Gilroy is fortunate to have an abundance of qualities other South Bay cities lack. It has a downtown of shoulder-to-shoulder historical structures that could easily be transformed into the walkable and inviting area it once was.
Gilroy also has neighborhoods of charming single-story wood frame homes with gardens and back yards, and is surrounded by green hills and farmlands. It’s no coincidence that before it was Gilroy it was known as Pleasant Valley.
Over the years, the city has escaped, although not entirely, both cookie-cutter suburban sprawl and the sameness of urban mid-rise housing that is in vogue these days. And it possesses an inventory of standing structures that lend warmth and character to a community.
Some of those assets are being placed at risk by aggressive city policies—or neglect by the city and property owners. That must stop.
Instead, the city must partner with owners and citizen groups, the chamber of commerce and others, including the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association, to protect and preserve artifacts of our unique history.
So much already has been lost. The city’s inventory of historic buildings has not been updated since the 1980s, and houses once pictured have since been demolished by the city or owners, sometimes ignoring city preservation policy on such structures.
So where to begin? The Old Red Barn at Christmas Hill Park has been teetering on the brink of oblivion for years, with the specter of demolition wielded by a city that has happily let it sink deeper and deeper into ruin with the hope that one day a big wind will just blow it down.
A group dedicated to preserving the historic structure, which commissioned an engineering report showing it can be saved, recently asked the city for access to clean the place up, since it has been given over to rabbits and a population of birds that would give Alfred Hitchcock flashbacks.
Characteristically, the city admiration and its legion of unionized bureaucrats is playing the passive-aggressive card, hoping, no doubt, that the pesky citizens will tire of the battle and find less bothersome things to do. Don’t bet on it. They own the building, along with the rest of us. It’s the people’s property.
In his Aug. 7, article on the subject, Dispatch Reporter Chris Foy noted that in 2014 the city tried to raze the barn with taxpayer money, but held off when some residents objected.
In fact, here’s a Dispatch headline: Historic Barn to be Razed.
The thing is, that was a Page One headline on June 16, 2006—nearly ten years ago.
At the time, the city council and then City Administrator Jay Baksa’s plan was to flatten the barn and replace it with a community center “resembling the historic structure,” as the headline put it.
What makes more sense than to raze an historic structure so that you can build another structure that resembles it? Makes us wonder why stupid does not have honorary four-letter-word status.
It never happened, of course, and the saga of the Red Barn languishes while the city waits to see if a small group of barn huggers will come up with enough money to save the place or just go away.
Give us a break. The barn sits on city property at Christmas Hill Park, site of the internationally famous Gilroy Garlic Festival. Upwards of 100,000 folks, most from outside Gilroy, rub shoulders with the barn every year and photos of it could probably repave the walkway of the Great Wall of China.
Really, city of Gilroy leaders and bureaucrats, what’s the freaking problem?
For those of you who did not see it happen, before the Chamber of Commerce began raking in about $100,000 a year on beer sales at the Garlic Festival, to which it has the concession in perpetuity, it went hat in hand to the city council every year for a gift of taxpayer money to keep the private, membership-only organization afloat. And year after year, the money flowed—one way, of course.
And perhaps some are unaware that the Garlic Festival Association each year makes a donation to the city to improve Christmas Hill Park, typically in ways that will enhance the festival experience, too. Makes sense, right? This year, it was $280,000 to build a back road into the park, probably for shuttle buses.
Given all the taxpayer money that kept the Chamber afloat for years, and given that a beautifully restored Red Barn could be a centerpiece venue for the Garlic Festival and an amazing gathering place for Gilroyans the rest of the year, why don’t the Chamber and Garlic Festival team up with the city and the Save The Red Barn Committee to get it done once and for all?
And while they are at it, perhaps the city and its Historic Society could come up with a better plan than City Hall’s seemingly relentless determination to raze the old Creamery building downtown, which is a registered historic building.
Come on. This is Gilroy, where we all pull together to help one another and get things done. Or do we?
