Politics

Gilroy has lost small businesses to other cities and frustrated others with what’s seen as hostility and over-regulation that created a seething cold war between City Hall and Main Street.It’s too late for merchants who fled or closed, but new signs point to a possible ceasefire, a thaw, more cooperation and a revitalization of what has been an ailing historic downtown business district.“There was a time when all you had to do was look at anybody from the city and the answer was no, or the answer was so obviously unhelpful you did not know how to proceed,” said Linda Williams, who quit her job in biotech and, with no retail experience, bought the long-established Nimble Thimble Quilt Shop and moved it into an aging downtown storefront she purchased and renovated at 7455 Monterey Road.Now, she said, “I am starting to change my mind, I am guardedly optimistic.”Downtown activist Gary Walton has done business in Gilroy for 30 years. He, too, detects a change for the better.“I have a lot of faith, I am actually optimistic about downtown,” he said, two days after showing a prospective new downtown businessman around.It’s time for the city and merchants to pull together and stop being adversaries, according to Walton.“If the city staff understands this is a partnership, rather than ‘we need to control those dirty bastards and make them crawl through broken glass,’ we are going to do a lot in the future,” he said.What has been so frustrating, he said, is “the city has absolutely no road map that tells how to get a permit, no timelines for the process. Other cities have flow charts for the process. If Gilroy would clearly spell out the steps and give you a road map and tell you how long it takes, instead of it all being hit and miss.”Merchants complain that the city doesn’t provide much help getting through a maze of rules and point to a lack of help from city staff—concerning permits for signage, expansion, licensing and earthquake safety—making it extremely complicated to open a mom and pop store.Examples of discord reveal a continuum of clashes that have pitted the city against merchants for years, most notably during the reigns of former city manager Tom Haglund and former Mayor Don Gage, according to some critics.Gage has been accused in the past of trying to force his esthetic likes and dislikes down the throats of a unhappy merchants with repressive design standards and bans on certain types of businesses.He and Haglund resigned last year and relieved and hopeful merchants point to other changes in key city positions that could augur a newer, kinder relationship with the merchant community.Take auto-related businesses, for example, which Gage repeatedly tried to ban from the downtown while encouraging them along the freeway. The city has since backed off on that downtown restriction, according to Walton.But not before there was damage. With a small desk, filing cabinets and a phone—nothing that smacked of the automobile industry—John Trinchero ran a successful car wholesale business at a 7810 Monterey Street storefront for 23 years until 2012.His family ran businesses in town since the 1920s, including its first pizza parlor and the old Hecker Pass Inn that fed diners for 50 years on First Street.At 73, Trinchero wanted to retire and for two years tried to turn the business over to his European university-educated son.But that required a new business license for the proposed new ownership, the city told him, which would trigger a city law that at the time banned auto-related businesses in the downtown that did not exist before its passage, according to Trinchero, now 77.He reluctantly closed shop and retired and his son returned to Europe. He still is bitter.“Opening a small business in Gilroy and getting the city to let you operate after you open is near impossible,” Trinchero wrote about the situation. “Dealing with city employees who seem to be trained to keep small businesses [tied up] with so much red tape you just give up,” he wrote.In an interview this week he said, “These are just mom and pop businesses, but you can’t get any help from the city.”Another merchant said her sales fell 20 percent and she was threatened with fines when the city enacted a new sign ordinance that many found overbearing.“They try to squeeze money out of you any way they can,” she said of the citations and regulations.She opposed the Gage-led Measure F, a proposed city sales tax hike that voters rejected last year, wondering why people would buy in Gilroy if the tax had passed.She and her husband wanted to purchase and renovate an old building for their business and met with city leaders, but were so badly treated they gave up and opted for Morgan Hill, she said. New city leadership is no better than the old, she said, calling Gilroy “a nightmare” to deal with.“When Walmart came in the city waived so many things, but for small businesses they won’t waive anything,” she said. “I love Gilroy, but for a small business Morgan Hill is much more embracing, they were welcoming.”She asked not to be identified, fearing retaliation by the city if she ever tries to return.Walton was not surprised. Her reaction, he said, “is not unusual. It is really sad when people fear their government, it shows that people feel that it is corrupt and not fair.”At Predator’s Archery on Monterey Road, a half-block south of the iconic Old City Hall, owners Curtis Campisi and Mike Pierce have in 23 years turned a $10,000 investment into an international business that grosses $1.1 million a year and employs a half-dozen people. Among the state’s 25 archery dealers, it ranks fourth in sales, Campisi said.When they tried to expand into a next-door storefront for a second indoor archery range, they were shocked by the city’s response.The city halted the project, demanded a new, wooden design to meet historic standards and slapped them with an additional $4,000 permit fee for being in a historic district.That brought the fees to $8,000 on a project budgeted to cost $5,000, Campisi said. And when it came to knowing exactly how to proceed, the city was no help, the Gilroy native said.“They need a resource liaison, someone who will hold [applicants’] hands and tell them the guidelines,” Campisi said.After more meetings, Campisi seems confident that at least some of the fee will be reduced. Still, he questioned the $4,000 fee and what it actually pays for.At the Nimble Thimble, Williams said ending friction between the city and merchants boils down to keeping the lines of communication open.“I really do think in the last six months things have gotten much, much better,” she said.In spite of what she was put through, Williams said, “I am glad I did it. I moved from Pasadena to Gilroy and I love it. I want to be part of downtown and I want it to be a good town, the kind I want to live in—we just have some things to figure out.”Walton is determined to figure out and fix things and, characteristically, is operating beyond the city’s reach to do so.He is forming a design committee made up of professionals who will voluntarily assist merchants with their issues, to fill the void he believes has been created by a city staff and leadership that has not been people- or business-friendly.The committee will prepare merchants before they ever approach the city, Walton said.Small businesses are the backbone of the economy, he said, citing studies that show cities that welcome and help them are more economically vital than those that don’t. Indeed, downtown merchants as a group are one of the city’s largest employers, he said. The welcoming must start at the top, Walton continued. The smooth to rough cycles the city goes through in dealing with merchants are tied to its leadership, and it’s the tone of that leadership that is reflected in the way the staff handles small businesses, he said.“You have to be business-friendly in order to accomplish the economic development this community needs; there is an inverse relationship between the amount of regulation and amount of business in a community,” he said.But there are signs that things indeed are improving, according to the longtime businessman.In his tireless efforts to attract businesses to town, Walton last Saturday walked through several vacant stores with a bookshop owner contemplating relocating his store from Mountain View to Gilroy. A top city planning staffer showed up to help.“On her own time,” Walton said. “That is a good sign.”

Gilroy Police Department is seeking assistance from local High School students with the design of one of our new School-Resource-Officer (SRO) patrol cars. The vehicle, which was donated by Gilroy’s South County Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram Dealership, is a 2015 Dodge Charger which is pictured above.

Mayor and US Navy veteran, Perry Woodward, is presented with the first poppy of the annual poppy appeal fundraiser held by the American Legion Auxiliary Gilroy Unit 217 during the month of May, by poppy chairwoman, Maryann Collom on Tuesday. The month-long appeal is in support of local veterans, with money going to provide things such as clothing, meals, and transportation to doctor's appointments. The poppy became a symbol of remembrance to honor fallen soldiers after World War One. Volunteers will be collecting donations in May at venues throughout the city. An enchilada dinner with rice, beans, salad and dessert will be served on Saturday, April 30, starting at 6 p.m. at American Legion Gilroy Post #217, 74 W 6th St, Gilroy. Tickets $10.  

UNFI general manager Crystal Brennan cuts the red ribbon at the the company’s state-of-the-art distribution center in Gilroy on Tuesday. She is flanked by UNFI employees and Gilroy Chamber of Commerce president Mark Turner, Gilroy Economic Development Corporation president Tammy Brownlow, Mayor Perry Woodward and Gilroy City Councilwoman Terri Aulman.

It was the 1950s: Mt. Everest was conquered, Elvis and Disneyland became household names and Susanne Steinmetz went to work for the city of Gilroy in 1952. She was 15.

Mayor Perry Woodward opened Monday’s Gilroy City Council meeting by presenting honorary certificates to Joel Goldsmith, Terri Neidigh, Alex Salinas and Claudia Salinas for their “heroic lifesaving efforts.” The quick-thinking good samaritans rushed in to perform CPR on Joe Lomeli on Feb. 26 when the 75-year-old retired AT&T engineer suddenly collapsed at Snap Fitness. The full story can be found here: http://bit.ly/241vW72.

See Gilroy Mexican family history

Three Gilroy winemakers have bought 7.4 acres on the east side of U.S. 101—at 6500 Brem Lane, behind the Target and in front of UNFI—to turn an old roof tile factory into a colorful winemaking landmark.

Gilroy’s longest serving city clerk and the first appointed by the City Council, Susanne Steinmetz, was remembered by the council at its April 4 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.