Politics

Downtown Gilroy just got a little more historical, educational and convenient.

In an address at the United Nations, a South Valley Native American leader said a campaign to recognize California’s historic El Camino Real trail is an attempt to rob Native American’s of their heritage while honoring their oppressors.

In a move that may spur outrage no matter the outcome, the Gilroy City Council on Monday decided to reverse course on upper Welburn and remove contentious No Turn signs installed earlier this year.

The Gilroy City Council on Monday, May 8 held a study session on Gilroy’s five-year Capital Improvement Plan. Nearly $23 million in projects—28 in all—were presented by city staff for review. Projects ranged from one-off items including demolishing city-owned property on Dowdy Street to ongoing work like city-wide sewer repair and rehabilitation.

With the budget crisis facing Gilroy, one thing is evident, the status quo is not going to cut it anymore. Changes in how government delivers service and what those services costs are going to happen whether or not you like it or not. That is just a simple fact of economics; we are living in a time of limited resources with huge unfunded liabilities created by overly generous salaries and pension benefits made to public employees and mounting costs of repairing our aging infrastructure.

Strollin’ Around

On the corner of Sycamore Avenue and East San Martin Avenue in San Martin, an empty, grassy parcel of land has generated some controversy in the small, unincorporated locality, between Gilroy and Morgan Hill. Middleton Consulting out of Tacoma Washington is in the application process to construct a storage facility for portable toilets on the land and some San Martin residents nearby think the idea stinks.

Last year alone, tourists spent more than $350 million in Gilroy, making the Garlic Capital of the World a major hub for tourism in the Silicon Valley. With the 38th annual Garlic Festival just around the corner, tourism in Gilroy is only going to get hotter as the summer approaches.

Gilroy City Council may have violated various state rules when it decided to approve $258,000 to remove more than 200 trees citywide May 1. According to San Francisco attorney, Laura Beaton, the city’s legislators may have violated laws that guarantee the public’s right to participate in legislative meetings and the state’s environmental review process when they voted to fell 235 trees-- 35 in Christmas Hill Park and 200 elsewhere in the city-- earlier this month.

On the front line of Santa Clara County Vector Control District's fight against mosquitoes is Bob Kaufman. Kaufman, 52, the Vector Control Field Operations Supervisor sets out, armed with a scooper, a long pole with a cup on the end, hunting through stagnant streams, abandoned tires and murky swimming pools. The quarry of his hunt, mosquito larvae and after a few hours on the prowl, he's found his prey inside an old abandoned truck tire on Santa Teresa Boulevard.