More on Target charity funds The May 9 Morgan Hill Times Red Phone column included a question asking if Morgan Hill benefited from Target's charitable giving campaign. The answer was informative, and we wanted to add that the May 3 Art a la Carte event at the Community and Cultural Center was sponsored, in part, by our local Target store. Art a la Carte is a free, hands-on cultural arts event, benefiting area children and their families. Target donated $2,000 to this event as part of their community grant program.
Red Phone: Well there you go readers. Although Target has a broad advertising campaign regarding its community charities, it's good to know it follows through and gives back to the communities that support its stores. So readers, if you've found yourself wondering if Target gives back to the city during that commercial break, you can rest assured it absolutely does.
Jackson Oaks Court repavement I live on Jackson Oaks Court. I've lived here for 24 years and my street has been paved one time. A lot of Jackson Oaks was repaved maybe five years ago but my court was never repaved. It looks really bad because there have been a lot of lines put in and chunks taken out; it's all discolored and uneven. It's hard to sell a house on this court because the street looks so bad. I'm wondering why it's never been repaved when we pay the taxes we pay etc. That's one time in 24 years this court has been paved.
Red Phone: According to Morgan Hill Deputy Director of Public Works Mori Struve the roadway was resurfaced in fiscal year 2000-01 with a slurry seal. Since that time there have been about six pavement patches done on this roadway for purposes of water service replacement. However, the patches are in good condition as is the roadway in general.
Reader, as to your comment that resurfacing of the streets in his area has been infrequent, you're correct. This is however, not peculiar to the Jackson Oaks area. The funding available for resurfacing of the city's roadways is $2.2 million short of the need for each of the next five years. Over the past several years needed maintenance has been deferred due to the fact that revenues raised from gas taxes have not been adequate to meet the need for street maintenance. The longer needed maintenance is deferred, the more costly per square foot resurfacing becomes. This means the dollars available cannot be used as efficiently
The current 2008-09 street operations budget being proposed to the City Council includes a recommendation to turn off 50 percent of all the street lights in the city. This will save approximately $100,000 and yet even with this savings the street operations budget cannot support even a modest level of needed street maintenance activities such as street tree trimming, asphalt patching, sidewalk repair, storm drain cleaning and maintenance, and street median maintenance. Thus, it is not only street resurfacing that is underfunded, but also day to day street maintenance activities.
Broken water pipe I'm making a complaint about water running in the middle of the street down on Jackson Oaks Drive. It's clearly a water main break; police have put caution signs around it. It was noted on Saturday it's still running on Sunday. I called the water district and police department. The Police Department said the water district knows about it and will leave it until Monday. This is a lot of water running down the street, and this time is the green time and we should not be letting water run down the street for any reason.
Red Phone: Utility Systems Manager Mario Iglesias, with Morgan Hill's Public Works Department, said at 3:30 p.m. May 9 the city received a report of water running in the street in the 16000 block of Jackson Oaks Drive. The Public Works Department senior utility worker responded to the call that afternoon to assess the situation. He reported back that there was a small leak on the two-inch pipe used to flush the end of the main. The leak did not constitute a road hazard or create a safety hazard nor was water service to residents in the neighborhood involved so the threat of any service interruption was not a consideration, Iglesias said.
The reason why the response time may not have seemed too prompt is because the department takes a number of precautions when repairing anything underground. What may look to be as a simple broken pipe from the surface doesn't necessarily mean pipes are the only facilities at the same spot. The department must take into consideration that there may be additional underground facilities such as cables, phone lines, power lines, etc.
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