In years to come, when downtown Morgan Hill has been fully rebuilt and you find yourself being asked by the person next to you in some splendid new wine emporium how the “Crash of Oh-Eight” affected our pleasant little town, you certainly won’t lack for anecdotes, if this week is indicative of where we’re headed.
A house on Second Street was auctioned off last weekend with a starting bid of $50,000. No, I haven’t left out a zero. It wasn’t much of a house, but there hasn’t been a vacant lot on the market in this town for under three times that amount since the twentieth century. This is the building-bubble bust on steroids. And if the credit crunch persists, expect even more jaw-dropping, fire-sale, comparison-shattering sales on a street near you.
The new mall at Cochrane exit got off to an ominous start last year when the big storm that flooded Main Street also blew down all the palm trees in its parking lot. And that omen came true this week when the newest Circuit City of all was slated for closure before the “Now Open” banners had felt their first drop of rain. The staff has been given notice before they have cashed their first paycheck. Dare we ask if this was the high water mark of Morgan Hill? Will we still count eight Starbucks in our little town this time next year? I doubt it.
I recall a time in the eighties when the population of California actually started to decline, with more drivers licenses expiring than were being issued. At that time, people were immigrating to other states with better economies. This time it seems we’re all in the same boat. But that’s today—the global financial domino effect. People will adapt and new industries will emerge, and where they do they will draw money and people to them, and away from the old.
Can Morgan Hill weather this? Or are we just an ant on a log in the global economic river? More than ever we need to try to identify something unique about ourselves. I see giant painted mushrooms outside my office window. No, I’m not chewing on the magic variety. It’s an art installation to brighten up downtown, and it reminds me that we are still supposedly the mushroom town.
In my other business, we’ve looked at the viability of using a combination of solar PV and solar thermal as the energy source to grow mushrooms. Maybe we should redouble our efforts to implement this. For those of you who are not experts in mycology, the single biggest cost in this business is climate control—heating and cooling the growing rooms. Now if we could just get some well-heeled bank to lend us the funds to build an experimental mushroom farm . . . Oh, I forgot—there aren’t any. Seed money, or should I say spore money, anyone?
Sean Kenny is the author of four novels and numerous essays. Born and raised in Ireland, he pursued a career in high tech which eventually led him to Silicon Valley. His most recent novel, The Memory Trap, was inspired by a stint at Apple. He is currently one of the founders and CEO of Fresco Solar, a renewable energy company that has installed the first wind turbine in Morgan Hill. He writes a weekly opinion piece for Morgan Hill Observer.
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