A guy’s guide to last-minute shopping HOLIDAY SECTION | P.11
DECEMBER 24, 2010 VOLUME 18, NO. 51
Hangar One funding lost By Daniel DeBolt
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ongresswoman Anna Eshoo has declared dead an $8 million request for Hangar One, which means the icon’s massive steel skeleton may be left bare when the Navy strips it of its PCBladen siding this spring. The $8 million earmark was in an omnibus appropriations bill that died due to lack of support from Senate Republicans, who had threatened to mount a fili-
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buster to stop it. “When the Omnibus died, the $8 million I was proud to secure for Hangar One died with it,” Eshoo said in an e-mail Friday. The defense appropriation, originally set at $10 million, had passed through a congressional defense subcommittee and was eagerly awaited by the community, where elected officials have overwhelmingly supported Hangar One’s restoration. A fight to save the historic structure has been going
on for over five years. The Depression-era airship hangar has been caught in a wave of “anti-earmark” anger on the part of Republicans, said Lenny Siegel, an advocate for the preservation of Hangar One. NASA, which took ownership of Hangar One from the Navy in 1994, has promised $20 million in funding to restore it, but the space agency was counting on the $8 million request to provide the last bit of funding needed. NASA’s
$20 million will not be enough to re-skin Hangar One, Siegel said. Eshoo, however, remained optimistic. “What encourages me is that (NASA) Administrator Bolden has given his commitment to me that he will preserve Hangar One,” Eshoo wrote. “He has the authority to allocate NASA funds for the purpose of re-skinning.” NASA’s official statement on the matter came from spokeswoman Rachel Hoover via e-mail: “Congresswoman Eshoo has been a staunch supporter on Hangar One, and NASA will continue to work with her on this issue. However,
MountainViewOnline.com the lack of congressionally directed funding for this project makes this more of a challenge.” The Navy has already demolished much of Hangar One’s internal structures in recent weeks as part of its obligation to clean up asbestos, PCBs and lead paint. The Navy is set to remove Hangar One’s laminate Galbestos siding this spring. Siegel said an effort is under way to raise funds to preserve the hangar’s unique windows, which could cost $1.2 million to save. Some of the windows are corrugated and may not be replaceable. For more on that effort, visit airandspacewest.org. V
A good year for trails NEW CROSSINGS WILL ENABLE WALKERS, BIKERS TO SKIRT FREEWAYS, OLD MIDDLEFIELD By Daniel DeBolt
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Nurse practitioner Mirella Nguyen checks patient Modesta Peña Nunez’s vision at RotaCare.
A right to health care ROTACARE CLINIC HELPS THE UNINSURED GET WELL AND STAY WELL By Nick Veronin
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s far as Cheryl Canning is concerned, health care is a human right. And by all accounts, the doctors, nurses, medical professionals and other volunteers who give their time
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to the RotaCare clinic in Mountain View feel the same. Canning, a registered nurse and director of clinical services of the Mountain View medical center,
said the “army of volunteers” who make the organization functional would not be there if they did not care deeply about what See ROTOCARE, page 9
wo major highways will no longer stand in the way of cyclists and pedestrians on two popular Mountain View trails once a pair of bridges are finished in early 2012. The city broke ground on a milestone engineering project on Dec. 16 that extends the Permanente Creek Trail from Shoreline Park and Google headquarters to residential areas by way of a bridge over Highway 101 and a tunnel under Old Middlefield Way. Meanwhile, bids have just come in under budget for a Stevens Creek Trail crossing over Highway 85 at Dale Avenue, which will probably begin construction in February. The city is on track to have both trail extensions complete by spring 2012. Last week, city officials, Google employees and residents celebrated the groundbreaking of the Permanente Creek Trail projects. Google welcomed the ceremony by providing food and allowing the use of one of its parking lots along Alta Avenue. “What we’ve heard from the community is the need to connect the city” so that the city is
GOINGS ON 19 | MARKETPLACE 20 | MOVIES 18 | REAL ESTATE 22 | VIEWPOINT 14
no longer “pieces separated by freeways,” said Mayor Ronit Bryant. “It will help give us the walkable, bike-able city residents tell us they want.” At a cost of $8.29 million, the project includes a long concrete bridge over Highway 101 and a tunnel under a busy section of Old Middlefield Way. The Permanente Creek Trail is expected to eventually terminate along Permanente Creek near Crittenden Middle School. Mountain View’s City manager of 20 years, Kevin Duggan, said the project would be “well used and well loved,” and called it “one of the best projects we’ve ever done.” The trails will connect the western half of the city to its major office district, which is known for being isolated from the rest of the city by Highway 101. It is home to Google, Microsoft, the city’s movie theater, Computer History Museum, and Shoreline Park, all of which are sure to have more pedestrian traffic coming in from the Permanente Creek trail. “You won’t even notice,” traffic impacts from construction, See TRAILS, page 8