From raises for top city employees to the possibility of
installing a new stop sign at a busy neighborhood intersection, the
city council is poised for a long night Monday.
From raises for top city employees to the possibility of installing a new stop sign at a busy neighborhood intersection, the city council is poised for a long night Monday.
The council will meet 7 p.m. at City Hall, 7351 Rosanna St., for its regular meeting. At 6 p.m., the body will convene a study session – where no action can be taken – to discuss city emergency plans and the Gilroy Economic Development Corporation’s goals.
Raises for top city brass?
The city council is expected to approve $15,000 in raises for the city administrator and clerk Monday night.
Council members – who cut more than $11 million from the general fund over the last year, including through 48 full-time layoffs in January – would not say how they planned to vote before they heard from residents Monday night. A council sub-committee consisting of Mayor Al Pinheiro and Council members Dion Bracco and Cat Tucker have recommended the raises. The recommendation came after an Aug. 3 closed city council session yielded a 4-3 vote to offer a $4,700 raise to City Clerk Shawna Freels – who earns $94,906 – and vote 6-1 to offer a nearly $10,000 raise to City Administrator Tom Haglund – who earns $199,000. The pay hikes represent about a 5 percent raise, but both employees currently earn about 10 percent less than their scheduled salary due to furloughs.
The city’s various union representatives have generally supported the raises, saying they are in line with raises every other city employee received last fiscal year.
The council froze annual merit raises for all employees in March after layoffs, but three months later the body approved contracts with the city’s five bargaining units – which do not include Haglund or Freels because they are Gilroy’s only two council-appointed employees. Those contracts restored merit raises for the unions in the 2008-09 fiscal year, which ended June 30.
All unions have agreed to forego raises during fiscal year 2009-10. Freels’ and Haglund’s raises would stem from their yearly performance evaluations left over from January and May, respectively.
Slow down
Ask most drivers, bicyclists and residents who travel and live near Welburn Avenue and Hanna Street in north Gilroy, and they’ll say it’s time for a stop sign.
Northbound and southbound drivers along Hanna Street just south of Las Animas Veterans Park – including dozens of homeless people riding on bicycles in and out of the park – already have to stop at Welburn, but eastbound and westbound motorists traveling between Wren Avenue and Church Street often fly through the intersection. Residents said most speeding drivers are headed eastbound in an attempt to make the light at Church Street and Welburn Avenue.
“People haul … going to and coming from that light. This is a pretty dangerous intersection,” said one transient who pedaled off with a bag of recyclables before he would give his name. “Someone ought to do something,” he yelled as he entered the intersection.
Nearby residents such as Clark Dotson – who lives on a small cul-de-sac called David Court just off Hanna Street north of Wren Avenue – have complained to city officials for the past couple of years about chaos at the intersection. Police Chief Denise Turner responded by creating the Neighborhood Traffic Safety Program about a year ago, inviting residents and city traffic engineers to discuss safety issues and create solutions.
The city council will vote Monday on whether to add two stop signs to the intersection for $2,200, making it a four-way stop. Dotson and other neighbors said the city did a poor job or advertising the upcoming vote after so much dialogue, but he said he and others would be out in full force Monday.
Since initial meetings led by the chief, city staff have installed “truck route trail blazer signs” along Leavesley Road to prevent confused truckers from veering onto Welburn Avenue. They have also installed “Not a Truck Route” signs on Welburn Avenue, repainted double yellow lines and crosswalks, trimmed bushes and occasionally placed a speed radar trailer – which alerts motorists to their speed – near the intersection.
The city also studied accidents at the intersections between January 2007 and March 2009, but only turned up two wrecks. The city has about 580 accidents each year. About 11,500 eastbound and westbound motorists and about 1,000 northbound and southbound vehicles travel through the intersection each day, according to city traffic studies.
Temporary library set to head downtown
If the council consents, Gilroy’s temporary downtown library will head downtown at a cost of nearly $338,000 over the next three years.
Gary Walton’s 9,388-square-foot building on Monterey Street between Third and Fourth streets now hosts Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero’s gym and Gilroy’s only auction house, both of which will relocate nearby. The current 12,500-square-foot library at 7387 Rosanna St. will come down early next year to make way for its eco-friendly, 53,500-square-foot replacement on the same site.
The temporary site has about 40 parking spots and additional street parking, and Walton is rushing to add bathrooms, lighting, painting, new walls, electrical outlets and carpet before patrons come filing in. About 1,200 residents visit the current library each day, according to county records.
The three-year lease term will run from Tuesday to Nov. 30, 2012. At $1 per square foot, the rental cost over three years comes to nearly $338,000. A 3-percent interest will apply if the city stays beyond November 2012. The $37 million bond passed by voters in November 2008 will pay to move all the books, which is expected to complete by Jan. 15. The total project is still within budget, according to a memo from City Engineer Rick Smelser.
Widening Gilroy to fit more homes
The council will also consider development proposals to annex 285 idyllic acres straddling Burchell Road north of Hecker Pass Highway for up to 193 homes and 244 acres of open space and parks, and a separate application to incorporate 48 acres near Christopher High School for up to 430 dwelling units.
Click here to read more about the projects. Click here to read about why the developer of one of the three projects originally being considered dropped out.
Loma Prieta anniversary sparks discussion of unsafe building fines
To ensure every city building meets modern earthquake safety standards, the city will consider whether to impose a $10,000-per-month fine on owners of so-called “unreinforced masonry buildings” to encourage repairs.
Inspectors have identified 37 earthquake-unsafe buildings along Monterey Street and a few other roads, 12 of which have been retrofitted or rebuilt and 21 of which have plans in progress with the city. City officials believe there are more, but the problem is identifying them and then working with the property owners and neighbors who sometimes don’t get along.
The monthly fee, passed by a 2006 city ordinance, will go into effect Nov. 16, but council members are expected to delay collection until April 1. This will give the city more time to work with property owners, some of whom have decried the fine as extortion amid the recession.
Click here to read more about this issue.
Fate of homeless shelter uncertain
At the request of City Council member Bob Dillon, the council will reconsider modifying a grant bestowed to the developer of a struggling homeless shelter, reviving a struggling project that split the council last month.
Click here to read the full story.
