OMVNA Newsletter, Sept. 2000

Mark your calendar for Saturday, October 14, 7:00 to 9:00, for our OMVNA General Meeting and Annual Election, and an opportunity to get to really know the candidates running for City Council.

On Saturday, October 14, the Old Mountain View Neighborhood Association (OMVNA) will host a City Council Candidates Night at Trinity Methodist Church, corner of Mercy and Hope.

This is your best chance to really get to know the views held by the six individuals who are running for the four open City Council seats. We'll hold the OMVNA General Meeting and Annual Election from 7:00 to 7:30 (see proposed slate of officers), and then hear from the candidates from 7:30 to 9:00.

The format will be a moderated question-and-answer session. At the beginning of the meeting, you can submit written questions. The moderator will organize the questions and direct them to the candidates. Each candidate will get between 60 to 90 seconds to respond so we hope to get through as many as a dozen questions during the 90-minute event. Most candidates are happy to stay late and answer specific questions one-on-one.

The six candidates include two newcomers and four incumbents. The first-time candidates are Matt Pear and Greg Perry. The incumbents are Mario Ambra, Nancy Noe, Rosemary Stasek and Mary Lou Zoglin. All six have confirmed that they will attend.

The election is November 7, and the last day to register to vote is October 9. Call the Registrar of Voters (1-408-299-8639) to have a registration card mailed to you. Forms are also usually available at City Hall, post offices, the library, fire stations and DMV offices.

The City Council meets in public session twice a month, and in study sessions one or two times a month. Council members are paid $600 per month, and serve a term of four years. Three Council members were elected in 1998 and will serve until 2002. Unlike Sunnyvale, which elects its Council by district, Mountain View’s Council is elected “at-large” and the top four vote-getters will win. Each voter can vote for up to four candidates.

Chair:	Jean McCloskey
Vice Chair:	Alison Hicks
Treasurer:	Aaron Grossman
Secretary:	Tim Johnson
Community Liaison:	Julie Lovins
Newsletter Editor:	Bruce Karney
At-Large 1:	Garth Williams
At-Large 2:	Philippe Habib

These offices will be voted on at the General Meeting on Saturday, October 14, 2000.

As we go to press, the City is about to host a public meeting, on September 14, regarding all the construction that is about to start downtown. For some time now we have been watching the new housing at Bryant and Evelyn going up (#1 on the map), and Park Place II on Castro (#10), and the renovation of 444 Castro, but that's just the tip of a very large iceberg.

As the map shows, construction will soon start on three more residential projects on the west side of Bryant, and a number of other (mostly commercial) projects within a block of Castro Street. After this map was drawn in mid-August, plans were submitted for an extremely attractive three-story retail/office building where T.K.Noodle presently is, and another such is being discussed for a Villa St. location. The map is thus a moving target, and so is the need for parking spaces, which is one of the main thrusts of the meeting.

The City has figured out what to do about much of this problem (for example, a City-owned property on Franklin will become a temporary parking lot around November), and has some contingency plans. However, they cannot promise "no disruption" while all this is going on over the next two years or so (with a peak next spring), so the question becomes the extent of the disruption, and how good communication is.

Aside from parking, a major feature downtown later this year will be some 95 to100 trucks a day, for six weeks, hauling dirt away from the four-story underground parking garage site to be built at California and Castro. The trucks are supposed to travel only on Bryant (south of California) and on California (west of Castro), avoiding the residential area as much as possible. Clearly there will be a lot of extra noise for people who do live near Bryant and California, who have already had much more than their fair share. However, off-street, the promised sound wall is going up, and there is a large sign with "hours of use" on it, also as promised.

Three of the items on the map are remodels of long-standing downtown buildings, which may be the start of another trend in downtown development. Also as we go to press, the new face of Global Beads will have appeared in the former tire store, and it looks like it will be just as enchanting as the old one, as well as much bigger.

This brings up a significant point: after all the ruckus is over, we will have a truly nice collection of new and revised buildings downtown. Let us hold onto that thought.

You really can get to San Francisco Airport (SFO) by train though, as mentioned in the July issue of this newsletter, it is not recommended on Friday nights or weekends.

Time and timing: Trains run frequently during commute hours, once an hour otherwise. Please consult the Caltrain schedule. It normally takes 45 to 50 minutes to get to Millbrae. Add another 10 to 15 minutes for the shuttle to the airline terminals, as described below.

Cost: $3.25 each way; $2.50 each way during "off-peak" midday hours (see schedule). This holds before the much-awaited new Caltrain ticket machines are installed. They are supposed to be smart enough to know about off-peak discounts, as well as taking every species of bill and coin.

Weather: Minimal shelter at the Mountain View train station; lots of it in Millbrae; airport terminal points are covered.

Baggage: Even the nice new Caltrain cars have no dedicated space for luggage (or strollers and so on). You're apparently supposed to put it where your feet normally go. My conductor on the return trip encouraged me to send in a rider-comment card, which I did. There shouldn't be a problem if you don't have much luggage or the train isn't full. The shuttle from Millbrae to SFO, however, does have a luggage rack, near the front of the van. Another thing about luggage - the steps of the train cars are steep and so are those of the shuttle van.

When you get off the train at Millbrae, don't follow the sign pointing past the north side of the station, to the shuttle across the parking lot. Instead, go past the south side of the station, heading away from the tracks, and keep going to a nice ramp that goes all the way up (yes, up) to the street where the shuttle is parked and waiting. It meets all trains up to late evening. There is a SamTrans bus shelter there, too.

In almost no time, you're at SFO. The first stop is at the old International terminal, the second at Domestic, the third (after another excursion onto 101) at the United Airlines Maintenance Operation Center; then back to Millbrae. The stops are not necessarily announced, though when you get there, they are marked by informative signs.

For more specific and updated information, see http://www.transitinfo.org/Caltrain/ which has lots of good data behind a couple of links. (Other transit info appears on OMVNA's Links page.)

You're probably wondering why I didn't mention all the airport construction, especially that involving BART. That's because it didn't seem to make any difference; and it may well continue not to make any difference, for public transit, as routes are rearranged based on the construction status. So if you can leave your car at home for this trip, you'll be much happier.

Kids' Day America is coming to downtown Mountain View on Saturday, September 23, and OMVN kids are ideally situated to join in the fun. Come to 147 Castro Street (the Chiropractic Care Center, near Double Rainbow) between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., for good things beginning with free kids' ID cards (complete with fingerprints, digital photo and dental record); friendly Officer P.A.L., the talking police robot; a fire engine encounter, with fire safety tips from its personnel; food, face-painting, and lots of other freebies.

This event is a number of local businesses' contribution to the national children's health, safety and environmental awareness event, which Mayor Rosemary Stasek will proclaim alive and well in Mountain View at 12:30 (same place as above). For more information, call 962-0909.

The opinions printed in this newsletter are not necessarily those of the OMVNA Steering Committee.