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The Morgan Hill City Council adopted its annual list of priorities, goals and strategies for 2014 - many of which are carryovers from last year - at Wednesday’s meeting. The list was devised from discussions at the Council’s annual two-day goal-setting retreat in January. City staff use the Council’s goals, priorities and strategies to inform decisions and proposals regarding the City’s finances, new ordinances and new programs, Mayor Pro Tem Marilyn Librers explained Wednesday. The goals, priorities and strategies touch on a variety of subjects that affect the daily lives of Morgan Hill residents, including public safety, youth activities and health, sustainable budgets, economic development, participating in regional issues and flood protection. Mayor Steve Tate will talk about the 2014 goals at his annual State of the City address, 7 p.m. Feb. 20, in the El Toro Room of the Community and Cultural Center, 17000 Monterey Road. Councilman Larry Carr noted that many of the goals and priorities are “multi-year” efforts that are ongoing from previous annual lists of Council goals. The ongoing priorities adopted by the Council are:- Enhancing public safety- Protecting the environment- Maintaining fiscal responsibility- Supporting youth- Fostering an organizational culture that focuses on teamwork, employee recognition and open communication. A section of the document titled “2014 focus areas” lists the following:- Continue the General Plan Update- Pursue revitalization of the downtown through implementation of the Long Range Property Management Plan redevelopment sites and public investment- Approve and implement the agricultural lands preservation program and Southeast Quadrant land use plan- Maintaining and enhancing the provision of medical services in Morgan Hill. 

Contractors for electronics retail magnate John Fry can finally start pouring foundation concrete for the 170,000-square-foot American Institute of Mathematics headquarters, which will eventually serve, too, as the clubhouse for the PGA’s annual Frys.com Open tournament.

Local growers of Chinese vegetables who faced potentially crippling penalties for what they called minor, accidental and one-time labor violations reached a settlement agreement with state regulators, according to legal advocates.The California Labor Commissioner’s Office is still working on finalizing the settlement paperwork and declined to comment, office spokesman Peter Melton said. An attorney who has been working with the growers to reduce or eliminate the fines she calls unfair confirmed that the fines originally imposed last year on Morgan Hill farmers Xay Duc Hoang, Fanny Tam and Siu Wah Mok were reduced by 80 percent.Specifically, that means Hoang’s original fine of $9,000 was reduced to $1,800; Tam’s fine was reduced from $5,000 to $1,000; and Mok’s fine was dropped from $1,500 to $300, according to the attorney Janelle Orsi of the Sustainable Law Economies Center. The penalties were imposed after the farmers were cited by state labor regulators from the California Department Labor Standards Enforcement in summer 2013. The citations were issued following inspections of each farm, and were for violations such as providing incomplete information on their employees’ pay stubs. Orsi and other advocates for the farmers complained that the original fines were unreasonable, and in some cases even applied illegally due to incorrect information provided by inspectors on citations. Plus, the farmers - who speak little English - were not provided the opportunity to explain or contest the DLSE’s claims on-site because they were not offered adequate translation services. Still, labor regulators have a long way to go before their citation and penalty procedures are fair to all employers in California, Orsi said. “It is a relief that these matters are finally closed and that we will not need to work on any additional litigation,” Orsi said. “However, the outcome still feels unjust. For example, Mr. Hoang is still paying a fine of $1,800 for a very small clerical error, and this is on top of all his legal fees and travel expenses to attend hearings.” Orsi said a “better outcome” would have been to reduce the fines to an amount equivalent to that of a parking ticket, because the growers were cited for “harmless and inadvertent” errors. “And I strongly believe the DLSE should reform its enforcement practices, so that farmers do not need to struggle through the arduous appeal process to defend against unfair fines,” Orsi continued. Furthermore, DLSE’s fine schedule is “unconstitutionally excessive,” Orsi added. Orsi’s intern is in the process of writing a guide for employers on how to comply with state labor codes and prepare proper wage statements, and Orsi hopes the DLSE will include something similar on its website. The Sustainable Law Economies Center is a nonprofit organization that offers legal education, research, advice and advocacy for “just and resilient economies.”