Jim,

I was sorry to see that the Voice removed your post. Your point is a good one - North Bayshore is not the only issue in this election. The larger issue is whether we will elect a council that will go all-out for maximum housing development, or one that might exercise a little more restraint and good judgment. Within that larger issue are problems of traffic congestion, parking, school capacity, preservation of existing affordable housing, and how to minimize the impact of development on our neighborhoods.

I like your positions on all of these points - except for your advocacy of housing in North Bayshore. I think you are making a mistake on that one.

However, for your positions on the other issues, and (I hope) your willingness to put residents before developers, you will get my vote.

I cannot believe the "Voice" has the gall to remove Jim's posting. This newspaper has devoted more column inches to the other candidates that have bought the most advertising. Jim posted commentary on N. Bayshore, but because he does not buy thousands of dollars in advertising, it gets pulled.

I am not a big Jim Neal fan and agree with the other poster that he is off base on the N Bayshore issue, but do feel that he is one of the candidates that will put current residents FIRST over the desires of large companies and developers.

Shame on you Voice!

I have to wonder why it is that Affordable Housing, Preserving Neighborhoods, Parking and Traffic Issues and The Milk Pail have all been thrown under the bus to focus on the North Bayshore area.

In my opinion, the North Bayshore is only an issue because of the fact that rents have increased by double-digit percentages in the last few years due to the explosion in the approval of new office buildings with many more on the way! The truth is, no matter how much housing is put in the North Bayshore, it will not solve the jobs/housing imbalance that we have here in Mountain View, but it will help to slow it down.

This election is a lot bigger than one issue and I think it would be a good idea for people to focus on the big picture of how we get this resolved in the long term. It took several years for us to get to this point and will take several years to fix the affordable housing crisis.

We also need to insure that our neighborhoods are preserved. In my opinion, we can do this by making sure that all projects, including housing, fit within the neighborhoods in which they are being built and do not displace current residents or successful small businesses that have served the community for years. Building 4 story block long buildings next to single story, single family homes is not a compatible use to me.

Parking and traffic also seriously need to be addressed. In June of last year, Council approved an office building at 250 Bryant St, one block from my house. At the time I spoke out against it because it did not provide sufficient parking and the developer instead paid a $1 million in lieu fee. I told the developer that it was up to him to make sure that he had adequate parking in place, but the council said that there was 'too much' parking downtown already and it wouldn't be a problem. Now it is one year later, the office is not even completed yet and we already have a new paid parking program in place! This to me was an avoidable problem.

I am also very sad to see that The Milk Pail issue has hardly been addressed at all. The only major coverage was because of the tragic loss of one of its employees. To me, The Milk Pail symbolizes with crystal clarity the struggle that we are all facing here in Mountain View; to be able to stay in this city that we love while developers are buying up every single square foot of real estate here that they can get their hands on!

Every city needs to grow, and I am not a no-growth person, but as I said in January the growth must be smart and balanced, which to me means no high density, except possibly in commercial areas. What do you think?

Jim Neal
Old Mountain View

I agree with all three posts above.

My thought about adding housing is that it causes rents to increase, never decrease. The more new stuff we build in MV, the more almost every landlord raises their rents to come up to the new market rent level that the new building has created. It is never simply a supply and demand issue.

And when the new builds replace older stuff, the people that had lived there end up homeless unless they relocate from MV to elsewhere. We end up gentrifying the city ever more! No employees that provide support services are then able to live here any more. That means the janitors, maids, gardeners, sales clerks, car wash employees, etc., must start their days so early in order to drive into MV to do this work for us, or just work elsewhere. Can't we just slow down in our change areas and instead emphasize preserving some older, lower rent places? I want the emphasis to be on preserving the character of MV and the small businesses that serve us without our having to travel far for those services. We have already lost many places. At ECR & Castro St. we are getting 4.5 (.5 because we get half of Peet's) of what were 15 small business before the redevelopment. Not good enough.

You have got my vote Jim Neal, as I know you were at all the Rose Market rallies that helped it!

If only you were already on the council, we would be able to help all the others that are being forced out of business, like Gochi's Japanese Fusion Tapas Restaurant! Such delicious food you can get no where else and the owner/chef is getting screwed even worse than the Better Bagel that was at least offered an insufficient sum to relocate. Gochi's has been offered nothing. Thing is, customers of both places never wanted either to have to relocate! Their locations suited us perfectly! And when they can't afford to move, they die.

The south end of Castro was developing into just as nice and happening place as the other end of Castro. Why did our own City Council have to kill it?

North Bayshore is a great resource for Mountain View but it is being misused. The proposal to add 3.5 Million square feet of office space here is a really bad one. The idea of cutting out 2 Million square feet and replacing it by housing is excelling. We're talking about as many as 20,000 fewer workers than are proposed commuting into the city each day.

NO WONDER that is an idea which captures the eye of the voting public. It's not about the housing being added--it's about removing the competition for the existing housing posed by that extra 20,000 new workers and potentially their families too.

@Explainer - Here's an even better idea: Cut the projected office space by 2 million square feet, and don't replace it with housing. Let Google, or whoever owns the land, just deal with it.

There are plenty of reasons that North Bayshore is a bad place to put housing, whether it's 1,000 or 5,000 units, and I won't rehash all that here.

But let's get back to the subject of this thread. This election is bigger than just the North Bayshore issue. It's about development citywide - how fast, how much, what kind. It's about traffic congestion, parking, school capacity, preservation of existing affordable housing, and how to minimize the impact of development on our neighborhoods.

My votes are going to Lisa Matichak, Mercedes Salem, and Jim Neal. They are our best bet for more careful development, that will preserve the character of our city.

Thanks for the encouragement! I would have liked to weigh in more on these issues, but despite the fact that I emailed my correct contact information to the Voice on at least 3 separate occasions, they somehow kept misplacing it and sending emails for the important issues to the old unused account and they lost my phone number as well; so they kept having to print that I did not respond. At least they managed to keep up with the information for all the others!


Jim Neal
Old Mountain View

i'm disgusted

this is a summary of 2 posts from: NEC finances "toilet water" attack ad in Water District race" Original post made on Nov 3, 2014 www.mv-voice.com/square/2014/11/03/nec-finances-toilet-water-attack-ad-in-water-district-race

- NEC's treasurer Gary Crummitt has 2 violations and 1 warning from the FPPC this year alone! see here: Web Link
- in addition, NEC also paid 5,000 dollars to Barry Wyatt Associates
- Barry Wyatt Associates was until recently (it's still in Google's cache) part of Robinson Communication's team see here: Web Link
- and guess who's running Kremen's water district campaign.... Rich Robinson
- Ellen Kamei also used Robinson. She paid Robinson close to 18,000.00 (according to her campaign)for that awful mailer.
- There is a NEC mailer supporting her regarding traffic and then she sends out that mailer about traffic that was created by essentially the same people.
-Gary Kremen and Ellen Kamie share an office space and are having their election night party together.

This is all making sense.

WOW. This is bad.

Maybe the expenditures are truly independent but what a series of coincidences...