GILROY
– Mark Dover gave up an 18-year career with the city to become a
Councilman.
GILROY – Mark Dover gave up an 18-year career with the city to become a Councilman.
It’s not quite that simple, the lifelong Gilroyan says, but when a job opened up this fall to teach and coach at a high school in Monterey County, Dover took it and his name soon after landed on the ballot.
“I care about where I live. I was born and raised here,” Dover said. “I’ve seen Gilroy grow from 15,000 to 45,000. I’ve seen the hills decimated with housing. I’ve seen our town go from an agriculture to a retail community.”
Some of the change has been good, says Dover, but overall there are quality-of-life issues that have gone downhill. Dover believes he’s the guy who knows how to hit the brakes.
“Gilroyans are experiencing a lack of parks, a lack of recreation facilities, torn-up sidewalks, untrimmed trees, a third fire station that sits out there with two people in it rather than a fully staffed fire department,” Dover said. “Things like that have to be changed and priorities have to be shifted around a little bit.”
One of Dover’s core agenda items is to bring a core downtown back to Gilroy. The 37-year-old native Gilroyan remembers Bonanza Day parades along a more manicured Monterey Street lined with businesses.
Dover wants to see that level of vitality return to Gilroy’s downtown and would consider implementing guidelines that would prohibit, say, a bank from opening on the outskirts of town if it didn’t have a branch in downtown.
“Find a way to force them into the downtown area where it’s economically feasible for them to do that,” Dover said.
Dover would also entertain tougher blight laws downtown, making business and property owners more responsible for how their storefronts look.
In other business matters, Dover is a pro-big box stores candidate since they generate tax revenue for the city, but is against relocating Wal-Mart from Arroyo Circle to the Pacheco Pass Center. Dover said the move would not generate additional tax revenue since groceries largely are not taxable and the economic impact to eastside markets could be devastating.
Putting a fully staffed fire station on the northwest side of town is another priority agenda item for Dover. Currently, there is only a paramedic unit at the Sunrise Drive site. Firefighters are housed only at Las Animas and Chestnut fire stations.
“A city our size with a tax base our size could figure out a way to fully staff a third fire station,” Dover said.
Dover said the city can likely save money by restructuring staff so there are “more Indians and less chiefs.”
“An example to me is they’re hiring a director of IT and the salary is $120,000 to $140,000 and that person is going to supervise three people,” Dover said. “It would have been more beneficial to the IT division to add two or three techs.”
Dover, who is a trustee on the Gavilan College Board of Directors, says his past experience as a City of Gilroy employee – he was a park recreation supervisor – will aid him greatly in trying to re-right the city ship. He says he knows which departments are running smooth, which ones are understaffed and which ones are overstaffed.
Dover said the city does not have anything to hide and called City Administrator Jay Baksa an excellent city manager. But Dover believes the current City Council has a hands off approach to City Hall matters, and that troubles him.
“I don’t hear much questioning (by City Council) going on right now and that kind of disturbs me,” Dover said. “I don’t know if we necessarily have a watchdog at City Hall as we’ve had in the past. It may be about eight years since we’ve had a watchdog.”
One area Dover will watchdog is spending on the police station that could reach $20 million even after $6 million in design cuts.
In addition, Dover says 80 percent of the general fund being spent for police and fire may be reasonable in one year. But 80 percent every year is not.
“Morgan Hill can build one for $6 million, and we build one for $26 million,” Dover said.
Dover wants to see an entirely different approach to constructing parks than what is currently done.
“To me when you turn the key to move into your brand new house the park should be there,” Dover said. “I do not understand why we can’t do an internal loan to build the park and then reimburse ourselves when the money comes in as those houses sell.”
Most parks now are constructed years after the first neighbors move in. This makes it easier to fund the construction with impact fees and allows the residents a chance to plan how the park is designed.
Dover says the benefit of having a park ready at move-in outweighs the benefit of letting neighbors plan the park design.
“It’s a great thought .., but what happens when you sell your house two years later? The people who move in didn’t have any say about how that park looks,” Dover said. “Our best park in Gilroy is Christmas Hill Park, and it was built in 1975. I haven’t heard anyone complain about Christmas Hill Park. If you put amenities that belong in a park in the park, people will be happy.”
