I am happy that the homeowners on Jardin Drive got the majority of the Council to agree with them. I don't think their situation is entirely unique -- there are other odd boundaries along the edges of MV, Palo Alto, Los Altos and Sunnyvale that lead to confusion. It shouldn't necessarily be a high priority for the City to address these issues, but I hope this decision will set some sort of precedent if other groups of neighbors request similar boundary adjustments. (I live downtown, so I'm not affected by the issue and don't know any of the homeowners on Jardin.)

Really? Ken Rosenberg is judging the honesty of others?

Is this the same Ken Rosenberg who told us how he would vote on matters during discussions prior to his election, then did the opposite after getting in office?

It takes a strange attitude for anyone to claim they understand the motivations of others. For Ken Rosenberg, it is hypocrisy.

"Mountain View staff informed them that they had to pay for a new connection back to the city's sewer system"

That was too expensive for them.

"As part of the transfer, the Jardin Drive residents will be required to pay for new hookups for CalWater"

But it sounds like that isn't.

Will they have issues with Los Altos? Looking at the map, these lots are much smaller than typical Los Altos parcels. It seems that the developer back in the 50s chose not to incorporate into Los Altos so they could squeeze six houses into a space that would only fit a few houses under Los Altos zoning.

Hope they enjoy that nasty guardia infected water the Los Altans are forced to drink! Love our Hetch Hetchy!

And what is this $9,000/yr lost in taxes? Is that total or just for one of the six houses? Also, I bet those houses are assessed at a very low rate. When they sell, the loss of taxes would probably be 200k or so.

When is it appropriate for an elected official to change their mind?
How much time has to pass between the election of the official and a vote made by the representative that is different than campaign promises? Surely, if no politician ever changed their mind on anything, there could be no progress.

Barack Obama (indeed, most Americans) didn't support "gay marriage" as a candidate, now he does.
Many politicians didn't like the idea of "mixed marriages," and now they do.
Many elected officials didn't support women's right to vote, and then they did.

I think it's ok for an elected to change their mind as long as they explain why. People can disagree with the change, naturally, but one shouldn't be so pure in thought that any divergence from said thought is perceived as a lie. It makes the voter look bad, not the politician.

Rosenburg, Showalter, and Kasperzak changed their mind on the "dedicated" lane...as they explained...because they saw the issue differently after further study. I'm quite convinced that people on this board LOVE to keep bringing it up because they didn't vote for those guys in the first place. If I recall, the majority of contributors to Town Square in the last election supported Matichak, Neal, and Salem. Methinks you all are eating sour grapes.

Personally, I'd rather have someone in office capable of making hard political choices than one who is absolute in their ideology. I remember Stephen Colbert, saying directly to then President George W Bush at the National Correspondence Dinner, "This man is resolute. He believes on Wednesday what he believed on Monday, regardless of what happened on Tuesday." It makes you chuckle, sure. But it belies an inflexibility in Bush that many perceived as a political weakness. The man seemed incapable of processing new information and changing his mind. Yes, many on this board likely see that as a strength. But again, we made very little progress under G.W. Bush. So, a politician with the courage to change their mind, KNOWING arrows will be slung into their backs, is alright by me.

@Water

The $9,000 in taxes is the calculation of the six houses combined. The City doesn't collect 100% of the property taxes...this is just the apportioned amount. Also, some of those houses had turned over within the past few years. So their property taxes are already (relatively) high.

No one knows about Michael Kasperzak who first said about bus-only lanes on April 21, 2014: "I do not know what I want." But Pat Showalter and Ken Rosenberg did not change their minds so soon after the November 2014 election about the absurd plan to seize the left lane on El Camino for an occasional VTA bus by reading anything new (such as the highly critical December 2014 City of Mountain View letter to the VTA). They were approached by VTA operatives and evidently imagined that express buses would be the wave of the future. At least Rosenberg admitted he was wrong to have voted to support the plan -even with the conditioned he expressed. And Showalter said on April 21 she did not support a lane limited to infrequent buses. There is no evidence that Showalter or Rosenberg took a bribe. But they did doublecross voters. While positions can change legitimately, there was no good reason for them to change just a few months after the 2014 campaign. As to the actual topic - giving away property to Los Altos, there are two concerns: (1) what actually motivated staff and some councilmembers to support it and (2) what political (not legal) precedent has been set. On the first concern, it turns out that one of the homeowners is a political insider. As to the second concern, the only feature that distinguishes these houses from other MV houses bordering Los Altos (and Palo Alto) is an alleged sewer issue NOT even mentioned in the written city staff report. So, further inquiry is underway. Stay tuned.

Does anyone know when the Los Altos city council is slated to take up this issue?

Well, the anti-bus brigade is still spewing out lies about the BRT council vote. Sorry, but the side of elitism and snobbery lost on that issue. Get over it. The newly elected council members researched the project, liked what they saw and voted for it.

If this was truly a horrendous decision, then where is the recall? Not even ONE percent of MV residents signed the recall petition! Most MV residents support a rapid bus system. Again, GET OVER IT!

There will be no bus-only lanes on El Camino (at least in this decade) because the VTA will not be able to get a tax measure passed with the threat of bus-only lanes on the table. Sorry VTA bureaucrats, special interests and pro-bus knuckleheads.

No wasteful bus-only lanes on El Camino. Get over it. Or don't.