THE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE OF MORGAN HILL, GILROY & SAN MARTIN
A supplement to the Gilroy Dispatch & Morgan Hill Times
FEBRUARY 22, 2019
Gavilan’s Adapted PR program changes lives
SOUTH VALLEY MAGAZINE INSIDE THIS ISSUE
GAVILAN STRONG Local Adapted PE program gives the disabled an edge P4
GODSPELL REVIEW P8 | NEW WINES P12 | BLACK LEGACY P14
TEACHER HOUSES AT VTA LOT? P4 | POLICE SEEK SUSPECTS IN SHOOTING P2 | MOUNTAIN BIKE HIGH P14
THE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE OF SAN BENITO COUNTY
FEBRUARY 22, 2019
A supplement to the Hollister Free Lance
Get a taste of home at San Juan’s Natural Wonders
SAN BENITO MAGAZINE INSIDE THIS ISSUE
HEALTHY HAVEN SJB’s Natural Wonders is a big surprise in a little package P4
GODSPELL REVIEW P8 | NEW WINES P12 | BLACK LEGACY P14
$1 • Friday, February 22, 2019 • Vol. 126, No.8 • morganhilltimes.com • Serving Morgan Hill since 1894
Say ‘hi’ to tech DEVELOPER PURCHASES 60 ACRES, PROPOSES 1.2M SQUARE FOOT INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT Jaqueline McCool Reporter
➝ Trammell Crow, 11
Jaqueline McCool
It was a platform nearly every elected official in Morgan Hill ran on in the 2018 election: bring high-paying jobs to Morgan Hill. South County planners have long sought to get commuters out of cars and working closer to home by bringing some of Silicon Valley’s tech jobs to Morgan Hill and Gilroy. Last month, commercial developer Trammell Crow purchased more than 60 acres of Morgan Hill real estate. The land sits at Cochrane Road on the East side of US 101, near Target and the De Paul Health Center. Trammell Crow is preparing to submit an application to amend the property’s zoning, which currently allows for commercial, administrative office and industrial use across five parcels of land. The developer proposes to rezone a majority of the land for industrial use. Trammell Crow is a division of CBRE, the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm. The Dallas-based developer currently has $9 billion worth of projects under way, according to company publications. CBRE
RAIN OR SHINE ICE protestors huddle under umbrellas Feb. 14 with a sign that reads, ‘No person is illegal.’
Rally brings heat POLICE CALLED TO PROTEST OUTSIDE ICE OFFICE Jaqueline McCool Reporter
In the middle of a drenching rain storm Feb. 14, a group of protestors gathered outside the Morgan Hill office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in hopes of shutting it down. The protest, organized by the Rapid Response Network in Santa Clara County, hosted a series
of speakers at the Vineyard Court office who advocated for the abolishment of the agency and the shutdown of the field office over an incident that occurred in December 2018. At the first protest, immigration attorney Dorothy Ma described an incident where an immigrant was detained by officers with the U.S. ICE agency and was denied due process while forced to sit in a van outside the Morgan Hill field office on Vineyard Court before he was transported to a
processing center in San Francisco. The protestors returned nearly two months later, this time in smaller numbers in the winter rain, with a list of demands; many marched into the field office an read the list to the officers inside. Morgan Hill police were called to the scene, and the building’s landlord faced off with the protestors who had gathered in the parking lot of the office. The protest ended peacefully, with protestors dispersing to public property, but vowing to return.
As car alarms blared, the small group of protestors continued to chant and give speeches in both English and Spanish. “What kind of a society are we when we tear their families apart?” Fr. Robert Brocato, from St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Gilroy, asked the crowd. “What kind of a society are we when our government institutions, which we expect to be working in a fair way and a lawful way, are not? What about human dignity, basic human dignity?" The Morgan Hill ICE
office is a administrative processing center. ICE spokesperson Richard Rocha responded to a request for comment: “The ICE office in Morgan Hill is solely administrative space and does not have space to process or detain individuals, nor is it set up to offer attorney or family visits. ICE routinely stops at the Morgan Hill office to allow detainees an opportunity to use the restroom en route to other permanent ICE facilities where full access to attorneys is provided.”
Fight over Madrone hotels intensifies HOTELIERS CIRCULATE PETITIONS, DEVELOPER HANDS OUT FLYERS Jaqueline McCool Reporter
Tensions continued to mount in the week after a petition started circulating around Morgan Hill that would reverse the city
council’s Feb. 6 decision to allow two hotels to be built in Madrone business park. The petition, started by hotel owners, has been disseminated outside of local Morgan Hill businesses by professional signature gatherers. The city sent an urgent email the night of Feb. 11 to residents, alerting them to the petition. In response, the developer of the two new proposed hotels enlisted its own paid representatives
to distribute competing information in support of the project, often in the same locations where the petitioners were gathering signatures. The council first approved a zoning amendment for the properties at a Jan. 23 council meeting with a 5-0 vote. After the second reading of the ordinance on Feb. 6, a petition to challenge the council’s decision to allow two four-story
hotels—a Marriott and a Hilton—to be built in the business park began to gain signatures. Madrone Village is the shopping center/business park off of Cochrane Road and Madrone Parkway. It had originally been zoned for a larger commercial space, such as a grocery store, but the council decision added a hotel use to the zoning. Existing hotels consistently opposed the zoning
amendment at all stages of approval. The hoteliers said the new hotels would create a surplus of rooms, flooding the market. They also believe the developer, Toeniskoetter Development, was able to sell the land to the hotels at a below market rate of $14.75 per square foot. Brad Krouskup, president and CEO of Toeniskoetter Development, ➝ Madrone, 12