Two letters: A financial example and policy will ruin city

Morgan Hill Superintendent sets an financial example not with words, but with deeds
Dear Editor,
We are all aware of the precarious financial situation in our state that negatively affects all of the K-12 school districts. Morgan Hill Unified is no exception. While working to meet the academic, emotional, and physical needs of all of our students, we have been challenged by five years of a seemingly endless stream of layoffs and cutbacks.
Setting the tone for the dire financial situation, the Superintendent of Schools in Morgan Hill, Dr. Wesley Smith, has donated his contractual salary increases back to the district for both last year and this coming year. Dr. Smith understands the importance of leadership by example and his offer was gratefully accepted by the Board.
We all look forward to the time when education in California will once again be fully funded. 
In the meantime, we continue to budget conservatively and focus our resources on the needs of our students.
Ron Woolf, President, Board of Education
 
City poised to pass a terrible pro-developer ‘Magna Carta’ that will ruin part of MH
Dear Editor,
In the very near future this city will bring forward for approval a new Agricultural Mitigation Policy that will develop the last major, contiguous area of agricultural land in the Morgan Hill. The policy is a pro-developer “Magna Carta” that violates county, LAFCO (Local Agency Formation Commission) policies, the  city’s General Plan (GP) and our very own Slow Growth Ordinance (SGO). The city will loophole around the county and LAFCO, amend the GP, and exempt the project from the SGO.
It is a developer’s dream and a community’s nightmare.
The proposal is to annex 1,200 acres of County land in the Southeast Quadrant (SEQ) on the premise of conservation by development. But if this was a true conservation effort there would be support from conservation groups, but there is no support – not one.
The project is serving an exclusive group of developers that sand-bagged a citizen advisory group to exert powerful influence over this Council. If this annexation was necessary due to growth, then I could be sympathetic. But we have 3,000 acres undeveloped within the city so there is no need to annex new lands and incur costs when we can’t develop what we have.
Surprisingly, Mayor Steve Tate has rationalized this effort. I find it interesting as well that ex-councilmember Greg Sellers, who approved development in the SEQ years ago, as I have been told, is now a lobbyist in the pockets of the SEQ developers, meeting with local stakeholders to advocate for the project. 
It is these same developers who have been one of the largest single contributors to Council elections. If you want to know where all of this is headed – just follow the money.
 Years ago, I received a $500 contribution in my first election campaign in 2004.  It was significant by comparison and I was suspicious. After I was elected, I was indeed courted by the contributor in efforts to promote development in the Southeast Quadrant. Others on the Council have also been approached in a similar manner, just ask. During my term, I could see approval-votes surface where money interests were involved. I was rather naïve to think that logic would prevail but I learned that political influence i.e., money, trumps logic, science, facts and common sense even at the local levels.
The city’s policy will do nothing for Morgan Hill but place us further at risk. It aids development that no other city in the County would do or allow. It deserves our full attention and vigilance due to its impacts on our quality of life and the long term sustainability of a community we know and love.
Please contact this Council and tell them that you are not supportive of the AG Policy or development in the SEQ. Please do this before this project has a greater foothold on prime, nurturing and sustaining farmlands.
Send an email to Council via City Clerk: [email protected].
By the way, how valuable are farmlands?  The United Nations reported recently that world hunger could climb by 20 percent within the decade due to global warming. Why should we care, we are going to have polo fields in Morgan Hill instead of farmland (actual proposal). Did someone say let them eat cake?
 
Mark Grzan, Morgan Hill