The first 2026 edition of the Old MV neighborhood NL – Lamppost will come out in the beginning of February. (available online at www.omvna.org)
Please consider writing an article and / or a Valentine’s greeting. Duedate is January 21.
Articles are typically about 300-350 words and pictures are encouraged. If you want to write a longer article, be sure to check with editor.
Valentines are small and usually 10-25 words.
Send articles or questions to editor@omvna.org
Minutes for OMVNA Steering Committee Meeting: Monday, October 27, 2025 – Final
The meeting was called to order at 7:34 PM.
OMVNA Leadership Team Members Present: Robert Cox, Melanie Kaye, Carola Thompson, Susan Bickford, Max Hauser, Kristin Brennan, Sherril Brennan, Jerry Steach, Lorrie Wormald. Others Present: Jim Whitfield, Maureen Blando. Absent: David Lewis, Carol Lewis.
A quorum of 7 members was present (actual 9).
Minutes of prior Steering Committee meeting on July 28, 2025 were approved. Robert Cox will post the last three SC meeting notes on the OMVNA website. https://www.omvna.org/
Upcoming December Annual OMVNA Meeting – Open to all residents and business owners located in Old Mountain View
Date: Monday, December 15, 2025
Time: Doors open at 7 PM. Meeting will start at 7:30 PM
Pizza will be served.
Location: Edith Landels Elementary School; Resource building near the playground; 115 West Dana Street, Mountain View, CA 94041
<Note, there was discussion that Robert has sent MVW School District a check to reserve the resource room on 12/15/25, but while they have cashed the check, they have not confirmed the reservation. Shivika has checked into this once and will check again.>
Upcoming January Meeting: January 26, 2026, 7:30 PM via Zoom
Steering Committee Role Changes for remainder of 2025
Melanie Kaye will leave the secretary post and move to a Steering Committee At-large role.
Maureen Blando will assume the Secretary role for this October 27th meeting, then will stand for election to the Secretary role in the December 2025 meeting.
These two changes for the remainder of 2025 were voted on.
Motion: Max; Seconded: Jamil; Carried with 9 votes.
Nominating Committee Report, Jerry Steach
Jerry emailed all committee members on October 15th with the proposed nominees, as follows.
Robert Cox – chair
David Lewis – vice chair
Carola Thompson – treasurer
Maureen Blando — secretary
Melanie Kaye, Shivika Nayyar – at large
Susan Bickford– newsletter editor
Lorraine Wormald – newsletter distribution
Jamil Shaikh – community liaison, residential parking
Sherril Brennan – CERT
Jerry Steach – historical preservation
Carol Lewis, Jamil Shaikh – residential parking
Kristin Bailey — Eventors
The upcoming OMVNA Lamppost newsletter to residents will publish this slate and will invite additional nominations.
Neighbor Initiative Grant Proposal, Carola Thompson
Carola presented slides written by Carola and Kristin on the “Neighbor Initiative Grant Proposal.” The goal here is to encourage additional neighbors who are not members of the OMVNA Eventors to organize events to promote cultural, civic, social, educational and recreational events with OMVNA providing funding. A pilot program with a budget of $1,500 will run in 2026. The program will be evaluated at the end of 2026.
Organizers will submit an application similar to the Block Party Grant, but this is at the neighborhood level.
Grant amount is based on number of people from OMVNA who participate.
OMVNA Leadership Team will approve each event application via email or other digital process.
Kristin recommends using the Groups.io voting feature (or similar) to approve each grant.
Proposal to approve the Neighbor Initial Grant Pilot for 2026:
Motion: Susan; Seconded: Sherril
Approved unanimously.
Saving our Historic Downtown post SB 79 – Presentation by Robert Cox
Robert shared his slides from his presentation on 10/27/25 to Chistian Murdock, City of MV Director of Community Development, and additional Mountain View City Staff. Robert presented to the City in his role as Chairman of Livable Mountain View (LMV). See slides at:
OMVNA does not take positions on issues. This presentation was educational for the OMVNA Steering Committee.
The issue is that the recently passed State Bill “SB79” could eliminate MV Historic Buildings in the main retail sector of downtown Mountain View. To prevent this the City of Mountain View must generate an “SB79 Local Alternative Plan” to specifically protect historic buildings. Without such a plan any building within ½ mile of the MV train station could be torn down and replaced by a 6- or 7-story building.
SB79 goes into effect July 1, 2026 so the need to start work on a Mountain View SB79 Local Alternative Plan is urgent.
Faced with the same SB79 issue, Palo Alto’s city council approved investigating an SB79 local alternative plan at a study session on October 22, 2025. In the meeting with Christian Murdock and City Staff on 10/27/25 they were non-committal as to whether they could have a plan by July 1, 2026, due to other priorities including the Downtown and Moffett Precise Plans. Mr. Murdock said that the current plan is to start work on the Alternative Plan in February 2026. LMV asked City staff to be proactive and move quickly.
Mr. Murdock stated that if LMV wanted this to be prioritized LMV would have to get City Council to change it.
Note: The City’s Dept of Community Planning must submit the plan to CA State, which then must approve it.
Many people on the OMVNA Steering Committee consider this to be a major issue for the historic character of Mountain View. The public is not aware of the risk of historical buildings being torn down post SB79 legislation. The best way to get involved in this effort is to join Livable Mountain View. https://www.livablemv.com
Melanie Kaye urged that there be an active campaign about the need for the Alternative Local Plan for downtown Mountain View. She posited that people do not understand the ramifications of SB79 on historical buildings in the retail district.
Vice-Chair report: David Lewis was not present; no report
Secretary report: No report
Treasurer Report, Carola Thompson
-The Chase Bank CDs were moved from the previous 2% interest rate CD to Chase 5-month CD at 3.34%.
Chamber of Commerce Annual Dues increased to $375 from $175.
Peter Katz will give OMVNA a $125 discount on next year’s fee.
There was a discussion as to what we get from being a member of the Chamber. Our mailbox is a Chamber mailbox. We used to hold meetings at their office. Previously many OMVNA folks were businesspeople and wanted OMVNA to be a member of the Chamber.
What other benefits can we get from being a Chamber member? Carola will investigate this with Peter.
-Carola asks that all expenses be submitted by October 31, 2025, for all expenses paid in 3Q 2025 or before.
-Total Funds: $30,280.74
Social Report, Kristin Bailey
-Kristin will submit expenses in by 10/31/25.
-Ice Cream Social Highlights:
Sales: $854
Cost of Ice Cream and Cones: $600
Other costs, face painting ($200) and Miss Molly Bubbles ($350) have not been submitted at this time.
Kristin will provide a full report at the December 2025 meeting.
-Jamil suggests that next year we personally invite MV business owners, perhaps giving them a couple of ice cream tickets. Kristin – I love this idea. Please bring it up again in about May 2026.
Upcoming Event:
Caroling Crawl: Saturday, 12/6/2025
Contact Kristin to get involved.
Downtown Committee, Jamil
-The cleaning of downtown MV was the major topic, because the Super Bowl 2026 and World Cup July 2026 qualifying matches are coming up (each will be held at Levi’s Stadium). The Mountain View transit center is a major transit hub which connects Caltrain and the light rail to Levi’s Stadium. The cleaning project includes power washing the Pedestrian Mall, parking decks and stairs.
-The Art and Wine festival was well-attended, no incidents
Newsletter, Susan Bickford
-Susan reviewed the content in the upcoming issue of the OMVNA Lamppost. This issue is in color again and looks terrific.
-The upcoming issue (first week of November) will be the first issue to go out using EDDM, Every Door Direct Mail, by the USPS. See https://www.usps.com/business/every-door-direct-mail.htm. It will go out to nearly 5,000 households in OMVNA. There is still a little refinement on the boundaries needed to identify all 5,000 households. Using our traditional hand delivery we only reach about 2,300 households.
-Total costs are not in yet but appear to be under $1,000 for the EDDM plus costs for Print Papa.
-The expectation is that if this distribution goes well EDDM will be used for one of the four newsletter distributions per year.
CERT, Sherril Brennan
-Mountain View had a CERT Academy in October. 24 graduates, 2 of which are from Old Mountain View, and they have joined the OMVNA CERT group.
-A citywide drill took place right after the CERT Academy. It was on October 18th, which was also No Kings Rally. They had a hard time gathering enough CERTs to join, to run a good drill, but by putting 6 different CERT groups together, they ended up with about 22 people and had a great drill. CERT groups: South Mountain View, Cuesta Park, Gemello, Wagon Wheel, Greater San Antonio, and OMVNA.
In November, the steering committee will have one more drill with the ICS (Incident Command Systems), focusing on activities of the command post and how we track the people, how we track resources, and just making sure that we don’t lose track of anything.
Newsletter Distribution, Lorrie
Along with the first distribution of EDDM (above) there will still be 3 or 4 routes which will be manually distributed as they work on the EDDM coverage boundaries.
At Large
-Max: Thanks Robert and Carola for today’s professional reports.
-Max: Asks if we still have an OMVNA Credit Card for ordering pizza for December meeting.
Carola will coordinate with Max on ordering the pizzas. We have a debit card.
Drinks? Robert, Max, and Carola to discuss whether we will provide drinks for the December Annual meeting.
-Discussed by Susan: Mark Flider as a possible at-large candidate.
Historic Preservation, Jerry
This topic was covered by Robert’s presentation above, therefore, nothing more to present at this time. It is important to work toward the SB79 Local Alternative Plan.
Parking – no report from Jamil or Robert
Meeting adjourned at approximately 9:10 PM.
Contact social@omvna.org to get involved to help, build and implement new and existing neighborhood events.
Latest quarterly printed OMV Newsletter went out (by postal mail this time — experimentally — sent Nov 6, so neighborhood residents should have it by now) with my report of downtown-area restaurant news. Once again, more changes happened after press time, and even after mailing. This version incorporates updates I have:
• Why does 124 Castro’s Joyous Cuisine, open for 20 months, display a new “Soft Opening” banner? The ownership changed and the menu expanded. Which includes very fresh fish offerings (kept live on-site), and an appealing new “dumpling and bun” menu section.
• Revised: Johnny and Sanny’s (110 Castro), Doppio Zero’s expansion site (with similar menu) that replaced Vida in May, closed: https://www.paloaltoonline.com/mountain-view/2025/11/12/mountain-views-johnny-sannys-shutters-owners-redirect-focus-to-doppio-zero-expansion/ Original: If you haven’t visited Johnny and Sanny’s, I suggest at least looking around inside. The interior is dazzling, with colorful bottles creating a light show up front, and a more intimate semi-separate dining section in the rear.
• Four Seasons Tea House Hot Pot opened in September at 134 Castro, replacing 3 Kingdoms Hot Pot. Some information describes Four Seasons as a China-based chain. It features unusual tea-infused broths (such as jasmine tomato) in tabletop “hot pot” main courses. (134 Castro is a significant address in regional Chinese-restaurant history. Built 1968 as the “new” second site of Qui Hing Low, founded 1935 at 156 Castro. Details in the article by Li Zhang and me, pages 6-8 of Summer 2023 MVHA Newsletter: https://viewer.joomag.com/mvha-summer-2023-newsletter/0806990001688022883 )
• Revised: NAR, the new restaurant tenant at 286 ECR (at Ehrhorn) featuring cuisine of the Cuscasus region, “soft-opened” Fri Nov 7 and officially opened Nov 8. Embarcadero Media’s detailed article: https://www.almanacnews.com/food/feature-food/2025/11/12/inside-the-peninsulas-first-azerbaijani-restaurant-nar-restaurant-offers-caucasus-region-flavors-alongside-original-takeout-concepts/ Original: Embrace Luck, the four-year-old upscale Chinese restaurant, closed recently. Remodeling is underway for NAR, a sit-down restaurant promising “the rich culinary heritage of the Caucasus” (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia), from the local Olivia Brothers Group. Partner Hikmat Babayev told me that kitchen facilities in the building will also supply the Group’s more casual food services, which include food trucks.
• Steins Beer Garden, 895 Villa at Bryant, so far is “hanging in there” with the same restaurant concept and tentative new menu under this year’s new owners.
• No change as of late October at the four pending-restaurant sites (“Works-In-Progress”)mentioned at the end of August’s report.
• Related news: In late October Mi Tienda Supermarket replaced JL Produce at 311B Moffett Blvd (Shana Thai restaurant is at the Central Avenue corner, in front), continuing JL’s tradition of both Latin and (somewhat scaled-down) Eastern European specialties. That 311-Moffett commercial complex, three blocks past Central Expressway, is outside Old MV boundaries, but within the “greater downtown MV” area whose restaurant news I follow. Mi Tienda is running “Soft Grand Opening” specials through tomorrow (Oct. 18) — that was in a recent weekly postal advertising mailer. I visited; incredibly, Mi Tienda seems to pack even more into the compact space than JL did. The full-service butcher counter is revised and extensive. The business has general groceries and fresh produce, Latin specialties, and, I was happy to see, frozen Pelmeny (Russian meat-filled dumplings, a vice of mine) in chicken, lamb, beef, and Siberian (beef-pork) versions. And sour cream (as crema Mexicana) to garnish them. Pelmeny selection is small compared to Samovar’s (with an entire wall freezer devoted to Eastern European filled pastas), but Samovar is farther away, on MV’s “Costco” block. (At this writing, Google Maps still shows JL Produce at 311B Moffett, which is obsolete.)
