Editorials

The bizarre events of December 2015 will be long etched in Gilroy’s political history. Mayor Don Gage stunned the city by resigning without warning a year before his term ended, effectively handing the reins to his political ally, Perry Woodward. The handoff allowed Woodward to run as an incumbent—but not before the duo pushed through approval of a massive farmland annexation that would have, along with other planned developments, made Gilroy one of the Bay Area’s biggest cities—a sprawling urban mass of 120,000 residents, more than double the city’s population today.

After seven years at Gilroy’s helm, City Administrator Tom Haglund will depart to become general manager of the Tuolumne Utilities District in Sonora in the Mother Lode country where he has kept a second home for years. It’s a dream job as he moves closer to retirement.