The Hale Avenue Extension (HAE) is wrong for our town and community and should be cancelled:

• Morgan Hill must strive for fiscal responsibility and reduced unfunded liabilities.  According to the Fiscal Years 2020-2022 Recommended Operating and CIP Budget, the City does not have the funds to address our aging public infrastructure (streets, facilities, parks) and unfunded needs in public safety.  Concurrently, the City commissioned Godbe Research to conduct a statistically valid survey, which informed them that residents do not favor increased taxes nor outlays.  Since we lack the funds to maintain the roads we already have--let alone unwanted new ones--and Morgan Hill residents do not favor higher taxes come November 2020, it makes no sense to spend $16.8M for the HAE project as well as additional road maintenance moneys.  
• While Morgan Hill is severely lacking in large community park acreage, the rare, still-preserved green space of the planned expressway is 32.37 acres, adjacent downtown and immediately accessible to Morgan Hill's residents, families and children, who use and enjoy much of it right now, no further moneys nor investment required.  Morgan Hill's charming small town atmosphere and semi-rural character have recently come under pressure due to a succession of controversial planning decisions and a rapid boom in private field development, but the City has not concomitantly, adequately planned for preservation of open spaces and agriculture.*
• Let's bring our planning values up to contemporary standards and not follow unpopular planning decisions from 1969, more than a half a century ago.  Let's be grateful this space was accidentally saved and not reduce it to gray infrastructure, which will only diminish Morgan Hill's quality of life and beauty.  The Covid-19 pandemic crisis and the shelter-in-place order have only underscored the importance of preserving open space as a matter of Public Health and national security. 
• The expressway fails to pass the test of common sense.  It serves a small, remote backroads area, essentially bottle-necking into DeWitt and Edmundson, and won't alleviate traffic and speeding in downtown nor the adjacent neighborhoods.
• Wildlife do significantly rely on the space for a corridor; the city is doing way too many incidental takes of our significant old-growth trees; flooding in an area of natural springs will be problematic.

Please join me in petitioning our Morgan Hill City Government, including Mayor Rich Constantine, City Manager Christina Turner, Public Services Director Chris Ghione, our City Council Members Rene Spring (C) and Larry Carr (A) and Budget Manager Monica Delgado, to listen to constituents and cancel the Hale Avenue Extension.  I'm doing this for my own children and the town/world in which I hope they may grow and live.  There is simply a dearth of local options to go outdoors, away from speeding cars, and they're too little to both trespass and climb El Toro.  Morgan Hill residents deserve adequate, accessible open space right here in our own town.  We also owe posterity fiscal solvency in principle and reality.  Thank you for your time.

*With respect to Morgan Hill's parks:  There are currently 127.46 acres of public parks with 282.1 acres planned, for a hypothetical total of 409.56, largely consisting of roadside pathways, recreation centers and those classified as "mini" or "neighborhood" in size.  The American Planning Association recommends a 12.5% ratio of park acres/person (persons * 0.125).  The population of Morgan Hill in 2019 was 45,742.  If, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the City of Morgan Hill encompasses an area of 12.9 square miles (33 km2), or about 8,256 square acres, all land (1 square mile = 640 acres), the recommended park acres Morgan Hill = 8,256 * 0.125 = 1,032 acres.  This is a deficit of approx. 905 acres for actual parks.  Actual park acres/person Morgan Hill = 127.46 acres/45,742 persons = 0.0028 park acres/person.  Actual persons per acre of park = 45,742/127.46 acres = 359 persons/acre of park. The elimination of the City’s Residential Growth Control System funds for park maintenance by SB330 and the negative economic impacts of COVID-19 will only add further strain to the system.