True Blue | P.17
NOVEMBER 13, 2009 VOLUME 17, NO. 45
INSIDE: MOVIES | PAGE 20
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MountainViewOnline.com
District announces Ghysels will step down NO TIMELINE GIVEN; CRAIG GOLDMAN SINGLED OUT AS MV WHISMAN’S NEXT TOP OFFICIAL By Kelsey Mesher
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uperintendent Maurice Ghysels has officially informed the Mountain View Whisman School District Board of Trustees that he is looking for work outside the district, it was announced Monday night. The announcement, read in a statement by board president Phil Palmer, came at the end of a two-hour, closed-session
Eshoo talks health care, Hangar One By Daniel DeBolt
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fter helping pass a hardfought health care reform bill Saturday evening, Congresswoman Anna Eshoo flew in from Washington to give her pitch for the bill to the Mountain View City Council during a Monday afternoon “general legislative update.” Local officials joined media and other representatives at Michaels at Shoreline to hear Eshoo discuss the bill, which she said “broke the stranglehold of history.” “From Teddy Roosevelt on, seven presidents have tried” to reform health care, she said. Eshoo said she was proud to have helped shape the Affordable Health Care for America Act as a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which wrote the largest piece of the bill. See ESHOO, page 12
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meeting apparently called late last week. Though the meeting’s agenda was never stated, it was called in regards to Ghysels’ relationship with Carmen Mizell, principal of Landels Elementary School. “At tonight’s school board meeting, Superintendent Maurice Ghysels shared a letter wherein he told us he was looking for other work,” Palmer said at the end of the meeting. “While the board has known about this informally for a while, this was the first formal announcement to us of his intent. We, of course, wish him the best.” Palmer added, “With this announcement, the board decided that tonight would be an appropriate time to let the public know that our team has been discussing an internal succession plan for quite some time.” In the announcement, Palmer said that Craig Goldman, currently the district’s chief financial officer, would eventually be taking over as superintendent. No specific timeline was given for the move. On Tuesday, Goldman told the Voice that this transition was a long time in the works. “Three years ago, when I was principal of Huff,” he said, “Maurice had shared with me a vision that I would serve as his successor once he had moved on from the district.” Ghysels corroborated that claim, saying that his plan was always to remain with the district for three to five years. This is his fifth year as superintendent. “I think the timing is right,” he said Tuesday. He added that
MICHELLE LE
Frank Golzen’s “A Tribute to American Resolve” showcases two pieces of the fallen Berlin Wall, located in a Shoreline office park in Mountain View.
City’s hidden tribute to fall of Communism PIECES OF BERLIN WALL TUCKED AWAY IN SHORELINE OFFICE PARK By Daniel DeBolt
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his week, Mountain View residents join others around the world in marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But few know that their city is home to two pieces of the Iron Curtain — on display for anyone to see in a Shoreline office park. In the corner of a parking lot behind an office building at 2685 Marine Drive, just a block from Shoreline Park and San Antonio Road, two Berlin Wall sections, each four feet wide and twice as tall, are planted in cement with a short wrought-
See GHYSELS, page 10
GOINGS ON 21 | MARKETPLACE 22 | REAL ESTATE 25 | VIEWPOINT 14
iron fence surrounding them. A plaque calls the display “A Tribute to American Resolve,” and acknowledges the American economic ideals that led
“It is one of the best-kept secrets in the city.” HONOR SPITZ
to the fall of the wall between Nov. 9 and Nov. 12, 1989. The sections still have the graffiti that was sprayed on them in Berlin, including the
words “Wir Lieben Dich” (We love you) on one section and what looks to be a caricature of Elvis Presley on the other. The sections reportedly weigh in at seven tons each and are buried over a foot deep in the cement. “I think it’s kind of neat Mountain View has a part of the Berlin Wall,” said Honor Spitz, president of the Mountain View Historical Association. “It is one of the best-kept secrets in the city.” The pieces are “very nicely displayed,” she added. “A lot of care was taken.” See WALL, page 11