November/December 2003
Volume 15, Number 8
From the Chair: Downtown Precise Plan Update
The Downtown Shopper: Holiday Shopping Serendipity
Tips from CERT: Where to Go after the Quake
MVPA Newsletter Now Online
Attention Goldfish Owners
Fall General Meeting Update
Wiggling My Toes in the Grass
From the Chair: Downtown Precise Plan Update
By Ronit Bryant
On October 15, the Environmental Planning Commission (EPC) and the Downtown Committee held a joint special meeting to review amendments to the Downtown Precise Plan draft. Discussion centered on two areas of the downtown: Area H (the Castro Street Historical Retail District) and Area J (including most of the area between Mercy, Castro, El Camino, and Hope). In both cases, the main topic was maximum allowed building height.
For Area H, OMVNA supported a maximum height of 30 feet or, alternatively, a 30-foot façade with additional floors set back by 10 to 12 feet from the facade to a maximum height of 40 feet. A motion supporting the latter alternative was defeated 7 to 8. The Joint Committee voted (8 to 7) to have a facade of up to 35 feet, with additional floors set back by 10 to 12 feet to a maximum height of 45 feet, which makes it possible to have four floors. Note that architectural features and roof equipment are not included in this height limit. Another change proposed for Area H and supported by the Joint Committee is to turn personal services, including nail salons, hairdressers, and fortune tellers, into a permitted use.
For the Hope Street side of Area J, the Joint Committee supports a maximum height of 35 feet; the buildings may not be on podiums, and underground garages may not project more than 18” above the ground.
An interesting piece of news that emerged at the meeting was that Saint Joseph’s Church is thinking about possibly developing their parking lot at the corner of Castro and Church Streets. They are currently envisioning some mixture of affordable housing and retail.
On October 21, the Joint Committee met again to discuss the Precise Plan, but accomplished less than they had hoped. At this point, further meetings to discuss the Plan are TBD. City staff has recently had to shift resources to other areas and is working on a revised schedule for the Downtown Precise Plan Update. As soon as the dates are available, they will be published in the newsletter and posted on the Coming Events page of the OMVNA web site.
Stay tuned! Stay involved! The Precise Plan is of interest to our neighborhood because OMVNA surrounds and includes the downtown, and changes in the downtown will affect the quality of our lives. The update process has many opportunities for public input, and the City has always proved itself willing to listen to residents’ concerns and modify its plans in response. If not now, when? If not you, who?
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The Downtown Shopper: Holiday Shopping Serendipity
By Julie Lovins
Holiday shopping need not be stressful – or expensive. You can avoid traffic, crowds, and other unwanted adventures by heading for downtown Mountain View.
To start with, if there's a Christmas tree in your life, it deserves at least one glorious ornament from Crystal House (Austrian gold and crystal), Napoleon at Home (vintage French-inspired fantasies), or Cosmos & Candles (great candles and other objects of beauty and wonder, such as mobiles). For greenery, don't miss Floratique (on Evelyn), Robert Moore Flowers, or Fleur de Lis. Floratique speaks to both the eye and the mouth, with chocolates. Check out Mountain View Tea Village & Gallery for another version of the same mix: tea and bamboo.
Crystal House, Flaunt, E-Shine (Bryant at Villa), Global Beads, La Petite Chaise, Plumeria, East West Books, and ASTG Computer (across Castro from Books Inc.) all offer beautiful women's clothing and accessories. Each store has a spectrum of treasures for everyone.
Napoleon at Home, zeroing in on "cozy chic", is a new home-furnishings store where nothing looks mass-produced: our own Parisian flea market. It is kin in some sense to La Petite Chaise, where most of the serendipities are antique. Or visit East West Books for unexpected items: a "sound shell" that provides a background of cricket chirps or soothing music; "Zen clocks" which chime rather than beeping at a set time; a transient-painting kit (the medium is water).
Zillions more books (etc.) live at Books Inc. and Book Buyers. And more at the Lobby Shop in the city library, best known as the home of animal puppets for kids of all ages.
For musical notes, there's Mountain View Music; for textiles, Eddie's Quilting Bee. For the ultimate gift in low-maintenance pets, Seascapes has Siamese fighting fish in several hues, fishbowls, and do-it-yourself aquarium-seascaping materials. Additional do-it-yourself ideas will come to you at Tap Plastic. (Everyone needs a little jewel-colored plastic box for something.) Or Mountain View Lock and Key, or Minton's!
If you still haven't made up your mind, ask any store or restaurant for a gift certificate, instant fun for the giftee.
To ease you into all this, a group of downtown merchants have gotten together and are having a Sidewalk Sale from 5 to 9 p.m. on December 4. There will be live music and other surprises. Some of the restaurants may be serving Shoppers' Specials. Be there! Between browsing and buying, you'll be able to talk to your neighbors and show off your great finds.
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Tips from CERT: Where to Go after the Quake
By Aaron Grossman, CERT Co-chair
This isn't about where to travel, but about your most private need: going to the bathroom. While people think of food, water, and shelter for disaster preparation, they forget about the crucial next step: personal sanitation.
Power and water may stop working for 3 to 6 days after a major earthquake. With no water, each toilet has only one flush left. Pouring your own water into the toilet bowl is one solution, and so is putting a trash bag in it, but a camping port-a-john makes more sense.
I recommend the Texsport, which folds flat for storage and comes with six bags. Mountain View Surplus sells them for $10 plus tax, but OMVNA CERT is coordinating a bulk purchase as a fundraiser. For $15 we will cover the tax, drop off your order, and use the change to buy CERT supplies. Any extra donation will go for more supplies.
December 1 is the cutoff for this special order. E-mail CERT Co-chair Aaron Grossman at aagrossman@yahoo.com for more details.
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MVPA Newsletter Now Online
By Alison Hicks, MVPA Chair
The Mountain View Preservation Alliance (MVPA) is proud to announce the first edition of Here Today, Here Tomorrow, a short, occasional newsletter with wonderful photographs to fill you in on what's going on in your heritage neighborhood.
Our November edition includes the inside scoop on the sale of the Mountain View Theater, our favorite questions about the city's proposed preservation ordinance, and more. To see the newsletter go to www.mv-pa.org, skip the intro if you like, and click below the words Here Today, Here Tomorrow on our home page.
For the next issue we are working on an article on the effects of historic preservation on property values and a profile of the Restore America Program. Future issues will cover topics basic to heritage preservation such as news on threatened buildings, downtown developments and restorations in your neighborhood.
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Attention Goldfish Owners!
By Julie Lovins
If you have pet fish, please pay special attention to a recent advisory from the City of Mountain View about chloramine. In February, a good part of our water supply will be using this chemical for disinfection, replacing chlorine. While this should be more effective, it may require a minor change in how you handle the water for your fish, turtles and any other amphibians. Because these animals take the water directly into their bodies through their gills, rather than processing it through a digestive system as most animals (including humans) do, they will be harmed by the ammonia component of chloramine. The water they swim in should be filtered with special equipment obtained from a pet shop before you put them in it.
Drinking-water filters, if well-maintained, will also work fine to remove chloramine from your drinking water. However, dialysis units have to use special filtering. Letting the water stand, or boiling it, won't do the job.
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Fall General Meeting Update
By Velva Rowell
The OMVNA Fall General Meeting was held on Sunday, October 19, in the Landels School Multi-Use Room. The Steering Committee provided sandwiches and beverages for lunch, and several people brought desserts to share.
The members of OMVNA approved the bylaw changes that were detailed in the August/September issue of this newsletter and elected a new slate of officers to the Steering Committee. The new 2003-2004 officers are:
- Chair: Ronit Bryant
- Vice Chair: Monica Smith
- Treasurer: Aaron Grossman
- Secretary: Claire Silver
- Newsletter: Velva Rowell
- Community Liaison: David Andrzejek
- At Large: Ken Rosenberg, Erin Sanders
The guest speaker was Al Savay, Senior Deputy Zoning Administrator and project manager for the Downtown Precise Plan. He was there to give OMVNA an update about the current progress of the Downtown Precise Plan updates. (For the current status of the Precise Plan, please see From the Chair in this issue. )
The meeting wrapped up with storytelling by Bonnie Malouf a local storyteller and teacher at Slater School.
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Wiggling My Toes in the Grass
By Shelly King
Whenever I stroll downtown, I always take a slight detour through Pioneer Park to enjoy its weaving pathways, lush knolls, and proud trees. Once this lovely park was a cemetery, the resting place for the pioneers of Mountain View. Now it's a gem for apartment dwellers like me, where we can take our shoes off and wiggle our toes in the grass. It's like a friend's backyard that's open for you any time you'd like to visit.
I love the trees in Pioneer Park. Behind a group of benches near Church Street, there's one tree with an open knothole near the bottom. I often peek inside to see what hidden treasures may be left for me, like Jem and Scout looking for gifts from Boo Radley. So far, I've come up empty, but I always have hope of new discoveries. And across the walkway, there's the young and eager sapling planted as a monument to the victims of 9/11. It reminds me that the large old oaks have been here long before me and, if all is right in the world, they and this young one will be here long after I'm gone.
The tree that truly has my heart also stands along Church Street and has had a large, low-hanging limb cut from it. At first I thought of this tree as wounded and it grieved me to see it, but I have since reconsidered. I remembered a three-legged dog belonging to a friend of mine I knew growing up in South Carolina. How sorry I felt for that dog until my friend said one day, "Oh, he doesn't know to feel sorry for himself. Dogs don't care. He acts just the same as he always did. We're the only ones who care that he's only got three legs." So I do not mourn for the tree's loss but enjoy the unique pleasure of smelling the sweetness of its wood and running my hands over those magnificent rings. Oh, those rings! There the tree stands, its ruddy red rings exposed to the world like an elderly matron with her birth certificate printed in the church bulletin, telling the world exactly how old she is and daring anyone to say anything about it. Those telling tear-shaped rings fascinate me, the way they expand downward with the weight of the years. Sometimes I know just how that feels.
It's under that tree where, several years ago, I sat in the grass and comforted a friend distraught over her break-up with her lover. And a little further into the park, I've plunked myself down with a book I'd found only minutes before at the library or one of the bookstores, not being able to wait until I got home to start reading it. And the bench facing the back of the library under the large oak tree in the center of the park is where I sat one night wondering if my date was ever going to kiss me or just stare at my legs all night.
The truest pleasures of Pioneer Park are not just in the park itself, but also what the park attracts and inspires. On one golden Sunday afternoon last autumn, I was walking home by the Japanese Garden when I came across a group of people performing Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale. Now believe me when I say these were not professional actors out to amuse the masses. Neither were they rehearsing for some more formal venue. Honest to goodness, they were just a bunch of people acting from their own mismatched copies of the play, willing themselves through every line for their own entertainment. How could I resist sitting down on a bench and soaking in the words of the Bard so freely given by those who obviously love him as much as I? How cool is that?
Hidden from the main thoroughfares, Pioneer Park is a secret you can only discover on foot. The early mornings are my favorite time for a walk there. Those precious minutes on the edge of dawn and morning often conjure a gray mist that hangs low over the ground chilled with morning dew. It's the perfect setting for a local ghost story. And one would think that a park built on top of what was once a cemetery would inspire a ghoul or two if only for the benefit of Halloween, but I've never been able to come across any such tale. Perhaps the park is as it was meant to be and everyone, past and present, is at peace with that.
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