of them had been in our establishment at the time of the incident or prior to it.While we do not condone this abhorrent behavior, we would like to thank our diligent security for acting quickly to prevent any of our customers leaving our establishment from walking into a potentially hazardous situation. Our security acted professionally and rapidly to keep our customers safe.We would also like to thank the Morgan Hill Police Department and all of our first responders for their rapid and professional response to such a serious incident.We want all of our customers to know that your safety is our first and primary concern when you are dining or enjoying our cocktail service with us. Our security implements many practices designed to provide a safe environment for everyone, including hand-held metal detectors, pat-down searches, bag checks and positive identification in a security line for everyone entering or re-entering on weekends, festivals and major holidays that produce large crowds.Again, on behalf of everyone at The Hill Bar & Grill, our thoughts and prayers are with everyone who was involved with the incident that occurred in downtown Morgan Hill on that Sunday night.Robert AcevedoOwner, The Hill Bar & GrillSubmitted via the Morgan Hill Times’ Facebook page

Recall Judge PerskyDespite being convicted of three felonies by a unanimous jury on all counts, former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner served only 90 days after assaulting his victim behind a dumpster. Many members of the legal community questioned Judge Aaron Persky's sentencing decision, and over 94,000 voters in the county signed a petition to add his recall to this June's ballot.We deserve judges who take sexual assault seriously, and there is no valid reason why we would need to retain an elected judge who we no longer trust to do so. We are not a “lynch mob” and we are not on a “witch hunt,” as opponents of Persky's recall crudely claim.We are voters frustrated with an elected official's poor decision making. We are simply exercising our rights to remove him from a seat of elected authority.I encourage everyone in the county who is eligible to vote yes to recall Judge Persky.Kathy DiefenbachMorgan HillJudge’s supporters blame victimThis letter is in response to a May 25 letter to the editor about the Recall Judge Persky campaign. In January 2015, two grad students biking through campus found Stanford swimmer Brock Turner in the act of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster, known as Emily Doe. A 12-person jury unanimously convicted Turner of all three felonies with which he was charged—intent to commit rape of an intoxicated or unconscious person, sexual penetration of an intoxicated person and sexual penetration of an unconscious person.Judge Aaron Persky gave Brock Turner a six-month jail sentence for the crime, sparking nationwide outrage for what was widely viewed as an unduly lenient outcome.In spite of Turner's convictions, Jim McManis, Persky's lawyer and the largest donor to Persky's campaign—giving more than half a million dollars—said of Emily Doe, “This woman was not attacked.”Retired Judge LaDoris Cordell, a spokeswoman for the Persky campaign, claims, “There was no sexual activity behind a dumpster.”Many from the Persky campaign have referred to Emily Doe's intoxication level as a justification for Turner's lenient sentence, shifting the blame of Turner's crime onto his victim. Judge Persky hasn't repudiated any of these statements.The outcome in the Brock Turner case proved to many women that even if you have all of the evidence—the perpetrator is caught in the act, there are independent eyewitnesses, the cops were there on the scene right away, the survivor had a rape kit—you will not find anything resembling justice in the criminal justice system.The Persky campaign's repeated use of victim-blaming tactics to distract from Persky's failings only worsens the misgivings women have about coming forward. As long as Persky’s on the bench, women will continue to believe there’s no use in filing a police report when they're faced with abuse. He needs to go, and now.If Judge Persky is recalled this June, his will be only the third successful judicial recall in California history. The vast majority of attempted judicial recalls in California fail due to the prohibitively high threshold of voter signatures needed to qualify for the ballot. This is by design. While provisions like this are put in place to protect judicial independence, the power of voters to recall judges is crucial for maintaining the democratic legitimacy of the judiciary.California's judicial system is designed to balance the opposing values of judicial independence and accountability to voters.Please vote yes to recall Judge Aaron Persky on June 5.Jennie RichardsonSan Jose

As your District 1 County Supervisor, I am proud of the beautiful parks and trails in South County that are accessible to all residents, and I encourage you and your readers to explore what South County has to offer.The County, City of Morgan Hill and City of Gilroy invest in parks and trails for their economic, health, environmental and quality of life benefits. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, providing places where residents can be physically active can improve both physical and mental health. Chronic disease sufferers can greatly benefit from walking on local trails and spending time at our parks. Being outdoors can increase vitamin D levels, decrease blood sugar levels for diabetes, and reduce feelings of depression, thereby improving mental health. Parks and trails function as a hub for community members to meet for social events and recreational activities resulting in increased social cohesion, which strengthens our community.The South County United for Health Leadership Team—which I Co-Chair with Erin O’Brien, CEO of Community Solutions—is coordinating our second annual “Let’s All Go to the Park” initiative. Along with the City of Gilroy, City of Morgan Hill, Santa Clara County Parks, Santa Clara County Public Health, the South County Collaborative and the Gilroy Bicycle Pedestrian Commission, we have undertaken this initiative to promote parks and trails as destinations for physical activity and meeting other members of the community.Five free events have been planned in South County geared to all ages and fitness levels. Prizes will be provided for participation.I encourage residents to participate in these events. The first event is a hike on Saturday, May 26 at 9am at the Coyote Creek Parkway. This event will begin at the Park Visitor Center, 19245 Malaguerra Ave. in Morgan Hill, and be led by Santa Clara County Park guides who will provide information about local plants and animals.Taking steps toward better health as a community is important.For information about “Let’s All go to the Park” events please visit https://spark.adobe.com/page/QBHMd68OAVBt7/.Mike WassermanSanta Clara County Supervisor, District 1