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It’s been a big year for Google. The tech giant’s expansion plans for Mountain View made the news in 2011 more than any other year, with 11 headlines in the Voice about its plans to build over 1.7 million square feet of offices — while purchasing and leasing even more space.
Residents got together for the first time to publicly grapple with how Google’s presence is changing the city during a “Civility Roundtable” on Oct. 12. Google’s real estate director John Igoe said Google should be “a good neighbor” and hinted that Google even go as far as restoring the wetlands near its new buildings.
Jack Perkins remained critical of how the city was losing its diversity as it changed to an “IQtopia,” of tech workers, a place where people come to make money.
“If we think a corporation has gotten a heart, I think we’ve gone a little too far,” Perkins said of Google’s local philanthropy, which he said would only last as long as Google’s success.
In all, Google spent more than $225 million to purchase over 15 properties in Mountain View by October, including $100 million for a 240,000-square-foot Landmark campus across Charleston Road from Google headquarters, several office buildings near its headquarters and three smaller properties on Terra Bella Avenue, including the home of KMVT, the city’s cable access station, which was assured by Google that it could stay, for now.
The stories began in May when a deal was made for Google to lease 9 acres from the city, once slated for a city-subsidized hotel and convention center, to expand a new office building at Shoreline Boulevard and Charleston Road to 585,000 square feet. Over the next two weeks Google made even more room for future growth, leasing a 450,000-square-foot campus on Ellis Street called The Quad, and purchasing the historic 171,000-square-foot office campus on Villa Street once home to the Pacific Press.
But controversy didn’t come until July when the City Council discussed Google’s plans to build a private pedestrian and auto bridge over Stevens Creek for a convenient connection between Google headquarters and a new 1.2-million-square-foot Google campus to be built at NASA Ames. Council members expressed frustration over a lack of control over a private bridge and potential impacts to Stevens Creek Trail users. Google allayed some concerns by promising that the bridge would be open to the public, and council members eventually supported the plan when a new design for the bridges was presented Nov. 18 in a study session.
MV’s Vargas starts immigration debate
Mountain View’s Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas made national headlines in July, and started a fresh discussion on immigration policy, when he came out as an undocumented immigrant.
In a first-person account for the New York Times, Vargas recalled the struggle of living with a secret he shared with only a few people, including some teachers and administrators at Mountain View High School. He used fake documents to obtain jobs at the country’s top newspapers, including the Washington Post. He recalled being brought from the Philippines at age 12, but did not discover he was here illegally until trying to get his driver’s license at 16, when a DMV employee told him his green card was fake.
The move meant giving up his career in newspapers, but Vargas founded a non-profit, Define American, to raise awareness and push for immigration reform and the Dream Act. He appeared on many major talk shows, and there was opposition to Vargas’ cause. Vargas is currently trying to raise immigration issues in the 2012 presidential election.
Hangar One saved, almost
After nearly a decade of struggle to preserve the massive landmark, 2011 was the year that someone finally came forward and offered to save Hangar One.
In November the founders of Google said they would pay the cost of restoration, estimated at over $46 million, in exchange for a long-term lease that would allow them to use at least part of it for their eight planes. The announcement was met with enthusiasm on the part of preservationists, though there were also concerns that it might prevent the hangar from being used by the public, and concern that any apparent favors for Google might face political opposition. NASA has spent at least two months sitting on the offer, even though there appears to be no other way to fund restoration immediately after the hangar’s asbestos and PCB-laden siding is stripped off entirely next year.
Parents win school funds fight
In February a group of parents led by resident Jim Pollart proved wrong the old adage that “you can’t fight city hall” after persuading the City Council to give schools $13.6 million in property taxes over three years.
The taxes from Google and other North Bayshore property owners were locked in a special tax district, unlike any other in the state, created in 1969 to redirect property taxes to the industrial neighborhood’s redevelopment and Shoreline Park maintenance. While the funding helped create the area now home to Google, it means the Mountain View Whisman School District now sees $5.9 million less a year than it would if the tax district didn’t exist.
Unlike most redevelopment areas, the Shoreline Fund never sunsets, and parents are concerned that the money-sharing deal may not be extended.
Landmarks make way for major developments
In 2011 residents said good-bye to two longtime businesses, Sears and Minton’s Lumber and Supply. Minton’s would be 100 years old this year, a business which once took lumber off trains to build many of the homes downtown. Minton’s itself has now made way for 200 apartments downtown, now under construction by Prometheus Real Estate Group.
After existing as a mainstay of San Antonio Shopping Center since the 1950s, Sears was demolished this year, along with a Rite Aid and several other small businesses. It appears now that Ross and Beverages and More will also be demolished soon to allow a large swath of the shopping center to be redeveloped for a mix of four-story apartment buildings, a new Safeway and dozens of smaller shops.
The City Council also gave approval for another major project that will demolish the 520,000-square-foot building that once housed the Mayfield Mall, the first indoor mall in the region. It was to be demolished in November, but apparently has been delayed. William Lyon Homes is set to build 260 homes and 3.6 acres of park space, as well as a pedestrian tunnel under Central Expressway.
New city manager takes the helm
As the year began, city hall was grappling with a change in leadership. Kevin Duggan, the city’s widely respected city manager since 1990, was due to step down in April. Council members expressed doubt that they would ever find a replacement that could live up to his legacy and city staff said in a meeting that they wished they could clone him.
As a search began for a replacement, Assistant City Manager Melissa Stevenson Dile was selected to help the City Council get through its annual budget process by June while running the day-to-day affairs at City Hall. On May 27 it was announced that Daniel Rich was hired away from his post as Campbell’s city manager to take the reins in Mountain View after the summer break. He’s since taken a low-key approach to his first few months on the job.
Duggan didn’t leave the news right away, as he ended up being instrumental in recruiting new city management to reform the tiny Southern California city of Bell after it was discovered that top city officials were paying themselves as much as $1.5 million a year. Duggan said he was surprised to be hired almost immediately after his retirement as West Coast director of the International City/County Managers Association.
LEGAL IMMIGRATION—NOT—illegal immigrants? There is a vast difference.
Now that we have the results from the Iowa Caucuses, we must carefully peruse the issues as seen by the candidates and the ever present innocuous problem of the illegal alien occupation.
Mitt Romney during a campaign stop in Iowa on New Year’s Eve, the former governor stated that he would veto the so-called DREAM Act if he was president. And as governor of Massachusetts, Romney allowed state troopers to be deputized to help with the enforcement of immigration laws. He also opposed attempts to allow illegal aliens to pay the lower in-state tuition rates at state universities. Although he opposes the DREAM Act, Romney seems open to grant legal residency status to those who serve in the U.S. military.
Rick Santorum throughout his time as senator, Santorum consistently opposed bills that would grant amnesty or other legalization benefits for illegal aliens. He voted against a bill that would have produced a guest worker program with a path to US citizenship for certain illegal aliens. In addition he voted in opposition to a bill that would allow certain illegal aliens to participate in social security system. Rick Santorum also voted in support of constructing a fence along our Southern border and doesn’t believe in amnesty, although he opposes deporting the millions of illegal aliens already residing in the U.S.
Ron Paul has a similar attitude towards illegal immigration, that he opposes Amnesty, but does not support deporting the estimated 20 million plus illegal aliens currently squatting in the U.S. Paul introduced a bill that would amend the 14th Amendment to the Constitution so that children born to non-citizens within the U.S. could not attain automatic citizenship.
Rep. Michele Bachmann, has the best stance on illegal immigration, but sadly she has stepped down as a presidential candidate. Although Bachman has left the race, she will still carry the banner of the TEA PARTY. As Senators and House members are regurgitated so to speak for reelection. We must insist that they will follow the laws passed down to us by our founding fathers? Not the Socialist movement by President Obama and his rat patrol, assaulting the sovereign rights of individual states. Every politician should promise to uphold the U.S. Constitution, which is the promise to tens of millions of TEA PARTY members of freedom and liberty. To restrain a government out of control and shrink it; to rewrite the antique current tax code and replacing it with a fair and equitable tax for all and no special advantages for those in power; open up our abundant oil deposits and tell the environmentalists, ‘to put a sock in it.’
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich surprised his audience at a town hall meeting in Naples, Florida in November. He said, “I am not for a path to citizenship for anybody who got here illegally… But I am for a path to legality for those people whose ties run so deeply in America that it would truly be a tragedy to try and rip their family apart.†But Rick Perry, the Texas governor has not only granted illegal aliens to pay the lower, in-state tuition at state colleges and universities, he also proposed legislation that allows them to receive tax-payer supported state education grants. In August the Obama administration began a new policy that subject to the illegal alien apprehended, only those with severe criminal records would be deported. Perry at a campaign stop in New Hampshire told the crowd that under his administration, “I call this a horrific policy, but the Obama administration has a catch and release policy where non-violent illegal aliens are released into the general public today. My policy will be to detain and to deport every illegal alien that we apprehend. That is how we stop that issue.â€
Just in California, L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich States the illegal alien cost is $550 million for public safety and nearly $500 million for healthcare, the total cost for illegal immigrants to just Los Angeles County taxpayers exceeds $1.6 billion dollars a year. These costs do not include the hundreds of millions of dollars for schools.
Notably is the Liberal press using a different stance to promote the millions of illegal migrants and immigrants already here–saying that it’s good for the economy or asserting these people pay taxes. Yes many do, but they are using either stolen Social Security numbers from innocent citizens, or an IRS number known as an ITIN number. A substantial motivation is they have no alternative, if they want to get a payroll job? Then according to the ‘Heritage Foundation’ the amount of $113 Billion dollars goes to supplementing illegal aliens by hard-pressed taxpayers and every year that amount is rising. The liberal Progressives are also pushing the environmental position, elaborating the issue for no fencing, because it was detrimental to wild life. Of course nothing is said about the crisis situation for ranch owners, who live in fear from the criminals and illegal aliens passing through their land. These parties burglarize their homes, cutting fences and committing other crimes in the four Border States. Equally unappetizing is the mounds of human garbage left in the border regions, with animals caught up in the tangle of plastic bottle holders or other trash.
As released by the IRS, illegal immigrants are returned 4.5 Billion in child/parent tax credits on fraudulent documentation. Little known to most readers is that these foreign invaders send out of the country annually to foreign banks, between 40-46 billion dollars. Yes! They do pay taxes, but it hardly has any impact on the money that is extorted from federal and state taxpayers for children of illegal aliens and drains state treasuries, without compensation. Money going to educate, the massive health care deficit and an overpopulated prison system filled with drug dealers, killers, molesters, pedophiles and a growing proportion of hit and run propagation of drunken drivers; those that are caught.
The Tea Party doesn’t discriminate against any nationality or race, this is an offensive plan by the Democrats to undermine the alternative party who are strictly against illegal immigration, but openly welcomes those who patiently legally wait their turn, in becoming part of the opportunity that is America.
If Obama remains president and reigns supreme for another term, he will rescind the immigration laws that make us safe from drug dealers, drunken hit & run drivers and a whole mess of criminals reaching American soil. The Obama mob led by Eric Holder, Morton, Pelosi and Napolitano have divided American society after not only suing starting with Arizona, but have committed their Liberal agenda of using their mismanaged force to go after Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa county whose duty is to enforce his state law. Obama is complicit in not enforcing immigration laws and now suddenly become slack in deporting nationals. Demand your politician’s co-sponsor the ‘Legal Workforce Bill, known statewide, Mandatory E-Verify. Stop the occupation of our country from other nations, before it’s too late. You can by calling your Senator and Congress person in Congress at 202-224-3121.
Our countries laws are being undermined and our sovereignty trashed by Obama’s mules in the Department of IN-Justice. Join a constitutional-oriented TEA PARTY near you. Make sure Obama becomes a one term president, before his Liberal henchman erodes away the US Constitution. Join the non-profit pro-sovereignty organization. NUMBERSUSA. Be on your guard as illegal aliens have vote and will again in 2012, unless we institute that every voter posses picture ID–which can be authenticated. After the true double fence is built along the border, then at such times a uniform ‘Guest Worker’ program can be enacted by Congress. The TEA PARTY believes in an immigration ‘Point System’ like Europe, Australia and New Zealand, that welcomes highly skilled workers with exception background in Engineering, the Sciences and Mathematics. We must be more selective and enforce the laws as legislated in the 1986 Simpson/Mazzoli bill.
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