The Times interviewed the three candidates for mayor of Morgan Hill. Questions included topics suggested by readers in social media. Here is a full transcript of those interviews.
Question: How important is the mayor, now with district representation?:
Rich Constantine:
Well I don’t think responsibilities changed at all with districts. I don’t really think the district election is going to affect how our council members represent the city as a whole because I don’t believe especially a city of our size. I don’t believe that there are any issues there and mutually exclusive just to a specific district. Majority of the issues that come before the city affect every citizen equally. In that regard, I don’t think it’s going to affect the council members, but again I don’t see a difference when it comes to the mayor and how districts would affect the mayor’s job at all. I think it’s going to be very similar and the mayor only has one vote just like all the other council members you do. If I was elected mayor I would need to get people who agree with me again a path I do believe though that the Mayor’s job is to be the captain of the ship, is the analogy use quite a bit. To kind of steer policy, but it’s completely up to the council to make sure that policy is followed through and if they feel it’s necessary or it’s the right direction then that’s the way we go.
Kirk Bertolet:
The responsibility specifically is to the city at large. The proponents for districting, their concept is that, people in that district have a certain person on the council that they go to or is responsible for them. Whether it’s street repairs or some other specific issue and the mayor gets to represent the entire city. The issue that I have with being Mayor is that he’s the head of and the voice of the city.
So attending functions and being visible to the public is a very important role, the figurehead of the city at the time.
Sellers:
It definitely increases the responsibility on the mayor, for a couple of reasons, not only because it will effectively be the only city-wide representative but also the other two council seats are going to be brand new. Because of that it really is and I think I said at the forum, Mayor Kennedy used to call me the historian. Going back, we really haven’t had this much turnover on the City Council in a generation. So, the combination of the district elections and having a new mayor and having two new council members is going to be a significant change for the city that we’re all going to have to absorb. The leadership that the mayor is going to need to provide I think is two-fold. One just in terms of helping to set the direction, obviously not by her or himself, but rather to help bring the council together to set the direction. I think the other thing in particular relative to the district elections, is the fact that we need to ensure we as a community need to insist that whoever has a representative from a District continues to represent all of Morgan Hill. We need to make sure that we don’t devolve into four separate fiefdoms. I don’t think that’s going to be the case, but that is something that we’ve got to be aware of. However, having said that I’m generally not supportive of district elections. but I think one of the residual effects will be an added level of responsibility that each district representative will have to their particular neighborhood. In meeting with neighbors they’ve pointed out that they’ve called a council member and the council member has said, ‘well call the Mayor, and kinda pass the buck. With the district election, you know who your district representative is, if you call about that street the corner that you’re concerned about you know the person who is going to represent that area and who’s going to be responsible for at least addressing it. So, I think it’s going to be some good, but absolutely it’s going to create a different leadership challenge. It was one of the reasons that I decided to run, frankly. We’re facing a situation where we’ve had relatively good leadership for the last 20 years. Prior that we’d had really good and bad and frankly a lot more good than bad for a while. I know how volatile it can be on the council, how quickly good council can become a dysfunctional council. For me it was imperative that we continue the kind of leadership that is inclusive, that is respectful and hat reaches conclusions in a way that is clear to everyone that is the best direction for Morgan Hill.
The mayor’s most important role:
Constantine:
I think molding policy for the city. I think that’s important, and putting the city in the direction, whatever that may be. Obviously being individuals as we are we have our own opinions on things and again that’s why the mayor only has one vote.
Bertolet:
Well I think he’s one of the five. He holds an equal vote. He’s the fifth person or the tiebreaker in most issues. He’s supposed to set the tone. He’s supposed to set the attitude and set the example of what the people should expect their elected leaders.
Sellers:
In particular moving forward for the next few years, another significant reason I decided to move forward was it goes back to why we have separately a separately elected may. There was concern that we’re a relatively small town and we need a focused louder voice than our small town might have if we had a rotating Mayor. More than ever, certainly since I’ve been active in politics, we are going to be very active in the regional and statewide arenas and it is imperative that we have a Mayor that is on the one hand so grounded in Morgan Hill that she or he can actively represent the community’s interests, but on the other hand has proven the ability to be effective in working with regional and state. I just didn’t see that. I saw that as a huge issue in dealing with state housing policy, in dealing with high speed rail, in dealing with VTA, in dealing with a myriad of other issues that we’re going to be facing. Health care, which is not on anyone’s radar, but I think, will be another issue that we’re going t be dealing with. All of those issues are going to be dramatically are going to have regional entities that are going to make decisions and all of those are going to directly impact resident that live in Morgan Hill. To me the other role is to the outside representative, to be up there in Sacramento, to be at the county talking with them in a way that clearly articulates Morgan Hill’s position but more importantly can affect policy changes or policy directions that are in the best interest of Morgan Hill.
Listening and acting on constituents’ concerns:
Constantine:
I don’t know how to answer that question because I do listen. I don’t have to. There isn’t a thing that I would have to do differently because that’s something that I’ve done throughout my career on the council. I’ve listened as citizens concerns and have acted upon it. A good example is when we have gun ordinance. There were a lot of residents that stood up and wanted to have input and didn’t feel that the process gave them enough time for input. Then I suggested, why don’t we have a meeting and why not meet together and talk about it with representatives from the city and anyone who wants to come in from what I see in the city I mean city staff. And then of course any citizens that want to come in and voice their concerns. And we’ve we just had our second meeting last week. You know I think that I’ve always been receptive to people’s concerns because that’s my job.
Bertolet:
That’s how I got involved in running for mayor, was listening online, getting community pages, listening people and hearing their issues and listening to their issues. I sat back watching all this stuff that was happening the opportunities to possibly interject is slow the growth, taking on certain issues, advancing public safety– I felt there was a real lack of public safety. In traffic enforcement and other issues, I felt they were less of a priority and I wanted to do something about it.
I’ve always said that after some incident or some thing that happens a terrible accident or just issues people stand around say, ‘I wish somebody would do something, if only somebody had done something.’ And I’m somebody. So, I look back and I say why not.? Why not step up? The beauty of running last time in 2016 was that I was a person just in the crowd and would send the council e-mails and of them I was just one of the thousands of people. But when I ran I stepped up even though possibly taking down Mayor Tate, the incumbent, is statistically near impossible.
I had their ear with my policies, my agenda, for six months they had to listen to me every forum, every time they spoke and all of a sudden, I started seeing changes in their campaigns. The reduction of the Measure S from 250 down to 195. They started seeing pressure because all of a sudden here’s somebody that’s nobody. All of the sudden someone stepped up and now is a threat to the established policies of their little five-dom. Next thing I know I’m seeing things that I was telling them needed to happen, starting to get done. I think I impacted them, I think I was effective in what I did. So, I’m going to give it one more shot. I think there’s a good opportunity here.
Sellers:
In a town like Morgan Hill it’s a challenge because often the avenues that people often pursue, ‘well just go to a council meeting,’ are very difficult. I used to tell former Mayor Kennedy, he would lament that folks didn’t show up this and I’d have to say, ‘Dennis, you have to remember, folks are getting home from work at 6 and 7 and unfortunately sometimes later. When you have a choice between feeding your kids and going to a council meeting, that’s no choice.’. Having said that it’s imperative that we find other opportunities. So for instance when we were building the community center recreation center and all those facilities we had events on Saturdays for three hours in the morning where people could drop in as they wanted. Current Mayor Tate does coffees at the
Bookstore. We need to in some ways formalize that and make it more regular formal and to make sure we get input, but also that we get ahead of issues that we know are going to be divisive, or require a lot of input and that we reach out to the community actively for input. We have tools at our disposal that we didn’t have even 10 years ago. In terms of social media in terms of certainly online input. And while sometimes those devolve to less than ideal forum for folks who just want to you know be incendiary, for the most part folks are respectful and think whether it’s in person, or whether it’s online or whether it’s in other formats that you need, I think we need to actively pursue that based on the issue. Sometimes you just ask people show to show up at a council meeting when they don’t know what the issue is. It’s responsibility of community groups to do the same thing. You know, in talking to folks whether they show up for an issue because some group told them it was going to be you know Armageddon or some craziness going on at the council, they showed up and realized that it was not. I think it’s going to be imperative that we instill in the community a sense that you know there’s a process there’s an opportunity we need to have that. At the same time, don’t overstate an issue or try to whip people up into a frenzy on issues that would be better served if we had a reasonable discourse.
City government transparency:
Constantine:
That’s hard to say because I’ve asked for more transparency and this recently I put forth in a future agenda item to have any lobbyists, you know any lobbyist that deal with anyone in the city to register– similar to what San Jose does. I’m always looking to make sure that we’re as transparent as possible. I’ve stressed transparency especially when it comes to our negotiation when our bargaining units, because transparency breeds trust. If you have trust in the organization then negotiations and any conversation is going to go easier. And trust is very easy to lose, but hard gain. I’m very cognizant of the fact that whatever trust we’ve built up with the public that we maintain that we also work to build upon that. I believe that as a city we’re very transparent. But that being said, with the new policy that I ask for, having lobbyist register that is another layer on to being more transparent. I’m not saying that there won’t be something else that I think that you should do that as well. The City Attorney and the City Manager will either work through the language or do some more research and then they’ll when it’s appropriate to be on the next agenda item.
Well you know, there is another layer that I did think about that we might look into that if that’s if that’s something that needs to be done. I don’t. I do believe though that when it comes to the planning anywhere commissions all of their all their work is going to the public whereas with council and the mayor you know they have meetings with people outside of public meetings. Again, that could be that something that you’ve been may think that would be something we could do and it’s a possibility and it’s another. I don’t believe you ever stop evolving. You continue to make things better and if things don’t work you change it.
Bertolet:
There’s never enough transparency. I think the City Council and the members, the public has access to them. I think that they’re all good people. I think there can always be more transparency. I think that everything they do should be open to the public. There should be as few closed-door sessions only when it gets into personal issues privacy issues. That that everything should be an open book.
Sellers:
In some ways there’s never enough, but certainly here in Morgan Hill that’s not due to lack of trying. If they haven’t quite achieved the ideal you would like, because there’s always more that you can do. You said that certainly I think that Morgan Hill and having spent quite a bit of time in many jurisdictions over the years, there is no desire to be you know, opaque. If they’re not it’s because folks haven’t thought of ways to be more open. For me it was helpful to have stepped away from the Council for a while because, it becomes challenging for anyone to have been in office for a period of time and to fight the notion, ‘I’ve heard this all before. Oh, this person has this perspective, I already know what he or she is going to say. Oh, you know, we’ve been through this 18 different times why am I having to go through this again?’ So, having stepped away has given me a fresh perspective, but also an opportunity to reset and kind of be open to hearing back from the community. I think that’s going to be one of the positive outcomes of having new council members is that they’re going to be open and I want to do everything I can to encourage them.
Top issues: high speed rail, affordable housing, infrastructure:
Constantine:
The infrastructure issue as it pertains to roads, that’s a very hard issue because we’re spending $3 million just to maintain the roads the way they are. It doesn’t help to alleviate the back of maintenance issues which I believe is right around $21. We’d have to spend about five million dollars a year just to start chipping away and bringing up that piece of paper Condition Index where it’s running out to us from 70. I believe we spent $5 million for about five years. We bring that PCI up by five points. That’s an average. There are roads that are worse than that. With measure B that just passed in 2016. We’re going beginning about $800,000 per year from that and then SB-1 well we’re going to be getting funding. Unfortunately, SB-1 is kind of up in the air, we’re currently using the funds for that now but depending on what happened with Proposition 6, that that window may close. But with the measure B funds they’re being held up right now because of a lawsuit, from a Saratoga resident. It’s still a pressing issue as far as the road conditions we’re going to have a look at other revenue sources I believe, because you can’t use general funds for ongoing issues. It has to be a one-time thing. So, we can’t continue to use the general fund for roads specifically. Infrastructure in my campaign, I’ve been talking about the internet high speed Internet and again it’s important for kids and families that have access to internet because of school work that needs to be done. I jokingly say whenever I talk with people I say is there is anybody in this room that hasn’t heard of an encyclopedia, I am not happy with you.
Because you know when I would do research in the library, now it’s you are using your phone. And without having access the internet the kids can fall behind very quickly. But it’s not just for our families, but it’s for your business as well.
Going back to the economic development part of your question, hand in hand with that is business retention and growth. You know we’ve had we have vacant industrial and commercial lands that’s been vacant for over 50 years and I tell people I’m not saying that you elect me that automatically I’m going to fill that vacant land with business. But what I’m going to do and I wish had been more of the focus is to make our current companies happy, not to say they’re not happy now but I’ve heard through my campaigning that there’s still some issues in the city with red tape with permitting, the fees, how expensive we are in how we relate to other cities when it comes to cost, and also getting back to the internet; making sure they have high speed connection. Think about it, I tell people when you’re at home your dollar a painter or a movie and it slows or starts the buffer, think about a company. That’s money– that’s not just time they can’t watch a movie. That’s dollars flying out the window when they can’t do their business on the Internet. So being a city that’s part of Silicon Valley. We have to be as competitive with our cities, because when business owners talk with their compatriots and they say well you know I’m thinking about expanding, you’re in Morgan Hill, should I go to Morgan Hill? I don’t think that get a favorable response right now. So that’s my focus is to make the business happy, build the infrastructure so it’s more conducive for business to come here and then I believe that the industrial lands will be filled.
Mandated affordable housing:
With the state, that has really, I don’t want to say put the fear in us but, because Morgan has always been very cognizant of affordable housing. In fact, I always love, especially when I’m talking to other council members from other cities, I always love to tell them that, and quote this stat, that Morgan Hill has the highest per capita BMR (below market rate) than any city in the county. And that’s because we’ve been very cognizant of the fact that we have to provide affordable housing for all our residents through all spectrums of the economic window. But where we’re deficient is in the very low income. We meet all our REENA numbers except for the very low income. So that’s something that we were concentrating on. Unfortunately, the state sometimes looks upon cities that have growth control measures as a way to get a round of affordable housing, whereas warning us quite the opposite. We’ve made that an emphasis, to provide affordable housing. Which is again why we have more BMRs than any city in the county. So, where I’m nervous is that the state and developers can use the, I believe it’s SB 35 don’t quote me on that and I believe there’s up some other mandates that can supersede are our growth control and put different products in areas where we may not, where it’s not conducive to our general plan. We just did our general plan ratifies, it goes from 2016 to 2035. But I believe we’re still finding out if they can supersede that. They definitely can supersede our growth control, they definitely can supersede our population cap that we set for 2035. But can they supersedes say our general plan and put housing in industrial land, housing commercial that’s vacant. We have to find out more about that. But that’s a concern. But it’s not a concern because we don’t want to build affordable housing and we don’t want to provide affordable housing for our citizens. It’s just that we also have a way of life that we’re trying to protect and not ballooning and not building above what we can handle with our infrastructure and our police and our fire and our public works and all the other adjunct groups that have to provide for citizens comfort and safety. We have to make sure that we can sustain that growth. And that’s why we have a growth control measure.
High-speed rail:
High speed rail is something, I mean I voted for it when it was up. I think majority of people voted for. But again, the devil’s in the details. Didn’t really know how that would affect, I didn’t even live in Morgan Hill when that was up for a vote. You know it just sound like a great idea, ‘hey you can get a train and get down to L.A. in two hours.’ You know at the time, I was in college and I was I was driving, I lived in San Diego County, a near seven and a half-hour drive home. And I thought that’s a great idea. But again, not understanding how it would affect cities and homes and individuals lives. It’s been quite an eye-opening experience to say the least and unfortunate how it originally was brought to our attention. I remember, I was running for office and the group from the High-Speed Rail Authority came to a council meeting and they were talking about how the viaduct would look, you know, and they had like pictures out and they had El Toro in the background with this viaduct in front and they tried to make it look very pretty and pristine. But the person is giving the presentation said, ‘and then you have Morgan’s Hill in the background’. And you heard this audible ‘groan’ in the background.
I mean not even to do the researching the city you’re presenting in, then and I’m not saying this is how it is now, because the high-speed rail authority has made strides. They’ve become a little bit more open to listening to our concerns. But then, it sounded like they just didn’t really care and that this was mandated and this was voted on by the people. It’s going to happen. We don’t care what you say and, as I said, I believe that’s no longer the case, however I believe the four paths that they have chosen, and they haven’t chosen any one in particular, but the four paths been proposed all have detrimental effects to Morgan Hill. The one that they seem to be concentrating on now, because they’ve got an agreement with Union Pacific to allow electrification over their tracks, has three tracks going down the corridor right now with 60 feet. I haven’t walked it back there but I’m not sure if it takes out that office right there.
We just built that we just built those townhomes at the corner. Anything that comes up just sounds bad. There is no good solution yet. And I’m not I don’t want to be a NIMBY. You know I think progress is good. I was in Europe and I took the high-speed train from London to Paris, took about two hours. Didn’t know it was going 200 miles per hour, didn’t feel it. But the concerns that citizens have about the frequency, the sound, I mean no one really knows. I couldn’t hear anything inside the train, but it’s all going to be acoustic. Now we have trains the come by and the horns are blaring and the diesels sound as well as the acoustic sound from trains going to the air, but can’t tell you how it’s going to sound when you have, six trains, seven trains. eight trains an hour or however many they predicted as well as the Cal train coming through and then the Amtrak train that comes through and then the freight trains that come through. We really need to find out more details, but again, there’s nothing that we can do as a city to stop it. It’s going to happen. I’m very open when I I speak about that because people sometimes have this this notion that we as a city, city officials, can stop something that’s mandated by the people we care. And I was told that. whether it whether they look at me is a you’re lying or say they’re not going to vote for me because of it, I’m always going to tell people the truth.
Bertolet:
High-speed rail:
Let’s take high-speed rail. My profession is signal maintainer for VTA in the rail department.
handle the safety issues involved with rail and I’m a rail, technically I’m a rail expert. I’ve already had meetings with the CPC concerning the new blended option and the possibility that high-speed rail authority would push that new blended option through.
And I’ll quote one of the CPC inspectors, he says ‘high speed rail authority is smoking crack.’ The fact that they’re actually pushing this option because they’ve blown their budget and now they’re looking for ways to cheapen it is going to endanger the public and the citizens of Morgan Hill. Nobody wants to walk out in front of a train, but it’s going to happen and I don’t want it to be anybody. If they had the ability to make it a dedicated right of away, either elevated or sub-level and they’re going to go with this option because it’s the cheaper option is going to kill people.
Somebody needs to stand on the desk of the High-Speed Rail Authority and say no. An attorney once said, ‘never underestimate the power of no.’
Affordable housing:
The affordable housing issue. I had a meeting with the city and we were discussing the mandates coming down from the State of California and I got a feeling from the city that the state is going to come down and say regardless of what Measure S says whatever you think you’re going to do we’re going to dictate to you how much housing you’re going to build. I kind of felt the city said, ‘well that’s going to give us license to disregard Measure S.’ That we’re going to be able to allocate what housing we want and when the state comes down and says, ‘you’re going to have to build X number of very low-income housing and low-income housing that they’re just gonna build because they’re gonna say hey the State’s over riding Measure S. That shouldn’t happen. If we say we’re going to build 200 units and the State says you have to build very low-income housing then that’s what you have to do. Huntington Beach just won a lawsuit against the state. They want to build a county wide coalition to push back to the state to say, ‘you’re not going to come down here and bully us.’ I think we need to look at that and dictate what we feel is best for our city.
Infrastructure:
Infrastructure is a major issue with something we’ve behind for a long time. That was a major issue in the 2016 campaign. We have a backlog and they’re going to have to find the money to make that are up. In line with that, so now we’re moving in to public debt or the debt that we have for infrastructure, but also the unfunded liability. The unfunded liability in 2016 was $30 million.
We’re talking pensions to the CALPERS pension fund was $30 million. That’s like you or I getting a credit card with a hundred thousand dollar limit, maxing it out and then pay just the minimum every month just to get by. That debt is never going to go away, then maybe you get another credit card today the debt is over $42 million. So, in just two years it’s raised twelve million dollars, so that progression ten years from now we have $130 or $140 million. The short answer that cities given is that they’ve worked a deal with employees that any raises to the pension fund will be split by the employers.
So, for VTA, we pay 18 percent into my pension fund. I pay 6 percent, 6.5 percent. The agency pays the balance. I don’t know what it is here in Morgan Hill, but they have this split and the city portion is what is not being funded. The city needs to pay that as they go. We need to find the funds to pay that down.
Just saying you know, we’re going to add another one percent from the city employees is not going to pay down that portion that the agency owes. And that’s how these agencies are getting heavily in debt. When I started 10 years ago with VTA, the agency paid all 18 percent, or they say they were paying two percent and VTA is hundreds of millions of dollars in debt to CALPERS. Santa Clara Valley Water and Morgan Hill Unified School District is in debt the same way and we need to find a way to pay that as we go, because if we don’t our future generations our kids and their kids are going to be strapped with this or CALPERS is going to collapse under its own weight. Then when I retire and other people retire that pension is not going to be there. The state could come out and say ‘oh we’re just going to reduce it by whatever.’ I’m too old to be making changes in my lifestyle to recoup a 50 percent loss in my pension at this time. So, the city needs to address that. That is a major issue that most people don’t know about, whether or not it’s a good campaign strategy, I don’t know, but people need to be educated about that and they really need to address that.
In line with the infrastructure and the pension then we need to talk about how do we get more money.
Well a house actually costs more money in city services than they recoup in property taxes. I pay over $5,000 a year in property taxes. The city gets $500 of that. City services, street sweeping, paramedics or police, or whatever actually cost more than they make off of my property and city services. The way a city makes money is not with housing, but with industry. Commercial properties and industry. Gilroy as the outlets, they have other industries down there.
We have a small contingent industry, but we need to get up to Silicon Valley and start talking to those major corporations about green satellite offices down to Morgan Hill. We need to start bringing business here. Now the argument has always been ‘well we don’t have the internet. We don’t have this. We don’t have that.’ And to me those are just excuses, why can’t we resolve those issues. OK. So it costs $5 million to get the right Internet system down here. To recoup hundreds of millions of dollars in tax base. It’s like anything in life, you got a problem solve the problem and get past that. That is a major issue and that goes back to what is the role of the mayor. It’s that he is the face of the city. He’s the guy that has to go to places and bring those down. I think the mayor should be standing on the desk of the director of the CHP the California Highway Patrol and demanding more and more law enforcement coverage and better enforcement of traffic in and out of the city, as well as standing on the desk of the sheriff’s office that Laurie Smith or whoever it may be the next sheriff will be, he be needs to be standing on the desk and demanding better services from our providers. He should be seen on the desk of Caltrans the director Caltrans up in Sacramento. Why anyone ever got to the situation and did a few years ago, it finally repaired it.
But that’s the face of Morgan Hill that needs to be doing so. That to me is a major role of the mayor, to be the voice, to be the squeaky wheel to the big machine that is our government.
Sellers:
They’re really distinct issues, but really in some ways tied to high-speed rail and housing. High-speed rail, what we have to do is make sure that we are actively in touch with the decision makers on the project and that we come together as a community and give a generally chief consensus as to what we prefer particularly in terms of the route, but also in terms of some of the ancillary impacts that it will have. Make sure that those views are heard and that we understand because we’re going to be impacted by the decision and Gilroy as well. If it goes downtown in Gilroy, it’s very likely going to be downtown in Morgan Hill. Okay do we want that. If so or if not we need be speaking loudly, early. What are the impacts of that? It already took me three lines to get through Main and Monterrey. If we get a train coming through there we need an egress that’s going to allow us unfettered access to the East and West Main, at Main at Dunne at Tennant at the very least. Probably other places as well. Those are the kinds of things we have to get ahead of and be loud and active. I was on the board of VTA and had some good success achieving some significant achievements for South County. Not the least of which was actually getting a seat for South County. Because that’s the other thing, the VTA and the MTC and Cal Train, it’s imperative that we have electrification of Cal Train and that we have more Cal Train service and that we get ahead of that. I think it’s naive to think that using the high-speed rail to go to a job in Silicon Valley by going south and getting the train. Morgan Hill residents go North, residents go North they’re going to go North. If we don’t have adequate transportation infrastructure we’re just going impact 101 more with everybody going North. Those are the kinds of things that need to be clear on and make sure they’re clear: this is this is what Morgan Hill residents do, this is what’s important to us, this is why you have to decide it this way.
On affordable housing, this is something that I’ve been working on for as long as I’ve been back in Morgan Hill. The crisis is significant. The housing crisis is significant. Morgan Hill has done a better job than almost any city in the region that I could think of in addressing it. Both in terms of the amount of affordable housing, but also more importantly, in terms of building communities and not building islands. This income level is going to live over here and this income level is going to live over here. We’ve had a much more integrated housing stock than most communities. So we need to tell people that story. Second of all, we need to be in Sacramento and explain to them we’ve already done a great job that we’ve done it in our own way. You need to let us continue to do it because our voters have clearly made this a priority and see that we need to take a regional approach with regional leaders. I’ve already had several discussions with the mayor of San Jose, with other regional leaders about how they’re thinking about it. I think a regional approach is imperative. In terms of infrastructure. Again a loud voice. We know there are those who think that building out or adding lanes to 101 is going to induce growth. It’s the opposite. That’s cart before the horse thinking. The reality is they’re already here, they’re already coming through Morgan Hill in large numbers and it just takes forever. Then they go on Monterey and then they go on
Hail and everywhere else and it turns into a really nightmare scenario for all of us every afternoon. We’ve got to have more lines whatever else. That doesn’t mean we’re not going to deal with other transportation solutions, it’s just recognizing the reality today and tomorrow. Again looking creatively at what we can do in the Monterey corridor as well as 101 and trying to figure out how to most effectively and efficiently move folks through there. You know for instance right now we’ve got two lights and having three Sobrato High graduates, I’ve been going through that intersection since that school opened. It is significantly impactful to have those two lights, one right after the other. So, I want to come up with a creative solution that puts Tilton straight through– straight across so that it ends up in what Cartographers in San Jose think of as some sort of a green belt. It was really just an empty field with tumbleweeds. You know let’s be creative. Let’s talk about reality. Let’s deal with that issue. So those are the kinds of issues that we’re going to have to deal with in terms of infrastructure.
Public safety:
Constantine:
Well I believe, first of all, statistically, we are one of the safest cities in the county, but that being said there’s a reason why people lock their doors at night, there’s a reason why people have alarm companies monitoring their homes. There is that feeling that they could be victims of crime. We’ve had some issues in Morgan Hill. We put some daytime robberies just recently, that happened pretty brazen. Of course, we all saw the YouTube pictures of people who go to doorsteps and take packages that are left by U.P.S. and FedEx. Walking the neighborhoods and precincts, one of the precincts, one neighborhood in particular, it seemed that every door had a ring doorbell on it. And I was actually thinking about possibly getting one of those, and I’m going wow it’s really kind of neat and actually I had someone answer and they were on their way home. They weren’t home. And I said well here’s my flyer and I’ll just leave my door hanger on your door and you can look at it when we you back, if you have any questions, my e-mails on there. I think people are aware of it and are concerned about it and they should be, but not because it’s an issue in Morgan Hill, but it always can be. I’m a firm believer in, you should be very protective of yourself. I’m a firefighter. I tell people every year you need to change the batteries in your smoke detector, not because I think there’s going to be a fire in your house, but because there could be. It’s the same thing with crime. Don’t set yourself up to be a victim. And what I mean by that is you hear the police department saying those in their commercials for safety. You know don’t leave your laptop in your locked car you know, so it’s visible so people can break your window and steal it, you know protect yourself and lock your doors. What I can do as Mayor, is I can listen to that I can listen to our police department. Currently we just budgeted—we just hired two police officers, another school resource officer and a traffic officer, but we’re also down through attrition. I believe the chief mentioned at the last Chamber of Commerce meeting that we were down six, due to retirement, disability, going to different jurisdictions. He’s in the process of hiring more officers. But it’s a process that takes anywhere between six to nine to twelve months, depending on the experience of the officers. If they’re just out of the academy, it’s always going to take longer than with somebody that has street experience. It may take two or three weeks orientation, but it’s going to be on their level as far as how quickly they acclimate to the city, so if it takes two weeks, it’ll take two weeks. There’s no set time. The chief is very, shouldn’t use the word picky but, the chief is very—I’ll give you an example. He said that there was one person he was looking to hire, but he ended up not in hiring because it wouldn’t be a’ good fit for the department.’ He didn’t expand on that wither, and didn’t have to, because not everyone can work everywhere. This department has been very proactive in a lot of things that it’s done and I believe has a great relationship with the public. I can point to that with the cameras. We had cameras four years before any department even thought about. How we got them was the grants because it was a new program of time. We staffed all of our officers with cameras. That was before it almost became a necessity due to some of the issues that have come up most recently with police officer involved shootings and other, sometimes, inappropriate behavior. But again, we were ahead of the curve. We are a very progressive department. Our department has the highest closure rate in the county. In fact, the stabbing that just happened, we made arrests.
We’re a very safe city and I believe the majority of citizens believe we are safe. But as Mayor I know that we need to hire more officers. It’s not just officers. That’s the job of government, to provide for the safety of our citizens. It’s not just fire and police. It also includes our roads and public works at all and all in offices in the greater good for safety.
Bertolet:
So, it’s a major issue of mine, I’m a very big proponent of the police department. You’ve been here a long time how long you’ve been here. But there was an officer whose name was Pennington. And officer Pennington used to sit Monterey Road in other places and used to write tickets. When I moved here in 89’ I was working up in North County in Palo Alto and in places and those people up there they told me they said, ‘do not speed in Morgan Hill no do not and I never got to meet Pennington, because I heeded their warning. The effectiveness of good enforcement. Not bullying or anything. but if you’re speeding and you get a ticket, you’re up for it. You deserve it. I think that one example is that Morgan Hill PD should have at least one officer on traffic duty, doing radar and enforcement of stop signs and this lawlessness of traffic through Morgan Hill 24/7. I don’t know the last time anybody ever saw an officer doing radar at 9 at night. I’ve never seen it. Traffic enforcement here happens between 8 and 5 Monday through Friday. It needs to be a 24/7 operation. DUI, I don’t know what our current statistics on DUI and how many arrests we do, but there needs to be heavier enforcement. The tragedies that come from driving under the influence are absurd to me, that somebody would do something like that and we need to have a much harder enforcement of things of that nature. I think that a heavy-handed traffic enforcement policy would really help overall change the attitude of Morgan Hill. If you speed and you know that you speed there is a high probability that you’re going to get caught, you’re probably not going to do it. I think the police department needs more resources to handle enforcement in these areas and I think they need some direction from the council to the police chief to say I want to see more of this. The police chief, David Swing, is an awesome guy. I think he’s fantastic and I would love to work with him to really add up the level of the game in Morgan Hill.
Sellers:
Yes, overall. Morgan Hill is a much safer community than many other places it’s one of the reasons that folks move here and love it and one of the reasons why they affectionately talk about the small town feel because they tend to feel safer at night. You know we lived for 24 years in the downtown area and much more an area that it tended to have a little more activity. Even then a lot of we never felt unsafe partly because of the neighbors in the neighborhood and partly because we have a great police department. With growth comes the need to grow the police department and that’s going to be the first issue. The second issue is I think, as a parent whose kids are still here in school, but has been a parent of children in these schools for several decades. That’s always a top priority. I think we’re all very anxious about safety in our schools. We don’t have enough school resource officers currently and I’d like to add more. Property crimes are becoming more of a different challenge. You’re seeing folks come in from outside of our community just traveling down the 101-corridor trying to hit communities. So, I think that’s going to be an issue that we got to get ahead of. We are safe, we can always be safer.
The future of the city under your leadership:
Constantine:
Well two years isn’t a whole lot of time. I’m quite honest with people. I’m not going in there saying I’m going to fix everything. There are a lot of issues that are going to take time, but that’s my focus is that I think long term. I don’t think about just my term and I don’t say things are just to get myself elected. I always tell people if I don’t get elected, it’s not going to affect me in a way that I think other politicians are affected, you see politicians all the time, it’s like they jump from job to job to job because of term limits or what not. I’m not trying to do things to save my job. I’m doing things that will help benefit the citizens. I’m quite honest when I say you know, right now in our eight-year forecast we’re spending in a deficit. We’ll be going from a 41 percent surplus in our general fund down to 13. And we have a 50 percent hard level where we have some pretty detrimental things, meaning laying off people, not hiring, pay freezes things that would be detrimental to people’s lives. And when I say people I’m talking about city staff. I want to see, I want to get more towards thinking about long term economic stability. I want to get our infrastructure rolling so that it is self-sustaining. I thought some ideas, I like to think out of the box a lot of times and I’m looking at cities like Palo Alto, Santa Clara, where you see a parallel to. We have our own water district, but Santa Clara provides power and they’re able to have quite a robust general fund balance because of that. Now similar to getting a mass transit system that people will use and is convenient, it’s going to take an outlay of money. I don’t know quite what that amount would be, but that’s something that I would look into if given the authority as mayors to try and do this. That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about when I’m say the Mayor has that ability to move us in that direction do the thing about it. Why do we have our own our I mean and we have examples of how that benefited other cities. So those are some of the things that I used to say I’m thinking outside the box that will help our long term fiscal responsibility and our long-term future as a city. Because you know we’ve had a great run economically, very prosperous economy. However, the inevitable recession is going to happen and we have to protect ourselves. One of the ways to protect ourselves is to get more businesses, so that we get some business tax revenue as well. But maybe having our own power plant might also help us sustain and ride the wave of economics. It’s cyclical. The market goes up it’s going to go down, it’s just a matter of life and with recessions you don’t know you’re in a recession until you’ve already been in it for at least two quarters.
Bertolet:
The thing I see about Morgan Hill is the loss of politeness. Any time you have an increase in population and higher density in population you see a loss of concern from one another more about the me attitude. I would like to help bring some of that back. When I moved here I lived off of Peak and Main and actually would see people get in arguments about who would go first. ‘You go first. No, you go first.’ And I actually was stunned that people would do this. Teenager’s opening doors for people, saying sir ma’am. I’ve seen a decrease in some of that. It’s not epidemic or anything, but I would like to see that push through. Housing; we’ve already grown. You can’t un-ring that bell, you can’t go backwards. I would like to see the start, see the direction where we start bringing industry down here and not just down to Morgan Hill. I want to start a coalition of business leaders and political leaders in this area. I want to see this industry instead of concentrating everything in Silicon Valley. I want to see it come down here to Morgan Hill, San Martin, Gilroy, Hollister, Salinas; start pushing for transit down in those directions. It’s too late, but the high speed-rail shouldn’t stop in Gilroy, it should stop in Hollister next to the airport. Run Cal Train down to the airport, run the freeway 152 and 25 through Hollister you’d have a transportation hub that people could fly into. People could grab the train go throughout the state. If you want to take the high-speed rail goes out you would jump on Cal Train go up to Hollister. Jump on the train there and shoot out. The whole thing with it starting in Gilroy was Perry Woodward, the mayor there pushed that for his town. But I don’t think he really thought of the impact to the region and how that would affect this whole area. If he had the transportation hub and high-speed rail in Hollister and started bringing some satellite offices from Google Facebook and down there, people from Morgan Hill and Gilroy could start commuting other direction. Instead of just building houses down there and people getting on 101 and going North, they could go South. To actually think that people could go that way and that’s what I would like to start this area thinking about. The coalition that I’m talking about, I’d name it Silicon Valley South. Do the same thing out of Tracy, Livermore, Manteca, Silicon Valley East and start that focus, that direction. People talk about, ‘well we want to cut down on carbon emissions,’ start getting people commute the other way, or not having to commute at all. Getting out of their house. Get in their car, ride their bicycle and ride on over to their office and go to work. Instead of two hours a day, two hours a morning, two hours at night in traffic they can spend it with their kids, spend with their families. That’s the vision I want to see and that’s the direction I want to see Morgan Hill going. How effective you can be in two years and would I be reelected to do at least four and set that in motion. That is what I’d like to do.
Sellers:
Building on the good things that we have, not losing those things. I spend a good amount of time talking with folks and the one thing that unifies us is a generally positive feeling about the community. People like to be here. They like living in Morgan Hill. So, job one is making sure that continues and we build on that you know building up the downtown, which is exciting for me. It’s a project I started working on in the late 80’s and 90’s and came up with the blueprint. It’s so exciting now to see it come to fruition. Having spent the weekend at ‘Taste of Morgan Hill,’ which I started, it’s so exciting now to see is massive two-day event that brings all these people together. So, building on those kinds of things is one. Working together to recognize that the town is not going to look the same as it did in the past, as it does today and defining what we want it to look like, so that in fact we can achieve that. When folks who’ve been here a few years talk about not wanting things to change I ask them where they live and can usually tell them what the field that their house is on today used to look like. ‘Oh, you know that used to be an apricot orchard or that used to be that hayfield, or whatever it was. Having seen huge changes since I was a kid in a community that is five times as large and not nearly the rural outpost that it was when we were little, I can say that I’m thrilled and proud to see what we’ve become. Despite the growth sometimes, but we’ve become a community where people want to be and where people want to raise families. So, build on that, but recognize you know I have three oldest that are now young adults all of them love Morgan Hill and would like to stay here. They’re all finding it very challenging to stay here because of the lack of housing and other resources and so I think it’s those pressures. At the same time, you know my mother lives here and she’s in her 80s and she’s going to be have to go through some changes and look at other alternatives. Making sure that we can accommodate folks at all stages of life, starting with her kids, which is always where Morgan Hill starts and going through a broader base of the community and making sure that we all feel comfortable living here. With the growth that’s going to happen, doing what we can to make it as minimal as possible, but understanding that whatever happens in terms of growth, that we keep it a clear direction and a clear sense of who we are as a community.
