Gilroy
– A glitch in communication between Gilroy city staff and the
Chamber of Commerce has bumped plans to patch cracks – known as a
slurry seal – on Monterey Street to Friday.
Gilroy – A glitch in communication between Gilroy city staff and the Chamber of Commerce has bumped plans to patch cracks – known as a slurry seal – on Monterey Street to Friday.
Downtown merchants were caught by surprise when they received notices Tuesday morning that parking along Monterey between Third and Tenth streets would be prohibited from 7am to 5pm today – the same day as the chamber’s 13th annual tradeshow and mixer from 2 to 7pm at the Historic Strand Theater on Monterey Street.
Joan Marfia-Lewis, fashion consultant at Dick Bruhn and M’Lady Bruhn, was the first of many chamber members who made a few calls to the city to complain, including one to Mayor Al Pinheiro. Marfia-Lewis then notified Marsha Becht of the chamber, who also called Pinheiro to help get things smoothed over.
“The city departments need to talk to one another,” Marfia-Lewis said. “It makes no sense to not allow parking during something like the mixer. People will look around and say, ‘Where are we supposed to park?’ Then they’ll go home.”
The communication disconnect happened because it’s cheaper for the city to hire county construction crews to perform certain construction when they’re in the area, including the scheduled slurry sealing, said city engineer Michael Goodhue. But the county can’t always tell the city ahead of time when they’ll be available ahead of time, so the city isn’t able to coordinate project dates with other city services.
Susan Valenta, the chamber’s executive director, said she received a number of calls from merchants wondering what might happen. But the kinks worked out in a timely manner, Valenta said, and despite the day-long parking inconvenience Friday, she suspects merchants will be pleased with the results of the slurry sealing.
“A little bit of patience definitely pays off,” she said. “(Slurry sealing) will really make downtown look more unified. It only takes a couple of hours, then it’s done and it looks great. I think people will really notice a difference.”
Harry Hodgdon, owner of Incentive Awards on Monterey Street, said he’s not happy about Friday’s no storefront parking, but he feels lucky to have a rear parking and an entrance near the back of his store. After moving downtown six months ago and seeing a significant influx in business, Hodgdon said one day of slower sales won’t kill him.
Other downtown merchants aren’t as optimistic.
“We’re dying as it is and the construction doesn’t help, I’ll tell you that,” said Joyce Duarte, co-owner of Monterey St. Antiques.
Duarte’s frustration is partly because storefront parking is the only option for her potential customers. The public lot on Eigleberry Street that backs up to her shop is constantly occupied by post office carrier trucks and employee vehicles, she said, especially since work recently began to resurface the post office’s parking lot.
Monika Gervais, an employee at Collective Past, said that store was planning to avoid the parking inconvenience altogether by closing today, but that was before she knew the slurry sealing was postponed. Store manager Linda Graham could not be reached to confirm if the store would close Friday instead, but Gervais said the slurry sealing is just one more irritation in a series of construction woes.
“We hear jackhammering (from other construction on Monterey) all the time. It’s quite annoying,” she said. “It’s not worth staying open, because we’re not getting any foot traffic. We had seven sales yesterday. That’s it. People don’t want to deal with (the construction).”
Monterey is one of more than 50 streets in Gilroy that will be patched over the next few days. For a schedule of when other streets will be worked on, visit www.ci.gilroy.ca.us/engineering/street_closures.html or call the city’s engineering department at 846-0450.
