"Water officials are trying to determine a reason for the drop"

"The state stopped requiring a 25 percent water savings rate in June"

Maybe lifting the mandatory conservation had something to do with it.

And so, as reported in another article, the City will support building more high density housing bringing more (500+) people to consume water we will not have.
This makes no sense.

There have been hundreds of apartments built here in Mountain View in the last years and they are planning to build hundreds more. Is there some reason these geniuses can't make a connection between this and the increased water use?

City planners should try PLANNING for a change. If a city doesn't have the resources (i.e. WATER, schools, police, fire prevention, etc.) to serve the new buildings and residents, then the housing should NOT be approved. The CURRENT residents should not suffer just because the city council has dollars signs in their eyes about the tax revenue generated by more building.

People want to come here because it isn't horrible to live here - yet. With the constant paving and packing more people in, it won't take long for it to become horrible. Too bad the city plan is more about money and less about people.

The same day I published my recent research future land-use related water demand in California (which basically said we need to maintain municipal restrictions), the governor lifted the restrictions. Check out this interview by Matt Weiser, longtime water reporter, about my findings:
Web Link

Nobody wants to move to Mountain View, too many people live here.

As is all too common with these stories, the focus is on urban users who
constitute a small fraction of the total. A drive through the Central
Valley reveals copious irrigation, and ongoing planting of new orchards.
"Water Rights Holders" don't even have to use their taxpayer subsidized
water to grow crops, they can just sell it back to municipalities, and
laugh all the way to the bank.