Opinion

On Nov. 19, 2015 a major update within the County of Santa Clara's General Plan became effective. The revised local-serving use definition, known as R-LU 57, attempts to set reasonable limits of "size, scale and intensity" of new institutional and commercial uses in the unincorporated areas. The change was initially quite well-received by neighborhoods, but after a short honeymoon of just four weeks, citizens revolted against the new law.I am the appellant in the Canh Thai Temple matter. This temple has become famous as the "bad neighbor Buddhist Temple in San Jose," but at stake are issues of even greater import than code compliance. In a recent open letter to the county supervisors, my neighbors and I urged awareness and action: "The current R-LU 57, ignoring Floor Area Ratio completely, encourages the buying of small lands for establishing institutions; it could even encourage the owner of a 15-acre property to split their land 10 times to create 10 Canh Thai Temples. We urge you to look at the long-term market-driven consequences of disregarding density and the General Plan."This temple is a peculiar case in point. It is on land that San Jose planners and voters designated as greenbelt by saying “Yes” to Measure K in November 2000, by an 80 percent landslide. For San Jose, the greenbelt is to be the green forever, as it is permanently delineated by the 15-percent slope contour. Even if Canh Thai Temple were to be identified as urban in scope—as the neighbors have protested, quite vigorously—there is zero chance of the property ever being annexed by San Jose. Measure K specifically requires any redrawing of the greenline to be approved by the voters.Two recent permit reviews have already eroded the credibility of the new "local-serving use." First was the approval of the VVGC (Hindu Center) on Dec. 17, 2015 by the Planning Commission. At 16,500 square feet, the VVGC will be the largest religious institution ever built in the unincorporated areas. Second is the Canh Thai Temple proposed for Evergreen, heard by the Board of Supervisors Feb. 9. The Canh Thai Temple, situated on a small 1.6-acre property, has more than triple the density of most other unincorporated religious institutions.Additionally, in the pipeline is the 29,000 square foot Cordoba Center. The unincorporated county has been the home of a dozen religious institutions, all under 10,000 square feet. Soon, it could be home to the newest megachurches.Overly dense and intense rural development has been an ongoing point of dispute between San Jose and the County over the years. Rural density is of enormous importance, since it limits the growth-inducing potential of developments that, otherwise, would become hidden future costs to the city—such as heavily used roads and other services.R-LU 57 formerly stated the following, to limit large uses in the rural residential areas: "Commercial, industrial and institutional uses may be established only where they serve the needs of the resident population and result in a net overall reduction of travel demand." To uproot discriminatory language about the origin of patrons, the new R-LU 57 replaces "local" with "local intensity:” New uses are now blind to origin of patrons; the new permits, instead, are compared to existing uses' building size and attendance limits. Furthermore, the size thresholds can be exceeded if developers include "maximal mitigations" of feasible scope, including financial feasibility. This begs the question: If you cannot afford to mitigate your large impacts, how could you afford to create big impacts and large buildings in the first place?The county, once again, is urbanizing. Owing to R-LU 57, it is only a matter of time before developers discover all those pots of gold and start looting. Only one thing can stop this runaway train: Reminding the supervisors that the County's General Plan has an underlying intention of low-density development. That intention should not be undermined by a stealth "small" change that is in fact far-reaching.

Earlier this week Michelle and I got the call that we had been dreading for way too long. Our dear friend known for his integrity, compassion and ability to get things done lost a battle with an opponent that paid no regard to any of those qualities. Cancer was his foe, and in a world where the odds of surviving this foe grow greater every day, too often it is still unstoppable.There was no way to win this battle. Any sense of victory would have to come from the way he faced the world and fought the battle with the usual tenacity and calm air of dignity around him. He can claim that victory.The battle took place over months and brought out a cast of characters to lend support in every imaginable way. Too numerous to name everyone here, it included his son Matthew, Jill Kirk and Kathy Sullivan who need to be mentioned for all of the difficult decisions and daily toil.Everyone involved in the battle could now be considered family because the man engendered that kind of bond amongst a group that otherwise might not have naturally gravitated to each other. I guess that is what some people can do. I hope this is something everyone can understand since I wouldn’t have if I had not been involved.I know in the coming days we will hear about what a great statesman he was and how much he gave to the community and what an inspiration he is, and I think they would all be true. But what matters to me was who he was as a person.So often in public someone would come up and say, “Remember me? I met you at so-and-so working on this-or-that…” And he would always take the time to engage them—or even better, if he didn’t have the time he expressed that in a way that I could only dream of.He was honest about his time and if you got any you got it all.We both loved good food and a fine glass of wine, and we shared many—usually with a gathering of friends with varied and energetic conversations.Even the quietest of moments are remembered, maybe now the most.He was also a man that suffered more pain than most. He had lost his first wife to a debilitating disease that lingered for too many years before exacting its final toll. He lost his second wife to an insidious disease that also lingered but had more than physical effects which he had to deal with that hurt him so much inside. The final blow which was so unfair was the recent loss of his beloved Nika, his canine companion who was also the vessel that carried so many fond reminders of his last wife. Is there any fairness?But you would never guess that this man had experienced so much inequity from his approach to life.Holidays, birthdays and those other special occasions will now be a little hollow. Discussions regarding city politics, the Downtown Association, or which flavor gelato is best will be missing a voice.The sun will come up, darkness will fall, we will laugh, we will cry, we will go on. But life will never be quite the same.Dennis Kennedy has left the room.John McKay is a Morgan Hill resident, Interim President of the Downtown Association, city planning commissioner and co-founder of the Morgan Hill Tourism Alliance.

Councilmember's comments 'insulting'

Mix tradition, obsession and inflexibility into a pan of sushi and you have the basics of Kimber Lee’s “tokyo fish story’.

On March 15, 2016, the Morgan Hill Unified School District board of education held a meeting in which Superintendent Steve Betando informed the board and the public of his recommendation that the newly opened Voices Charter School be co-located upon the site of the Charter School of Morgan Hill.  This decision is a momentous one which will impact hundreds of students and families. As such, parents and teachers from Voices and The Charter School of Morgan Hill attended this meeting to hear what Mr. Betando had to say, and to express their own concerns.We are writing from the perspective of the parents and teachers who were relegated to the overflow room and warehouse during the March 15 MHUSD Board meeting. There were over 200 people who had to watch the meeting via a TV monitor from these auxiliary rooms. Many of us have attended past meetings where the board room has been very crowded and people have been allowed to stand around the perimeter, sit on the floor and view the meeting from the hallway.  We attended this meeting because we wanted our presence to be felt and heard by the board and district staff, and we were denied this opportunity. We feel especially disappointed because there were multiple requests made to Mr. Betando last week to move the meeting to a venue which would accommodate the expected crowd. We feel that this request was purposefully denied.  We also feel that Mr. Betando orchestrated the setup to shield the board and squelch our ability to demonstrate our voice as a united front. Seats remained open in the board room for the entire meeting that members of our community were not allowed to access because they did not have the correct number on a sticker. Instead, many of us viewed the meeting from a room where the sound quality was so poor that it was difficult to hear the dialogue, and the lights kept flickering on and off.  The California legislators have passed the Brown Act for the purpose of facilitating public participation and it is through this type of participatory democracy, debate and discussion that the best ideas will emerge. Instead of embracing this through a simple change of venue, it appears that the district did everything in their power to limit this participation rather than encourage it.Signed by 212 CSMH parents, teachers and community members.

A booming real estate market has benefitted many in Santa Clara County, but many others have not been so fortunate. Homelessness here in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country is a problem that affects everyone. Thousands of individuals and families are currently homeless, and hundreds have resorted to living alongside our local creeks.

My wife and I attended Mayor Steve Tate's State of the City address Feb. 25. I was disappointed to see the low turnout of residents at this very important event. The speech was very long on vague, lofty goals and very short on budgetary specifics related to these goals. That opinion aside, what really irked me were a couple of statements noted in the handout flyer distributed to the attendees: "The City is committed to engaging the community and being responsible stewards of public resources" and one  of the “ongoing priorities” is "Preserving and cultivating public trust.”In my opinion, there have been many questionable misuses and squandering of public resources, with a great number involving the myriad of wasteful downtown projects. (The $3.6 million Third Street Promenade comes to mind along with the recent $200,000 “Spider.”) But one of the most flagrant, if not at least questionable spending decisions, involve the compensation package and perks given to our City Manager. As reported by the Morgan Hill Times July 17, 2014, the City Council not only gave Steve Rymer a 3-percent raise after only one year of service, but they also voted July 2 of that year to give him a 30-year, $900,000 home purchase loan at 3 percent interest with no points or other mortgage fees that average homebuyers pay. Mayor Steve Tate justified this decision "because we could provide incentives in terms of his longevity here in Morgan Hill." I think a $200,000-plus salary with generous municipal benefits would provide more than a bit of incentive to quite a number of qualified, experienced city managers.Then, even more outrageously, after four closed session meetings, the City Council on March 18, 2015 announced and approved giving the City Manager a $110,000 home improvement loan at a below market rate of 5 percent, in addition to a $3,200 per year raise. City resident Doug Muirhead justifiably voiced concerns regarding this at the sparsely attended council meeting, but it was a done deal regardless.More recently, as reported by the Morgan Hill Times, an additional $10,800 raise was approved 4-0  by the City Council in its March 2 meeting. Mayor Tate was absent. This all could be seen as blatant cronyism, if not at least excessive misuse of public funds. Besides, how is someone earning $228,000 per year not able to manage securing a  $900,000 mortgage from a private lender?My purpose is not to disparage Mr. Rymer or his work, but to point out that without public input, those we entrust with our hard-earned money often spend it very unwisely. Our streets are in disrepair, our water and waste infrastructures are soon to be overburdened and our quality of life in this town will suffer. This is not the time to be spending excessively on questionable artwork, pop-up parks or extravagant public payrolls.It's disheartening that more Morgan Hill residents don't get involved in city affairs unless it affects their immediate neighborhood, but city planning and spending affects us all eventually. Other than city officials and employees, there were maybe a handful of residents that attended the meeting in addition to a couple of dozen high school students there getting their civics certificates.The city's outreach program is weak at best. These important issues should be announced to all residents by either citywide mailings or methods other than the "Nextdoor" or City of Morgan Hill websites, which I doubt many people visit, or short blurbs in the local paper.I encourage Morgan Hill citizens to make an effort to get involved and come see and hear how their city operates and spends their resources before making their choices for city officials in the November 2016 election.Ask for specifics and don’t just accept lofty platitudes. It's your money they'll be spending.Zenon KomarczykMorgan Hill

It is exciting to see so many members of the community in defense of open space, and in particular, productive open space such as that used in agriculture. As a second generation farmer from Santa Clara County it is great to see. But as a grower, I wish there was more understanding of how agriculture operates safely for our community and the consumers, as well as the diverse benefits it returns to the community.A frequently asked question comes up: “What is the health of the agricultural community?”At first thought, you may not believe farming and ranching are doing very well. Such endeavors are more and more hidden from Santa Clara County as open space is replaced by asphalt, concrete, roof lines and other structures.The answer is more complex for urban edge farming; but, fortunately, the county has an Agricultural Commissioner—Mr. Joe Deviney—whose forward thinking has brought about great answers to this complex question. In collaboration with ERA Economics and help from local growers and ranchers, a good answer was brought forward through sound economic analysis to quantify Santa Clara County’s Ag Value. Ag’s valuation to Santa Clara County was 8,150 jobs and $1.6 billion in economic stimulus. That’s a lot more than any of us in the industry expected.Agriculture is incredibly responsive to the needs of the community and is currently doing very well. That’s not to say there are some large threats to the health of these industries, but for now it is showing signs of stabilization. How well is well? Here are some highlights to the report:• The resource base of agricultural land declined significantly in the 1980’s and 1990’s, but has recently stabilized. The value per acre and the value per worker created by Santa Clara County agriculture has continued to increase and has never been higher.• Agriculture provides diverse, stable employment opportunities for both skilled and unskilled laborers.• Like the other high-tech industries in Santa Clara County, agriculture is growing in productivity per worker and per land unit.• The Santa Clara County Open Space Authority estimated that the total value of Santa Clara County natural capital exceeds $45 billion. Agriculture preserves some of these vital natural processes and adds to the character of the county.• Agriculture can be viewed as self-financing open space, providing important ecosystem service values to county residents.Santa Clara County needs to continue with the stabilization of productive open space.When asked about land use policies, mitigation and how best to use areas for productive open space such as farming, ranching and other agricultural uses, the California Farm Bureau Federation uses language in a way that best represents growers’ and ranchers’ thoughts in the following statement: “Proposals to use agricultural land for mitigation should be considered by each county farm bureau on their own merits on a case-by-case basis. CFBF supports the use of voluntary agricultural conservation easements, when mitigation is required for farmland conversion. We oppose government mandated deed restrictions or easements acquired by the use of eminent domain. Subsequent easements granted on lands with agricultural easements should not restrict or reduce the agricultural productive capacity of the land, including crop choice.”The efforts of notable agriculture families, such as the Chialas, is generous and real. Many counties are discovering ways to integrate and weave agriculture into the community. Santa Clara County ought to do the same. Much applause and gratitude should be lauded on those—private and public—who entertain such ideals and work toward improving our community because the environment will benefit.How you may ask? Equally important are the ecosystem benefits attributed to open space areas. And agriculture plays a role in delivering these benefits to surrounding communities, free of charge.Ecosystem benefits include: flood control, groundwater recharge, water quality, pollination, biodiversity and open space. These benefits are easily overlooked but have measurable values for our community.So the next time you visit your favorite local nursery, winery, pumpkin patch or farmers market, be sure to thank them for doing great things for the economy, environment and the community’s health.We surely love to hear it! Working towards a balanced, healthy community benefits all.Erin Gil is a second generation farmer and owner of the Grass Farm in Morgan Hill. To read the report “The Economic Contribution of Agriculture to the County of Santa Clara,” visit sccgov.org/sites/ag/news/Documents/AG_Economic_Report_WEB_Final.pdf.