Like most relationships, my love affair with Gilroy has had its
ups and downs over the last 22 years. Lately my one-sided romance
has been in a bit of a slump
…
Like most relationships, my love affair with Gilroy has had its ups and downs over the last 22 years. Lately my one-sided romance has been in a bit of a slump …
I still love my Gilroy neighborhood. Before moving here, we lived in the country, on a private road with four other families. Just getting the well cleaned or the road patched was always a diplomatic ordeal. Usually Mike would just do what needed to be done and leave the others to their nit picking and bickering. As beautiful as our two-acre parcel was, the neighbors made it a miserable place to live.
We’ve stayed in this home much longer than any other place we’ve lived. One of the reasons being that our neighbors know how to respect, protect and accommodate each other. It’s nice to know that the folks living around you have your best interest at heart. I don’t take that grace for granted.
I still love our newspaper (and not just because they give me space for my opinion every Wednesday.) Granted, I do wish readership were higher. Often I hear that someone missed out on a really great event (i.e. Fifth Street Live or the Katrina Concert) just because they don’t subscribe or regularly read our local rag. What an easy way to find out what’s happening or who’s arguing with whom and about what. The Dispatch is the glue that holds this town together.
I still love the weather. When we first considered moving out of the Santa Cruz fog belt and into Gilroy’s sunshine, my husband warned me that “it can get hot there.” He was right! But, those triple-digit days are occasional blips in our normally temperate climate.
I still love our position. It’s great living close to the sights and sounds of San Francisco and San Jose on the north and Monterey and Carmel to the south. Within an hour, we can hear a world-renown speaker give a rare lecture, see a professional sporting event or meditate on a park bench along the Seventeen Mile Drive.
I don’t like the increased traffic. Duh! Going across town used to take 10 minutes during peak traffic. Now, due to road work, poor street planning around retail businesses and unreasonable growth rates, driving on an ordinary day reminds me of the last weekend in July when we play host to 125,000 visitors.
Nor do I like the taxes. Duh again! It’s no longer just the price of homes that makes this an expensive place to live, it’s the cost of living. From school bond measures that never seem to be enough to do what they said they were going to do, to taxes for a public transportation system most of us will never use – taxes, taxes everywhere. If the new BART-to-San Jose/health care sales levy passes, we’ll be paying .875 cents (almost a dime) on every dollar we spend. So much for buying local.
I used to love the natural beauty here. We can still see the beautiful distant hills but the lower, closer ones have been scraped off for houses, houses and more houses. Pretty soon Santa Teresa will be nothing but homes from Gavilan College to Morgan Hill.
Especially grievous are the new Eagle Ridge homes. The first batch was done nicely: the homes set back behind the golf greens and the gated entrance always planted. The latest phase is an eyesore – hills topped, homes close together, windows staring down at cars, bikes and pedestrians.
Our 30 percent growth rate needs to be challenged before Glen Loma starts building 1,800 houses across from Eagle Ridge. It doesn’t matter how many parks they promise for each home cluster, this wall-to-wall building is just too much. (Just think, when Glen Loma and Eagle Ridge are done, we’ll have to start widening the southern half of Santa Teresa! There goes another millennium of cones, zigging through mismarked roads and arguments about how many plants are enough to hide ugly sound walls and back yards.)
I do love living in a town where it’s possible to be heard, get involved and make a difference. I plan to participate in the effort to balance our growth rates with reason. I’d like to keep the gates open without making it so miserable to live here that a mass exodus replaces the current growth explosion.
