In a candidate forum held on Wednesday afternoon, eight hopefuls competing for a Mountain View City Council seats were largely in agreement that the city's top challenges were meeting the area's housing and transportation needs.

But in many ways the similarities ended there, and the candidates each laid out separate visions for how the would solve these and other problems. Returning candidates including councilmen John McAlister and Chris Clark along with former councilwoman Margaret Abe-Koga urged voters to give them more time to see their long-term plans mature for the city. Meanwhile, newcomer candidates including Human Relations Commissioner Lucas Ramirez, Parks and Recreation Commissioner Thida Cornes and Environmental Planner Commissioner Lisa Matichak each presented themselves as just as qualified to address the city's demands as the old guard (if not more so). On the further edges of the spectrum were Mountain View Whisman School District trustee Greg Coladonato and Cisco Systems manager Kacey Carpenter, who proposed a different mindset for Mountain View as the best way forward.

The event, held at the Googleplex campus before an audience of more than 100, was the second political forum for City Council candidates to make their pitch to voters. Organized by the Los Altos-Mountain View chapter of the League of Women Voters, this forum was organized to force candidates to give relatively short, 60-second answers to complicated topics that surely consumed countless hours at City Hall.

The setting was apt since much of Mountain View's long-term growth will be centered just a matter of blocks from the Google headquarter in the North Bayshore region. Asked about the plan for massive apartment construction in the area, candidates largely agreed the area had tremendous opportunity to be a model for a sustainable mix of dense office and residential growth. Cornes and McAlister both emphasized that the city should temper the push for housing by ensuring parks and wildlife were preserved in the area. Clark and Abe-Koga both used the opportunity to point to their experience working on the North Bayshore precise plan. Matichak and Ramirez both talked about the potential benefits of having a large number of homes in a walkable community. Carpenter pointed out North Bayshore presented a great opportunity for public-private partnerships.

Taking a different approach, Coladonato expressed bafflement as to why the city was so intricately involved in planning the area. He pointed out that the city's blocked past attempts by Google to build housing in the area, and he suggested a better plan would be to give tech companies more power to control their own local growth.

“I think it's strange that the city should decide what's on every parcel of land,” Coladonato said. “I'd rather let Google decide what their new headquarters is going to be like.”

The forum touched on rent-control, the gatekeeper process, the planned Castro Street closure and a bevy of other topics. But not all candidates got a chance to chime in on every issue; moderator Julie Cates switched to a new question after three or four candidates answered, leaving some candidates visibly frustrated they lost a chance to touch on a particular campaign plank.

Only a subset of the candidates were given an opportunity to comment on rent control, the hot-button issue of this November's election. In previous commentary, Carpenter has come out in support of the citizen-backed Measure V, while McAlister, Clark, Abe-Koga and Matichak have stated support for Measure W, the council's alternative. Ramirez has stated he will endorse both measures while Coladonato is opposing both. Cornes says that she is remaining neutral on both measures.

In a line he repeated a few times, Carpenter asserted Mountain View was at an "inflection point" when good leadership was necessary. He warned that the city needed to protect its diversity and ensure that everyone had an opportunity.

Asked about the Castro Street closure, Cornes took aim at the City Council, saying they lost an opportunity to potentially tunnel the Caltrain tracks and Central Expressway under the roadway. This could have opened up an opportunity to build a new swath of valuable property over the roadway, she said. In response, Clark defended the council's decision, saying it would have cost far more money and caused more disruption to the business community if the city had tried to keep Castro Street open.

Some candidates were asked to list their top infrastructure priorities, and many zeroed in on transportation as their No. 1 goal. Abe-Koga added in that saving the city's BikeShare program was also important. Getting broadband internet throughout the city was also vital, added McAlister. Along with transit improvments, Cornes also picked recycled water as a priority.

"We're still in a drought and we'll be there for many years," she said while admitting that reclaimed water wasn't exactly a "sexy" building project to rally behind.

Playing to the crowd at Google, candidates were repeatedly asked about Mountain View's relationship with the high-tech community. Ramirez pointed out that many of the city's large companies have acted as good corporate citizens who share many of the same concerns and priorities as local residents. Google, Microsoft and other companies needed room to expand and the city should be aiding them to sustainably grow, he said. Adding to this idea, Matichak pointed to the recently completed Charleston retention basin as a good example of how Google had addressed local environmental concerns.

Organizers for the event said the full video of the candidates forum will be made available at the local League of Women Voters website.