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Say this for Mountain View. It’s doing its half to sort out the area’s housing disaster. After which some.
Working with Google, a significant landowner within the metropolis, town has two large initiatives within the works. North Bayshore would add 7,000 housing items, together with 20% which are inexpensive, making it one of many largest residential initiatives in Bay Space historical past. The Middlefield Park plan, positioned within the East Whisman space, requires a further 1,900 housing items. Google is donating enough land to town that may permit Mountain View to construct the equal of 20% inexpensive housing for the venture.
The Metropolis Council additionally has acted prudently in the course of the pandemic, leading to a $3.5 million projected surplus for this fiscal 12 months. Mountain View continues to have a powerful monetary outlook.
Town correctly devoted $5 million of its federal aid funding in the course of the pandemic to stop additional homelessness. And it transformed Castro Road right into a pedestrian pleasant, car-free downtown space, serving to small companies survive.
Mountain View voters ought to reward the council’s efforts by reelecting incumbents Alison Hicks, Ellen Kamei and Lucas Ramirez within the Nov. 8 election.
5 candidates are vying for the three open seats on the seven-member council. The 2 challengers are Tesla senior supervisor Li Zhang and Tesla engineer Justin Cohen.
Hicks, Kamei and Ramirez deliver various backgrounds to the Metropolis Council, offering priceless experience in a variety of areas.
Hicks is retired after serving as a planner for town of San Jose and as affiliate director on the Northern California Land Belief, the nonprofit that advocates for inexpensive housing and homeless transitional housing. The Metropolis Council is decided to make the North Bayshore and Middlefield Park initiatives bicycle and pedestrian pleasant. Hicks, who brings work
expertise and a UC-Berkeley grasp’s diploma in metropolis planning, will probably be invaluable in creating walkable streets that permit residents of all incomes to dwell nearer to their office.
Kamei, an exterior affairs supervisor for AT&T, is a local of Mountain View who beforehand served as a district director for Assemblyman Marc Berman and as a coverage aide for Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian. Kamei is hard-working and pragmatic. She is decided to make sure that Mountain View’s housing initiatives improve multi-modal transportation and pedestrian choices within the metropolis and that the Metropolis Council present extra public parks and shield open house.
Ramirez, a coverage analyst for town of San Jose, is laser-focused on maximizing the variety of inexpensive housing items in Mountain View. He’s well-versed on land-use points and the influence of state legal guidelines on cities. And like Hicks and Kamei, Ramirez is an effective listener who has helped create a congenial ambiance on the Metropolis Council. Previous to being elected to the council in 2018, he served on town’s Environmental Planning Fee, serving to him present enter on town’s sustainability efforts.
Zhang has no expertise serving on a metropolis fee and has solely just lately develop into engaged within the metropolis’s politics. She wish to see town sluggish its housing initiatives and questions whether or not Mountain View has developed the infrastructure to assist the deliberate development. She is vibrant and well-versed on environmental sustainability points. We wish
to see her achieve extra expertise on a metropolis fee after which run once more for workplace.
Cohen didn’t reply to our requests for an interview. His effort to make his greatest weak spot a energy doesn’t wash. He reportedly has by no means attended a council assembly and has no earlier political expertise. He needs to construct an app to permit residents to vote on each subject that comes earlier than the council so he’ll know find out how to vote. Um, that’s why voters elect councilmembers with the information, experience and political savvy to make these choices.
Hicks, Kamei and Ramirez have proven the power to just do that. Mountain View voters ought to give them one other 4 years on the Metropolis Council.
