Sylvia Hamilton was advocate for protecting rural atmosphere
Published in the Sept. 16-29, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Staff Report
Photo by Marty Cheek
San Martin residents and guests pose among the tables dedicated to Sylvia Hamilton.
San Martin resident and retired Morgan Hill school teacher Sylvia Hamilton was loved by her neighbors and friends. And because of her determined fight to preserve the quality of life in the rural community, her neighbors and friends built a family picnic area at Coyote Lake-Harvey Bear Ranch County Park which was dedicated at a ceremony Sept. 1.
“Sylvia was an ardent advocate of protecting San Martin’s rural atmosphere, supporting positive control growth, land use and promoting neighborhood identity and vitality, and ensuring an influential voice with the local governing entities,” said Hamilton’s friend Donna Brodsky. “She touched everyone.”
Often acknowledged as the unofficial “mayor” of San Martin, Hamilton, played a pivotal leadership role in ensuring Olin Corporation cleaned up the perchlorate that leaked for 40 years into the South Valley’s ground-water basin from its former road flare manufacturing site in Morgan Hill. Plumes of the toxic perchlorate chemical contaminated the South Valley aquifers. Perchlorate can damage human health by interfering with the thyroid gland’s ability to take in iodide.
Hamilton helped found the Perchlorate Community Advisory Group which took action to make sure the water supply was cleaned up of the contamination.
“Sylvia found strength for many years in protecting the San Martin community,” Brodsky said. “We became her children…. She also provided a strong voice of reason.”
Despite many personal hardships, Hamilton proved to be an optimistic person to the end, she said. She lost her adopted two children, Julie and Rich, in separate car accidents when they were in their teens.
After Hamilton died Feb. 16, 2013 at 70 from emphysema, many people who knew her decided she deserved to be honored with a special memorial. Several suggestions were made including a statue of the “mayor of San Martin.” The idea came up for a family picnic area dedicated to her at Harvey Bear Ranch County Park.
As a teacher instructing math at Martin Murphy Middle School for many years, Hamilton loved children and no doubt would have appreciated this way to remember her, said Art Reidel, a member of the San Martin Neighborhood Alliance who helped in the fundraising for the project.
The SMNA held fundraisers such as barbecues to raise a portion of the nearly $20,000 for the project. The Santa Clara County Parks Department provided some of the money and labor to install five durable picnic benches and shelter structures at the East San Martin Avenue entrance.
“She was one of the founders of the SMNA, she was a tireless worker for the community and so the sentiment that we all had was we wanted to do something to honor her memory,” Reidel said. “Some people contributed financially. Others contributed time and effort at the many social functions we’ve had to raise funds. They’ve donated items for the silent auctions and the raffles, and they’ve participated in other ways.”
