This fanciful letter was received by open space advocate Connie Rogers. We don’t know the author
7 December 2015
With my apologies to Mr. Shakespeare & Mark Antony
Friends, Gilroy Residents, Lovers of Small Town Character! Lend me your ears!
I have come to bury the USA Amendment 14-01, not to praise it. The evil that this amendment could do would live on forever and permanently change Gilroy; the good that it would do for a very few people should be sacrificed for the benefit of all.
Our noble Mayor has told us that Gilroy must grow, and if it is true, it is a grievous thing that we must sacrifice the small town character that we love for the benefit of a multitude of north-dwelling and north-working newcomers to our fair city. But our Mayor must be correct, for he is an honorable man!
So is Councilman Woodward an honorable man. And he says we must have “local control” of this land. For without local control, rapacious San Martin might gobble up the land, or Hollister may leapfrog-annex it before we can. We must protect the land from such nefarious interests, says Councilman Woodward, and he is an honorable man!
Some of our elected representatives tell us that only with a large tract of land can an excellent plan be made, and that they have only the highest standards for development in Gilroy. They say that small infill developments are inefficient and insufficient for our growth needs. They tell us that they know better than we do what Gilroy needs and how to achieve it. They brush off the consistent counsel of their Planning Commission, their professional planners and consultants they have paid, and attendees to every public meeting for planning Gilroy’s future held in the past year. We must all be wrong, and they must be right, because they are honorable representatives.
Council members who vote for this amendment do so perhaps out of pure motives, for they are honorable people. One of them might wish for the Mayor’s endorsement in his campaign for elected office; another might subscribe to the need for “local control”. Yet another may actually believe that “active senior housing” located as far from downtown as possible is the best place for those pesky active seniors. But I honor most those council members who vote against the amendment!
The initiative of Mayor Gage and Councilman Woodward to increase election spending and campaign contribution limits is surely a good thing, and wealthy landowners and developers would surely agree, since they are all honorable people. Passage of the USA Amendment tonight would surely please those few people, even though the rest of Gilroy’s 53,000 residents apparently feel differently. We all should remember this at next year’s election, for we are voters and we too are honorable people.
The mischief is afoot!
