$1 • Friday, December 1, 2017 • Vol. 123, No. 48 • morganhilltimes.com • Serving Morgan Hill since 1894
LOCAL SCENE Bluer Than Blue Bluegrass band Bluer Than Blue will perform 11am to 12pm Dec. 8 at the Centennial Recreation Senior Center, 171 W. Edmundson Ave. The band plays a mixture of blues, gospel and folk music.
Apply for grants to nonprofits Applications are open for Community Action Grants for 2017–18, funded by the American Association of University Women Morgan Hill chapter. The application deadline is Oct. 31, for grants of up to $1,000 each. These grants are awarded to local nonprofit organizations in support of projects that are in alignment with AAUW’s mission, including broadbased education programs, education programs targeted at underserved segments of the population and programs targeted at equity for women and girls. This year, grants totaling $3,000 were given to Learning and Loving Education Center for ESL class supplies; Central High School for its Chef’s Garden; San Martin Gwinn Elementary Home and School Club for its mariachi music program and Discovery Counseling Center for Bold Journey. The grants are funded through AAUW’s annual Wildflower Run. For grant criteria and information on how to apply, visit aauw.org, and click on “community” in the navigation bar on the home page.
‘Act One’
Celebrate Morgan Hill nominations The Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce is now accepting nominations for the annual Celebrate Morgan Hill awards. The chamber will honor the winners at a dinner and awards ceremony March 3, 2018. Awardees include Woman of the Year, Man of the Year, Educator of the Year, Student of the Year, Large Business of the Year (more than 20 employees), Small Business of the Year (20 employees or less) and Nonprofit of the Year. The latter two are new categories for the 2018 awards. Send nominations by Nov. 17 to brittney@morganhill.org.
‘The Nutcracker’ Morgan Hill-based South Valley Dance Arts will present “The Nutcracker” ballet Dec. 1 through Dec. 9 at Sobrato
➝ Local Scene, 8
Robert Eliason
The South Valley Civic Theatre presents Act One, an adaptation of Moss Hart’s famous memoir. The performance is a “funny, heartbreaking and suspenseful play.” Showtimes are 8pm Fridays and Saturdays, and 2:30pm Sundays Nov. 17 to Dec. 9 at the Morgan Hill Community Playhouse, 17000 Monterey Road. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit svct.org.
BOUNTIFUL DONATIONS Volunteer advisor Kiki Nakauchi, along with members of Live Oak High School’s Future Business Leaders of America
club, gather Nov. 20 on campus to put together Thanksgiving care packages for 125 needy families.
Acorns deliver smiles LIVE OAK CLUB DELIVERS TURKEYS, CARE PACKAGES TO 125 FAMILIES Scott Forstner Reporter
While most of their Live Oak High School classmates were at home enjoying the extended holiday break with family and friends, eight
CITY PLANS TO ALLOCATE FUNDS TO FUTURE PROJECTS Editor
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The City of Morgan Hill has uncovered more than $5 million worth of unspent impact fees—paid by developers more than five years ago—that officials say will go toward long-planned, large-scale infrastructure and public facilities projects. Even though these projects—including a new fire station and the extension of Hale Avenue around the west 1
had one more stop before delivering them to 125 needy families—and that was to the local Walmart where the same number of turkeys were purchased using a donation from the San Martin Lion’s Club. Lions Club members, along with their counterparts from the Morgan Hill Lion’s Club, also drove a select number of students around South County to different homes to deliver the Turkey Day
care packages on Nov. 22. Along with the Thanksgiving fixings and a 10to 12-pound turkey, each family also received a grocery bag filled with food, including potatoes, fruits, rice, beans, tortillas, cake mix, spaghetti, flour, toilet paper and a large container of laundry detergent. It’s been an Future Business Leaders tradition at Live Oak High School for more than three decades.
“It’s our big project every year. I look forward to doing it,” said 17-yearold Kai Leong, a student club co-president who joined the student organization as a freshman. “It’s sad that this is my last year, but maybe I’ll come back to help out next year.” The Live Oak senior is one of the students who made the deliveries the ➝ Thanksgiving, 18
Report finds $5M in old impact fees Michael Moore
Inside this issue: Food fresh from the box
Future Business Leaders of America students were back on campus the Monday before Thanksgiving. Inside the “Food Service” building, these dedicated Acorns were hard at work, filling 125 cardboard apple-bin boxes with all the staples to make a complete Thanksgiving dinner, along with other cooking essentials and cleaning supplies. Once the care packages were filled, the students
side of town—might not be needed now, they are indispensable to accommodating the future growth of Morgan Hill, according to city staff. Specifically, of the impact fees unspent from five years ago or more, about $1.4 million in storm drain impact fees is proposed to be allocated into the city’s Storm Drainage System Master Plan for the Upper Llagas Creek Flood Protection Project; about $440,000 worth of traffic impact fees will go toward the Hale/ DeWitt Avenue extension; and about $3.2 million of unspent fire impact fees will fund the construction of a new fire station on Butterfield Boulevard.
The state law, known as AB1600, that regulates impact fees in California requires cities to “make findings” for any such development fees that have been unexpended for five years or more. The findings proposed by Morgan Hill city staff must be approved by the city council, which is scheduled to take up the question at the Dec. 6 meeting. “The reason (the funds haven’t been spent) is some of those impact fees are for projects that are planned for but haven’t yet started,” said Morgan Hill Communications Manager Maureen Tobin. “We know we will need (the projects) and the impact fees are trying to
EXAMPLES OF IMPACT FEES IN MORGAN HILL The fees below are per single family home, but the fees rise for multi-family homes and commercial projects. Water impact fee: $3,751 Sewer impact fee: $14,680 Storm drain impact fee: $3,982 Park impact fee: $5,566 Traffic impact fee: $1,928 Police impact fee: $794
address the impacts that will happen in the future.” City staff released the 2017 Annual Development Impact Fee Report Nov. 29. Such an annual
report—listing not only the unspent fees but also current impact fee schedules and balances—is also required by AB1600. ➝ Impact Fees, 14