EDITOR: We feel that Jerry Di Salvo’s letters (Letters to the
Editor, Morgan Hill Times, July 27 and the previous week) and the
accusations they contain cannot go unanswered.
EDITOR:
We feel that Jerry Di Salvo’s letters (Letters to the Editor, Morgan Hill Times, July 27 and the previous week) and the accusations they contain cannot go unanswered. Two other letters to the editor, as well, need to be answered. The people of Morgan Hill do not deserve to be subjected to this propaganda, whether or not it is intended as such.
These four letters were printed in the Morgan Hill Times in the past couple of weeks in support of the Downtown library site, three of them before the Council’s decision and a positively venomous fourth after the decision. All four letters contained the same false claim that the people opposed to the downtown site were “a small percentage of the community,” “local residents who live close to the library” “who want to keep the library close to their homes.”
This appears to be a totally disingenuous attempt at disinformation by citizens with property or other business interests in the downtown. They probably know better. They should know just as well as the rest of us that two-thirds of the citizens favored the Civic Center site when polled in the past. They should know that the original decision to put the new library at Civic Center was favored by the people, and they should know that it is these same people who do not want the library in the downtown site this time around.
The fourth letter, the one sent after the Council’s decision, accuses the council of giving the people of Morgan Hill “short shrift.” Wake up Mr. Di Salvo, we are the people. You owe the council a public apology.
Mr. Di Salvo’s letter also states that we secured signatures on a petition for the Civic Center Site “likely … with false information.” What false information? The statement you refer to in your letter – that costs for a downtown library could “soar … by $34 million” is as good a guess as anybody’s as to the balloon payment that would be required at the end of a 20- or 25-year lease for the downtown site.
Don’t get us wrong, we want to see downtown improvements. We are behind you 100 percent, Mr. Di Salvo. Give the people something they want downtown and you will get their support. We did not want our library downtown.
The drive to favor the civic center site was neither about proximity nor a “small vocal minority.” Nearly 80 percent of the more than 1,000 citizens who signed petitions (favoring the civic center site) do not live in the neighborhood of the library.
Only about 20 percent of the signers actually live closer to the Civic Center site than to the Downtown site. We are not a small minority. We are from all over Morgan Hill and surrounding communities. We are the community. The council knows this. The community spoke and the council listened.
Mr. DiSalvo, there are people outside your social circles, and we are the majority of the citizens in your community. We would appreciate if you took the time to find out who we are.
Larry Haimowitz
Former Morgan Hill resident now living in San Jose,
member, Citizens for the Civic Center Library Site
