On Monday, Dec. 7, the Gilroy City Council will be taking up the important issue of whether in the next five years to plan for and build new residential neighborhoods on the approximately 721 acres roughly bounded by Monterey on the east, Santa Teresa on the west, Fitzgerald on the north and the existing city limits on the south. Specific project details are not yet available but the development will likely consist of somewhere between 4,000 to 5,300 new residences.
This proposal, called the North Gilroy Neighborhood District (NGND), will have a potentially huge impact on every aspect of life in Gilroy including water supply, traffic, the city budget, police and fire response times, schools and general congestion.
For many good solid reasons this is not the time or the manner in which to be deciding on such a massive expansion of our city. The timing here is particularly odd and backwards. In a few short months, the new 2040 General Plan will be in place and set the rules for all such future projects. How can we accurately look at this project’s impacts without considering these new rules? Similarly, in 2016 we will have new master plans for local water management and recycling.
How can we decide whether we will really have enough water without the updated information in these plans and without knowing if we will have a wet winter? What is the unseemly rush? We already have 2,890 new residential units in the pipeline for the next five years, so why do we need to sacrifice responsible informed planning and to risk detrimental impacts to add more units immediately? The answer, of course, is that we can be more patient and wait until we have a clearer view of this project’s true costs and benefits.
I urge all concerned Gilroy citizens who care about our fair city to show up on Monday, Dec. 7 at 6 p.m. in the council chambers to let your voice be heard on this important growth decision.
David Collier
Gilroy resident and former planning commissioner
Lane Stripes for Safety
An open letter to our city council and street maintenance department: With early evening darkness now upon us and the prospect for a wet rainy winter (thankfully….) it seems our city maintenance department is metaphorically “in the dark” when it comes to taking appropriate timely action regarding the condition of the lane marking stripes on many of our city streets. Street lane stripes are important for the safety of drivers, and when these markings are severely faded and barely visible, public safety is at risk. For example, the street markings on Welburn Avenue eastbound from Santa Teresa Boulevard to Church Street and on Westwood Boulevard between Welburn and First Street are in desperate need of repainting. I’m sure there are many more local streets that need immediate lane repainting, especially streets that sustain greater-than-average Gilroy traffic patterns during rush hour traffic. Now is not the time for our city council to be “penny wise and pound foolish” when it comes to this important and timely responsibility of city government.
James Fennell
Gilroy
Mother of All Boondoggles
When the short term (until Dec. 4) transportation funding bill was signed by the
President on Nov. 20, transit subsidy recipients dodged a bullet, and taxpayers took
another one. With the conference committee trying to hammer out a solution between
the House passed bill, and the Senate passed bill, will Congressman Jeff Denham’s
amendment to eliminate federal funding for the California bullet train survive?
If it does, then California’s taxpayers are on the hook for the Mother of All Boondoggles,
bigger than the VTA boondoggle, the COG boondoggle, the Caltrain boondoggle,
and the Amtrak boondoggle, combined. Estimates on its annual operating loss
range from $1B to $4.27B annually. California local and state leaders have us on
the road to serfdom. I can still hear VTA’s manager for government relations
telling the bullet train commission (before it became an authority) at their joint
meeting in San Jose, “Don’t touch our money; get your own.” Of course, she
was referring to the taxpayers’ money, the subsidies we pay VTA, which VTA
says “Hands Off” to other subsidy recipients, including bullet train. Trouble is,
where will the taxpayers get the money to pay those subsidies?
Caveat viator.
Joseph P. Thompson, Esq.
Gilroy
