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The City of Morgan Hill has about $3.5 million to develop three new downtown parks to complement the vast infrastructure upgrades and property improvements underway in the neighborhood.The parks would line up along Third Street with a trail leading to a hilltop park at the city’s downtown water tower; a creekside rest area on the north side of West Third Street; and a “Depot Park” on Depot Street that would replace dozens of parking spaces adjacent to the railroad tracks with playground equipment, shade trees, benches, new fences, artificial turf, bike parking and other amenities like a giant wooden xylophone, according to city staff.The City Council approved the design concepts for the three parks at the Oct. 21 meeting. Some concerns were raised during council discussion, such as the elimination of parking spots on Depot Street and the noise of passing trains.City staff is in the process of soliciting proposals from interested consultants, one of whom will complete the design and construction drawings for the project.The total projected cost for the three parks, which would be completed by early 2016, is about $3.5 million, according to Morgan Hill Community Services Director Chris Ghione. This cost includes about $150,000 for public restrooms at one of the parks or elsewhere in the downtown.The parks concepts have been in the works for more than two years, Ghione said. The effort is part of the city’s “downtown placemaking investment strategy,” which is a widespread plan to use former Redevelopment Agency funds to improve both public and private properties in downtown Morgan Hill.“Development of these park sites will help make the investment strategy a reality,” Ghione told the council Oct. 21. “We want to provide all these opportunities for recreation, relaxation and making our downtown vibrant.”The Depot Park on Depot Street would be the most “active” of the proposed new R&R sites, with play equipment for children, bridges, crawl spaces and walkways. This park would eliminate up to 54 parking spaces at the Caltrain lot on Depot Street, on the south side of the former “train station” building now occupied by Jonty’s restaurant.Councilmembers also worried about how the loud noise from passing trains would affect users of the park.“At the Depot Park site, I would suggest we don’t underestimate the sound of the passing trains. I’ve gotten to know it quite well,” said Mayor Pro Tem Larry Carr, who recently moved to a residence close to the downtown railroad tracks.Ghione said staff will continue to explore options how to mitigate this sound, with a sound wall considered as one possibility.He added that while the train’s passing sound levels are “very loud,” they occur only intermittently.The West Little Llagas Creek Park, on the north side of West Third Street, would consist of more “passive” features such as benches, tables and pathways nestled among existing nearby residences. “The park would utilize the area’s natural features to provide a welcoming area just steps away from the city’s downtown,” reads a city staff report.The westernmost of the three parks—the Hill Top Park—would convert an existing dirt service road, now closed to the public, to a walking and hiking trail, according to city staff. This multi-use trail would link to a future trail that would span the length of West Little Llagas Creek through downtown.“The new trail would serve to provide for a unique health and wellness related walking/running path right near the downtown,” the city staff report says. And the park would incorporate slides that use the existing grade of the hill to “provide a unique experience.”This park would also require the city to reroute West Third Street so it is a westbound one-way street for vehicle traffic, Ghione added. This would be done in an effort to slow down cars as they crest the steep hill at the intersection of West Third Street and Del Monte Avenue.City staff have so far determined that the best location for a public restroom among these parks would be at the Depot Street site, Ghione said. A facility in this location would be the safest spot for a public restroom as it offers the best visibility for police and EMS personnel.

A contractor who has done design work for the Upper Llagas Creek Flood Protection project in Morgan Hill  may have fraudulently billed the Santa Clara Valley Water District, according to public records and interviews, and the board chair has called on the District Attorney’s Office to investigate conflicts of interest in the awarding of lucrative contracts.In late April, the water district’s seven-person water district board authorized its CEO Beau Goldie to bypass competitive bidding and execute $10 million in single-source contracts. Goldie argued that there was no time to undertake a qualification process for an $800 million indirect potable reuse recycling plant, and he was granted extraordinary executive powers by a 5-2 vote. After the vote was taken, details emerged about the largest of Goldie’s deals: a proposed $4 million payday for RMC Water and Environment.The district awarded RMC $10.7 million in 2009 to design the Morgan Hill flood control project, but that was done through a competitive process approved by the board, according to SCVWD spokesman Marty Grimes. As the state’s water crisis deepened, RMC expanded its services to include groundwater replenishment.In proposing the latest RMC deal, CEO Goldie neglected to disclose two material facts: first, one of his top deputies is married to a company principal; and second, just weeks before the water district granted him authority to draw up a deal, ex-Monterey County water board member Steve Collins pled no contest to criminal charges for accepting $160,000 in illegal payments from RMC.Interviews and a review of emails, budget memos and staff reports has identified evidence of a serious conflict of interest and documents which appear to show that top executives ignored concerns that RMC fraudulently billed the district for half a million dollars.Melanie Richardson, a deputy administrator at the water agency, is the wife of RMC co-owner Tom Richardson, who is actively involved in managing his firm’s business with his wife’s employer. Just six months ago, on March 14, Tom Richardson provided a presentation on the South Bay Water Recycling Strategic Master Plan to a joint committee of the district and the cities of San Jose and Santa Clara. Goldie has repeatedly argued that RMC is the most qualified company to kickstart the county’s proposed $800 million potable reuse water project. The claim, however, remains untested since no open bidding or qualification process ever occurred.In an interview this summer, Melanie Richardson said a “firewall” was put in place by the district to prevent her from having any involvement in RMC business. Emails suggest a policy started in December 2009, when she told staff to exclude her from all matters related to the company. But six months before that time, she and the water district signed off on two RMC contracts totaling more than $10.6 million.Melanie Richardson was a deputy administrative officer of procurement at the time. SCVWD was one of RMC’s two biggest clients during the second half of the 2000s, according to a source with detailed knowledge of RMC’s financials.As deputy administrator, Melanie Richardson oversaw multiple stages of the consultant contract review and approval process. But in presentations she delivered to the Board of Directors in February and August 2009, no mention was ever made of her husband’s financial interest in RMC.Complaints were sent to the District Attorney’s office in 2013, but no charges were filed—mainly because the four-year statute of limitations would have expired before the investigation had a chance of concluding.In her conversation with The Metro newspaper, Melanie Richardson admitted that the firewall does not require her to leave the room when staffers discuss RMC work.The district and Richardson have refused to release a copy of the firewall agreement, citing attorney-client privilege. Stan Yamamoto, the district’s lead attorney, also refused multiple interview requests, instead issuing the following statement: “As legal counsel for the District, I’m not at liberty to discuss legal advice provided to District employees.” He went on to add that he would not “comment on the opinions of unknown sources” despite the fact that requests for comment were related to specific documents.While the agreement remains hidden, one thing is certain:in addition to Melanie Richardson’s ability to attend progress reports, staffers have at times provided her with reports on RMC’s work.“As you can imagine, sometimes staff forget and then I have to remind them,” she said. “They might ask me to sign off on a document, and I’ll say, ‘No, I don’t sign off on that document.’ You can’t expect every other person in the organization to remember this. Over time it’s gotten better.”The firewall also failed to prevent Melanie Richardson from conducting performance evaluations of unit managers who performed oversight of RMC contracts. This changed in July, shortly after the Metro’s media report on conflicts of interest involving RMC.She does, however, author most of the five-year capital budget plan for flood control, and she manages up to 20 watershed projects, which are designed to protect people and properties from flood damage. Any budget changes above $100,000 must be signed off by the board of directors, but the complexity of the accounting makes it near impossible for part-time board members to identify irregularities in hundreds of pages of staff reports that are filled with engineering jargon and accounting figures.District staffers say it wouldn’t be difficult for Melanie Richardson to reduce funds from one of the 20 watershed projects she controls, leaving leftover funds for someone else to channel into other existing contracts, including those controlled by RMC.“Is it possible? I don’t think it happened,” Goldie said. “I don’t mean to be flippant here. Anything is possible, but I don’t think it happened in this case.”What is possible—and almost certain—is that Goldie and his top administrators have ignored warnings that RMC has manipulated contracts to overbill the district by as much as $512,000.Zero WorkInternal emails acquired through Public Records Act requests suggest that Goldie and district COO Norma Camacho have actively turned a blind eye to fraudulent billing.Roger Narsim, an engineer unit manager for the district who oversees RMC contracts, first sounded alarms about the fraud nearly 18 months ago. His warnings fell on deaf ears. In a message sent April 21, 2014, Narsim noted that RMC had billed the district an estimated $512,000 for work that was never done. He added that it would be difficult to recoup the money and that the district’s lone option might be withholding $46,000 in retention funds. To date that money has not been released, yet Goldie and Camacho both maintain that RMC has never had a district contract cancelled or suspended due to improprieties.In particular, RMC appears to have received $350,000 in payments for zero hours of work related to the Lower Silver Creek “Reach 6B” project in East San Jose. “In essence, we paid to RMC about $350K for Reach 6B program management work which they did not work for an hour,” Narsim wrote in an email this spring to Camacho. “Per the contract, consultant cannot use future tasks without prior authorization. We were not able to find any paperwork authorizing to pre-bill or bill against future work.”As a result, district staff has been forced to fill in the gap. In an email to a colleague, Narsim noted that the district has expended more than 2,400 hours of staff time to perform work that RMC was paid for.“As you know, District cannot spend money to work on the tasks that were assigned to a private entity which was already paid out,” Narsim wrote. “This is gifting of public money to private entity.”Despite these emails stating that RMC had improperly billed the water district for unperformed work, Camacho said in a follow-up interview that Narsim “never brought up any issues in regards to that.”When reminded the emails she received directly from Narsim, noting the misuse of district funds, Camacho changed her story, saying that she did recall such an issue and that the matter was forwarded to district counsel Stan Yamamoto.Camacho added, “I assume that there was a resolution, because I have not heard of any issues in regards to that, until you brought it up.”In a July interview, Goldie suggested he had no knowledge of RMC violating the terms of its contract or improperly billing the district. Media attention to RMC’s new contract with the district has already led to a change in how contracts are negotiated. In August, Goldie signed the single-source agreement with RMC but the deal was capped at $1.28 million, rather than the originally contemplated $4 million. “The main reason (for the reduced price) is because there’s been so much scrutiny about this contract, we decided to narrow the scope to things that are critical to inform the work of the other single-source consultants,” district Deputy Operating Officer Katherine Oven said.RMC senior civil engineer Steve Bui, who handled all of RMC’s watershed contracts with the district, quickly cut short a phone interview after he was asked about the irregularities.Alyson Watson, RMC’s president, said she had no information about improper billings to the water district. “That’s news to me,” she said.RMC is no stranger to controversy. In 2008, it was sued by an Oakland contractor over a botched dig under the Guadalupe River north of Julian Street in San Jose. The city had paid RMC $683,016 for its engineering and design services. San Jose then had to write a $3 million check to settle the case and never got its new sewer line.In reference to the Monterey County public official who was caught accepting illegal consulting payments, RMC president Watson defended the company, stating that its client, the Marina Coast Water District, asked the company to issue a consulting contract to commissioner Collins.When the Monterey bribery scandal began to come to light, “We were asked to destroy documents, and we refused,” said a former member of RMC’s financial team. One of RMC’s name partners “asked the staff to delete a lot of documents. They refused. We refused. The documents were never deleted. We just looked at each other and said, ‘This is just weird.’ I’m not going to go to jail for anybody.”A now settled 2011 wrongful termination lawsuit filed in San Diego County by former RMC accountant Karen Aquila alleges that RMC co-founder Lyndel Melton instructed RMC’s controller “to alter or destroy” invoices that related to “double billing” by the Monterey County official.Watson said, “We are not responsible for any of the circumstances that led to the contract being canceled, and we’ve been drawn into a dispute outside of our control.”Call for an investigationGary Kremen, chairman of the district’s board, remains unconvinced by the urgency argument that granted Goldie executive powers to sidestep the normal consultant qualification process.“If you had three months to negotiate the contract, didn’t we have three months to get a bidding process started?” Kremen said. “I think it was a sham that it was supposedly so urgent. We clearly had three more months on the bidding process.”Kremen is troubled by the reports of fraudulent billing. “I call on the District Attorney to reopen the investigation that was closed because of statute issues,” the chair said. “An agency in lockdown mode is not serving the public. Openness and transparency are paramount.” Dan Pulcrano contributed to this report.

A retired Morgan Hill city manager was chosen Monday night to fill in as Gilroy’s interim city administrator, according to Mayor Don Gage.

Pacific Gas & Electric is currently in the process of soliciting public input and promoting a proposed South Santa Clara County electricity infrastructure expansion project that would bring a new transmission substation to the region by 2021.The utility company, which provides natural gas and electricity service to 16 million northern California customers, held a series of open house meetings in South County recently to present information and allow residents to ask questions and submit comments.The company has not identified a preferred location for the new substation; nor has the utility provider identified an exact route for new transmission lines that would connect the new substation to facilities to the north and south.The last open house took place Sept. 28 at the Morgan Hill Community Center. Two previous sessions took place in Gilroy and San Martin. The trio of meetings was sparsely attended, but the public can continue to provide feedback to PG&E via email, phone or the internet.The PG&E project, known as South County Power Connect, would bring a new substation and two new transmission lines to the region, in order to strengthen the system’s reliability for 43,000 customers in south San Jose, Morgan Hill, San Martin and Gilroy, according to PG&E officials.PG&E representatives at the Sept. 28 open house said the new substation would be similar in size to the Metcalf facility next to U.S. 101 north of Morgan Hill. However, on follow-up after the meeting, PG&E spokeswoman Mayra Tostado said the facility would not be quite that size.Information at the Morgan Hill open house—where more than a dozen PG&E staff and contractors stood by in front of poster-sized maps, charts and other informational graphics—noted that potential substation sites “will be located on land relatively close to the existing Morgan Hill-Llagas 115kV transmission line,” the inactive Green Valley transmission line and the 230kV Metcalf-Moss Landing line. All of these transmission lines run west of town, with the Metcalf route carrying the highest electrical capacity.A June 2014 report from PG&E, in which the utility company presented a “representative” project in order to estimate the cost, proposes a new “Spring substation” to be built west of the existing West Main Avenue site. PG&E spokeswoman Mayra Tostado noted that site was hypothetical, though when it was proposed it met PG&E’s requirements for the South County expansion.“We are currently working with the local community to identify other potential sites that meet this criteria and can loop into the existing lines in the area while providing reliable, affordable energy” to South County customers, Tostado said.South County Power Connect is intended to add “redundancy” to the system in case of a failure of the Metcalf substation to the north is rendered inoperable by a natural disaster, plane crash, fire or vandalism, according to PG&E representatives.“(The project) will reduce the risk of power outages to local area customers by providing an additional transmission source to help serve the area,” Tostado said. “South County Power Connect will also provide additional system capacity to help meet the future power needs as the area grows, which will eliminate potential equipment overload problems in the future.”Notably, a gunfire attack on the Metcalf facility in April 2013 resulted in damages to 17 transformers and a spill of 52,000 gallons of oil at the site. Though the attack did not result in any power outages, a vandal or vandals used firearms to cause the $15 million worth of damages, according to authorities. In response, PG&E has committed to upgrading security at Metcalf and other substations it owns.Police have not identified or arrested any suspects in relation to the 2013 vandalism.Jeff Pedersen was one of only a handful of interested Morgan Hill residents who attended the Sept. 28 open house. He suggested that PG&E, working with the city, should consider tying any new substation into the existing Main Avenue facility in coordination with City Hall’s long proposed effort to extend Santa Teresa Boulevard through the west side of downtown. That road project, which has been on the books for decades, currently has no development timeline or funding source.“I’m very curious” about the South County Power Connect project, Pedersen said. “We all rely on electricity, and I’m interested in what they’re proposing and what the basis of the need is.”PG&E’s West Main Avenue facility is a “distribution substation,” which is smaller and carries less capacity than the transmission substation proposed for 2021, according to information presented at the open house.A substation is essentially a hub for the delivery of electricity converted from natural and renewable resources, PG&E staff explained. Electricity is stored at the facilities before being distributed to multiple points varying distances from the substations.The new South County facilities’ locations will ultimately be determined by the California Public Utilities Commission, which has the authority to approve or deny the project as a whole.Following PG&E’s current public outreach period—by 2017—the company plans to present a short list of “alternative locations” for the substation and transmission lines, according to Tostado. Another set of public workshops will follow, and then the project will be submitted to the CPUC for review by 2019. After an environmental study that will consider the proposal’s impact on wildlife habitat, agriculture, noise, traffic, air quality, cultural resources and other aspects of the land, CPUC will conduct more public review.PG&E hopes to complete the project by May 2021 if the CPUC approves it, according to Tostado.The total cost of the project is expected to be $35 million to $45 million, according to the California Independent System Operator. That cost will be passed on to PG&E’s ratepayers statewide, at an average additional price of ¢1 per month per customer, Tostado added.Anyone who did not attend the open houses but would like to know more about the project can visit pge.com/southcountypc. Questions and comments can be submitted by phone at (888) 743-1045, or by email at [email protected].

Santa Clara County Sheriff’s deputies arrested a man on suspicion of murder following a Sept. 26 altercation at a Quinceanera in unincorporated Morgan Hill, according to authorities.Gonzalo Julio Morales, 35 of San Jose, was arrested on suspicion of murder at a residence in Mountain View Sept. 28, Sheriff’s Sgt. James Jensen said. The suspect’s bloody jeans were found in a garbage can at the residence, and detectives learned that he threw the murder weapon—a knife—from his vehicle as he fled the scene.On Sept. 26, deputies responded to a fight in progress at a Quinceanera, a 15th birthday party, at a residence on the 600 block of San Bruno Avenue in unincorporated Morgan Hill, Jensen said. Upon arrival, deputies located the victim, Jacobo Rojos-Vilchis, 34 of Milpitas, suffering from multiple stab wounds.Deputies and paramedics provided first aid to Rojos-Vilchis, who was pronounced dead at the scene when EMS arrived, authorities said. Morales fled the scene before deputies arrived.During the investigation, sheriff’s detectives found the discarded murder weapon on the side of the road in the area of U.S. 101 and Bailey Avenue, Jensen added.Morales was later booked at Santa Clara County Jail on suspicion of murder.

Hikers, cyclists and horseback riders can learn how to safely interact with cattle and other livestock when encountering these animals on local recreation lands at an Oct. 17 workshop hosted by Santa Clara County Parks and Recreation.The workshop, which runs from 10 a.m. to noon, will be held at Coyote Lake-Harvey Bear County Park in San Martin—one of four county parks where cattle graze on the same property where hikers, cyclists and equestrians enjoy the outdoors.Collectively, such county parks where livestock live host more than 1 million visitors per year, according to county staff. Research from the UC Cooperative Extension notes that negative interactions between livestock and people occasionally occur on these parklands. Such interactions reportedly number less than seven incidents annually.With negative publicity around these incidents, people have expressed their fear of encountering a large animal on a trail, county staff added. The Oct. 17 workshop—conducted by park staff, ranchers and livestock and range management experts—will help park visitors better understand livestock and cattle behavior, and learn proper ways to safely approach cattle on the trail.Since 1992, the county has developed recreation trails on four parks where private ranchers keep their grazing livestock. Mixing these uses reduces the risk of wildfires and helps control invasive weeds such as yellow star thistle, according to county staff. Grazing also benefits some threatened and endangered animals, such as the California red-legged frog and the California tiger salamander. Grazing is also important in protecting habitat for rare species found in serpentine grasslands.Currently, more than 11,000 acres of county parklands are open for grazing, county staff added. Ranchers pay a fair market value to keep their livestock on the properties.

Auto burglaryA thief or thieves pried open the rear doors of a Chevrolet Express van and stole electrician’s tools, police reported. The incident was reported 6:37 a.m. Sept. 17 on the 500 block of San Pedro Avenue.A black Chevrolet Suburban was broken into and purse was stolen from the vehicle parked at 235 Tennant Station Way, according to police reports. The crime was reported 10:02 a.m. Sept. 12. The thief or thieves smashed a rear window of the vehicle to gain entry.Someone smashed the window of a Volkswagen Golf and tried to steal a radio, according to police reports. The crime was reported 6:48 p.m. Sept. 24.Stolen vehicleSomeone stole a 2003 Ford F250 utility truck, according to police reports. The crime was reported 7:48 a.m. Sept. 17.Petty theftA man in his 30s stole diapers from Wal-mart, 170 Cochrane Plaza, police reported. The incident was reported 6:52 p.m. Sept. 13.A thief or thieves stole two wheels and tires from a motorcycle trailer on the 14900 block of Venetian Way, according to police reports. The suspect or suspects replaced the stolen items with an older set of wheels and worn-out tires. The total value of the stolen items is about $575. The crime was reported 4:18 p.m. Sept. 24.FraudSomeone stole a resident’s purse and used her credit card at Chipotle restaurant in Morgan Hill, according to police reports. The thief or thieves charged $21.90 on the card at the restaurant. The crime was reported 3:37 p.m. Sept. 14.TrespassingOn at least three different occasions, a male subject used public computers at the Centennial Recreation Center, 171 W. Edmundson Ave., to look up pornographic websites, according to police reports. The subject has been told by CRC staff not to use the computers for that reason, but he has continued to do so. Following the latest incident, staff asked the subject to leave the property. The crime was reported 2:24 p.m. Sept. 24.

Forgery