The cocktail craftsman WEEKEND | 21
APRIL 11, 2014 VOLUME 22, NO. 11
www.MountainViewOnline.com
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MOVIES | 25
City poised for huge office growth DEVELOPMENT BRINGING AS MANY AS 42,500 NEW WORKERS, LITTLE HOUSING TO MOUNTAIN VIEW By Daniel DeBolt
A MICHELLE LE
A cyclist passes a Google self-driving car (with the camera on top) along Shoreline Boulevard during the morning rush hour on April 8.
Council wrestles with gridlock DOWNTOWN TRANSIT STATION OVERWHELMED BY EMPLOYEE SHUTTLES
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n a city where job growth never seems to quit, a growing number of workers commuting to Mountain View is causing a problem. In a study session Tuesday, April 8, it was revealed that more than a few of the city’s streets have recently reached the
lowest possible grade for traffic — an “F” — while the downtown transit station is seeing 57 different employee shuttle services during rush hour, lining Evelyn Avenue and using space in the station’s bus turnout. Council members were surprised to learn that many of
the shuttles don’t even serve Mountain View, prompting council member Ronit Bryant to suggest they be charged a use fee. Cupertino-based Apple and Los Gatos-based Netflix are among the compaSee TRAFFIC, page 8
n analysis by the Voice shows that explosive office development is knocking on Mountain View’s door, bringing as many as 42,550 new office workers who will be driving on the area’s freeways and competing for the city’s increasingly expensive and scarce housing. An examination of office projects in the works finds 834,000 square feet of additional office space under construction in the city, with an additional 1.3 million square feet proposed. With this alone, the city could add 16,400 employees to Mountain View’s job count in the coming years. That number more than doubles if you include the 3.4 million square feet of new offices (space for 26,150 additional jobs) being considered for the area around Google’s headquarters, North Bayshore. It could soon see in a major redevelopment when a North Bayshore “precise plan” is approved by the council at the end of the year. “It’s kind of scary — it’s like there’s a glacier headed in our
direction. It’s not going to hit us right away but it’s almost too late to stop it,” said resident Lenny Siegel of the office growth in the pipeline. Siegel has been raising concerns about the city’s jobshousing balance since the 1970s and is now founder of the “Campaign for a Balanced Mountain View” which seeks to sway the City Council to allow housing development in North Bayshore to balance the city’s job growth. “Once they start hiring people in all this office space — and right now they are hiring pretty fast — the impact in housing, transportation and our quality of life will be enormous,” Siegel said. In a city that currently has about 34,500 homes and about 69,000 jobs, the city’s zoning has historically allowed for more job space than housing, and the city’s new general plan will make the trend more extreme — it has zoned for a maximum of about 7,000 new homes in Mountain View by 2030, largely as the El Camino Real and San Antonio Road corridors See OFFICE, page 7
Guardsmen rescue sick baby at sea By Kevin Forestieri
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Moffett Field-based team of Air National Guardsmen rescued a seriously ill 1-year-old baby and her family from a sailboat 1,000 miles off the coast of Baja California early Sunday morning. The rescue team continued to provide support for the family aboard the USS Vandergrift when it reached San Diego on Wednesday
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morning, April 9. Last Thursday, April 3, a fourman Guardian Angel team of the 129th Rescue Wing parachuted into the water near the Rebel Heart, a 36-foot boat, to provide medical attention for the sick baby on board. It turned out that all four family members required rescue from the Rebel Heart, which was adrift and would take on water when the engine was used. “The ship was unable to
steer, maneuver and had lost communication,” said 2nd Lt. Roderick B. Bersamina of the 129th Rescue Wing. The parents, Charlotte and Eric Kaufman, planned to sail the world with their two children, according to a report from the Associated Press. But two weeks into the trip, their daughter Lyra became ill, and shortly after that, the boat lost See AIR RESCUE, page 12
VIEWPOINT 19 | GOINGS ON 27 | MARKETPLACE 28 | REAL ESTATE 30
COURTESY U.S. NAVY
A stranded family with a sick baby leave their sailboat on April 6 and head to the USS Vandergrift with four Guardian Angels from the 129th Air Rescue Wing that’s stationed at Moffett Field.