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Local and state authorities June 4 found evidence of a suspected mountain lion attack in a Morgan Hill neighborhood, and are warning residents to be cautious when out with children and pets.

A former Santa Clara Unified School District trustee was arrested Jan. 6 for allegedly threatening to kill a woman before hitting her with his vehicle in Morgan Hill—an incident that happened nearly a year prior to last week’s arrest.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency recently moved one of its regional offices into a building in Morgan Hill, but city officials promise the relocation doesn’t mean local police will start cooperating with federal authorities on immigration enforcement.The ICE office located off Vineyard Boulevard a block away from the Morgan Hill Police station is an Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) sub-office that moved from San Jose in September 2016, according to ICE spokesman James Schwab. He added the move is simply a relocation after the agency’s lease expired at their previous office up north.The office is not a detention facility, and ICE does not have any plans to establish a detention center in Morgan Hill, Schwab said.However, federal authorities can temporarily hold subjects accused of violating immigration laws at the site. In fact, ICE has submitted an application to the city’s planning department to expand their new Morgan Hill location with temporary “holding rooms.”“Anyone arrested by ICE who is going to remain in the agency’s custody for more than 12 hours will be transferred to a detention facility specifically equipped for that purpose,” Schwab said in a statement.He added the ERO sub-office serves as a worksite for assigned ICE employees, and “like all ERO office space,” the office has to be secure for interviewing and “briefly holding” subjects from the area who enter ICE custody.ICE submitted its expansion plans to the Morgan Hill planning office on Dec. 21, according to City Manager Steve Rymer. “The proposed tenant improvements would expand an existing ICE administrative office facility to include temporary holding rooms and detainee processing,” reads a statement from the city.The city has not approved the ICE expansion plans, and has told the federal office that its proposal would be in violation of the city’s zoning ordinance, which prohibits detention facilities, according to Rymer.ICE responded to the city that it will “comply with local safety regulations and will work with the city to comply with local zoning and development standards as much as feasible,” Rymer’s statement continues.Even if Morgan Hill formally rejects ICE’s proposal, as a federal agency it can override local land use laws, according to city staff.Rymer added that ICE has not asked the city for anything that would require council approval, and the two layers of government are not sharing any funding or resources as part of the federal agency’s move.The Morgan Hill City Council in December issued a public “statement of support and assurance” in response to community concern about the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, who has threatened to take forceful action against undocumented immigrants in the U.S. and other marginalized segments of the country’s population.The city council’s statement says, in part, that MHPD has not and will not be used for federal immigration enforcement, and that will continue to be the case even with a federal enforcement office in the same neighborhood as the police department.“We totally stand by the statement we made last month,” Mayor Steve Tate said Jan. 12 when contacted by the Times.The council’s statement also more broadly addresses concerns about discrimination based on “race, national origin, ethnicity, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, color or disability.”The statement is about 450 words. The section on immigration enforcement reads, “Local police should not be involved in federal immigration enforcement and our police officers will continue to focus their time on high priority crimes. In accordance with best practices of local law enforcement professionals nationally, we will stay out of immigration enforcement. Our priority is to maintain the trusting relationship Morgan Hill police officers have with our community.”Morgan Hill resident Ann Horner was among those who pushed the council to issue such a statement, though she told the body in December she wished it was stronger.She said Thursday, without knowing all the details of the new local ICE office and its purpose, that it could seem unsafe to some residents, including those who were born here to foreign-born or undocumented parents.“If Donald Trump is willing to put people on a list and export them out, that’s why I was pushing for a more powerful stance,” Horner said. The relocation of the ICE office “doesn’t seem consistent with (the statement), ‘This is going to be a safe place.’ It causes pause and concern.”

A 19-year-old Morgan Hill woman was among three people arrested in Anaheim on suspicion of sex trafficking and other charges, according to police.

The prospect of another typical winter rainy season—the third in a row—combined with continued anxiety about the long-dormant Calaveras and Hayward faults has public water experts accelerating their efforts to improve the capacity and stability of Santa Clara County’s biggest body of water, the...

Tuesday's rivalry opener featured possible previews of league

A national mushroom grower agreed to pay $2.24 million to settle an environmental protection lawsuit that accused the company of polluting a creek in north Morgan Hill over a period of several years.

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors unanimously declared its intent to deny two appeals Dec. 17 for a San Martin mosque and cemetery approved earlier this year. The supervisors agreed that the county planning commission’s approval of South Valley Islamic Center’s Cordoba Center project...

Chase Benoit, the convicted murderer who stabbed Morgan Hill resident Cody Flores to death in 2015, was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for the crime last week, according to Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney David Pandori.Benoit, 22 of Morgan Hill, was sentenced at a hearing at the Hall of Justice in San Jose May 12. He was convicted March 10, following a two-month jury trial, of second degree murder and personal use of a knife for stabbing Flores during a house party in east Morgan Hill May 31, 2015.Benoit will serve the sentence for murder “consecutive to one year prison for use of knife in the murder of Cody Flores,” Pandori added.Benoit testified during the trial that he alone killed Flores, 23, with a knife outside the party on East Main Avenue. He claimed he killed him out fear for his own life as the two had a long-standing dispute going back to 2011, when Flores stabbed Benoit’s brother during a fight.Benoit stabbed Flores at least 14 times with the knife, after chasing him through a dark field between East Main and Diana avenues, according to law enforcement authorities and other witnesses who testified during the trial.Flores died at the hospital shortly after the stabbing.While the DA’s office previously charged Spencer Smith, also 22 of Morgan Hill, with the murder of Flores, the same jury found him not guilty of the crime March 10. He was tried in the same courtroom as Benoit.Smith, a longtime friend of Benoit’s, previously pleaded guilty to possession of a stolen firearm and possession of an unregistered firearm. He was also sentenced May 12, to one year in county jail, Pandori said. He received credit for time served while awaiting trial for the murder charge, and was released after the May 12 hearing.Smith’s firearm charges are not directly related to the stabbing death of Flores. The gun was found in a backpack he dropped off at the home of Shyann Surber, who hosted the May 31, 2015 party. He left the backpack at the home earlier that evening.

Rich Constantine led early in the race for Morgan Hill mayor on Tuesday, and the council member held on to a 407-vote margin in the election for Morgan Hill mayor, according to final, unofficial returns from the Nov. 6 election. Constantine had chosen not to...