Mountain View Art & Wine Festival event program INSIDE AUGUST 31, 2018 VOLUME 26, NO. 32
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MOVIES | 19
Task force backs plans to move Bullis to Mountain View the charter school would even fit on the small campus, and if ullis Charter School would council members would approve be the best fit for a new the school district’s land acquicampus in the San Anto- sition plans if a neighborhood nio area of Mountain View, school was off the table. School district officials are community members and school officials on a Los Altos School planning to acquire about 9.6 District task force agreed Mon- acres of land on the corner of day evening — a recommenda- Showers Drive and California Street — currenttion that runs conly home to several trary to the wishes businesses, includof Mountain View ‘This isn’t ing a Kohl’s departCity Council members seeking a school going to solve ment store, Sushi 88 and Pearl Cafe for neighborhood the problem, — for a 10th school students. campus and some The school board is set to make a final but it is going adjacent park land. adminisdecision later this to spend all of District trators and school year. members The task force the money.’ board have long argued recommendathat the additional tion weighs in on a JILL JENE campus is an imporlengthy debate over tant step to prepare whether a future school in the San Antonio neigh- for future enrollment growth, borhood should serve the nearly and are relying heavily on the 800 students residing in the area, city of Mountain View for finanor if it would be better suited cial support through a process as a campus for Bullis Charter called the transfer of development rights. School. Five of the eight task force While the majority of task force members backed the latter members present — Lara Daeoption, the opinion came down tz, Raquel Matteroli, Sandra amid a number of critical, unanSee BULLIS, page 6 swered questions about whether By Kevin Forestieri
B
MAGALI GAUTHIER
Bobby Taylor, one of Mountain View’s school resource officers, returned last Monday to his beat at Mountain View High School after taking a leave of absence to battle cancer.
School resource officer back on the beat following cancer treatment BOBBY TAYLOR RETURNS TO WORK UNDETERRED AFTER MONTHS OF CHEMO By Kevin Forestieri
L
ast week marked a return to school for public high school students in Mountain View, but they weren’t the only ones heading back to campus after a long hiatus.
School Resource Officer (SRO) Bobby Taylor was back on the campus beat last week after battling cancer for the better part of a year, returning to the department and his role as the go-to law enforcement official for teens and their families
throughout the city. Despite the six months of aggressive cancer treatment, Taylor said his goal was to return to work right away. Taylor told the Voice that he See RESOURCE OFFICER, page 7
Rental committee weighs landlord’s appeal By Mark Noack
O
ne landlord’s push to raise rents spurred the Mountain View Rental Housing Committee on Monday to hold something like a courtroom trial, with committee members serving as appellate judges. It was the first instance of the rental committee taking a direct role in deciding whether an individual landlord was earning a fair profit under
INSIDE
the city’s complex rent control restrictions. The case involves the Del Medio Manor and a request by its owner to increase rents on about half of the property’s 104 apartments. In her final petition, owner Elizabeth Lindsay had requested rent increases ranging from $100 to $500 a month on dozens of apartments that she said were locked into artificially low prices under the city’s rent stabilization program. In total, the requested rent
hikes would have increased annual profits by $170,000 on a property already generating more than $1 million in net income, according to the petition filings. The move to increase rents spurred protests by Del Medio tenants, who said the higher cost would force them out of their homes and possibly the Bay Area. Last month, city hearing officer Jil Dalesandro sided largely with those tenants by rejecting nearly all of the Del
Medio Manor owners’ claims for increasing apartment rents. She said that the bookkeeping submitted by Del Medio was flawed and included numerous ineligible expenses. In response, both sides in the case ended up filing appeals against the decision to the Rental Housing Committee. Lindsay and her partners argued various costs for running their business were unfairly excluded when they deserved consideration. Among her complaints, she took
aim at the decision to reject a socalled Vega adjustment, a special increase intended for severely underpriced units operating at a net loss. She criticized how a whole category of “junior onebedroom” units at Del Medio were downgraded to studios. In her decision, Dalesandro had argued that Del Medio’s junior one-bedroom units were essentially studio apartments with just an accordion door to
ARTS & EVENTS 14 | VIEWPOINT 15 | WEEKEND 16 | GOINGS ON 20 | MARKETPLACE 21 | REAL ESTATE 23
See RENTAL COMMITTEE, page 9