Former mayor helped shape MH into the community it is today
Published in the April 13-26, 2016 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Marty Cheek
Dennis Kennedy (with his son Matt next to him) listens to speakers during a ceremony at which the Morgan Hill Aquatics Center was renamed the Dennis Kennedy Aquatics Center.
Photo by Mark Fenichel
He felt a love for Morgan Hill and its people that knew no bounds. Many in the community felt the same way toward him. Dennis Kennedy’s legacy will live on long after the well-respected leader died last month at his home with friends and family by his side. He was 77.
“Dennis was the heart and soul of Morgan Hill. He put in place his legacy that improved our city over time,” said Mayor Steve Tate in recollection of his friend and political colleague.
Kennedy’s most obvious accomplishment was guiding the visioning process the city went through in the mid-1990s, he said. That resulted in Redevelopment Agency funds being used to build the Community and Cultural Center, the Community Playhouse, the Aquatics Center, the Centennial Recreation Center, the Morgan Hill Library and do significant upgrades to the Outdoor Recreation Center.
“Those are just cornerstones to what Morgan Hill is all about,” Tate said. “You just look at our community. The people love recreation, they love open space and being outside. Those facilities that he put in place just enabled Morgan Hill residents to realize their idea of high quality of life.”
Kennedy was born in Omaha, Neb., July 19, 1938. His family moved to San Jose in 1953 where he attended the private school Bellarmine College Preparatory.
Dennis with his dog Nika, who went with him everywhere, even sitting in the golf cart at Gavilan Golf Course while Dennis played a round.
Photo by Marty Cheek
He earned a bachelor degree in mechanical engineering from Santa Clara University where he played college football as a half-back. Soon after graduation during the Cold War, he served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army in Germany and other locations.
Following his time in the military, he worked as an aerospace engineer for Aerojet General in Sacramento and later came back to San Jose where he got a job at IBM, a company he worked at for 25 years. In the 1960s, he married Therese Mytkos and the couple made a home in the San Jose suburb of Willow Glen where they had their only child, son Matthew Kennedy born in 1971.
The family moved to a small farm home just outside Morgan Hill in 1976. Kennedy began to see the changes in the community as the urban growth of Silicon Valley’s burgeoning computer industry impacted the quality of life here. In 1977, voters passed Measure E which brought controlled growth to Morgan Hill. Kennedy became a leader of Citizens for Orderly Residential Development (CORD), a group which worked on the Measure E ballot initiative. He applied for the city’s Planning Commission but, despite his engineering knowledge, did not get on at first. He reapplied later and was appointed by the council as a member.
Tate recalled how Kennedy took his next step in local government in 1990.
“He was someone who was in a leadership role that we thought we could get elected — he was kind of railroaded by the CORD organization into running for the council. He asked me to be his campaign manager. I had no clue as to what to do. We struggled through it and did what we thought was the right thing and it all worked out.”
Kennedy served on the Morgan Hill City Council when a high degree of contention created intense arguments and bullying treatment among the council members.
Close friend Jill Kirk gives Dennis Kennedy a hug at his home during lunch.
Photo courtesy Jill Kirk
Because of the tenor of the board, a ballot measure was put into place making the mayoral seat a position chosen in a direct election by voters. Kennedy ran in the November 1992 election and became Morgan Hill’s first elected mayor. His calm and cordial leadership style helped create a more amiable atmosphere on the council, Tate said. He also set up an ethics policy for the city which has helped create a better atmosphere of governance.
“Dennis was a strong leader who did not appear to be a strong leader. The reason I say that is that he had a kind of casual approach,” Tate said. “He would suggest stepping back and studying things, saying let’s not make immediate decisions. But he was also a person who always had a vision and results in mind that he kind of steered everything to. He was tenacious in doing that — and that’s what made him strong, even though he might appear a little bit casual.”
During his time as mayor, he served three terms on the board of directors of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority. One of his most significant accomplishments during this period was working with Caltrans to install a median barrier on U.S. 101 in the South Valley despite budget restrictions on the project. The barrier has saved hundreds of lives from oncoming car crashes. He also served as chairman of South County Regional Wastewater Authority Work.
After six terms as mayor, Kennedy passed the baton to Tate in the 2006 election. His impact on Morgan Hill made him the recipient of the 2007 Morgan Hill Leadership Excellence Award. He continued to stay active in nonprofit organizations such as the Morgan Hill Sister Cities Committee, the South Valley Symphony and the Morgan Hill Aquatic Foundation among other groups. He also worked for seven years as a project manager for the construction firm Parsons Corporation, working on projects throughout California. He served on the editorial board of the Morgan Hill Times for several years.
Kennedy with his wife Therese and his son Matt in an early family photo.
Photo courtesy Matt Kennedy
When Don Gage stepped down from the Santa Clara Valley Water District board to become mayor of Gilroy, Kennedy answered the call of public service and applied for the position. He was appointed in January 2013. He was elected by voters in November 2014. He worked hard to get federal funding to pay for a major flood control project in the South Valley to protect downtown Morgan Hill and other sites in the city during heavy deluges.
Last summer, Kennedy was diagnosed with a brain tumor and began treatment at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto. In September, he was honored by Gavilan Community College with the Lifetime Community Spirit Award as the first recipient of this honor. In November, the illness had made him so weak that he decided to step down from the SCVWD board.
In December, friends and family gathered with Kennedy at a ceremony to rename the city’s swim center that he led as mayor in 2003 as a public facility project. Tears of joy filled Kennedy’s eyes and the eyes of others when the sign with his name on it was unveiled, revealing the new name: the Morgan Hill Dennis Kennedy Aquatics Center.
The last months of Kennedy’s life were spent at his Morgan Hill home with friends and family members visiting and his son Matt taking care of his needs. Until nearly the end, he kept his sharp mind and made witty jokes during conversation, many recall. Kennedy closed his eyes and passed gently into death at 8:50 p.m. Monday March 28.
Kennedy was an articulate ambassador for the people of Morgan Hill and the county, a true leader who was willing to work out compromises to get to the solution that was best for the community, said Santa Clara County Superintendent Mike Wasserman who worked with him on various issues.
Kennedy’s friend Bernie Mulligan praises Kennedy’s accomplishments as a leader at the renaming dedication of the Aquatics Center.
Photo by Mark Fenichel
“He was a great representative for South County and Morgan Hill, and he brought the awareness of South County to the county in general,” he said. “The more I got to know Dennis, the more I liked him and admired him. He covered a lot of decades and a lot of issues. And a lot of people who knew him early on, a lot of people who know him in the middle, and a lot of people who knew him at the end — everyone was really impressed. Morgan Hill is a great city and Dennis Kennedy has a lot to do with that.”
Morgan Hill’s Director of Engineering & Utilities Karl Bjarke admired Kennedy as city mayor for his vision for improving the quality of life in Morgan Hill and his determination to get things accomplished despite the obstacles.
“I recall how focused he was in completing the Aquatics Center and doing everything he could as a council member to help build the premier aquatics facility in the South Bay,” he said. “He also almost single-handedly convinced Caltrans to build the center median barrier in U.S. 101 to prevent further head-on crashes. While on the Santa Clara Valley Water District Board, he and I often talked about the drought and I know that given the chance he would be front and center in helping solve the region’s water supply needs. He was truly a problem solver and not afraid to use his engineering talents and political savvy to get things accomplished. This community will miss him.”
Planning Commission member John McKay sees Kennedy as possessing a personable and optimistic style of leadership who stuck to his convictions in creating a high quality of life for his fellow citizens.
Dennis Kennedy and friends Jill Kirk (left) and Victoria Escuton at the 2013 Presidential Inauguration in Washington, D.C., representing the Morgan Hill Sister Cities program.
Photo courtesy Jill Kirk
Kennedy was involved in the early days of starting the Morgan Hill Tourism Alliance with McKay and Edith Ramirez, the city’s principal planner for Economic Development. Kennedy provided guidance in terms of advice helping build the community’s brand for fine wines, excellent cuisine and outdoor recreation among other attractions.
“We got Dennis’s seal of approval,” McKay said. “His heart was in Morgan Hill, but I think he understood that it was also good for Morgan Hill to be a part of a region, and when it came to tourism, we are part of a region which has a lot of assets when it comes to tourism, so he supported it. The main thing was that he realized we needed a plan of unity, and that was what he helped the Tourism Alliance become in terms of looking at all the different entities and bringing them together to work together.”
Claudia Rossi, a member of the Santa Clara County Board of Education, recalls Kennedy showing her kindness when she faced the members of the Morgan Hill Times editorial board while seeking their endorsement in her 2010 run for the Morgan Hill Unified School District Board of Education. It was her second time meeting him.
“I walked into a little room with five people interviewing the board candidates,” she said. “I was a stay-at-home mom being questioned by people who followed all these issues. It was intimidating for me being in that situation and I was very nervous. I was asked some very difficult questions. And I looked across the table at Dennis. He was listening, but his expression was one that was so attentive. You could tell he was really listening to what I was saying. At that moment, I was put at ease. There was something about his expression that put me at ease.”
Dennis Kennedy
July 19, 1938 – March 28, 2016
Rossi won a seat on the board and Kennedy served as a mentor to her, giving advice on how to deal with the politics of an elected leadership position. They became good friends.
Rossi recalled how she and Kennedy’s friend Mario Banuelos would often drive Kennedy to Stanford for his radiation and chemotherapy treatments.
“Whenever we would leave, he would be moved to tears to see the young people there who had cancer,” she said. “He never cried about himself having cancer. He was filled with sadness to see the children and young people who had cancer.”
Morgan Hill resident Jill Kirk first met Kennedy through the Sister Cities group when he was active there.
Later in 2011 after her husband Richard died at around the same time that Kennedy’s second wife, Eileen, died, the friendship between the two became closer because they could comfort each other through conversation. She felt as if he were a brother to her, she said.
“We could share things with others that we could not share with other people who had not lost a spouse,” she said. “Our friendship grew from there.”
Kennedy’s personality demonstrated genuine caring for others, a quality which benefited his political and nonprofit activities, she said.
“He had a knack for bringing people together who were not necessarily going to get together. The fact that he listened to people and absorbed what they had to say united people,” Kirk said. “I can’t imagine Morgan Hill and I can’t imagine my life without him in it. It’s going to take a long time for me to get over that feeling.”
Morgan Hill’s success as a community with a high quality of life has much to do with Kennedy’s leadership in city and regional government as well as in his nonprofit activities, McKay said.
“If any community has a father figure, then Dennis is Morgan Hill’s father figure,” he said. “He wanted to make a better life for this community. He considered all of us like his children.”
