5/22/2020
Greetings Morgan Hill, We hope this message finds you and your families doing well. If you were like us, the shock of Covid 19 greatly impacted our immediate priorities to more basic needs. Taking on a role of teacher to our kids, protecting our elderly relatives, scrambling with our careers, and basically coming to terms with a new way of life during the SIP. We have more than ever come to appreciate our small town and how each one of us has come together in this time of crises to help our fellow neighbors. Unfortunately, despite Covid 19, Trammell Crow has not wavered in their efforts to continue with their proposed project at the gateway of our small town. The release of the Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) last Friday morning was expected. The Draft EIR shows that this project should not even proceed stating multiple Environmental issues for which no mitigation is possible and which have thus had to be left as "Significant and Unavoidable". The findings "Significant and Unavoidable" are extremely unusual in a Draft EIR, and the City should simply decide that there is no way the project can proceed. MHRGC encourages and will support efforts to respond to these serious and fatal flaws. However, our primary focus continues to be on preparing an Initiative, which is independent of the complex EIR process. While we will let the public release of the Initiative be the method of disclosing specifics, the Initiative will both address and put a stop to the City's goal of establishing Distribution as the key industry in Morgan Hill. With one Initiative, we will be able to halt projects such as Trammell Crow's Morgan Hill Technology Park & The Butterfield Technology Park. With the voters approval of the Initiative, we will tell developers and city leaders that we will only support responsible growth that generates high quality sustainable jobs, supports our existing local businesses, protects the environment and preserves our quality of life. Morgan Hill is not going to become known as another Distribution hub just because of its favorable location to a major highway and relatively inexpensive land that make it a target for the insatiable demand for new distribution centers which profit developers, multi-billion dollar REITs (Real Estate Investment Trust) and hedge-funds at our small town's expense. Lets talk about collecting signatures for the Initiative. While Covid 19 does present some challenges, the MHRGC team has spent considerable time researching how to collect signatures legally and safely. Ultimately, we will have a multi-pronged signature gathering plan ready by the time the Initiative is formally filed that we are confident will enable us to get the required number of signatures from registered voters in Morgan Hill. We hope that our city will listen to our voices and hold off on approving any projects that would be restricted by an assumed successful vote for enacting the Initiative which we would expect to occur in a special election next year. Hopefully our city will respect the Initiative process. However, if for some reason they do not, and decide to approve the project despite the 'Significant and Unavoidable' environmental impacts, then we will have no choice but to proceed with a Referendum. A Referendum would halt the Trammell Crow project for one year during which time the Initiative would be put to the voters. We will have a draft Referendum ready to be quickly filed if we need to and we will use the experience in collecting signatures which we gain from qualifying our Initiative (the real long term solution) to be ready to gather the required Referendum petition signatures withing the 30 day window that is required. In anticipation of a Referendum we ask that you please contribute what you can. Thank you Morgan Hill! We will be in touch soon when the Initiative is submitted. In the meantime stay healthy and we will get through this together! MHRGC
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