Pleasing pairings
1st Place
WEEKEND | 20
GENERAL EXCELLENCE
California Newspaper Publishers Association
MAY 5, 2017 VOLUME 25, NO. 15
www.MountainViewOnline.com
650.964.6300
MOVIES | 25
LinkedIn pitches plan for East Whisman campus 1 MILLION-SQUARE-FOOT HEADQUARTERS PROJECT BORDERS SUNNYVALE By Mark Noack
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NATALIA NAZAROVA
A crowd gathers at Mountain View’s Civic Center Plaza on May 1, for the annual rally and march for immigration reform. Kira Od, a political artist from Sunnyvale, raises her poster with an image of Donald Trump.
Outrage over Trump draws crowd to Mountain View May Day march By Mark Noack
M
ay Day rally pushes back against federal immigration policies. Hundreds of people took to the streets of Mountain View on
Monday evening to denounce a federal crackdown on undocumented immigrants. The annual May Day march this year held a particular urgency and drew one of its largest crowds based on fears that President Donald
Trump’s administration represents a grave threat to local families and the community. Speaker after speaker at the event pledged that Mountain See MAY DAY, page 18
Voters approve Measure B SCHOOL DISTRICT AVOIDS BUDGET CUTS WITH PASSAGE OF $191 PARCEL TAX By Kevin Forestieri
W
ith a comfortable margin, voters in the Mountain View Whisman School District approved the Measure B parcel tax measure on Tuesday, preventing budget cuts and preserving school programs that relied on support from local tax money. As of Wednesday morning, 6,529 people (71.2 percent) voted in favor of the Measure B,
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+ Measure
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compared to 2,635 (28.8 percent) who voted against the measure, according to the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters website. The measure requires a twothirds vote to pass, and the vote count reflects 79 percent of the
ballots that the Registrar of Voters received from district voters. “We are excited about the initial results and are humbled by the overwhelming support of the community,” Superintendent Ayinde Rudolph in a statement Wednesday. “On behalf of the district, I want to express my gratitude to the many volunteers, the parcel tax campaign committee and the board of trustees.” See MEASURE B, page 13
VIEWPOINT 19 | GOINGS ON 26 | MARKETPLACE 27 | REAL ESTATE 29
s Google finalizes plans to transform much of North Bayshore into a signature campus, its longtime rival is moving forward briskly to create its own new headquarters on Mountain View’s east side. This week, LinkedIn representatives presented new plans for a new East Whisman office campus totaling almost 1.1 million square feet, right on Mountain View’s border with Sunnyvale. The proposed campus would merge several existing office buildings and parcels just east of Highway 237 into a new showcase for the tech company. “This is a transformational design of this site; we want a place where we can have the majority of our staff, so they aren’t spread throughout the neighborhood,” said LinkedIn Vice President Jim Mortgensen. “We consider this a hub for our employees.” The plans call for a trio of new six-story office buildings that would be constructed around a cluster of older two-story offices already at the site. The company plans to move its employees into the older buildings starting this summer, but the full construction project is expected to take four years to complete. In a study session on Tuesday, May 3, the Mountain View City Council took its first look at the project and the package of community benefits it would bring. The project comes at an awkward time — the city is currently trying to decide on its East Whisman precise plan to guide future development in the area. City planners indicated that shouldn’t be a big hurdle. The LinkedIn project seems to comply with the city’s main precise
plan goals, such as consolidating dense office space along local highways and including plenty of open space. The biggest complaint about the new design came from the Costa Mesa Terrace neighborhood, a Sunnyvale condominium park just east of the project site. Like other speakers, resident Nicole Pasini pointed out that the LinkedIn project would plant a six-story parking garage just across the street from her front door. “I’m disappointed that a huge parking garage is going to right on the other side of our wall,” she said. “Obviously having nothing here would be better, but I don’t want to be excessively NIMBY.” Many neighbors urged the council to compel LinkedIn to add underground parking, but the company’s team said it would be too expensive. Representatives said they were planning to put one level of parking underground, but digging further would cost about $100,000 per parking spot, Mortgensen said. Siding with LinkedIn, city planners pointed out the project has a 100-foot setback, which complied with Sunnyvale’s planning guidelines. City Council members signaled they didn’t want to rejigger the whole project to move the garages, but they urged planners to keep as many trees as possible as a buffer. LinkedIn had planned to build a bicycle track along that side of the property, but City Council members preferred keeping the trees. Plans for the new LinkedIn headquarters came about after the company announced a massive land swap with Google last year. LinkedIn gave Google rights See LINKEDIN, page 8