"My mind boggles sometimes when I hear people wondering what happened to downtown Gilroy, and now First Street. Yes the economy is a factor, however, where were the Gilroy residents when the outlets came? Then Wal-Mart? "I urge all citizens to watch 'Wal-Mart-The highcost of low price'. Or read, 'The Bully of Bentonville'. Find those on www.disinfo.com. We are killing our own businesses. I'm for growth and revenue. There must be checks and balances. How about imposing a city fee to the outlets and big chain stores a tax - specifically allocated to 'Downtown'."
Dear Economically-conscious, Red Phone agrees that the economic state of our city is a very important issue. That's why we took this straight to Tom Haglund, city administrator.
"While the City has not considered proposing a new tax or fee on specific retail and using that revenue to assist other retail-type uses in the downtown and other commercial hubs, over the past five years the City Council has made significant investments in the downtown with the overall intent of revitalizing the downtown," he said. " The City has made both direct and indirect investments to the local downtown property owners."
Haglund said the city's direct and indirect investments in downtown "have resulted in over $27 million in new building construction valuation in the downtown, 26 active development projects, 10 completed projects and seven under various levels of review. In the previous five years to the initiation of these direct incentives, only a handful of projects had been processed and built in the downtown.
"While the city and the downtown property owners have a ways to go on creating the City's General Plan's goal of 'a vibrant downtown (that) will be the pride of Gilroy's residents and the focal point of activity in the City,' these efforts over the past five years have been remarkable and the foundation for revitalization has been established."
Haglund's full response to Red Phone was, " The current and recent past Gilroy City Councils share your readers concerns with the economic vitality of downtown Gilroy and other commercial hubs within the City. While the City has not considered proposing a new tax or fee on specific retail and using that revenue to assist other retail-type uses in the downtown and other commercial hubs, over the past five years the City Council has made significant investments in the downtown with the overall intent of revitalizing the downtown. The City has made both direct and indirect investments to the local downtown property owners.
"In terms of indirect or public improvement investments, the City has spent $8,689,000 in the first 3 Phases of the Monterey Streetscape, funded approximately $400,000 in studies and plans (Specific Plan, Strategic Plan, Master Plan updates, Parking Management Plan, Paseo Design, etc.), and budgeted $4,000,000 for downtown side street improvements over the next 10 years.
"While the public investments have created a revitalized appearance to Monterey Street between 4th and 8th Streets, with wider sidewalks, decorative and brighter street lighting, new street trees, street furniture, improved water and fire sprinkler services, the City Council has also made direct investments in local downtown property owners by eliminated all City processing fees and development impact fees that are charged to all other commercial development in the City. Since inception of the Downtown Fee Elimination Program in late 2003, the City Council has eliminated approximately $5,255,625 in Development Impact and processing fees and issued 271 building permits free of charge. These are fees that property owners pay when they build new buildings or remodel existing buildings. In many cases, the new buildings in the downtown would not have been built if it were not for these direct incentives given to downtown property owners from the City.
"Moreover, the present and recently past City Councils have approved 729 new residential units in the downtown, which will significantly advance downtown revitalization. Residential builders in other parts of the City must participate in a city-wide competition for residential units. This can be both a costly and lengthy process. In an effort to encourage downtown redevelopment, the City Council allotted these units without the added burden of a competition process. This has saved downtown property owners considerable time and money.
"Lastly, the City Council has also reduced the parking requirements for downtown business to again stimulate redevelopment efforts. Developers are able to reduce their parking that is required to be provided on the property and thereby increasing their amount of building area on the lot. This again is a direct incentive to the property owner.
"These significant direct and indirect investments have resulted in over $27,000,000 in new building construction valuation in the downtown, 26 active development projects, 10 completed projects and 7 under various levels of review. In the previous 5 years to the initiation of these direct incentives, only a handful of projects had been processed and built in the downtown.
"While the City and the downtown property owners have a ways to go on creating the City's General Plan's goal of "a vibrant downtown [that] will be the pride of Gilroy's residents and the focal point of activity in the City.", these efforts over the past 5 years have been remarkable and the foundation for revitalization has been established.
"The City Council continues to research methods to further stimulate downtown revitalization, and while a new fee or tax has not been considered, principally because it would require a vote of the people of the community and would discourage other retail from locating or remaining in Gilroy, the City Council is committed to creating the General Plan's vision for the downtown as evidence through their recent action to extend the downtown fee elimination that was due to expire in June 2008 for another 2 years."
Too much to print?
"Unbelievable that our local newspaper would show a dead child laying on the ground with his family mourning. Unbelievable that the newspaper would use that photo. So insensitive and disgusting to put that in the paper. It's one thing to say that an 18-year-old died, which is horrible enough, there's no need to put such a gross photo in the paper and be that insensitive."
Dear Disgusted, What's disgusting is the wanton violence on our streets. What's disgusting is three people walking up to a young man in broad daylight and shooting him.
What's real is a photograph depicting tragedy. In a small photo on our front page, the young man's body was covered on the sidewalk and the story's main photograph was a large image of people mourning and praying for peace at the candlelight vigil. That's sensitivity in news coverage combined with the sober reality of senseless violent tragedy and community reaction.
Be happy you have a job at all
"Just read the weekend edition on the nonprofit health workers protest stagnant wages, Community Solutions picketing. I think they should be happy they have a job. Maybe they should fire all of them and get people who want to work. I'd like to get a 3 percent raise every year."
Dear Equal-minded, Red Phone is happy too right now that someone is paying the phone bill for all the readers to call in to our line. Everyone is suffering right now with the current economic state.
Yet, we sympathize with these workers. They, along with nearly everyone else these days, need to be compensated accordingly and fairly to be able to survive in this area.
Same thing goes for you, dear reader, if you feel you are not being compensated fairly, then think about it and figure out if you should do something about that.
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Thanks to Gilroy, the rescued become the rescuers
