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The contest is set for Mountain View’s upcoming election. Voters this November will have their pick between six candidates for City Council and two ballot initiatives.

The six City Council candidates are retired urban planner Alison Hicks, former City Councilman John Inks, legislative director Ellen Kamei, public policy analyst Lucas Ramirez, City Councilwoman Pat Showalter, and Mayor Lenny Siegel.

Three out of the seven seats on the Mountain View City Council are open in the 2018 election.

A pair of city-sponsored tax initiatives that will head to voters in November now have their official ballot designations: measures P and Q.

Measure P is the city’s bid to update its business license tax to dramatically increase the fees on the city’s largest employers. Under the current system, most companies, both large and small, pay license fees that are typically around $34 per year. The new proposed system would charge businesses based on the size of their workforce. Google, in particular, would see a huge fee jump if the new tax structure were to pass. Any business with less than $5,000 in revenues would not have to pay the license fees.

An illustration of how this would impact individual businesses can be found here.

Measure Q is the city’s new tax on cannabis sales. The law would allow retail marijuana shops to open up in Mountain View, and it would also establish a new 9 percent tax surcharge on any of their sales.

Both measures need a simple majority of yes-votes to pass.

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  1. I think both of these taxes will be good for my city, which I think of as more a progressive place than a reactionary or conservative place. Large employers can more afford to handle the real costs of having SO MANY employees impact my home city environment. And, weed is now legal enough in California, by a state-wide majority vote, that we should figure out how to get local revenue from it’s recreational sale within our city.

    YES on Measure P
    YES on Measure Q
    (mind your Ps and Qs)

  2. Everybody has one here and they all think they’re right and that the other side is insane. Then they’ll tell YOU how to vote, because without them and their support and/or name calling, how would you know? After that we can all watch the “Likes” so we can feel validated, even though we’re Liking our own comment. Ahhh, I matter.

  3. I think this is going to hurt small businesses. Google can afford the tax. What about the restaurants, coffee shops, vac n sew, etc? Will they all just pass the cost on to us, their consumers, by increasing prices?? To heck with this tax!

  6. For City Council it should be clear to everyone:

    Anyone BUT Siegel, Showalter and Rosenberg. It’s high time a new council is elected to lift Mountain View out of the cf it’s in now.

  8. You said,
    “I think both of these taxes will be good for my city, which I think of as more a progressive place than a reactionary or conservative place”

    Here is another tax that I know “progressives” are happy about, that is the “Gas and Vehicle Tax”

    Republicans got in on the state ballot for a repeal vote by the people. Is is known as Proposition 6 on the ballot.

    The Democrats and Governor Brown fought like hell to kill it, and now they are even using Caltrans to stop cars on the freeway to hand out flyers to oppose this ballot Proposition.

    Who ever said that progressives are for the little people have been smoking way too much of that funny stuff.

    After November 6 and proposition 6 is repealed, the little people can thank the Republican party for that.

    Vote Yes on Prop.6

  9. Could someone list the party affiliation of the candidates of the city council candidates? I know the council is non-partisan but the party of a candidate is the single most important factor for my vote.

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