As a long-time Gilroyan and local business owner, the dysfunctional nature of Gilroy City Hall is extremely frustrating. The poor customer service is not limited to those of us in the business community, however.
Citizens, nonprofit organizations, property owners, city employees and other local, governmental agencies are all stymied by the lack of leadership, cooperation and business acumen found at city hall. While these groups have different missions and goals, they are united by one thing—their inability to form productive working relationships at Gilroy City Hall.
It is the role of our elected leadership to direct city hall to correct these problems. To do so, they must first acknowledge these problems are there. Our elected leaders are either unable, unwilling or both, to do this. This failure of leadership is directly related to the many unsolved problems in Gilroy, including issues related to homelessness.
While I believe finding effective solutions related to our unhoused and homeless are difficult, they do exist. In the private sector, there are two methods we turn to when challenges present themselves. Modeling the success of others and creating a culture of cooperation are two reliable methods of solving problems.
Recently I visited Auburn, California, located in Placer County just up Highway 80 from Sacramento. Here the electeds set aside political ideology and embraced the idea of cooperation to make real progress on homelessness issues. They have formed a collaborative effort between first responders, city hall and carefully vetted service providers that are capable of playing a role in tackling these issues.
When speaking with the past mayor of Auburn and the chief of staff of a Placer County Supervisor, they all agree that making progress with homelessness issues is unequivocally not possible without this three-way cooperative effort. Gilroy’s first responders have a cooperative relationship with service providers who are trying to help the homeless, but our city hall does not.
These vital peer to peer relationships between city staff and community stakeholders are both horribly absent and desperately needed in Gilroy, at every level, especially when dealing with issues related to the unhoused. Council leadership has shown the inability to recognize this.
The City of Gilroy policy of just abating homeless sites without effective access to services is a revolving door of expensive failure that is overwhelming our first responders, frustrating property and business owners and diminishing the quality of life in Gilroy for all.
This failed abatement policy is at the direction of the council. Our elected leadership is not only failing people who have found themselves in a position unable to make good decisions for themselves; they are failing the majority of our citizens and businesses of Gilroy, deeply. Gilroy must abandon these failed policies.
It’s time to enter an era that includes non-ideologically driven, cooperative, pragmatic solutions that rely solely on the probability of sound results.
Greg Bozzo
Gilroy
I whole heartedly agree with the author of this letter. For far too long the current mayor has tried the whack-a-mole method whose is known to fail. If you see someone experiencing harm your first reaction should be to help, not further harm. You also can’t do nothing and expect the person experiencing harm to save themselves. One huge example happening now is the city not providing cooling centers. The public library is county owned and run. Even though the last point in time count showed I’ve 800 unhoused people, the cooling centers are fir anyone needing a cool place to stay to avoid heat exhaustion and possible death. The last time Gilroy city offered the Senior Center it was 2008. What does that tell you? We need a more humanitarian solution to a systemic problem and stop blaming the victims.