Gilroy Should Try to Attract High Tech Businesses

I think Gilroy is missing an opportunity to try to attract high tech Silicon Valley businesses. As the San Jose/Santa Clara area fills up, it becomes nearly impossible to expand there. Companies like Cisco, Apple, PayPal, Intel, Microsoft, and Yahoo could expand into Gilroy and it would be great for them and for us.

Gilroy is a good area for a satalite branch for these companies. It's far cheaper to build here that it is up north. It's just close enough for people to make trips back and forth every now and then to go to meetings occasionally but spend most of their time working here. The lower cost of living here allows for cost savings because employees can be paid less to achieve the same standard of living.

With high-speed Internet, especially in high tech, a person's location isn't as important as they used to be. People don't have to be in the same building to work together. So what might not have been practical 20 years ago is now practical today, and will become even more practical in the future.

Most high tech jobs are also green jobs. Software development doesn't require smoke stacks or lots of resources. Many people can also work from home eliinating traffic on our roads and not burning gasoline. These people are generally good citizens that make a lot of money and will spent much of it locally. This would help diversify the tax base allowing Gilroy to broaden the sources of local income. It would attract more highly skilled people to this area.

Attracting high tech to Gilroy is a win/win for them and us and it's something we should just do. Although Gilroy is doing better than most cities in California I think we need to think beyond the garlic bulb and the outlet malls and contemplate what the world 20 years from now is going to look like. I'm hoping that City Council and the Chamber of Commerce will pick up on this idea and run with it.