Tag: Morgan Hill

A 28-year-old Morgan Hill motorcyclist died after colliding with at least three other vehicles in a traffic accident on U.S. 101 Sunday, according to police. Authorities are still looking for the third vehicle — a mid-200s era tan SUV — which might have run over the motorcycle rider, but did not stop at the scene of the accident, according to a press release from California Highway Patrol Officer Herb Kellogg. Julio Rodriguez was riding a 2012 Suzuki motorcycle northbound at an “undetermined speed” on the freeway, just north of the East Middle Avenue overpass, when he collided with at least two other vehicles about 6:05 p.m., Kellogg said. According to police reports, Rodriguez first collided with a Nissan Titan while the motorcycle was changing lanes. Rodriguez then lost control of the motorcycle and crashed into a GMC Sierra. He was ejected from the motorcycle and “tumbled” onto the roadway while the motorcycle traveled onto the shoulder of the freeway, Kellogg said. Rodriguez was then possibly struck by the unidentified tan SUV, which continued northbound on U.S. 101 without stopping. The driver of the mid-200s tan SUV is described as a “Hispanic male adult, possibly between the ages of 35 and 40, heavy set with a tattoo on his left forearm,” according to the press release. Rodriguez was pronounced dead at the scene when paramedics arrived, police said. Two northbound lanes on U.S. 101 were closed for more than two hours following the accident while police investigated the scene, according to Kellogg. No citations or arrests were issued at the scene of the accident, Kellogg added. 

A 20-year-old woman died after a Union Pacific cargo train collided with her vehicle in Morgan Hill Wednesday night, according to police. Authorities have not released the identity of the woman who succumbed to major injuries resulting from the head-on collision which happened about 9:10 p.m., according to a press release from Morgan Hill police. According to witnesses and evidence at the scene, the woman was traveling westbound in a 1990s model SUV on East Central Avenue from Butterfield Boulevard, police said. The woman - the only occupant of the vehicle - drove over a curb, onto the sidewalk and onto the railroad tracks. A Union Pacific train, bound north for San Jose, struck the SUV head-on at about 40 to 50 mph, police said. The driver was trapped in the vehicle until she was extracted by Morgan Hill Fire personnel at the scene, authorities said. She was transported to an a area trauma hospital by CalStar, where she died of injuries suffered in the collision. Police said alcohol or drugs have not been ruled out as a factor for the driver of the SUV, but a final determination will not be made until toxicology test results are completed. MHPD and Union Pacific Police continue to investigate the accident, according to the press release. Updates on this incident, including the identity of the SUV driver, will be posted as they are available. Anyone with information about this incident can contact MHPD at (408) 779-2101. 

Local members of a Patriots group are planning a demonstration rally on Cinco de Mayo in front of the Live Oak High School campus both before and after school to protest the latest court ruling affirming the rights of school officials to ban students from wearing American flag shirts on campus on May 5 in 2010.

The city of Morgan Hill is seeking peace between doctors and the developer over the proposed DePaul Medical Center land use change.On Wednesday, the City Council voted 4-1 with Councilman Rich Constantine dissenting to effectively start the process of rezoning Morgan Hill’s largest medical property - along with a list of conditions to the request intended to ensure land use won’t be an issue to doctors or residents who rely on local medical services now and in the future.Constantine said he thinks the conditions might not be met, in part because DePaul doctors said  the property should remain designated with a future use as the site of a full-service acute care hospital. “You’re putting things in motion that we have no control over,” Constantine said. The Council’s decision about the Daughters of Charity Health System’s request was not an approval or denial of the proposed land use change. Rather, it directed City staff to begin analyzing the potential impact of the change and report back to the Council with a recommendation this summer. How will city staff get it done with the current workload? They wondered during Wednesday’s meeting.City Attorney Renee Gurza cautioned Council members that the “incredibly aggressive” schedule to analyze the request to amend the General Plan to allow the 24.5-acre to become senior housing project may place an unusually heavy burden on City staff.Councilman Larry Carr’s motion simultaneously directed staff to somehow tie the DePaul land use proposal to a promise by DCHS to build a larger, more modern medical office facility somewhere else in town to house doctors’ private practices, including those who would be displaced by a residential project at DePaul.“I will do what I can to work with staff to try to make this legal,” Gurza said. “The only way to do it legally is to process a development agreement (for the new medical facility) with a General Plan amendment.”Council’s desired agreement with DCHS to promise a new medical facility will need to be hammered out immediately because staff must process a total of nine General Plan amendments in the next five months, city staff said.“Otherwise we don’t have time,” Gurza said. Other GP amendment requestsThe request was one of 10 General Plan amendment applications submitted to City Hall by different property owners. The Council was tasked with asking staff to process each request individually for a recommendation for approval or denial later this year or to incorporate them into the ongoing comprehensive General Plan update process expected to last at least another two years. The Council ended up asking staff to immediately process nine of the General Plan amendment requests and incorporate one - to convert a 19-acre industrial property to residential - into the General Plan update process that won’t be over until 2016. The proposals were submitted prior to the Jan. 31 deadline to do so before the City enacted a two-year moratorium on such applications until the comprehensive General Plan process is over. Contentious hospitalThe DePaul decision was the only one to which the Council attached conditions. It was also the only proposal that drew significant attention from residents other than the property owners involved. DCHS has called the proposal to sell the DePaul campus part of two-pronged project to improve access to medical services in Morgan Hill. The nonprofit has stated that it promised to build a new facility at an unidentified parcel elsewhere in town that will house more medical space than the DePaul campus but has not begun seeking permits or other approvals for that facility. The Council defied City staff’s recommendation to delay the DePaul proposal as part of the comprehensive General Plan update, due to its potential to add up to 1,600 new residents into the City limits. Also, the proposal contradicts an existing General Plan policy to keep at least one property in town zoned for a future acute care hospital, which the current zoning on the DePaul campus allows. The Planning Commission at its March 11 meeting made the same recommendation as City staff. Doctors speak outSome of the doctors at the DePaul center have spoken out against the DCHS proposal since it was submitted. They note that most of their patients already go to hospitals to the north when they need acute care procedures, and these needs will continue to grow as the City grows. Cardiologist Anu Chirala noted that DCHS has been running a failing health system for several years, and now there is no promise that these future needs for the community - rather than turning a profit - are a top priority for the property owner.“The Daughters’ proposal to build a larger facility in a different location is a miscalculation because there is no doctor buy-in, and it does not take into account the future needs of a growing community,” Chirala said at Wednesday’s meeting.Carr noted that if the DCHS proposal is rejected or prolonged to the point of abandonment, it’s possible another buyer could purchase the DePaul property without even a stated consideration for the state of long-term medical services. “The opportunity, now, is to try to avoid that happening,” Carr said.Councilmembers and members of the public who commented on the proposal also suggested a blue ribbon committee of various people involved in the community should be formed to consider how the different land use scenarios at the DePaul property - which used to be the site of Saint Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy - could affect long-term medical services in Morgan Hill.Daughters of Charity also owns a network of area hospitals including SLRH and announced earlier this year that its entire health system is for sale. 

A pursuit of a wanted felon by Morgan Hill Police around noon Tuesday led to a 40-minute lockdown of Barrett Elementary School.An officer was making a regular follow-up visit on an unrelated case at the Executive Inn on Condit Road in Morgan Hill when he recognized a suspect who had a warrant for his arrest, according to Sgt. Carson Thomas of the MHPD.The suspect was identified as Gerardo Betancourt, 37, of Morgan Hill, who was wanted for a violation of parole. Betancourt is described as a Hispanic male, 5-foot-8, 210 lbs. with brown hair and brown eyes.Betancourt jumped into his vehicle and fled the scene with the officer giving chase. He turned northbound onto U.S. 101 before pulling over on behind the Executive Inn. He then exited his vehicle, ran across the highway to the southbound side and hopped the fence, according to Thomas.“He’s still outstanding,” Thomas said.As a result of the pursuit, Barrett Elementary School was put on lockdown from 11:50 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The district put out an auto-call message informing parents prior to the end-of-school pickup.Anyone with information regarding Betancourt's whereabouts should call the MHPD non-emergency line at (408) 779-2101 and ask for Det. Broyer.

Police are looking for a suspect who allegedly robbed Wells Fargo Bank in Morgan Hill Friday afternoon. Morgan Hill police responded to the bank located at 17590 Monterey Road at 1:53 p.m. Friday, on a report of a robbery, according to a press release from MHPD. A man entered the bank and told a teller he had a gun, and demanded money, police said. No one inside the bank saw a gun during the robbery. The teller gave the suspect an unspecified amount of cash, and the man fled the bank on foot with the money, police said. The suspect is still outstanding and Morgan Hill officers are working with the FBI, according to the press release. The suspect is described as a black male in his mid to late 30s, about 5 feet 10 inches tall and 180 pounds, police said. Anyone with information about the crime may contact MHPD at (408) 779-2101.

More than two dozen customers of a Morgan Hill department store were treated Saturday for symptoms consistent with an airborne contamination, but the exact cause of the illnesses remains a mystery, according to authorities. About 5:35 p.m., emergency responders received a call from the manager of T. J. Maxx, 401 Vineyard Town Center, reporting that several customers and an employee were getting sick inside the store, according to Morgan Hill Fire Department Battalion Chief Tim Main. The subjects reported shortness of breath, strange taste in their mouths and facial numbing sensation, Main said. MHFD transported three of the patients to the hospital, and three others elected to go to the hospital on their own before leaving the scene. In all, 26 people who had been inside the store were evaluated for the symptoms and potential exposure to the unknown cause of the illnesses, Main said. Those people were triaged at the scene by paramedics, and those who went to the hospital were decontaminated before being transported, authorities said.Main added he heard from area hospitals after the incident was cleared that others traveled to Saint Louise Regional Hospital and Valley Medical Center for evaluation. The illnesses were isolated to the interior of T. J. Maxx, which was evacuated for several hours and did not affect businesses in the same shopping center, Main added. “The majority felt better after they came out” of the store, he said.Firefighters and Morgan Hill police “looked on every shelf in the store” and checked the roof and air conditioning units but could not determine what caused the symptoms, Main said. Authorities also checked for gas and carbon monoxide leaks, monitored the oxygen content inside the store and even looked for evidence of poison or foreign chemicals but could not identify anything harmful. “We didn’t find any sign of vandalism, terrorism or anything like that,” Main said. “We have no idea why this occurred.” Authorities instructed the store to contact their air-conditioning company to check the vents and  circulation system for mold or other toxic substances, Main said. “My personal hope is they just need to clear their vents,” he said. A T. J. Maxx employee Monday referred phone calls to the store’s corporate public relations office in Massachusetts. That office was not aware of the incident Monday morning, but a representative offered to follow up with more information about the potential cause of the incident and store hours. Area fire departments sent two fire engines, a ladder truck and three ambulances to the scene, Main said. MHPD also responded with multiple officers. 

Beautiful and warm, that’s how the weather’s supposed to be this spring weekend and that’s how the San Jose Sharks are playing after the Olympic break. A Stanley Cup would be fitting for Joe Thornton, in particular. The longer he plays, the more legends he passes in the record books. When you watch him carefully, he’s clearly a “Jedi Master” feeding teammates the puck for scoring opportunities. At just the right moment in just the right place, the disc arrives on the stick and it’s a thing of beauty to watch and marvel over.

The widely acclaimed, multi-platinum selling San Jose-based rock band SmashMouth will perform in Morgan Hill Saturday, and tickets are only $5 each (or $20 for reserved seating).