Opinion

I have a personal policy of not responding to comments regarding any of my writings or posts in social media. As a City Planning Commissioner and one who is involved in several aspects of the community, I have to hold myself to the highest level of behavior (and it’s pretty much just who I am). In my experience, even my most benign response can quickly devolve into a hostile conversation led by those who don’t adhere to a civil dialogue or resist twisting words. Too bad really, since I do believe in a good conversation.So I have broken my silence in responding here because I just cannot sit and watch some of the misinformation propagated by so few that is seen by so many.Mark Grzan has insisted on misinforming others about the Agricultural Preservation Set Aside; and yes, he is the author of the gross example of the misinformation I mentioned in my last column.I want to introduce simple facts if I could, so here is the exact Agricultural Preservation Set-Asides language:Policy CNF-3.14 Agricultural Preservation set-Asides. Set aside at least 300 allotments for housing that may be applied anywhere in the City through 2035. Recipient projects must directly establish permanent agricultural conservation easements within the City Limits or within the City’s Priority Agricultural Conservation Area.Zoning Section 18.78.060.D.1 adds: Easements must be established within the City’s Sphere of Influence and in a manner consistent with the Citywide Agricultural Lands Preservation Program. The number of allotments granted will be commensurate with the community benefit obtained from the resulting preservation of agricultural lands. No more than 35 set-aside allotments are available for agricultural preservation projects within a single year.Let me interpret a little here, from the top.“Allotments”: an allotment is the permission to apply to build a residential dwelling unit. An allotment does not assure the right to build; you must still meet several criteria before you have the right to begin building. One allotment is needed for each dwelling “unit” (a dwelling for one family).“Housing that may be applied anywhere in the City”: you can only build on lands designated for development and you can only build what is zoned for that land (examples: free standing homes or townhomes) and at the density allowed (example: five houses per acre, or maybe 15 depending on zoning).“Agricultural conservation easements”: a restriction you place on the land so that no development can ever take place except for normal agricultural related structures and a single family dwelling unit per existing lot.“City’s Priority Agricultural Conservation Area”: this is an area of farmland identified in the 2014 Agricultural Lands Preservation Program and incorporated into the Citywide Agricultural Lands Preservation Program. It is essentially all in the Southeast Quadrant area. Still with me?So in simpler terms: if you protect priority agricultural lands you can build anywhere in Morgan Hill where allowed, without going through the RDCS competition. However you must protect an equal area of farmland that you propose to build on (one-to-one in acreage) and you must still receive a passing score of at least 80 percent in the RDCS competition criteria; you just don’t have to compete or wait for the competition, which takes place only once a year.A developer skips competing for allotments, which makes life easier for them, AND the region gets agricultural lands protected in perpetuity from development. Looks like a win-win here.This is almost exactly the opposite of what Mr. Grzan is saying—and there is no way that Measure S implies that we can build outside of the city limits. We can’t, and Mr. Grzan knows that.We need to be careful what we say in public and the letter by Mr. Grzan either indicates that he is not at all familiar with the document and commonly used terms, or is intentionally misleading potential voters. His stint as a councilmember should have educated him to the meaning of everything I repeated here.Please check out the included snapshots of Mr. Grzan’s comments on social media that expand on his assertions. I leave it up to you to decide what his intent is.Thank you for your time, and please read the Measure S document and ask real questions of those who are informed.John McKay is a Morgan Hill resident, city planning commissioner and co-founder of the Morgan Hill Tourism Alliance. This op-ed is a response to the most recent letter to the editor authored by Mark Grzan. 

John McKay’s avocation for an “not perfect” Measure S is exactly the reason it should be rejected. It is this imperfection wrapped around vague and ambiguous language that leaves the measure open to interpretation. If passed, the measure at best will likely end up in the courts, resulting is costly and unnecessary litigation. At worst, it could lead to the destruction of our precious open spaces.For example, John cites in his article that 300 agricultural units can be set aside in Morgan Hill’s “developable areas” for preservation. But John, how do you define “developable?” As a Planning Commissioner, you know that when we define lands and boundaries we use terms such as the UGB (Urban Growth Boundary), City Limits or Sphere of influence, etc. These are legal terms. They are well known and there are maps with lines that define them. But none of these terms are used in the measure. Instead, we find the term, “developable lands.” All lands are developable and that includes county farm and agricultural lands. And therein lies the problem.The city has already spent over a decade in an effort to develop county farm and agricultural lands at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, only to be rejected by the state regulatory agency—not once, but twice. There is good reason to distrust the ambiguity of the measure as a continued pursuit to pave over our open spaces.John’s article fails to mention that those 300 agricultural units are specifically identified for housing, encouraging urban sprawl and untold costs to our community. And again, I have to ask, what is a unit?Measure S doesn’t solve problems, it creates them. It is labeled to “conserve water and preserve open space,” but it does none of that. Measure S is a “smoke and mirrors” effort to undermine our slow growth policies and encourage excessive development.If you discount that, just look at where our pro-growth incumbents are getting their campaign funding: real estate companies, landowners and developers. Councilmember Marilyn Librers, the strongest advocate for sprawl, received $3,000 alone from a Cupertino developer with land interests and projects in Morgan Hill.John, you want facts, and so do I. But the wording in Measure S lacks factual language and likely by intent. It deserves a NO vote until it can be rewritten clearly and factually. Your comment that it is not perfect is correct and we agree but no measure such as this should have ever have been brought before the community unless it is openly clear as to its intent and impacts.Mark Grzan is a former Morgan Hill City Councilman and Mayor Pro Tempore. 

Yes on Measure BI was very pleased to read the “Guest View” about Measure B and pleased to read that our local Chamber endorses it. I learned about Measure B many months ago, and saw the immediate potential for South County. There are several components of the measure that turned me and many others into advocates for the its passage. These benefits are positive, (and long overdue) outcomes to South County Transportation:One is the completion of plans to widen the Hale/Santa Teresa corridor between Long Meadow and Fitzgerald, and along the DeWitt and Main corridor. This would give us the badly needed west side bypass that would help calm our downtown traffic.The second of these positive results would be funds available for general road maintenance, something that our city urgently needs. Over the life of the measure, we would share approximately $54,082,927 from Measure B funds when this measure is passed.Finally is the desperately needed improvements along the Highway 152 corridor west of Gilroy and to the SR 25 corridor into San Benito County. These improvements are a MUST DO for the very southern portion of the county!There are many more potential benefits. Please visit yesmeasureb.com/ for complete information.I urge you to vote YES on Measure B!Swanee EdwardsMorgan Hill Low teacher pay is students’ lossI am a concerned citizen in this community, and you should be too. My concern is why it seems acceptable to not pay our teachers enough to survive in this district. We are expecting our teachers to give nothing but the best to our children yet we are not giving them the same in return.Instead of offering them a fair raise they are being offered teacher housing, with the potential of having to live surrounded by other teachers. I had to live in similar situations when I was in the Army; in my experience that environment never works. It only causes tension and conflict in the work environment. That also takes away the chance for them to one day choose a suitable home for themselves to purchase, which is the American Dream, right?I don’t see how these teachers are being denied a 10 percent raise when the majority of the board is working on a four-tier pay scale that starts at $160,000. The raise these teachers are asking for still puts them well under half of that. They don’t want to abuse the system; they just want to stay and teach in a district they love and be able to live comfortably when they do.I went to a school board meeting a couple weeks ago and it was brought up by the board how this school district is one of the top in the country, and how they had a surreal trip with Washington officials praising Morgan Hill.My question is, how can they then come back and tell these teachers that to be able to receive this much needed raise they have to work longer days? Has their work not spoken for itself? I then question, if this is their business approach to this scenario, how are other crucial matters being handled? What I mean by that is, if they are being praised by how great this district is, why would they return and then degrade these teachers by denying them a well deserved raise or require more effort than they already give to receive one?I want the best for our youth, and to achieve that we need to give the same to our teachers. They should be able to live comfortably so their focus is solely on educating rather than worrying whether they can afford to stay in this district.My fear is that we are going to lose great, qualified teachers within the next school year, which will be a shame for these children.Stephanie HuizarMorgan Hill

On any given Wednesday night, if you're lucky enough to get an invite, you can spend some time barbecuing and hanging out with the Elrods, a local racing family.Their shop in San Martin—the walls lined with trophies going back four decades—is a proud homage to the off-road racing lifestyle. Everything you might need to build a machine capable of enduring the roughest terrain on the planet is found here. Engines, motorcycles, and hunting trophies encompass the walls. Add all that to a cooler with a never ending supply of Coors Light, and it is paradise.I’ve know the family for about two decades. I was introduced to them through my childhood friend Curtis Giacolone. His cousin J.C. Elrod was the heir apparent to the racing legacy that his father Jeff and his uncle Wes created. For J.C. on the weekend of Sept. 30, this would be his first time in a race car after almost six years. He broke his back in a motorcycle accident, an injury that left him incapable of pursuing his passion.I was excited to go back to a racetrack, even more than usual since this would mark my friend’s return to racing. I was there one night when J.C. announced and displayed the car that he would be building. While a great deal of input came from Jeff and Wes, the mastermind behind the build would come from another friend, Donnie Powers. The build started about five months before the first scheduled race. I got to witness some of the transformation from rust bucket to race car, and I was ready to put aside a weekend to come see them in action.In the pits, no one was expecting anything too dramatic. All they hoped for was to just finish. So when J.C. won his second heat, all of us were ecstatic. For everyone who had put in a ton of sleepless nights, it was vindication. The night ended with what some could consider a disappointing finish: 11th place. But everyone was happy with how the car performed.The next night I was hoping for more good racing. The American Stock class provides for a lot of rubbing and crashing. J.C. had a few extra dents after the qualifying heat, which led to a little bit of an altercation in the pits. Emotions can run high, so scuffles between drivers aren’t uncommon.In the main event there was a lot of good things that came out from the race. Unfortunately it ended with J.C. spinning out just before the final lap. Throughout the weekend everyone was coming over to take a look at the car, admiring the rugged and traditional aspect it brought to the track. In short, while not finishing, they let everyone know they were just beginning..Being a family affair, Jeff—who all of us call “Boss Man”—was prouder than I’ve ever seen him. Self-admittedly he was a nervous wreck throughout the race, so to see his son come out unscathed after the nightmare six years earlier was an awesome sight to behold. J.C. himself was proud of everyone coming together to get that car on the track.While Elrod Racing didn’t take the checkered flag that weekend, it was just the beginning. The Team motto, “Build, Race, Win,” is prevalent. Where a lot of people starting off in racing use a cookie cutter style of building a racecar, these guys started from the bottom.So if you're ever free on a weekend and want to see a part of an old school American tradition, come out to the Santa Cruz County fairgrounds and cheer on the number 84x Elrod Racing car, the local boys.Gilroy resident and Live Oak High alumnus Connor Quinn is Region IX State Membership Coordinator for Team Rubicon, a disaster relief organization that employs military veterans. He is also a VA work study at the Gavilan College Veterans Resource Center.

What an election year this has been. Locally, we’ve seen a noticeable change in the climate of political discourse.There is so much intentional, and I hope unintentional, misinformation out there that it can get difficult for some to a get a handle on the issues.Measure S is the poster child for many of the ills I see in modern Morgan Hill politics (not meaning to diminish other areas of ills). Creating a population cap and how we might get there is tough to do.One thing almost universal is concern for the future. Also universal is the inability to get everyone in a small room to agree, nonetheless an entire community—especially when it comes to our future.We all care about the future of this community. We all care and we put together Measure S to the best of our abilities after what was hundreds of hours of education and discussion for many.The voter initiative that is Measure S may not be perfect but I believe that, except for a few areas where you have to consider the entire document as a whole, it is very well written. Please take it as a whole.What I am now seeing in so many cases regarding Measure S is just a few people saying the same negative thing repeatedly.Much of this discussion is fueled by emotion and misinformation. I don’t usually do this, but I must cite one gross example where a commenter said that Measure S allows 300 units to be developed in agricultural lands. Actually, it states that the development of 300 units in a special “set-aside” can take place within Morgan Hill’s developable areas if there is an equal area protected by an agricultural conservation easement on prime agricultural lands within a specified area.There is a lot of this kind of thing going on so we must be careful about what we hear and verify it for ourselves. Please remember that no matter how comfortable we feel trusting others that they have done their research on an issue, do the hard work of researching important issues and protect your vote; it is your vote, after all.A dear friend once told me you can’t change the minds of those who’ve already made them up, so focus on the ones who agree with you to keep a strong base and accurately inform the undecided.For those that believe Measure S is the right document to help us continue our path into what I think is an incredibly bright future, please speak up and support your discussions liberally with facts.We all care about the future. Guess how I’m voting on Measure S.John McKay is a Morgan Hill resident, city planning commissioner and co-founder of the Morgan Hill Tourism Alliance.

Measure B offers accountabilityJoin me in supporting Measure B, the 30-year, half-cent sales tax that will reduce traffic congestion in Morgan Hill by:• Completing and modernizing Hale Avenue/Santa Teresa Boulevard to provide a thoroughfare for the west side of Morgan Hill.• Increasing Caltrain capacity and service with more user-friendly schedules.• Providing more than $800,000 annually for road maintenance in Morgan Hill.• Providing direct access to Saint Louise Regional Hospital with a Buena Vista interchange.• Providing bicycle and pedestrian improvements near schools.While Measure B provides the traffic improvements Morgan Hill needs, it also provides the accountability improvements our voters deserve:• The two-thirds vote threshold (67 percent majority required for passage) assures that the Measure B projects are legally binding.• Changing a single word  or sentence in Measure B requires a 75 percent (9 of 12 members) vote of the VTA Board.• Measure B requires Annual Independent Audits by a Citizens Oversight Committee to report on how every dime is spent.Please vote YES on Measure B.Steve TateMayor of Morgan Hill Sales tax measure has pros and consI have been given an opportunity to state my opinion on Measure B by Valley Transportation Authority for a half-cent sales tax on the purchases of goods and services in Santa Clara County. In return, VTA promises to distribute some of this money back to Santa Clara County and its cities for road repair and gridlock mitigation.I am conflicted as to whether I support this measure. I am not going to ask you to vote yes or no, but instead tell you what I feel are the pros and cons as I see them so that you can perhaps make an informed choice.  First, Morgan Hill could use the money earmarked for improvements to our crumbling roads. South County needs the additional Caltrain service to and from Gilroy. Monies are supposed to be set aside for the west-side bypass from Hale to Santa Teresa. Extra money is always good if the people in charge of that money have a proven record of fiscal responsibility and fulfill their promises. For all of that I would say by all means, please consider voting for Measure B.However, we are being overtaxed. It seems so easy for government agencies like VTA to come around with their hand out. We face a backlog of street repairs and severe gridlock on 101. We have multiple taxes and fees from Santa Clara Valley Water District, property taxes, school bonds and state bonds, gas tax, water/sewer charges and garbage pickup.At this point, you the taxpayer are paying 8.75 percent sales tax in Morgan Hill. At some point our local government is probably going to need some type of tax to help with the backlog of infrastructure repairs. An additional .5 percent by VTA will bring us to 9.25 percent total sales tax.From this standpoint, I am inclined to vote No on Measure B. VTA does not seem to ever get control of the situation and give the relief that the people of Morgan Hill need. VTA has broken many such promises in the past, and I am having trust issues with VTA and our money.Would I trust VTA with $6 billion at this point? The answer is no I would not.So I hope this helps you make the best decision for you. Can you afford the tax increase? Will VTA fulfill their promise to use the money correctly? Do you trust VTA?These are your decisions. Please vote with your best interest and that of your community.Kirk R. BertoletCandidate for Mayor of Morgan Hill Editor’s note: Mayoral candidate Joseph Carrillo did not respond to a request for his opinion on Measure B. 

We heard a rumor the other day: Traffic congestion is back in Santa Clara County.That's why we both support Measure B—because the traffic challenges we face in South County and Silicon Valley have become so bad that it impacts every person, family and community, including Morgan Hill. Measure B has the transportation improvements we need, and the accountability provisions we deserve.  For the past three years, private and public citizens have been working with traffic engineers and transportation directors to develop a comprehensive plan that would have a positive impact on traffic relief, transit options and road repairs. The result is Measure B. Since there is no single answer to our traffic problems, Measure B is more like a jigsaw puzzle, with each transportation improvement snapping into place to add up to a comprehensive, countywide plan:• First, Measure B funds interchange improvements and improves traffic flow at 24 key interchanges on all seven highways that run through Santa Clara County. In South County, that includes interchange improvements at 101 & 25, 101 & 152 at Tenth Street and a new interchange near Saint Louise Regional Hospital.  • Second, it greatly improves our nine county expressways, which carry one of every two county residents every single day, with key interchange and safety improvements. For Santa Teresa, Measure B funds road and trail improvements between DeWitt and Main.• Third, nearly $1 of every $5 are for the basics—to improve the crumbling conditions of our local streets and roads in all 15 cities and towns. In South County, this totals more than $50 million.   • Fourth, it funds lifeline service and core transit service for people with disabilities, seniors, students and the working poor who depend on that core service.• Fifth, Measure B improves bicycle and pedestrian safety, especially near our schools.• Sixth,  it finishes the BART extension, with the final six miles and four stations in San Jose and at Santa Clara University.• Finally,  It connects the BART extension with what will be an electrified Caltrain Commuter Rail Service. Together, BART connected with Caltrain finally creates a rapid-rail-network around the entire Bay Area, linked with Morgan Hill and Gilroy with additional Caltrain service each morning and evening.For us, a key provision of Measure B is accountability. Instead of a "General Purpose Tax" that only requires a 50 percent vote, but that can be changed at any time by elected officials, Measure B intentionally calls for a two-thirds vote. That’s because this is the only way the funds can be locked in for these specific transportation improvements. In fact, the VTA Board can't change a single sentence in Measure B without a supermajority vote of 9 of the 12 board members. That protects small communities like Morgan Hill and Gilroy from being "out-voted" by the VTA Board.Neither of us are big fans of taxes, but we hate traffic even more. On Nov. 8, join us in voting Yes on Measure B.  For more details, visit YesMeasureB.comCarl Guardino is CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Council. John Horner is Executive Director of the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce.

I would like to commend the City of Morgan Hill—in particular, the Public Works Streets Division for their prompt response to a citizen's request.  On Thursday, Sept. 29, through the city website,morganhill.ca.gov, I reported a pothole problem in my neighborhood. A week later on Wednesday, it was filled in. Thank you.On that note, I urge citizens to report not just crimes, but ordinary items like potholes, burned out street lights, etc. These are items that are easily remedied by our local government. Every little action counts.  If you see something, speak up. Do not wait for somebody to do it for you.Let us help city staff do their job of keeping our city a better place to live in. Our local government might have limited resources to monitor every corner of our town and/or to fix everything, but now I know that they are listening.Sincerely,Lourdes Reroma StoneMorgan Hill

Outside Mullingar is a charming offering by the renowned TheatreWorks Company and loaded with award-winning actors, director and playwright. You can’t blink without looking at a prize winner from a Nobel to Oscars, Tonys and you can throw in a Lifetime achievement award. It’s never a question of “will it be “good?” You know if it’s TheatreWorks it WILL be good. So it is with Outside Mullingar, a captivating moment spent on an Irish farm with all of its humor, sadness and life decisions.