Sweet talking WEEKEND | 16
OCTOBER 6, 2017 VOLUME 25, NO. 37
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MOVIES | 20
Google relents on bid for more office space COMPANY PLEDGES COMMITMENT TO 9,850-HOME GOAL by Mark Noack
I MICHELLE LE
Listos Mountain View members, from left, Tania O’Connell, Maria Dinard, Sarah Livnat, Jill Rakestraw and Diana Wegbreit pose for a portrait.
Local group fights to protect immigrants’ rights, kids By Kevin Forestieri
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ear and anxiety spread among the local immigrant community last week after federal immigration officials conducted a nationwide sweep targeting sanctuary cities and counties, leading to the arrest of two undocumented Mountain View residents. But a group of local parents from the Castro and Mistral elementary school community is vowing to assuage the fears
of deportation with action. The newly formed group, called Listos Mountain View, has assisted dozens of immigrant families with information and essential documents needed to ensure that parents and children are prepared if Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents knock on the door. Listos Mountain View, which consists of nine Mistral parents, began aiding undocumented families in the Castro community earlier this year after
finding that the countywide “Know Your Rights” campaign did little to explain what residents without citizenship need to do in order to prepare for an ICE raid, according to Jill Rakestraw, executive director of the group. The more they heard from the families, the more it became clear that contingency planning was a big weak spot. “The families are worried about being separated and See IMMIGRANTS’ RIGHTS, page 8
f Mountain View’s tense standoff with Google over North Bayshore last week was like a game of chicken, it was Google that swerved. This week, Google officials backpedaled on demands for more office space as a condition for building 9,850 new housing units in North Bayshore. In a contrite letter sent Monday afternoon to the Mountain View City Council, the company’s real estate team apologized for comments made last Tuesday, Sept. 26, that were widely interpreted as an ultimatum demanding an additional 800,000 square feet of office development rights. In the letter, David Radcliffe, Google’s vice president of real estate, emphasized that his team was wholeheartedly on board for seeing housing built near the company’s North Bayshore headquarters. “During the Council’s study session, we voiced the idea that adding office space could be a way to offset housing costs. We apologize that this came out as a demand, when the intent was to open a conversation to address a potential issue,” he wrote.” We
remain unequivocally committed to (North Bayshore housing) and strongly support the creation of the full 9,850 new housing units.” The company’s tone was very different one week ago as a grueling City Council study session on the North Bayshore precise plan stretched past midnight and into the early morning hours. At the time, council members were suggesting a series of new requirements for the company’s future housing development, including calls for union hiring, environmental monitoring, ownership housing and up to 40 percent of new apartments to be priced as affordable. As the night wore on and the list of potential public concessions grew, Google’s lead representative, Senior Design Director Joe Van Belleghem, came back to the lectern and spoke bluntly. There would be no housing built by Google, he said, unless the city agreed to allocate 800,000 square feet of additional office space. “Just to be clear: no new office, no new residential,” Van Belleghem told the council. “We’ve been very clear all along that we See GOOGLE, page 6
City Council paves the way for a San Antonio school MAJOR CONCESSIONS INCLUDE POTENTIAL FOR MORE OFFICE SPACE AND FEWER HOMES IN MOUNTAIN VIEW By Kevin Forestieri
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alling a neighborhood school and park land a top priority in the San Antonio Shopping Center area, Mountain View City Council members agreed in principle Tuesday night to give the Los Altos School District latitude to “sell” development rights in order to afford a campus in a
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region desperate for open space. In a study session, in which no official decisions can be made, council members supported allowing the school district to acquire expensive land in the San Antonio area — valued at over $12 million an acre — and transfer the unused office and residential development capacity to a developer elsewhere in the city, which could include North
Bayshore and East Whisman. This would allow the district to purchase the land at a substantially lower cost, making it feasible to build a school with limited resources. In order to sweeten the deal for potential buyers, the city would also allow developers to convert “transferred” residential development from San Antonio into office space. The school district
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would need to shift a total of 600,000 square feet of development, according to a city staff report. Los Altos School District officials have struggled for years to find land for a new school campus, conducting an exhaustive search for properties in the San Antonio area — where the district’s boundaries spill over into Mountain View — as well
as along El Camino Real. District voters passed a $150 million school bond measure in 2014 to finance a new school, but little progress has been made to put the money to good use. Nearly one in three Los Altos district students reside in Mountain View, and a vast majority of projected enrollment growth See SAN ANTONIO, page 11