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‘Google tax’
Poor little Alphabet; after taking in $110 billion in revenue in 2017 and raking in over $70 billion in pure profit over the last five years, the proposed Mountain View employee tax (“‘Google tax’ heads to voters in November,” June 29) amounts to a .004 percent tax on those profits.
If Alphabet cannot handle a .004 percent tax to repay the community for the impact they have had on our roads, rentals and restaurants, then they can go do evil someplace else.
Ed Taub
Devoto Street
Don’t fall for the lies
When my family made the decision in 2017 to move to Silicon Valley, we looked to find a progressive city that valued human rights and quickly settled on moving to Mountain View, especially once I discovered that the voters of Mountain View passed a rent stabilization measure in 2016. Having lived in the Washington, D.C. area for the majority of my adult life, I know how important strong rent control laws are for protecting the least privileged and most hard-working people in a city.
After becoming a renter in Mountain View just a year ago, I quickly discovered that the California Apartment Association (CAA) and greedy corporate landlords want to dismantle rent control in Mountain View by getting a deceptively named petition (“The Mountain View Homeowner, Renter, and Taxpayer Protection Initiative”) on the ballot this November. Since late April, I have been approached by numerous paid signature gatherers on my trips to Nob Hill on Grant who have been hired by the CAA. The different paid signature gatherers I encountered each provided various lies and misinformation about the Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act (CSFRA) to get me to believe that “rent control isn’t working” in Mountain View. Not one of these paid signature gatherers explained that the petition has a clause regarding the vacancy rate that will turn off the very provisions in the CSFRA working to protect renters in Mountain View.
Luckily I am an informed voter (thanks to the information provided by the Mountain View Tenants Coalition) and I never signed the petition, but I’m very concerned about the thousands of other Mountain View voters who have been tricked by the misinformation being spread by these paid signature gatherers. I implore all voters in Mountain View to not fall for the lies and don’t sign this sneaky repeal of rent control, which is working to protect our diverse community. If you did sign, take action immediately and fill out a signature withdrawal form at mvtenantscoalition.org/remove-your-signature.
Heather Phipps
Centre Street
LASD school plans
I thought our City Council had some empathy for small businesses and the people that work there. Apparently, I was wrong. I think it is obscene to use “eminent domain” to get rid of all those small businesses and the Kohl’s department store (“Council gives the green light to shopping center school plans,” June 29). I personally go to Kohl’s, Pearl Cafe, and the Chinese restaurant. I do not want to see those businesses removed. I also think the location is lousy for a school. It is surrounded by busy streets. A school should be near a quiet residential area with safe streets, not speeding cars and buses. Bad idea, City Council!
Melinda Rosenaur
Montecito Avenue
November election candidates
Here is my bi-annual call for candidates for local offices. Three of seven City Council seats are up for election. Two incumbents plan to run. Seats on all local school boards are up, along with seats on the boards of the hospital district, the valley water district and the regional open space district. The filing deadline is August 10 but is extended five days when an eligible incumbent does not run.
The chief issues in the council race should be (1) whether to stop adding office space and tens of thousands of new workers in North Bayshore and elsewhere in the city, and (2) whether to keep or undermine restrictions on residential rent increases in older (pre-1995) apartments that are legally subject to local control. City Council candidates without clear positions on key issues deserve no votes. And watch out for “independent” campaigning by obscure special interest groups.
Gary Wesley
Continental Circle
High school stadium lights
We are deeply troubled by the current proposal to install massive stadium lights and blasting public address systems at the MVLA high school campuses. We need livable neighborhoods and quality schools, not stadium style sports fields. Our priorities are best served by striving to improve classrooms, teaching and technology, not the destruction of a neighborhood by severely affecting the quality of life we all believed would be maintained and respected.
Installation of these lights would be an unresolvable imposition on neighbors, creating more traffic and parking problems, crime, noise and light pollution, as well as opening up the campuses up to third party exploitation.
Dr. Peter Gise and Susan Gise
Los Altos
Bike space on trains
Caltrain should increase projected bike capacity on electric trains. The current capacity is behind demand, and the board agreed in 2015 to increase capacity on electric trains but staff continue to attempt to back away from the 2015 board directive. Please add bike space to electric trains with seating available in bike cars to limit the threat of theft.
Scott Yarbrough
San Francisco
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It’s about time that MVLA finally installed field lighting for the sports fields at MVHS and LAHS. These are long overdue and will finally put our high schools on par with what almost every other high school of similar size already has. The lights will benefit much more than football. Soccer, Track and Field, Marching Band, cheer, intramurals, and others will also benefit. These scare tactics from the neighbors who oppose the lights are completely selfish and overblown!
Without lights practice times are severely curtailed and games get scheduled early in the afternoon when parents have difficulty attending. I’m all for lights, please install them.
I can say this. If they do put in lights and abuse the neighborhoods the way they did with all the trash and parking problems around the school in the case of Mountain View High School and the portable lights, they will come to regret it.
These days, school should be more than a social event one out of every few Fridays. This change is a step too far based on pure nostalgia which has no actual need nor merit.
This is not about Friday night football. This is about improving the situation of limited field space and availability due to not having lights. There might only be 2-3 Friday night football games per year. However, there will be many nights when the field lights are used for soccer, track and field, marching band, practices, etc.. These are not events which draw crowds and would have no impact on the surrounding neighborhood. It is unfortunate that there is a small group of neighbors opposing these much needed improvements for our high schools. The opposition have no facts to back up their arguments.
As Judge Judy says “Don’t pee on my shoes and tell me it’s raining.” It’s all about football. It’s only in the winter months that there is any issue with darkness, and that means Football. Any other use is not the intended purpose and is even less logical.
Let there be light! Sign the petition!
https://www.change.org/p/let-there-be-light-lights-for-the-lahs-and-mvhs-football-fields
Lights and noise and teenage packs in the neighborhoods near Mountain View and Los Altos high schools until 10 or 11pm will be bad for neighbors. Night home football games have always been played at Foothill College which has no neighbors. And Foothill College is a nice place for high schoolers to visit. For one thing, it can remind or inform them that high school is not atop the educational ladder. There is more to learn and more to do. But lights will be added because the neighbors are politically impotent.