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Year in Review: Learning to live with COVID-19 and getting back to business on big issues in Mountain View

Hundreds of demonstrators march down Castro Street during the "Bans Off Our Bodies" protest in Mountain View on May 14, 2022. Photo by Magali Gauthier.

With COVID-19 still very much among us, the pandemic was by no means a non-issue this year. But for Mountain View, this year was about getting back to business on some of the pre-pandemic issues – things like the housing crisis, homelessness and income disparities – that were only exacerbated and magnified during the previous two years.

Recognizing the financial toll of the pandemic on its residents, the city of Mountain View launched a universal basic income pilot program in September, and the first cash payments were delivered to participants in mid-December. The city hit its stride this year with affordable housing projects, securing funding and purchasing land for future developments. Meanwhile, Mountain View has been contending with the state-mandated Housing Element update, where it must prove how it’s going to build enough housing to help combat California’s housing crisis – a goal that not everyone is optimistic the city can easily achieve.

A city truck arrives at Monta Loma Park in Mountain View on August 10, 2022. Photo by Adam Pardee.

But a city can’t talk about growth without also talking about the infrastructure and public amenities needed to support it. City officials had their fair share of hard conversations with residents this year about quality of life issues in Mountain View: the dearth of accessible green space in neighborhoods like Monta Loma; concerns about downtown Mountain View becoming overrun by office developments; once-quiet streets suddenly lined with RVs after hundreds of unhoused vehicle dwellers were forced to uproot their lives; the urgent need to improve safe bike routes following the tragic death of a child on his way to school.

Mountain View made big strides this year, but newly reelected City Council incumbents say there’s a lot more work to be done on issues that are finally coming off the pandemic backburner.

RV rules and homelessness

This year proved to be a tumultuous one for Mountain View’s unhoused population, particularly those who live in RVs.

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Just days into the new year, litigation filed in federal court ordered that the city suspend enforcement of its RV parking ban on streets with bike lanes and streets that are 40 feet wide or narrower, which encompasses the majority of city streets. The city’s RV rules, which were passed by the City Council in 2019 and then reaffirmed by voter referendum in 2020, didn’t end up being enforced until after the lawsuit was settled in late August.

On Oct. 1, those rules took effect, forcing RV vehicle dwellers to move their homes to a few streets, and to keep moving every three days due to the city’s 72 hour parking rule. Meanwhile, some residents who never had an RV parked outside their homes before suddenly found their entire street lined with them. Some criticized the city for not having a better plan for how the new rules would impact both RV dwellers and homeowners.

Housing and growth

Hand in glove with the conversation around homelessness is the severe need for more affordable housing – both to get people off the streets and into stable living conditions, but also to keep people from becoming homeless in the first place.

The city is ending 2022 with a strong pipeline of affordable housing projects, and continues to forge vital partnerships with affordable housing nonprofits and the county. In March, the nonprofit Charities Housing announced that it was purchasing two properties along Evelyn Avenue for development into affordable housing. A couple months later, the city announced plans to turn the former Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) parking lot that currently serves as a safe parking site into as many as 220 affordable apartments. In June, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors accepted a $16.6 million Project Homekey grant to convert the 67-room Crestview Hotel into 49 affordable housing units, and then in September, supervisors also approved the purchase of a property within the North Bayshore Precise Plan area to develop 100 affordable units. Later that month, a proposed affordable housing project on Terra Bella Avenue in Mountain View nabbed a $13.5 million financial commitment from the city.

The VTA parking lot at the corner of Evelyn Avenue and Pioneer Way on May 7, 2019. Photo by Magali Gauthier

But whether these efforts will be enough to meet state housing standards remains to be seen. The city is in the midst of updating its Housing Element, a process by which jurisdictions must show that they can meet housing development quotas set by the state.

Cities are required to update their Housing Elements every eight years, but this cycle is proving to be more intensive than ever before, with the state tightening its standards and threatening serious consequences if cities don’t submit compliant Housing Elements.

City staff is optimistic that Mountain View’s draft Housing Element – which holds that the city is capable of building more than 17,000 housing units in the next eight years – will be accepted by the state.

But community members and elected officials alike are wary. The state requires that cities build housing that’s affordable to a variety of income levels, but it has strict guidelines to ensure that jurisdictions put programs in place to “affirmatively further fair housing,” meaning that cities commit to getting affordable housing built, and that this housing isn’t condensed in low-resourced areas. At a December council meeting, Mayor Lucas Ramirez was uneasy about how the current draft distributes potential affordable units throughout the city.

“I don’t share the optimism that staff has,” Ramirez said bluntly.

With the Housing Element deadline approaching fast on Jan. 31, cities across California will soon find out if their plans are good enough.

Schools and education

2022 marked the third calendar year in which local schools were faced with responding to the coronavirus pandemic, and was also the year in which the last of the COVID-19 safety rules on campuses were largely removed.

Junior Conor Pugsley arrives on campus with his sister freshman Catherine Pugsley for the first day of in-person instruction at Mountain View High School on April 19, 2021. Photo by Magali Gauthier.

January dawned with surging COVID-19 cases at local schools as the omicron variant spread, leading to challenges ensuring adequate staffing levels. By the end of the month, cases were trending downwards and in March, the state lifted its school mask mandate.

Most districts followed suit and no longer required face coverings, but Mountain View Whisman was one of the few to take a more cautious approach. It kept its mask mandate in place for the remainder of the spring, except for roughly a month between late March and late April. When classes began this fall, masks continued to be required, but the rule was dropped in less than two weeks as cases fell in the county. Schools continue to work on addressing the lost learning and mental health challenges that students have experienced during the pandemic.

Thida Cornes, Eric Mark, Esmeralda Ortiz, Jacquie Tanner, Carrol Titus-Zambre and MVLA school board president Catherine Vonnegut. Cornes and Titus-Zambre photos contributed. Mark, Ortiz, Tanner and Vonnegut photos by Magali Gauthier.

When it came to elections, 2022 saw a competitive school board race in the Mountain View Los Altos Union High School District. With three spots up for a vote on the five-member board and two incumbents choosing not to run, six candidates put their hats in the ring for the trio of open seats. Ultimately, voters picked incumbent Catherine Vonnegut, along with newcomers Esmeralda Ortiz and Thida Cornes.

Mountain View Whisman's school board race was uncontested this time around. Only incumbent Devon Conley and former trustee Bill Lambert filed to run. Lambert, who previously served from 2012 to 2016, replaced longtime board member Ellen Wheeler, who retired after 20 years on the board.

The Foothill-De Anza Community College District's board also had an uncontested race, with incumbents Pearl Cheng and Patrick Ahrens getting another term. The lack of challengers was despite Foothill-De Anza adopting a new election model this spring, in which the district was split into five geographic zones and voters in each region now pick a trustee who lives in their area.

2022 was also a year in which local schools planned for the future. Although schools have seen enrollment drop during the pandemic, Mountain View Whisman is bracing for an expected influx of students in the longer term as more housing is built locally. The district has been trying to find ways to raise money to construct new campuses to serve these future students.

Mountain View Whisman School District Superintendent Ayindé Rudolph speaks to attendees of a teacher and staff housing groundbreaking in Mountain View on Nov. 3, 2022. Photo by Magali Gauthier.

Mountain View Whisman also broke ground this year on a project to build 123 units of housing for teachers and other school staff members. The effort is an attempt to help retain employees in light of the sky-high cost of housing in Silicon Valley. Construction was delayed by the pandemic, but the goal is to have the units completed in 2024.

Looking forward

Vice Mayor Alison Hicks, council member Ellen Kamei and Mayor Lucas Ramirez. Photos by Magali Gauthier.

If there was one thing that didn’t change this year, it was the make-up of the Mountain View City Council on election night. All three incumbents – Mayor Lucas Ramirez, Vice Mayor Alison Hicks and Council member Ellen Kamei – won reelection on Nov. 8, each vowing to use their next term to chip away at issues that the pandemic forced off the priority list.

Sally Lieber. Photo by Magali Gauthier.

But the council will still get a fresh face come the New Year: After winning a seat on the State Board of Equalization, Mountain View City Council member Sally Lieber announced her resignation from council in December after learning about a conflict of interest between the two positions. The council will meet during the first week of January to talk about how it wants to fill the vacancy.

The new council will be tasked with rounding out the Housing Element update process, making good on the city’s affordable housing promises, and of course, contending with all the other unsolved issues that COVID-19 either created or uncovered in the past three years.

Here are other notable moments in photos this year:

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Wylie Pang self-administers a nasal swab at a COVID-19 test site run by Santa Clara County while county librarian Sarah Neeri, who is working at the site, watches at the Center for Performing Arts in Mountain View on Jan. 24, 2022. Licensed vocational nurse Monica Somawang administers the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to Sebastian, 6 months old, while his father, Jon Thacker, holds him at a vaccination site in Mountain View on June 22, 2022. Photos by Magali Gauthier.

Ryan Lara and Lisa Retana, Andre Retana's parents, participate in a moment of silence in honor of their 13-year-old son who died on March 17 after a collision while riding his bicycle, along El Camino Real in Mountain View on March 24, 2022. Photo by Magali Gauthier.

U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo speaks with David Korsmeyer, the associate center director for research and technology at NASA Ames Research Center, after a tour of the restoration work at Hangar One at Moffett Field on May 6, 2022. U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren speaks about rights at stake following the leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion on the future of Roe v. Wade, at a press conference outside City Hall in Mountain View on May 6, 2022. Photos by Magali Gauthier.

March for Our Lives rally and protest organizer Khushi Nigam, founder of the organization Young and Loud and a rising senior at Lynbrook High School, leads demonstrators down Castro Street in Mountain View on June 11, 2022. Photo by Magali Gauthier.

Volunteer Jake Lee scoops a slice of a breakfast casserole into a takeout container in Hope's Corner's kitchen at Trinity United Methodist Church in Mountain View on Nov. 16, 2022. Lisa Huang tries to catch her son Ryden, 2, so the family can take a photo together with Santa Claus at the community Tree Lighting Celebration in downtown Mountain View on Dec. 5, 2022. Photos by Magali Gauthier.

Restaurant bloggers Lala Mayjer, left, and Michael Leadon, right, cheers before eating some Blue Line Pizza slices during Taste of Mountain View on June 22, 2022. Photo by Magali Gauthier.

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Year in Review: Learning to live with COVID-19 and getting back to business on big issues in Mountain View

by Malea Martin and Zoe Morgan / Mountain View Voice

Uploaded: Tue, Jan 3, 2023, 11:46 am

With COVID-19 still very much among us, the pandemic was by no means a non-issue this year. But for Mountain View, this year was about getting back to business on some of the pre-pandemic issues – things like the housing crisis, homelessness and income disparities – that were only exacerbated and magnified during the previous two years.

Recognizing the financial toll of the pandemic on its residents, the city of Mountain View launched a universal basic income pilot program in September, and the first cash payments were delivered to participants in mid-December. The city hit its stride this year with affordable housing projects, securing funding and purchasing land for future developments. Meanwhile, Mountain View has been contending with the state-mandated Housing Element update, where it must prove how it’s going to build enough housing to help combat California’s housing crisis – a goal that not everyone is optimistic the city can easily achieve.

But a city can’t talk about growth without also talking about the infrastructure and public amenities needed to support it. City officials had their fair share of hard conversations with residents this year about quality of life issues in Mountain View: the dearth of accessible green space in neighborhoods like Monta Loma; concerns about downtown Mountain View becoming overrun by office developments; once-quiet streets suddenly lined with RVs after hundreds of unhoused vehicle dwellers were forced to uproot their lives; the urgent need to improve safe bike routes following the tragic death of a child on his way to school.

Mountain View made big strides this year, but newly reelected City Council incumbents say there’s a lot more work to be done on issues that are finally coming off the pandemic backburner.

RV rules and homelessness

This year proved to be a tumultuous one for Mountain View’s unhoused population, particularly those who live in RVs.

Just days into the new year, litigation filed in federal court ordered that the city suspend enforcement of its RV parking ban on streets with bike lanes and streets that are 40 feet wide or narrower, which encompasses the majority of city streets. The city’s RV rules, which were passed by the City Council in 2019 and then reaffirmed by voter referendum in 2020, didn’t end up being enforced until after the lawsuit was settled in late August.

On Oct. 1, those rules took effect, forcing RV vehicle dwellers to move their homes to a few streets, and to keep moving every three days due to the city’s 72 hour parking rule. Meanwhile, some residents who never had an RV parked outside their homes before suddenly found their entire street lined with them. Some criticized the city for not having a better plan for how the new rules would impact both RV dwellers and homeowners.

Housing and growth

Hand in glove with the conversation around homelessness is the severe need for more affordable housing – both to get people off the streets and into stable living conditions, but also to keep people from becoming homeless in the first place.

The city is ending 2022 with a strong pipeline of affordable housing projects, and continues to forge vital partnerships with affordable housing nonprofits and the county. In March, the nonprofit Charities Housing announced that it was purchasing two properties along Evelyn Avenue for development into affordable housing. A couple months later, the city announced plans to turn the former Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) parking lot that currently serves as a safe parking site into as many as 220 affordable apartments. In June, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors accepted a $16.6 million Project Homekey grant to convert the 67-room Crestview Hotel into 49 affordable housing units, and then in September, supervisors also approved the purchase of a property within the North Bayshore Precise Plan area to develop 100 affordable units. Later that month, a proposed affordable housing project on Terra Bella Avenue in Mountain View nabbed a $13.5 million financial commitment from the city.

But whether these efforts will be enough to meet state housing standards remains to be seen. The city is in the midst of updating its Housing Element, a process by which jurisdictions must show that they can meet housing development quotas set by the state.

Cities are required to update their Housing Elements every eight years, but this cycle is proving to be more intensive than ever before, with the state tightening its standards and threatening serious consequences if cities don’t submit compliant Housing Elements.

City staff is optimistic that Mountain View’s draft Housing Element – which holds that the city is capable of building more than 17,000 housing units in the next eight years – will be accepted by the state.

But community members and elected officials alike are wary. The state requires that cities build housing that’s affordable to a variety of income levels, but it has strict guidelines to ensure that jurisdictions put programs in place to “affirmatively further fair housing,” meaning that cities commit to getting affordable housing built, and that this housing isn’t condensed in low-resourced areas. At a December council meeting, Mayor Lucas Ramirez was uneasy about how the current draft distributes potential affordable units throughout the city.

“I don’t share the optimism that staff has,” Ramirez said bluntly.

With the Housing Element deadline approaching fast on Jan. 31, cities across California will soon find out if their plans are good enough.

Schools and education

2022 marked the third calendar year in which local schools were faced with responding to the coronavirus pandemic, and was also the year in which the last of the COVID-19 safety rules on campuses were largely removed.

January dawned with surging COVID-19 cases at local schools as the omicron variant spread, leading to challenges ensuring adequate staffing levels. By the end of the month, cases were trending downwards and in March, the state lifted its school mask mandate.

Most districts followed suit and no longer required face coverings, but Mountain View Whisman was one of the few to take a more cautious approach. It kept its mask mandate in place for the remainder of the spring, except for roughly a month between late March and late April. When classes began this fall, masks continued to be required, but the rule was dropped in less than two weeks as cases fell in the county. Schools continue to work on addressing the lost learning and mental health challenges that students have experienced during the pandemic.

When it came to elections, 2022 saw a competitive school board race in the Mountain View Los Altos Union High School District. With three spots up for a vote on the five-member board and two incumbents choosing not to run, six candidates put their hats in the ring for the trio of open seats. Ultimately, voters picked incumbent Catherine Vonnegut, along with newcomers Esmeralda Ortiz and Thida Cornes.

Mountain View Whisman's school board race was uncontested this time around. Only incumbent Devon Conley and former trustee Bill Lambert filed to run. Lambert, who previously served from 2012 to 2016, replaced longtime board member Ellen Wheeler, who retired after 20 years on the board.

The Foothill-De Anza Community College District's board also had an uncontested race, with incumbents Pearl Cheng and Patrick Ahrens getting another term. The lack of challengers was despite Foothill-De Anza adopting a new election model this spring, in which the district was split into five geographic zones and voters in each region now pick a trustee who lives in their area.

2022 was also a year in which local schools planned for the future. Although schools have seen enrollment drop during the pandemic, Mountain View Whisman is bracing for an expected influx of students in the longer term as more housing is built locally. The district has been trying to find ways to raise money to construct new campuses to serve these future students.

Mountain View Whisman also broke ground this year on a project to build 123 units of housing for teachers and other school staff members. The effort is an attempt to help retain employees in light of the sky-high cost of housing in Silicon Valley. Construction was delayed by the pandemic, but the goal is to have the units completed in 2024.

Looking forward

If there was one thing that didn’t change this year, it was the make-up of the Mountain View City Council on election night. All three incumbents – Mayor Lucas Ramirez, Vice Mayor Alison Hicks and Council member Ellen Kamei – won reelection on Nov. 8, each vowing to use their next term to chip away at issues that the pandemic forced off the priority list.

But the council will still get a fresh face come the New Year: After winning a seat on the State Board of Equalization, Mountain View City Council member Sally Lieber announced her resignation from council in December after learning about a conflict of interest between the two positions. The council will meet during the first week of January to talk about how it wants to fill the vacancy.

The new council will be tasked with rounding out the Housing Element update process, making good on the city’s affordable housing promises, and of course, contending with all the other unsolved issues that COVID-19 either created or uncovered in the past three years.

Here are other notable moments in photos this year:

Comments

J Randall
Registered user
Another Mountain View Neighborhood
on Jan 3, 2023 at 4:51 pm
J Randall, Another Mountain View Neighborhood
Registered user
on Jan 3, 2023 at 4:51 pm

Learning to live with Covid-19 is a great resolution for Mountain View in 2023. When you get out of this area and travel, it becomes shockingly apparent how far behind this area is in terms of moving on from covid.


Another MV Resident
Registered user
Willowgate
on Jan 3, 2023 at 6:07 pm
Another MV Resident, Willowgate
Registered user
on Jan 3, 2023 at 6:07 pm

How has Mtn View not moved on? What is anyone stopped from doing?


JAFO
Registered user
Old Mountain View
on Jan 4, 2023 at 12:56 am
JAFO, Old Mountain View
Registered user
on Jan 4, 2023 at 12:56 am

JUst an Observation,

Well here are the Covid is old news or Covid is over crowd again. But SCIENCE proves you wrong. You should read the article Omicron offshoot XBB.1.5 could drive new Covid-19 surge in US here Web Link

Especially the aprt here

"Bedford has pegged its effective reproductive number — the number of new infections expected to be caused by each infected person — at about 1.6, roughly 40% higher than its next closest competitor."

and

"He found that XBB.1 was the slipperiest of them all. It was 63 times less likely to be neutralized by antibodies in the blood of infected and vaccinated people than BA.2 and 49 times less likely to be neutralized compared with BA.4 and BA.5."

and

"In addition to being highly immune evasive, XBB.1.5 has an additional trick up its sleeve that seems to be helping to fuel its growth. It has a key mutation at site 486, which allows it to bind more tightly to ACE2, the doors the virus uses to enter our cells."

Please realize that Covid is WINNING. a 1.6 r not means that it can take only 30 infections to infect 1,329,227 people and at 40 infections it reaches 146,150,163 people.

Please tell me we are done with Covid?


J Randall
Registered user
Another Mountain View Neighborhood
on Jan 4, 2023 at 5:15 am
J Randall, Another Mountain View Neighborhood
Registered user
on Jan 4, 2023 at 5:15 am

The region’s tech based economy makes it unique as its highly remote work force still has the luxury of practicing covid avoidance, with many yet to get their first infection. Most regions don’t have that luxury. Ask blue collar and hospitality workers. Those states who learned to live with covid sooner are doing much better in some metrics, especially in regards to childhood development and learning loss. My child, developmentally speaking, would probably be better off in Jackson, Mississippi than here. Heck, even LA has done a better job in restoring rights and normalcy to children.


MV Resident
Registered user
Cuesta Park
on Jan 6, 2023 at 7:31 pm
MV Resident, Cuesta Park
Registered user
on Jan 6, 2023 at 7:31 pm

“with many yet to get their first infection”
so our “not getting over covid” has in fact protected people from getting it. Great news!

Don’t forget to write, J Randall!


JAFO
Registered user
Old Mountain View
on Jan 6, 2023 at 9:36 pm
JAFO, Old Mountain View
Registered user
on Jan 6, 2023 at 9:36 pm

Just an observation,

Those commenting above are simply so intent to evade the threat regarding Covid, and putting the people at significant risk of injury that can leave them impaired enough to be disabled. That is not your right to do. So I am sorry that things are getting so bad

You should see the npr report here (Web Link

"The rate at which the coronavirus is being detected in wastewater, which has become a bellwether for the pandemic, has tripled or quadrupled in many parts of the U.S. in recent weeks, Jha says. COVID-19 hospitalizations have jumped 70%, he says. And 300 to 400 people are dying every day from COVID-19.

To make matters worse, all this is happening as yet another new, even more transmissible variant has taken over in the United States. Called XBB.1.5, this new omicron subvariant was barely on the radar in late November. But according to new estimates released Friday by the CDC, XBB.1.5 now accounts for almost a third of new infections and is the dominant variant in the Northeast.

"The current increase in cases that we are seeing really began around the Thanksgiving holiday when people gathered. And as we went into the bigger holiday season — the Hanukkah/Christmas holiday season — that has accelerated infections further," Jha says.

How to protect yourself from coronavirus subvariant XBB.1.5
"What is clearer now, compared to even a year ago, is that we can really blunt the worst of it by doing the things that we know work," Jha says.

That includes getting vaccinated and boosted, especially if you're older. Most deaths from COVID-19 are occurring in people age 65 or older.

Other precautions include avoiding crowded, poorly ventilated parties, restaurants, bars and other places; testing before gathering; and, yes, putting that mask back on in risky situations. And if you do get sick, check with your doctor about getting treatment quickly


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