Morgan Hill Direction

By Steve Tate

Issues and priorities for the next few years.

• Fiscal Discipline
• Priority of Safety
• Community Values
• Visionary Leadership

Careful, thoughtful planning must continue for implementing the sustainable budget strategy. We believe we have now weathered the worst of the storm, but project that our recovery will be quite slow and may suffer some bumps along the way. We need to work diligently in order to avoid any further service cuts and to plan new projects and activities to assure that their impact on the General Fund is affordable and sustainable. We need to stick firmly to our policies through the economic recovery.

Responsible, well-planned economic development can help build city revenues, allowing for restoration/ expansion of services. The opening of the Honda dealership and Hobby Lobby in the old Mervyn's space were great retail additions to our community. We need to continue attracting and retaining businesses that will help Morgan Hill thrive economically while being great community assets. When I call on our local businesses, I find that they all enjoy and appreciate Morgan Hill; they love being here. We will use their support and enthusiasm to tell the story of why Morgan Hill is a great place to do business.

The economy is recovering. The City's budget situation will not improve as quickly as the general economy since property tax and sales tax always lag. I strongly believe that with good planning and careful financial management, we will fully recover, enhance our economic base and eventually thrive because we are a strong and wonderful community!

Priority of Safety In every campaign I emphasize the importance of public safety; it is a fundamental protection that our local city government must adequately provide. Public safety is the highest priority of local government.

Because of its high priority and the sitting Council's belief that increased staffing would be necessary to ensure citizen safety, we placed a measure on the 2008 ballot to impose a utility user's tax for the purpose of expanding police staffing. That measure failed by a surpisingly large 2-1 margin, indicating that our voters are unable to support any additional financial burden.

Because of the severe impact of the recession, we had to cut our police staffing in FY 2011 after some modest expansion several years ago. Fortunately, no layoffs were necessary because the M.H. Police Officer's Association was willing to forego some previously committed salary increases. Having advocated staffing expansion, it was really hard to accept this reality. To accomplish the same level of safety protection with fewer resources, we are now focusing on safety outcomes and have an outcome-based strategy that leads to the most effective ways to achieve positive results. While it is hard to imagine that our officers could be more productive, we are hopeful that intense focus on positive outcomes can allow us to increase citizen safety with our current resources. Our recently implemented VIP (Volunteers in Policing) is already paying dividends in freeing up sworn officer time, and we were able to add an additional Municipal Service Officer (an unsworn position) to the FY 2013 budget. We are extremely proud of the outstanding service our police staff and our volunteers provide.

We have been working for several years on a plan to cut cost for our fire and emergency medical services without sacrificing anything in terms of service level or quality. Service is currently provided under a contract with Santa Clara County Fire, but in order to save on the contract costs, we are now in negotiation with Cal Fire for a new contract projected to take effect January 1, 2013. Not only will the new contract save up to $800,000 per year, but it also gives us a single service provider since we now rely of Cal Fire as the service provider to the South County Fire District to provide mutual aid in southern Morgan Hill. This more regional approach to Fire/EMS is a step forward and we look forward to more regional cost-saving efforts in the future.

Public safety remains at the top of our priority list + right where it belongs.

Community Values Our residents frequently boast about the very special feeling our community embodies. Expressed frequently as our "small town feel" or as a sense of "friendly openness", people simply like living here. The value that our residents place on our quality of life is something that we need to strongly embrace and maintain.

Our community is enhanced by its great volunteer spirit, where residents willingly and eagerly support our schools, youth recreation and sports, the city through its commissions and committees, and our terrific events like the Fourth of July and Taste of Morgan Hill. Our get-it-done attitude is exemplary, we need to encourage and promote its continuation.

Downtown is a big part of our "small town feel" and we need to continue to strongly support its economic success and its vibrancy as a special place in our community. The Downtown Specific Plan was finalized several years ago and implementation is under way with expanded parking, the 3rd St. promenade and planned development of key downtown "catalyst" locations by our new Economic Development Corporation, created last year to continue the work of our now defunct Redevelopment Agency. Our vision of downtown as a spectacular gathering place is being realized as it also becomes more of a residential hub of the community.

We need to also continue to emphasize providing opportunities for our youth so they can flourish and develop positive qualities and values for success. Support for our senior population is also important, acknowledging the great contributions they have made. The youth and senior components of the Centennial Recreation Center are flourishing with record program attendance and lots of happy smiling participants. It is extremely important to maintain the vitality of these programs and we are working with our YMCA partners to do just that. When the Senior Center needed to raise additional funds to support their ongoing programs, the community responded by creating a "Friends of the Senior Center " organization that raises those funds through Tuesday evening Bingo at the Community Center.

Recreation plays a big role in our community. We are pleased that so many of our youth are involved in sports and we have an active adult population as well. The M.H. Aquatics Center, Centennial Recreation Center and Outdoor Recreation Center have enhanced our recreation base dramatically. City Recreation is doing a fantastic job of recovering the costs of their operations, virtually eliminating their impact on the General Fund while still providing increased access to our residents. While serving our own citizens, our facilities also draw regional participation, helping the economy and building our reputation for providing great recreational venues.

Through our competitive process for housing allocations, Morgan Hill has done an admirable job of providing affordable housing opportunities. This is an area of continuing emphasis because we need to be "obtainable", and able to accommodate people who want to live in our community. The downturn in the housing market is preventing our housing developers from meeting their affordable housing commitments, and we need to continue working with them to find solutions to get us through the current situation without losing our ability to make housing obtainable when the market finally fully recovers. It is very important to continue to focus on and to innovate in the area of housing affordability.

One community value that all communities are promoting these days is their environmental awareness and support for any initiatives that will protect our precious environment. Morgan Hill adopted a comprehensive environmental strategy in 2007 and has implemented strategic programs with enthusiastic help and support from our residents. The current economic recession has curtailed several of the programs, but our strong citizen commitment and involvement will allow us to continue to pursue our environmental goals. Solar installations at the CRC and Aquatics Center are now online and the Police Station is next in line.

Continuing to make our downtown a truly spectacular venue, improving our quality of life while valuing and enriching our youth and seniors, meeting demands for recreational services, continuing to make Morgan Hill obtainable for those who want to live here and implementing our environmental agenda are ways we can preserve and enhance our Morgan Hill community values.

Visionary Leadership The Morgan Hill City Council has come a long way since the mid-1990's when the absence of harmony stunted progress. Today, we are courteous and respectful, and we adhere to our values-based ethics policy that I am proud to have helped develop. We've achieved a level of operation that allows us to work efficiently and collaboratively, thereby increasing our productivity.

In my six years of leadership, we have raised the level of collaboration and policy-making productivity. That focus will continue, further improving Council and commission/committee operations in meetings, assignments, and interactions to better meet objectives. The skills and connections we have on the Council help us achieve our goals and objectives, and can be honed to do even more. We've built a very strong bond with Gilroy and enhanced our regional participation and credibility. This needs to continue, giving us a stronger voice.

We are continually improving the job we do of establishing annual goals and objectives. Because of the recession and its impact on our budget, we have had to establish clearer priorities and deploy responsibility for them in a way that is more optimal for successful accomplishment. We will continue working to assure council, staff, commissions/committees and the public are on the same page in terms of the City's goals, objectives, priorities and responsibilities.

In the 2010 State of the City, we established a future vision for Morgan Hill based on input from the community. It is straight forward and mostly evident, and provide a solid basis for our future direction. We anticipate a population of 48,000, which is what our growth control ordinance allows, but also postulate that with a carefully updated General Plan scheduled to begin at the end of this year, we could meet the population target without the many encumbrances and restrictions of the ordinance. It is a high priority of this Council to simplify how growth control is implemented and remove the limitations that the current system has saddled us with.

We envision a safe community with a thriving Downtown, engaged/ involved citizens and leading schools. We will preserve our small town, neighborly atmosphere while being a recreation mecca for our citizens as well as drawing many outsiders. We will maintain our infrastructure (roads, parks, sewer, water, etc.) adequately. Finally, we will improve our economic base so that we maintain a solid financial footing, supporting all the elements of the vision.

I am confident that this vision does reflect where the community wants to go, but validation is important and a "road map" will be developed with substantial community input as we undertake the comprehensive update to our General Plan.

Summary We can make the quality of life in Morgan Hill even better than we now enjoy. FISCAL DISCIPLINE will allow us to continue and slowly build on our current adequate level of services. We will balance our budget within a few years and strengthen our economic base to once again build reserves into our budget. We must always maintain the PRIORITY OF SAFETY, focusing on outcomes. We must embrace our existing COMMUNITY VALUES while exercising VISIONARY LEADERSHIP to become more effective and efficient while achieving our future vision.