Two Candidates Vie for Morgan Hill Mayoral Seat

Morgan Hill Councilman Steve Tate has nearly 20 years of public
service experience
Morgan Hill – City councilman Steve Tate learned about perseverance in his early days at Los Altos High School. When his grades weren’t so hot, a conscientious guidance counselor helped him improve enough to gain entrance to UC Berkeley.

Once across the college threshold, he worked even harder while earning his math degree, learning to study while also hashing for sorority houses, working in a bowling alley and doing other odd jobs to support himself after the untimely death of his father. 

Through hard times, his work ethic never dwindled. And in 1963, fate put him in the path of a professor who was developing new-fangled computer programs for quantitative research projects. The professor needed an assistant and Tate leapt at the opportunity. He knew if he worked hard enough, he might find a career in the burgeoning computer field. He later worked 37 years for IBM, rising to management positions.

“I was a math major,” Tate, 62, said. “I would have been a computer science major, but they didn’t have that back then.”

Currently retired and coming off the heels of two consecutive four-year terms on the city council, Tate is in the midst of a Nov. 7 mayoral bid against local accountant and businessman Dennis Delisle. And with his years of experience in city government, Tate is touting his knowledge of the city’s inner workings as an edge over his opponent. He’s been involved in city politics since 1988, when he was appointed to a two-year post on the Morgan Hill General Plan Update Committee. He then served two four-year terms on the city’s planning commission, after several unsuccessfully attempts. Later, after turbulence at City Hall led to what he saw as divisiveness in the community, Tate felt in 1998 he could make a successful bid for city council. He was right. 

“Basically, I had a good feel for it,” Tate said, adding he wanted to be something of a consensus builder and also represent the growing number of people in the community who were asking the city to add new public facilities such as the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center and the new library. “We had been through the re-visioning process (for the city’s redevelopment agency) in 1995 and 1996, and people wanted so much more than the RDA could afford. The support from the community was there, and it was something I supported.”

Still, after more than 70 percent of voters in a 1999 referendum advised the city council to use redevelopment funds for public facilities, Tate was torn when it came to building projects such as the Aquatics Center, which opened in 2003, and the Centennial Recreation Center, which opened Oct. 14. He voted against both facilities. He rightly predicted folks in the community would question how the city would pay to staff the buildings. But he said the “wisdom” of the council prevailed, and he now thinks the city is in a “good place” to rebuild its reserves after relying on deficit spending following the collapse of the dot-com economy in 2001. He notes the city is projecting budget surpluses over the next five years.

“We’ve made fantastic progress the last eight years, with new recreation facilities, a new police station, solving budget problems,” said Tate. “Things are going very well.”

After the city eked out a surplus this year, thanks in part to a good sales tax return from high gas prices, Tate said he feels the economy is moving in the right direction. He favors the proposed $333 million extension of the redevelopment agency sans eminent domain authority, but feels the funds should now be used to build the city’s tax base to pay for new police officers and a new fire station. He estimates the latter would cost $1.8 million a year to support, but with the city’s population expected to grow by another 10,000 people by the year 2020, he thinks future revenue sources can be developed. And while he said the city government’s focus should be on growing the economy to cover city services, he still thinks the community will face the question of whether to add more taxes down the line. But that decision would fall to voters. 

A resident of Holiday Lake Estates since 1977, when he and his family moved from Walnut Creek, Tate has seen the city more than double in size. And while there have been frustrations over how to develop revenue sources for city services in the past – notably in 1991 when three city council members were recalled after implementing a utility tax to save the recreation department and pay for police services – Tate thinks the community will pull together to meet its future fiscal challenges. 

“It’s obviously a tremendous compliment if I do get elected,” Tate said. “It’s a tremendous amount of responsibility and (Mayor Dennis) Kennedy is leaving pretty big shoes to fill.”

Kennedy, the only directly elected mayor Morgan Hill has had since the post was separated from the city council by voters in 1996, has given his endorsement to Tate, citing Tate’s work on residential growth control, downtown development and the new library. Endorsements have also poured in from city council members Larry Carr and Greg Sellers, County Supervisor Don Gage, State Assemblyman John Laird, longtime Gilroy politician Sig Sanchez and groups such as the Morgan Hill Police Officers Association and the Santa Clara County and South County Democrats.

“I do want to work to get us more recognized beyond our city borders,” Tate said, adding he has no plans to seek a higher political office. “I want to build bridges for our city.”

Accountant Dennis Delisle faces uphill battle in mayoral race; campaign’s focus is on city finances 

n By Tony Burchyns

Staff Writer

Morgan Hill – Twelve years ago, when his wife Sharon’s kidneys were shutting down and no one in her family was eligible to give a healthy organ, Dennis Delisle was told by doctors at Stanford University there was a “one in a million” shot of finding a non-blood-related match for a transplant.

It was a husband’s nightmare. Tests showed Delisle’s kidneys were no sure bet to mesh with her cells, not to mention his own chances of surviving the surgery were far from guaranteed. But with time running out, he decided to take the ultimate risk, to save the woman he’d loved since high school. Together, they went under the knife. Together they survived.

“Coming out of that, you’ve got to praise God,” said Delisle, 58, now one of two candidates making a bid for mayor of Morgan Hill in the Nov. 7 election. “What it did for me was made me realize you can be strong financially, be successful in all areas of your life, but when a major catastrophe hits, you realize how fragile you are.”

For soft-spoken Delisle, a self-described “man of faith,” the experience was reaffirming. He said he emerged a stronger Christian, more inspired to inspire others. And as the owner of the San Jose-based accounting firm, with clients all the over the county, he had already established himself as a motivational speaker at business conferences, churches and networking groups all over the country. With his wife as one of his heroes, he said he tried to “connect spirituality to success.”

More recently, though, Delisle’s attentions have been glued to winning an uphill battle for the two-year mayor’s seat against a popular and experienced opponent, city councilman Steve Tate. 

“My wife and I have decided to make Morgan Hill our home for the rest of our lives,” Delisle said. “I want to help make it right.”

He would start by honing in on city finances, applying his accounting expertise to the city’s budget. 

“I think we need to be creative on generating income,” Delisle added. “We own vacant land. Let’s see if there are avenues to lease that land to businesses. Also, we should look at privatizing some city services.”

After growing up in Cupertino and attending De Anza College, Delisle married in 1968 and eventually earned a bachelor of science degree in accounting from San Jose State University in 1971. He moved to Morgan Hill’s Holiday Heights in 1976, and from the eastern foothills he and his family watched the city grow. 

“Our backyard overlooked the city. You could see more lights every year,” he said.

When he arrived in town, Delisle was busy building a career as an independent sales representative, selling home care products – mostly “everyday items” – on a mostly word-of-mouth basis. It was a job he’d started in college to help pay the bills, and he was parlaying it into a successful enterprise.

“My brother had success as a sales rep. He was 20 years old and driving a Corvette! That fired me up,” Delisle laughed. “By the time I graduated, I was actually making good money. I was making more money than some of my teachers.”

In 1981, he launched DNA Accounting in San Jose, doing taxes for fellow sales reps across the country. In the 1980s he served on the board of directors for Crown National Bank and in 1992 was elected to a one-year term as president of Independent Business Owners Association International.

It wasn’t until two years ago, when he started questioning the construction of public facilities during a fiscal crisis, that he considered running for mayor. The city was running a deficit while using redevelopment funds to build projects approved by voters such as the Aquatics Center, the Centennial Recreation Center and the city’s new library. While Delisle agreed the facilities had an intrinsic value, he also felt the city was digging a hole for itself with projects that would not stimulate the economy.

“I agreed with the extension of the redevelopment agency (in 1999), but felt the city got ahead of itself in the application of it,” Delisle said, adding he thinks the city’s recently constructed public facilities should have been “prioritized” rather than “built all at once.”

Delisle wants to encourage economy-building endeavors as the city ponders collecting an additional $333 million in redevelopment funds over the next 15 years. For example, he wants to lure new businesses with incentives packages, aiming to raise the city’s tax base to subsidize public amenities and also pay for new police officers. He’s also against issuing bonds to pay for the redevelopment agency’s activities, and even thinks the proposed $333 million funding increase is too high. 

“I think it’s a huge figure. If I was on the council, I would never vote for that,” he said, adding he’d prefer the city use short-term redevelopment strategies that don’t involve generating debt with bonds or using eminent domain as a tactic against blight. “I realize, since I’ve been the chair of several committees, whoever has the gavel can set the agenda. If I volunteer two years of my life, I want to have the most impact.”