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OMVNA Newsletter August, 1998 1999 OMVNA Steering Committee Candidates The Neighborhood Preservation Plan and the New Houses: What Next? Around the Garden: Cool Season Annuals The Old Mountain View Neighborhood is bordered by El Camino Real, Shoreline Boulevard, Evelyn Avenue, and Highway 85. The Old Mountain View Neighborhood Association consists of residents interested in preserving the quality of life in our neighborhood. Together we can make a difference—join us! 1999 OMVNA Slate of Candidates TBD Chair Note that there are still openings on the slate! If you are interested in serving on next year’s steering committee, contact Maarten Korringa at 969-7678. OMVNA elections will take place at the Fall General Meeting, October 24. Additional nominations to the Steering Committee will be taken from the floor before the election. In the event that there are no contested positions, the slate will be voted as a block. We are always looking for neighbors to join the Editorial Committee—we'd like our Committee to reflect the diversity of our neighborhood. Committee members plan the newsletters, write articles, and copy edit the drafts. It's fun! See the box on Page 2 for ways to contact Anita and Ronit, the editors. And, whether you join the Editorial Committee or not, we'd love to hear from you. Write to the editor! (Include name & address, so we can contact you—we don't have to publish these, if you'd rather we didn't). Saturday, September 5, 2-4 PM Have ice cream with us in Pioneer Park! OMVNA will provide the ice-cream. Bring a favorite topping to share. At the Fall General Meeting, OMVNA will again host a public forum with the candidates for City Council. The format will be a moderated question and answer session. This is a great opportunity to bring your questions and learn how the candidates stack up on issues that are important to you! The forum is scheduled for the evening of Saturday, October 24. Watch for the time and location in the next newsletter. The Neighborhood Preservation Plan and the New Houses: What Next? by Julie Lovins How can we change and still stay (somewhat) the same? Neighborhood residents and City staff talked about this universal paradox, under the heading of "neighborhood preservation", at the OMVNA General Meeting on August 5. We were happy to have this opportunity, moderated by Sally Lieber, for general discussion with Neighborhood Services Manager Jim Lynch and Associate Planner Whitney McNair. D. K. Lu, a member of the Environmental Planning Commission, provided some additional perspective on zoning. Since the Old Mountain View Neighborhood Preservation Plan was put together, with extensive community input, there has been an increase in traffic (the original catalyst for the formation of OMVNA, as Jeff Farmer carefully pointed out) and a spurt in housing construction. The guidelines in the Plan have not been as helpful as we hoped they would be in enabling us to avoid a very concrete negative impact on our neighborhood, starting with a lessening of its people-friendly feeling. Traffic (amount and speed) remains a major irritant, despite significant achievements such as the taming of the Dana Street overpass and the implementation of better processes for dealing with localized traffic problems. Many see the impending arrival of Light Rail in Mountain View as adding significantly to traffic volume in the neighborhood. Much of the new housing is a positive addition to the neighborhood, but a few new single-family homes have drawn fire from residents who feel that these houses are architecturally out of character—and need not have been, since there are better design alternatives. Maarten Korringa and Tim Johnson's slide show of representative recent construction provided much food for thought: how can we create a reasonable process that is more successful in creating architectural winners? Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the spotlight is on single-family "infill" construction in R1 (single family detached) zones, where the planning process is less formal than for higher-density housing. However, we want to approach this issue looking at the neighborhood as a whole; we don't want to have to change the General Plan; and we know that "rules" tend to be divisive and are very hard to formulate. One possibility that was suggested for low-impact additional formalization of the planning process is "overlay zoning." Such zoning would provide guidelines for all development in our neighborhood and serve as an umbrella over the current patchwork of zoning designations in the neighborhood. I would like to hear from residents who are interested in this matter. Would you also be interested in working on a task force to pursue this idea, and other possible methods of improving the situation, in cooperation with City staff? Please contact me at 964-0368 or at lovins@concentric.net. by Ronnie Falcao, LM MS With the baby boomlet happening here on Vincent Drive, our front yards are starting to look like a Gymboree class. I 'd like to offer my library and my Web-surfing expertise to parents or parents-to-be who are searching for information about pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding. As a midwife, I have quite a collection of books, including both textbooks and books written for parents. The latest addition is a publication from the World Health Organization entitled "Care in Normal Birth: a practical guide." This book presents a summary of the recent research on various childbirth practices and is a valuable resource for couples writing a birth plan. I got a few extra copies so I'll have some to lend out for short periods of time. As editor of the Midwife Archives at http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/, I have an extraordinary familiarity with online childbearing resources. I would be happy to assist parents in locating information on the Internet—anything from their personalized pregnancy calendar to this month's abstracts from the OB/GYN journals. Ronnie's library and Internet access are available to parents by appointment. Please contact Ronnie at 961-5475. by Julie Lovins For many of us, mingling in the sunshine with our neighbors, live music, friendly farmers, and their wonderful wares at the Mountain View Farmers' Market every Sunday is the best possible break in a busy week. Food shopping as R&R—what a concept! Then recently someone tipped me off to another good deal in the "buy local, buy organic" category. A farm in Yolo County that grows a large variety of organic produce will provide a weekly (or biweekly) good-sized selection (their choice) delivered not quite to your door, but via a pickup point in your neighborhood. You prepay quarterly, there's no extra delivery charge, and the produce is great. (Flowers are available, too!) Last Saturday my $12 got me three small melons and lots of basil, corn, tomatoes, potatoes, and zucchini. Real seasonal, with varieties you've never seen before, making this a true gustatory adventure. There are generous supplies of each of six to eight items each week. If this isn't enough variety for you, it's still a great supplement to the Farmers' Market or other sources. It's our move, folks. I'm volunteering to coordinate an OMVN node. I will provide more info and sign-up forms (you pay the farm directly), and coordinate transit arrangements for the produce. But we can't start at all until we have a pickup point. Wanted: a small piece of shade with a roof over it, not right on the street, situated in a way that won't cause a major invasion of privacy when people come to pick up their boxes on Saturday mornings. (This is a completely flexible arrangement. Several neighbors could arrange to share the pickup task, for example.) Would someone please step forward with a carport or something? Your address will be provided only to participants. I'd also like to hear from people who are possibly interested in participating and want more info. Please contact me at 964-0368 or lovins@concentric.net. Around the Garden: Cool Season Annuals by Eric Schweitzer In past issues of the newsletter, we have been considering trees and shrubs. The next step down in size and permanence is annuals. Unfortunately, it's been some time since this column appeared. It is now too late to plant summer annuals. Therefore, I'll concentrate on annuals for the fall and winter. Late in the winter I'll try and do a column on summer annuals. Annuals are planted for their flowers. So all the suggestions have showy flowers. Again, the usual disclaimers apply. This list is extremely short and includes only a few of the plants I have which do well in our climate. If I left out your favorites, let me know. Cyclamens are actually perennials, but are generally treated as annuals. The plants are compact, about a foot in diameter. Flowers are on stalks which stand about 10 inches high. Flowers in shades of red and pink as well as white are readily available. These plants grow from a tuber; the top of the tuber must be above ground when planted. A very common mistake is to plant Cyclamen with the entire tuber buried. Violets (Viola) and pansies (Viola wittrockiana) are related plants. They grow well here during the fall and winter. Many varieties with different flower colors and sizes are available. Flowering cabbages are closely related to their edible relatives. The leaves of their colorful "flowers" make them attractive bedding or container plants. Primroses (Primula) will do reasonably well here in the cooler months. There are numerous varieties with varying sizes and flower colors. Many of these are difficult to grow here, but some varieties do well. Let's also not forget the cool season edible annuals—pumpkins, winter squash, cabbages, Chinese cabbages, kales, and collards.
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