An impeccable pedigree WEEKEND | 14 AUGUST 17, 2018 VOLUME 26, NO. 30
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MOVIES | 16
Community divided over high school stadium lights LOCAL RESIDENTS, STUDENTS AND PARENTS PACK MONDAY’S BOARD MEETING By Kevin Forestieri
H
NATALIA NAZAROVA
Karl Frederick (left) and Ray McKee are neighbors at 2310 Rock St., an apartment complex slated to be torn down and redeveloped as townhouses.
Plans to raze apartments spur outcry TENANTS BALK AT REQUEST TO TURN RENTALS INTO ROWHOUSES By Mark Noack
S
ecuring affordable housing in Silicon Valley can feel like a lottery. In one case, a group of tenants is literally hoping the lottery will save their homes. The homes are the 59
apartments located at 2310 Rock St. Each week, the residents — including bus drivers, teachers and nurses — are pooling their money to buy Powerball tickets with the distant hope of hitting the jackpot. It started as a joke, they said, but if they win, their plan is very
serious: Buy their apartment property, giving everyone free or very low rent for life. It’s the American dream tempered for the realities of Mountain View housing. The Hail Mary plan to buy See APARTMENTS, page 10
Contested race ahead for Mountain View Whisman FOUR CANDIDATES VIE FOR TWO SEATS ON THE SCHOOL BOARD By Kevin Forestieri
W
ith multiple candidates making last-minute decisions on whether to file for public office, voters in the Mountain View Whisman School District will get to choose between four candidates for two seats on the school board this November. Data from the Santa Clara
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County Registrar of Voters shows that both incumbents, board members Ellen Wheeler and Greg Coladonato, are running for re-election against challengers Tamara Becher Patterson and Devon Conley. Three others, Rich Tanner, Charles DiFazio and Meghan Fraley, pulled candidacy papers but did not file by the Aug. 10 deadline. Wheeler is pursuing her fifth
term on the board after first getting elected in 2002, when she had a child attending Bubb Elementary. She was the top votegetter in 2014 with 36 percent of the votes cast, followed by Coladonato who prevailed with a razor-thin margin over former school board member Phil Palmer. Wheeler told the Voice See WHISMAN, page 8
VIEWPOINT 11 | GOINGS ON 17 | MARKETPLACE 18 | REAL ESTATE 20
undreds of residents, parents and students packed the Mountain View High School theater Monday night to start a long and contentious debate over whether to add stadium lights to to the district’s athletic fields. The Aug. 13 meeting, which kicked off with three hours of public comments, drew a clear line between those in favor of and against installing field lights at both Mountain View and Los Altos high schools. Both sides were heavily represented and people spoke passionately for their cause. Mountain View-Los Altos High School District board members agreed at the end of the meeting to continue studying the idea, but shied away from picking a side. Proponents at the meeting, largely comprising students, parents and a mix of coaching and music staff, made a pitch to trustees that the lights are long overdue, and that the district has an unfortunate reputation as having the only high schools in the county without lights. What that means for students, they argued, is too many teams competing for not enough field space, an abrupt cutoff to practice at sundown and games scheduled too early in the day for working parents to come watch. But people living near both schools, many of them Los Altos residents due to Mountain View High’s proximity to the city’s border, said adding field lights would extend a myriad of schoolrelated problems they are already miffed about into the evening hours. They argued that everything from loud public address systems and a “torturous”
metronome for band practice to traffic woes and blinding swimming pool lights have been ruining the quiet nature of the surrounding neighborhoods for years. Rosemary Wadden, a 38-year resident who lives near Los Altos High, said the quality of life in the neighborhood has steadily declined since the 1990s as student parking began lining nearby streets, and worsened in the 2000s when the district installed a sound system that cranked up the volume and caused an echo. She urged the board to reconsider what she called “arbitrary” upgrades in favor of academics, and said she felt residents like herself have been excluded from hidden, long-term plans to install lights. “We’re told the football booster club began the push for these upgrades two years ago,” Wadden said, adding that many residents only caught wind of the idea in June. “We dissenters have effectively been silenced by being kept out of the loop.” Los Altos resident David McIntyre told board members that the serenity of Los Altos neighborhoods is already “under siege” by worsening traffic and airplane noise, and that installing field lights would be the latest in a string of disruptive changes. By allowing evening events at the schools, he said, the district would likely incur a host of unexpected costs related to increased law enforcement, traffic mitigation and even public nuisance lawsuits. He argued the district’s reputation for being the only one without lights is a virtue, not a problem. “That’s a good reason to not do it,” he said. “We’re a special place, See STADIUM LIGHTS, page 9