GGS General Meeting Minutes from Aug. 1, 2017
1. The meeting was called to order by Chair, Connie Rogers. Introductions were made by 15 members and a guest in attendance.
2. The minutes from the May 23, 2017 meeting had been sent via e-mail previously and there were no corrections noted. Carolyn Tognetti volunteered to take the minutes for tonight’s meeting since Sandie Silva was on vacation.
3. THE TREASURER'S REPORT was given by Treasurer, Carolyn Tognetti. Carolyn reported that the bank has now started charging a $7.00 service charge because our bank balance has dropped below their threshold for free service. Discussion was held and it was decided to check with the bank to find out if they would waive the fee because we are a non-profit organization. If they won’t, then it was decided toask for donations to increase our bank balance enough to meet the threshold.
4. OLD BUSINESS – Connie gave an update on the status of the High Speed Rail (HSR) alignment decision with the City and the HSR Authority. She received an email from David Bischoff, the city of Gilroy planner in charge of the HSR issue. He stated that the city staff had met with HSR staff a few weeks ago to discuss the feasibility of a different alignment adjacent to Hwy. 101 and 10th Street. HSR was scheduled to report back to staff on Wednesday, August 2 with their findings.
Much discussion was held on the need for Gilroy Growing Smarter to ask the Gilroy Council to make a decision sooner rather than later in order to work with the HSR Authority to be able to have input into the plans and optimize the opportunities the city could have in planning for the HSR.
Depending on the outcome of the HSR decision regarding a new alignment, it was decided that we should speak at an upcoming Council meeting, post information and ask for action on our Facebook page and to our membership list, write a Dispatch op/ed and lobby the Council members.
5. COMMITTEE REPORTS –
a. Planning Commission – the past few Planning Commission meetings have been cancelled.
b. City Council Meetings- Steve Seebart attended the meeting. The main subject was the Traffic Calming report.
c. Coffee with the Mayor – Next one will be on Saturday, August 12 at 9:30 am, Janet Espinosa, Connie and Carol Marques are planning to attend.
d. Downtown Business Association (DBA)– Carol Marques reported that she met in May with the Promotion Sub-Committee. She said she was excited at first because they have a lot of things planned and some good ideas, however, she was disappointed that they would only be meeting four times a year. She felt that more planning and organization was needed to truly do a good job. She and Linda West suggested that more members of GGS should get involved and volunteer to help.
Carl Yordan reported that he met with Gary Walton’s committee. He said that Gary Walton has a lot of good ideas like the Paseo, parking garages and painted utility boxes, but that he needs volunteers.
After much discussion, it was decided that we would put this topic on our agenda for our next GGS meeting to decide how we could get more involved with helping the DBA. Carol and Linda will get more information on how we can help and get involved for discussion at the next GGS meeting.
e. 20/40 General Plan - Joey Weitz reported that the first meeting of the newly reconvened General Plan Advisory Committee met on June 29, 2017. He said that the meeting was mostly a review of the General Plan process to date, discussion about land use possibilities and General Plan Focus Areas. Joey felt that the delayed decision by the HSR, regarding where the station will be, is going to make developing the General Plan more difficult due to the uncertainty.
f. Executive Committee – Connie reported that she received an email from Committee for Green Foothills announcing their Leadership Academy for the upcoming year. It was decided that GGS should distribute the announcement thru our membership list, Facebook and website.
Connie also suggested that we post the Gilroy Dispatch 6/30/17 front-page article regarding Gilroy’s fast population growth. It was decided that we should put this on our website.
Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, September 12, 2017 at the Gilroy Library’s downstairs meeting room at 7:00 PM. This was changed from the planned date of September 26, 2017 due lack of availability of the library meeting room.
Carolyn Tognetti, Acting Secretary