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Spring Home + Garden Design APRIL 10, 2015 VOLUME 23, NO. 11
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Crime is down, but thefts are still high MOUNTAIN VIEW POLICE SAY NEW STATE LAWS MAY BE FUELING PROPERTY CRIME RATES By Kevin Forestieri
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VERONICA WEBER
Teresa Maldonado Marchok, right, leads dancers including Madison Ruweler, left, in the El Camino YMCA’s Dance for All class.
Dance for every body EL CAMINO YMCA HOSTS INCLUSIVE DANCE CLASS By Elizabeth Schwyzer
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he room is packed, and the bass is pumping. More than 30 people are on their feet, dancing to the rhythm of the music. Facing the two instructors at the front of the room, they follow along: stomping their feet, clapping their hands, bending their
knees to the beat. Most of the dancers are teenagers, though some are much older and a few are younger. And though their movements aren’t all precisely synchronized, the group is clearly united in spirit. You can tell, because every single person in the room is grinning. Welcome to Dance for All,
held every Saturday afternoon at the El Camino YMCA in Mountain View. Dance for All is just what the name implies: a class that’s open to everyone. Many of the participants have disabilities, but not all; there are no rules about who can and can’t take part. See YMCA, page 13
rime is on a downward trend in Mountain View, but that isn’t stopping thieves from burglarizing homes and businesses, according to a police department report on 2014 crime statistics. And while it's a tricky business finding the root cause of crime trends, police say it might be state laws fueling the fire. The city’s property crime has been on the rise in the last five years, spiking in 2013 when the number of residential burglaries jumped by over 70 percent from 106 cases in 2012 to 183 cases in 2013. Reported cases have since declined in 2014 to 118, but it still remains relatively high, according to the Mountain View Police Department. Commercia l burglaries increased by about 90 percent from 61 in 2012 to 114 in 2013. But unlike the home burglaries, theft from businesses continued to increase to 145 cases reported in 2014. Mountain View Police Chief Max Bosel said there’s a num-
ber of different burglars active around town, some focusing specifically on the tech industry, breaking into businesses and stealing computers. Others tend to break into retail stores downtown and along El Camino Real, stealing cash from the register, he said. Repeat offenders may be responsible for the big increase. One man was arrested late last year, Bosel said, who was responsible for a large number of burglaries, and police have since seen a decrease. While Bosel admits recidivism is a tricky subject better suited for criminologists, he said there are a lot of active repeat offenders in the city. “Sometimes you arrest the right person in your jurisdiction and it has an impact on the numbers,” he said. Statewide policy changes in the criminal justice system might also play a big role in the number of burglaries going on the city, Bosel said. Since California has adopted the Public Safety Realignment Act, See CRIME STATS, page 6
LinkedIn sets sights on local watering hole SPORTS PAGE BAR ADDED TO FIRM’S NORTH BAYSHORE DEVELOPMENT PLANS By Mark Noack
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ne of Mountain View’s well-established bars is the latest property in the cross-hairs of a rapid spree of development proposed for North Bayshore. A subsidiary of LinkedIn signed a tentative deal to buy the site of the Sports Page Bar & Grill, a popular watering
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hole on Plymouth Street. The professional-networking company informed Mountain View officials they wanted to incorporate property into its larger plans to build a “gateway signature headquarters” along Shoreline Boulevard. In a letter sent to the city last week, LinkedIn officials explained they envision a future hotel being built on the bar’s
0.87-acre site. But those plans may be years off — the Sports Page currently has a lease that runs through 2023. Developing the site sooner would depend on whether LinkedIn officials can entice the bar owners to terminate the lease early. Even by dive bar standards, the Sports Page stands out. Along See SPORTS, page 8
VIEWPOINT 14 | GOINGS ON 23 | MARKETPLACE 24 | REAL ESTATE 26
MICHELLE LE
The Sports Page bar property is being bought by LinkedIn for a proposed hotel development.