A TOUR OF MORGAN HILL + 2020

By Alex Kennett

What can happen when everyone is brought to the planning table.

By Alex Kennett
Written in the summer of 2006

Now, think ahead 20 or 30 years. What will Morgan Hill be like? Will it be something like this?

Thanks for joining me as I relax with my wife Yarka, on the 5th floor (roof top) terrace of our favorite restaurant looking west at the setting sun behind El Toro Peak. After all the changes in our fair town one constant stands vigil: our representative peak remains free of development to the casual eye and is now part of a recreation preserve owned and run by the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority.

To the knowing eye, however, the infrastructure that six years ago took Morgan Hill off the grid is happily humming away. Hydrogen, 11 times lighter than air, races up the hill turning small electrical generators. At the top of the hill, hydrogen is converted into electricity and distilled water. The water races back down hill turning electrical generators and providing a pure water supply. No pumps needed.

We're waiting for another couple to join us. She had to stop at the Whole Foods Market on Main and Monterey on her way home. They live just two floors below and they have their offices one level below that. We'll have a drink then descend to the restaurant at street level for our meal. After we eat we'll be looking for a place to dance. There's the Salsa place over on Depot, the one with the three-story atrium. I like the Latin-jazz combo that performs in front of the place and Yarka likes the Latin-American themed shops and museum. After negating suggestions including American Idol's Ballroom Dance Mania and the new, "Extreme Hip-Hop Harry's," joint, like the ones opening up all over California, we settle on San Francisco's own, "Dance You're A** Off, Incorporated." We old folks still like to mime YMCA!

Downtown is Morgan Hill's entertainment and boutique shopping center. Each of our shopping areas are themed like the Art Deco DECOrator's Center on Cochrane and 101 and the Shops of the Future at Tennant Station. Each center abuts a City park that follows the theme of it's respective center providing child care while shopping as well as municipal facilities for small-area sports such as bocce ball and ping pong.

After moving parts I didn't know I had to move we took Morgan Hill's own Sugar Beet Express (also known as, `The Trash Trolley') and headed home. Ever since the development of our self-sustaining light rail system installed in 2015 we've been the envy of every public transportation system in the world. Wisteria now shades the train line from Merced to Santa Cruz. This has resulted in a significant reduction in energy required for cooling during the hot season. The fall leaf crop is converted into fuel at the 12 fermentation sites along the rail path. Harvested grass, sugar beets and fuel crops continue to add to our transportation energy resource. Wisteria was chosen since it will let the warming sunlight in the cool season.

This came about from the development of the consortium of Nano and Biotechnology researchers working at the University of California Merced Extension Campus at Morgan Hill. The Center for Alternative Energy developed both the stereo and proto types for the "Express". Soon to open between Gilroy and San Jose, the "Trolley" has reduced Monterey Road to two lanes in downtown and it's fifteen stations with accompanying parks has allowed people from all over Morgan Hill to all but give up their cars when moving about the city.

An irony of our environmentally sound economic development is our East-of-101 Auto Mall. The tax dollars created from this development paid for the initial infrastructure for the Sugar Beet Express. Go figure. There really is a synergy between the environment and the economy.

I realize that the above sounds like so much science fiction and beg one to ask from which planet am I? But ideas have to start somewhere and they grow into visions that with proper planning become reality. How are we going to pay for all of this? Proper planning.

This is my version of gathering information for a community conversation. Is there anything you would like to see in 2020? Let me know at Alex@AlexKennett4Council.