Uncategorized

During a warmer than usual Sunday in November 1959, members of the Japanese community in Morgan Hill gathered in a garage to share steaming bowls of white rice, renew friendships and celebrate their proud heritage in the first of many events that led to the founding of the annual Haru Matsuri festival.

On the Third Street side of the old liquor store building in downtown Morgan Hill, something artistic—and, so far, much less controversial than the parking garage spider planned nearby or the future development of the “Simple Beverages” property—was just created by a local painter.With a vision of capturing Morgan Hill’s historic beauty and inviting community members to participate in its transformation from a blank canvas to a colorful painting, Debbie Arambula’s 8 foot-by-16 foot mural has a little piece of everything small town.“It’s a rural narrative,” said the 54-year-old known as “The Heart Artist,” who has lived in Morgan Hill off and on for the last 40 years. “There’s a lot of history in there.”Picturesque illustrations of native Poppy Jasper, El Toro Mountain and Villa Miramonte as well as vibrant images of cherry blossoms, apricots, French plums and vineyards—painted using a special Novapaint acrylic with an anti-graffiti coating—scream out open space, natural beauty and farming. Also included in the design is the fitting slogan, “Kissed by the Sun. Enchanted by the Land.”“One of the things I’m known for are my heart portraits. I try to capture the essence of who they are in the form of color and paint a heart that represents them,” said Arambula, who was selected for a $10,000 grant through the City of Morgan Hill’s “place-making” public art program. “For me, this is a heart portrait that represents Morgan Hill.”Arambula, who added the finishing touches to her mural earlier this week and will be on site for a May 1 dedication ceremony at 6 p.m., has also painted hidden hearts in the mural as a fun game for children to come out and see how many hearts they can find.For two hours on April 11, Arambula welcomed community members to add a brush stroke here or there to make everyone feel a part of the public art display—which will remain on the building wall for a temporary basis until the site is developed.“When you do a community mural like this, it’s very different than just painting one all by yourself. It’s very controlled,” explained Arambula, who brought in volunteers called “station captains” to help organize and direct the 50 or so guest painters from ages 2 to 77 that arrived.Arambula, who received the city grant in January and immediately started researching and studying the local history, has spent well over 200 hours on the mural from concept to near completion.“It’s a work of love, completely,” said Arambula, who plans to be done by the end of the week before she hits the road in her recreation vehicle on a nationwide tour of her hearts art with stops in Menlo Park, San Diego, Chicago and Colorado.“She’s got hearts all over the world,” added her longtime sweetheart and husband Steve Arambula, rambling off Japan, Denmark, Germany and Saudi Arabia to name a few.Her artwork, which can be viewed online at heartworksgallery.com, is also featured at the Wynn Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. But Arambula’s heart belongs to Morgan Hill, where she met her husband 35 years ago.“I wake up every morning so blessed to live here,” said Arambula, tearing up at times as she talked about the ranchers, farm workers and rich history of Morgan Hill. “This is such an honor to do this.”The City of Morgan Hill granted 12 placemaking and public art projects, awarding approximately $100,000. Some of the other mini-grant art projects include artist Helen Lessick’s “Soil Sample Morgan Hill” at the Community Garden that they celebrated on Saturday and the Morgan Hill Zendoodle Club’s display also along the wall on Third Street.Other art projects approved by the city’s public art grant program, to be installed in the coming weeks, include a bronze family of deer created by Evelyn Davis on the Monterey Road median; a wine-country themed mosaic by Peter Hazel outside the Community and Cultural Center; a giant Adirondack chair on the corner of Second Street and Monterey Road; and a temporary park on the corner of Third Street and Monterey Road that will feature a bicycle “fix-it” repair stand, benches made of reused propane tanks, and a historic steel map near the train station on Depot Street.

Morgan Hill residents and businesses will have to cut their consumption by 32 percent the rest of this year, according to a draft of new water regulations from the State Water Board. But city officials have contested the chief metric used by regulators to arrive at that figure.The new proposed regulations, announced by the state board April 18, place urban water suppliers throughout the state into “tiers” of conservation standards in order to reach a statewide consumption reduction of 25 percent.The tiers are based strictly on each water supplier’s per capita daily consumption water, as measured from July to September 2014. Cities and suppliers who used the least amount of water based on this measurement are required to cut water use by as little as 8 percent this year in comparison to 2013 consumption, while those using the most water will have to cut up to 36 percent.The city of Morgan Hill is on the higher end of the scale. Customers used 198.5 gallons of water per person per day in summer 2014, and will have to cut water use by 32 percent over the coming year, according to the draft water board regulations.But Morgan Hill Program Administrator Anthony Eulo said that number is wrong because it is based on an incorrect calculation of the daily metric submitted to the water board by city staff. City staff have recalculated the figure, which Eulo said is lower than 198.5 gallons, before the new regulations are enacted.“We sent them corrected numbers,” Eulo said. “We don’t believe they have had time to consider those numbers.” He declined to say what the city’s recalculated figures are before the state board has had a chance to consider them.The water board is accepting input from the public and water suppliers on the proposed tier placements. The board will release a revised draft April 28, and allow more public comment before adopting the new regulations at the May 5-6 board meeting.On April 1, Gov. Jerry Brown issued a mandatory call for a 25 percent statewide water conservation cut from 2013 usage. The executive order was in response to the ongoing historical drought in California, which Brown noted has resulted in a record low Sierra snowpack level of 5 percent of average.Water suppliers throughout the state rely heavily on the snowpack for potable water each year.Also on April 1, the Morgan Hill City Council declared a “level 2” water supply shortage and implemented new residential restrictions. These include limiting outdoor landscape irrigation to two days per week, and a prohibition on filling new swimming pools, decorative ponds and outdoor spas. Refilling of swimming pools is limited to one foot of water.Residents and the city, which owns swimming facilities at the Centennial Recreation Center and Aquatics Center, are permitted to refill water lost through evaporation, Eulo said. The city does not drain and refill its swimming pools.Even if the state water board keeps Morgan Hill in the 32-percent conservation tier, Eulo thinks the city can achieve such a cut without having to declare a “level 3” shortage, which would allow the city to place a moratorium on new building permits and prohibit all outdoor landscape irrigation.The state water board’s new regulations do not consider past conservation rates, such as Morgan Hill’s 21 percent cut in water use from June 2014 to February 2015.Some cities, such as Arcata, which cut only 1 percent of water use during the same period, will only have to cut 8 percent over the next year under the new state regulations. That’s because the city of Arcata is already conservative in its consumption, at 43.5 gallons per person per day in Summer 2014, according to the water board statistics.The city’s level 2 restrictions include penalties up to a $500 fine for customers who repeatedly flout the call for consumption.