Back to basics burgers WEEKEND | 22 APRIL 3, 2015 VOLUME 23, NO. 10
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MOVIES | 25
It’s official: Google takes over Moffett Airfield, Hangar One PLANETARY VENTURES TO RESTORE ICONIC HANGAR, USE SPACE TO DEVELOP AVIATION, ROBOTICS TECHNOLOGY By Mark Noack
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MICHELLE LE
Yin Lu, Khan Academy’s international market developer, gives foreign ambassadors a crash course on Silicon Valley’s innovative educational nonprofit.
Teaching a world-class education KHAN ACADEMY OPENS ITS DOORS TO INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATS By Mark Noack
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t was one of the rare times when the Khan Academy was teaching a live, in-person class, rather than through a video feed. But the students who gathered in the nonprofit’s
downtown Mountain View campus on Tuesday afternoon were nothing if not special. Among those in the crowd were His Excellency Olexander Motsyk of Ukraine, the Honorable Pavel Shidlovsky of Belarus and His Excellency Cui Tainkai
of China. In total, 35 wellcoiffed foreign ambassadors on formal state business in the United States were sitting in the Khan Academy kitchen to learn about the educational nonprofit See EDUCATION page 8
Google subsidiary this week formally took control of Moffett Federal Airfield and the iconic Hangar One as part of a 60-year lease deal with NASA. In recent days, government regulators signed off on a final set of environmental reviews for the lease, giving the company the green light to occupy the 1,000-acre space. Starting on Wednesday, April 1, Google’s Planetary Ventures has clearance to move in and begin making modifications to the property, NASA Ames Research Center Associate Director Deborah Feng said in an email. The company already has approval to begin some electrical work and installing construction trailers, but all future activities would be required to go through a gauntlet of permitting and historic preservation requirements, she noted. NASA officials signed the lease with Planetary Ventures in February, ruling out competing bids. At the time, the company proposed using Hangars One, Two and Three for “research, testing, assembly and development” of
technology related to space, aviation, rovers and robotics. Google spokeswoman Meghan Casserly said that the Planetary Ventures team is assessing options and making plans and timelines for the future, but that specifics could not be shared yet. Some planned projects have already been announced. Members of the nonprofit Earth, Air & Space Educational Foundation indicated plans to open a museum and educational center. The new facility, dubbed the Earth, Air & Space Collaboratory, has already raised $500,000 in seed money, with a portion of the funds coming from Google. Perhaps most important for some Mountain View residents, the new lease deal guarantees that Hangar One will be restored with new siding. As part of the deal, Planetary Ventures will foot the costs to maintain and repair the hangar, which could run upward of $40 million. In addition, the company agreed to pay $6.3 million annually in maintenance and operations costs, which would add up to See GOOGLE, page 13
Council approves tentative plan to boost minimum wage SCHEDULE CALLS FOR ANNUAL HIKES EACH JULY TO REACH $15 By Mark Noack
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ountain View’s elected leaders on Tuesday night reaffirmed their commitment to raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, but they left some details open to future tweaking as to how they would implement the plan. Under any scenario, Mountain
INSIDE
View is set to raise its minimum wage to $10.30 an hour on July 1. After that, the council approved a tentative plan to continue raising the base hourly wage at the start of each July. In 2016, the minimum wage would increase to $12 an hour. That would jump to $13.50 in 2017, and then $15 in 2018. Further increases would be made annually based on num-
bers from the Consumer Price Index. The meeting came as a followup to a momentous decision in October when city leaders passed an ordinance setting the goal to establish a $15 base hourly wage by 2018. The move was widely celebrated at the time by miniSee MINIMUM WAGE, page 9
VIEWPOINT 21 | GOINGS ON 26 | MARKETPLACE 27 | REAL ESTATE 29
MAGALI GAUTHIER
Advocates for raising the minimum wage held a small rally before Tuesday’s City Council meeting.