Henry Servin is Gilroy’s new city transportation engineer, and he’s out there “Servin” the public already. I don’t know the gentleman yet, but intend to have a reporter give him a traffic buzz soon. Had to give a fist pump at my desk when I read that he said taking a look at syncing traffic lights at Sunrise Drive, West Day Road and East Day Road along Santa Teresa Boulevard might help with traffic flow around Christopher High at peak times. Hallelujah! Servin says it takes time to coordinate with the Valley Transportation Authority, but it’s clear that “Servin” the public is about listening, driving about town, making keen observations and working through the process to a good end. Henry seems to get it.
Got a laugh out of this inadvertently introduced typo that I caught in a letter to the editor: “Supervisor Mike Wasserman, cheers to you for attempting and succeeding in making improvements in the ordinances regarding South County sineries!” Do we have as many sineries as wineries? What goes on there and what ordinances did “SuperWas” change to make regulations simpler in order to incubate the sineries?
On the winery front, a pre-Christmas visit to the lovely setting at Sycamore Creek just off Watsonville Road on Uvas Road, revealed an expansive new patio with umbrella-shaded tables overlooking the rolling vineyards. Beautiful job done. It’s just another upgrade to an area winery. As those keep on coming, and the wines keep getting better, more and more local visitors will discover the treasures here and more and more San Jose-area residents will head south instead of north to Napa. Our wineries, if they’re not strangled by county government regulation, will become an economic gold mine for the area.
Jackie Moon, 24, has a heart of gold, I discovered, when she wrote us about her fiancee, Ryan, a Gilroyan now deployed in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan. She reports that rumors about the troops not receiving breakfast are true. No breakfast for Ryan for two weeks, an outraged Jackie says. It’s an absolutely maddening and unconscionable thought. But Jackie took action, starting a “Feed Our Troops” Facebook page. We’ll have a more complete story next week, but there’s no doubt Gilroy will come out swingin’ in Jackie and Ryan’s corner. In fact, it might be a cause that Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero and Golden Boy Promotions can consider taking up. As Jackie wrote, “The fact that criminals are treated better than our troops is incredibly disheartening and I seriously hope that Ryan’s story can influence people to think differently about how we support our men and women in uniform.”
Juxtapose the above with this thought as you ponder the increasing tax rates and a shrinking paycheck in 2013 due to FICA tax increases: “Only in America … could the government collect more tax dollars from the people than any nation in recorded history, still spend $1 trillion more than it has per year – for total spending of $7 million PER MINUTE, and complain that it doesn’t have nearly enough money.” If the voters don’t stop the rampant government spending, the country will eventually not face a fiscal cliff, but fall off it.
That reality has to be addressed, at first, on the local level. Toward that end, we look forward to reporting on – and having a qualified Certified Public Accountant review – a report on the city’s unfunded pension liability Councilman Perry Woodward requested at this week’s meeting. City Administrator Tom Haglund and his staff will be putting together a scenario based on reality, not just on the inflated investment numbers that CalPERS is “selling.” Unfunded pension liabilities are a looming financial catastrophe for many local agencies that most politicians conveniently ignore. That’s not only disingenuous, it could be argued that it’s committing fraud on the public. Transparency and honest policy discussions are the only way out of the looming mess.
Messy, but so darn tasty are the cheesesteak sanwiches at A-Jay’s, a compact hole-in-the-wall downtown stop in Morgan Hill. Would be great if the Gilroy Economic Development Corporation board members would show up there en masse one day for lunch and try to convince “A” and/or “Jay” to open up a place in downtown Gilroy.
Downtown coffee shop is re-opening and being renovated. That’s welcome news, and while it’s wonderful that our new/former mayor, Don Gage, has already scheduled two “Coffee with the Mayor Dates” it would be great if those were held at local businesses instead of in the Council chambers on Saturday, Jan. 19 and March 2 at 9:30 a.m. Meeting the mayor at First Street Coffee or Fifth Street Coffee would give those meetings an entirely different flavor.
Reach Editor Mark Derry at ed****@ga****.com
