Politics

Both the plaintiff and defendants hailed the settlement as a success.

The Santa Clara Valley Water District's board of directors will appoint a new director to take the seat left vacant by Don Gage, who left in the middle of his first term and was sworn in as the City of Gilroy’s mayor last week.

Trustee Darcie Green was unanimously voted as new board president for the Santa Clara County Board of Education for the coming year during the Dec. 10 meeting, while Trustee Anna Song was given full support from her fellow board members to be named vice president.Green was appointed to the board in 2012 to fill a vacancy in Area 6. She currently serves as the community and government relations manager for Kaiser Permanente South Bay, according to SCCBOE staff. Green was named recipient of the 2014 Barbara Jordan Leadership Award, which honors young elected officials who demonstrate a distinguished record of public service to their community.Son was elected to the board in 200 as the first Korean-born female to be elected in California’s history, according to the SCCOE announcement. She also serves on the County School Boards Association Executive Board.

A county report says Gilroy police take the longest to respond to emergencies of any city in the area—but police and city officials say it’s likely that the report is wrong, even though the department is working to improve its slow response times.

Like its gaming neighbor San Jose to the north, Gilroy may soon tout in neon lights its gambling enterprise to folks driving on Highway 101.

Roughly 1.3 million Americans, including more than 8,800 Santa Clara County residents, are starting off the New Year on a bleak note after a federal program extending long-term unemployment benefits was shut down Saturday.

Monday was a busy night for the Gilroy City Council. The Council

Following Mayor Don Gage's explanation of the “why” behind his proposed plan for a “Quality of Life” bond measure, Council members listened to the “how” from the City's Finance Director Christina Turner and President /CEO Catherine Lew of the Oakland-based Lew Edwards Group, during Monday night's regular City Council meeting.

The fight over the proposal to put 4,000 homes on 721 acres north of Gilroy is nowhere near over, even though the project has been temporarily shelved.This week the battle got hotter, as opponents of the project, who go by the name Growing Gilroy Smarter, lashed out at project developers for what they said was a desperate attempt to mislead voters.Project opponents post their messages on the website address GilroyGrowingSmarter.org. But the Rancho Los Olivos developers bought the dotcom version of the same name, which sent users to a site promoting the Rancho Los Olivos development.Members of the Growing Smarter group, who are collecting petition signatures for a ballot measure that would require voters to approve any new big developments in the city, cried foul.“I went to the Gilroy Growing Smarter page and typed in .com on accident and up pops the page of your development,” wrote Joe Lovecchio in an email to the Los Olivos developers. “Y'all must be getting desperate now. Marketing at its lowest form. I bet the people over at GGS are flattered. This just confirms how shady a deal this is. Rather than create an identity you’d rather use smoke and mirrors. I’ll make sure to inform others of your tactics. Best of luck.”David Lima, one of the Growing Smarter leaders wrote in an email to the Dispatch: “Is hijacking our visitors a form of flattery?”Kristina Chavez Wyatt, the publicist who bought the GilroyGrowingSmarter.com domain name, said she did it in order to make sure that people who were interested in seeing Gilroy grow smarter were informed about the Los Olivos project. However, after hearing complaints, she said Wednesday she would take it down or redirect the .com requests over to the Gilroy Growing Smarter.org website.“If you believe you’d like Gilroy to grow smarter, then Rancho Los Olivos is a sound decision,” she said, adding that a competing project was worse. “If you believe building 1,000 houses south of town on prime farmland without being vetted for the California Environmental Quality Act or having proper provisions for schools or traffic mitigation . . . that is a concern. It’s important that people get the facts and the Rancho Los Olivos website has facts.”Later in the day she texted: “I’m working to release the .com URL or just redirect to org. No need to cause unnecessary distractions.”Chavez Wyatt said she had been attacked on social media sites and called “slimy,” which she resented after years of community service. “We are just trying to bring out the facts,” she said.The application to rezone farmland and annex land as a prelude to the construction of 4,000 or more homes was withdrawn in January. Mayor Perry Woodward and the project’s developers issued a press release saying the project was paused to educate the public about the plan’s benefits.“I would say the application is not active currently but the Rancho Los Olivos landowners investment team and developer would very much like to see the application proceed at the proper time,” said Chavez Wyatt.“One reason why Rancho Los Olivos pulled the application is that they got stuck in a political cycle. Now that they’ve invested in facts and research, the community gets to know the details behind it.”She added that the developers and the city have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars vetting the proposal and making a long-range general plan for the area, which would be thrown out if the Gilroy Growing Smarter group has its way.Also, requiring a vote for new development would discourage businesses such as Google from building in the city, she said. The initiative drawn up by Gilroy Growing Smarter exempts industrial campuses consistent with the general plan from the public vote requirement.The Gilroy Growing Smarter group has until September to raise almost 2,000 signatures and put a measure on the November ballot that will restrict the council’s authority to authorize new residential growth outside of city limits.