Feeding the future WEEKEND | 17
MARCH 25, 2016 VOLUME 24, NO. 9
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MOVIES | 21
City could close Castro Street at train tracks COUNCIL MAJORITY LEANS TOWARD CLOSURE AS LEAST DISRUPTIVE PLAN FOR DOWNTOWN HUB By Mark Noack
M
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Debbie Kinslow and about 100 other residents of Santiago Villa mobile home park aired fears of evictions and rising rents at a meeting with general manager Maria Ahmad on March 16.
Battle emerges at mobile home park SANTIAGO VILLA RESIDENTS ALARMED AT RISING RENTS, NEARBY TECH DEVELOPMENT By Mark Noack
F
or the hundreds of people living at the Santiago Villa mobile home
park, the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back came in the form of a letter from the landlord. The letters sent last month warned many of the 358
households in tightly worded legal language that their homes needed immediate work. One woman said she was told the Tibetan flags draping the outside of her house had to be removed. Another was instructed to sweep her porch, clean the steps and do something about all the animal fur on her property. But many homeowners said their
ountain View council members signaled early support for closing off Castro Street at the Caltrain tracks, making for a dramatic transformation of the city’s downtown strip. The idea, which is still being studied, would prevent traffic from crossing the tracks, blocking vehicles from Moffett Boulevard and Central Expressway heading to the downtown. At the March 22 study session, a majority of the council hailed the idea as the least disruptive way to preserve the character of downtown. “Closing Castro at the railroad is the best we could do for downtown for safety and for emerging transit options,” said Councilman Lenny Siegel. “By doing something simpler and cleaner, this would give us money we could use to improve transit
options.” The spot has long been considered a safety risk due to the large numbers of drivers, cyclists and pedestrians who regularly converge to cross the tracks. Those dangers are expected to grow as Caltrain moves forward with plans to electrify the tracks and run twice as many trains. In addition, the rail corridor is slated for future use as part of the California High Speed Rail project. With those projects on the horizon, city staff and a consultant team say they needed to find options for improving the crossing. Among those ideas, they considered lowering the Caltrain tracks to run below the street level. But making those modifications would be enormously expensive and complicated, possibly requiring miles of track modifications and even a new See CASTRO STREET, page 7
See MOBILE HOME PARK, page 6
School district could build apartments for teacher housing AFFORDABLE, NEARBY HOUSING OPTIONS SEEN AS KEY TO ATTRACTING, RETAINING FACULTY IN MV WHISMAN SCHOOLS By Kevin Forestieri
T
he Mountain View Whisman School District took small steps towards addressing a big problem Thursday night, when board members agreed to look at constructing teacher housing. The skyrocketing cost of living in the Bay Area has fueled an
INSIDE
exodus of teachers who can no longer afford to live in or near Mountain View. Superintendent Ayinde Rudolph told the board at its March 17 meeting that teachers would be hard-pressed to pay the average rent in Mountain View — between $2,600 and $2,900 a month — when the average teacher pay is close to $69,000 annually. Teachers
either move out of the area and endure a long commute, or rely on a shared-living situation. “It’s really an issue for our teachers, especially our youngest teachers,” Rudolph said. “There are reports out there of individuals who are renting out rooms like dorms in downtown See TEACHERS, page 12
VIEWPOINT 13 | GOINGS ON 22 | MARKETPLACE 23 | REAL ESTATE 25
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Passengers disembark from a southbound Caltrain at Mountain View’s downtown station during the morning commute on March 23.