Some Merchants Upset With Prospect of Music Series Move

Morgan Hill
– Some downtown businesses are not pleased with a Morgan Hill
Chamber of Commerce proposal to move the city’s popular
”
Friday Night Music Series
”
from West Second Street to the Depot Center at the corner of
Depot and East Second streets.
Morgan Hill – Some downtown businesses are not pleased with a Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce proposal to move the city’s popular “Friday Night Music Series” from West Second Street to the Depot Center at the corner of Depot and East Second streets.

The series of concerts featuring a variety of bands is held during the summer months . Residents and visitors to the city come to listen to the music and dance in the street, socializing and mingling, eating and drinking at local restaurants and browsing or seriously shopping at downtown boutiques. 

Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Dan Ehrler said Wednesday that the chamber, in conjunction with the Morgan Hill Downtown Association, has sent out 130 surveys to businesses and residents, blanketing the downtown area from Main Avenue at Monterey Road down to Fifth Street to gauge opinion of the proposal.

Ehrler asked for the surveys to be returned by today. As of Wednesday afternoon, 22 surveys had been returned, with 15 not in favor of moving the series, five in favor of the move and two not giving an opinion.

The main reason for considering the move, according to Ehrler, is that the set up and tear down for the event is labor intensive. Although Rosy’s at the Beach owners Rich and Rosy Bergin donate the use of their flatbed truck as a stage, banners of the series sponsors are hung on a plastic mesh wall that is set up behind the stage. It is the set up and tear down of this wall, and to a lesser degree the sound system, said Ehrler, that is the problem.

If the concerts moved to the Depot Center parking lot, the plastic mesh wall would not need to be erected because the sponsor banners could be hung from the posts in the center.

Morgan Hill Downtown Association Executive Director Theresa Kiernan said she has offered her assistance.

“I will support what my constituents, what my clients want,” she said. “I understand the need for support with labor … If they want to keep it where it is, I’ve offered my Friday nights this summer to help with that part of it. I understand how it is important for our businesses downtown to bring people there.”

Sponsorship is also an issue, as is storage of the equipment, Ehrler said. 

Mike Castelan, owner of Poppy’s Fish, Poultry & More, said he believes moving the popular summer series would be detrimental to the downtown.

“As you pull more and more events away from Monterey Road downtown, you give people less and less of a reason to go there,” he said.

Bob LemMon, a Farmer’s Insurance agent with an office across from Britton Middle School just north of downtown, agreed with Castelan.

“It’s ridiculous (to move the series),” he said. “I think it’s in everyone’s best interest, all the downtown businesses, that the series stay where it is.”

BookSmart co-owner and long-time Friday Night Music Series supporter said the downtown businesses need to step forward if they want the series to stay in its current location.

“It’s a shame that we don’t get more support for this event; outside of three or four people, much of the sponsorship comes from outside of downtown,” he said.

Ehrler said if the majority of those that respond to the survey want to keep the series where it has been for more than a decade there are some problems that need to be solved.

“Then we’re looking at going back to the businesses and residents, maybe calling a meeting together with the Downtown Association, they certainly have an interest in it,” he said. “We can then talk about these challenges and how we’re going to meet them.”