The Voter: June 2014

League of Women Voters of the Los Altos-Mountain View Area June 2014 Annual Meeting New member June 21 at Michaels at Shoreline Welcome to the League: We are sending the Annual Meeting Kits via email this Anky van Deursen of Los Altos year as we continue to look for ways to reduce our We are pleased to have you! expenses. Kits were emailed on May 22. From the email you can access the reservation sign up form and the kit (workbook). Those members who do not have emails were sent a kit by mail. Paper copies of the Annual Meeting Kit will be available at the Annual Meeting for those who request one when signing up. Board Briefs The Board discussed and accepted the proposed 2014-2015 budget, which includes a Signup is available on our website: dues increase. The budget will be presented to http://www.lwvlamv.org (click on “RSVP for Annual the membership and voted on at the Annual Meeting”) Meeting. Checks can also be mailed to our office at The Board discussed the candidate forums that will be presented in the fall. Since all League of Women Voters government agencies have moved their elections 97 Hillview Avenue to even years, this will be a busy voter services Los Altos, CA 94022 season for the League. The Board approved delegates Cathy The cost of lunch is $25 and the salad choices are: Lazarus, Max Beckman-Harned, Katie Zoglin and Ellen Wheeler to the Leage of Women • Cobb Salad Voters National Convention in Dallas, Texas this June. • Chinese Chicken Salad The June (and July) meetings of the Board • Pasta Primavera Salad have been cancelled. The annual meeting is the time when League members vote on a budget for the next year, choose our new officers and directors, and adopt a program plan Voter Registration for New Citizens which focuses on the issues that we think are most relevant for the coming year. The Santa Clara County Leagues have accepted an invitation from the Registrar of Our speaker will be Mary Hughes of close the gap CA, Voters to help new citizens with their voter speaking on recruiting more women to elected office. registration. Each League will provide volunteers at the monthly naturalization ceremonies. Our League has volunteered for June 19, 2014. Natalie Elefant, our Voter Service Director, will be organizing this endeavor. The location is the Heritage Theatre in Campbell and the times we will be needed are 10:30 to 11:30 and 1:30 to 2:30. Lunch with the League Lunch with the League has finished for the fiscal Contact Natalie at [email protected] or year. Look for it to return in September. 650-383-5590 if you are interested. Camino Real to Amphitheatre Parkway. It is being Getting Around – and evaluated by staff along with other alternatives. Staying – in Mountain View Later at that meeting, council voted unanimously to delay design of the at-grade crossing of Permanente Recent council meetings showed us that Mountain Creek Trail at Charleston Road, pending study of a View citizens have a lot of choices when it comes to recent Google proposal for a bike/ped undercrossing transportation and fewer when it comes to housing. that might work better. Following are some highlights in each area. Bicyclists as well as those concerned about Travel Mountain View’s housing shortage took a keen interest in council’s May 20 review of the El Camino Travel less Real Precise Plan, now under construction. Building Communication speed demons were heartened by heights allowed will vary with the location along the a council vote April 22 to proceed with Google’s road. Details of any bike lane plan for El Camino Real application process for a lightning-fast fiber network are still undecided (where? when? in segments?) but installation in Mountain View, which (if we are there will definitely be improvements for bicyclists on accepted) would bring us up to par with many other the Church/Latham east-west corridor. countries in the world—and make working from home much easier for some. Housing Trains Planning for housing The rapidly growing crowd of Caltrain riders can A study session at the end of the May 13 meeting look forward to improved performance with reviewed a draft of the newly revised Housing electrification of the system in a few years. But nothing Element of the General Plan. As expected, there were is easy. On April 22, council voted to send to Caltrain a many speakers on the subject of the consequences of letter asking for more EIR study of creative the city’s jobs/housing imbalance. alternatives to unwanted environmental consequences Speakers contended that continuing to add jobs at (of electrification of the line), such as the loss of breakneck speed would mean that implementing the hundreds of trees. Several such alternatives were draft plan, including substantial additions of housing suggested. units, would not make a serious difference. They Cars encouraged council to treat the Housing Element as a serious planning document, not just a series of Council held a study session April 28 to review required checkboxes, and specifically to do something staff proposals for taming almost-stationery traffic in drastic about our unhoused and underhoused and out of North Bayshore. A multi-pronged program population. would restrict the number of cars allowed “in” at peak periods, with further development contingent on Despite agreeing that they should re-examine the meeting these quotas. level of housing impact fees (levied variously on different types of development and then used to Council also agreed that studying congestion provide low-income housing), council declined to pricing, for possible future use as a last resort, is in proceed with development of a tracking metric for the order. (Contrary to what you’ve read in the press, jobs/housing imbalance. It is possible, however, that there’s no concrete proposal on the table, only the city will be paying more attention to our progress studying it in case it becomes potentially relevant.) on meeting the official (unenforced) “quotas” for housing at various income levels. (Lower levels have Car Parking received relatively little attention.) Council would also Council agreed with a May 20 staff proposal to like to know how to incentivize developers to produce spend the cost of a couple of parking spaces for other than “luxury” products. technology that will help drivers find parking more Paying the rent quickly — and also help enforce time limits — downtown. The most obvious change will be vacancy On April 22, a coalition of raise-the-minimum- counts displayed at the entrances to the two Bryant wage advocates asked Council to enable more Street parking structures. Print-it-yourself online daily residents to pay their rent. Two minimum-wage (and maybe more) parking permits are also in the workers now jointly take home less money than the works. average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Mountain View. A community services agency worker Self-propelled in San Jose noted that since an improved minimum On May 13, Safe Mountain View presented to wage went into effect there, fewer people are asking council an intriguing conceptual plan for a 50-foot- for help, and unemployment is down. wide, park-like pedestrian and bicycle path on the Shoreline Boulevard median, potentially from El June 2014 Page 2 Paying City Council Foothill–De Anza Board The latest proposal for a November ballot measure upping wages for council would factor in inflation, May 5 which has caused inflation-adjusted council pay to be less than half of what it was when the current rate was Board President Bruce Swenson said the set. The likely asked-for raise would be to $1,000 per Perkins+Will architectural firm will pay Foothill-De month, from $600. Anza $1.02 million in a dispute over engineering services for the Lower Campus Complex at Foothill. —Julie Lovins, observer The trustees approved the De Anza Associated Student Body (DASB) and the Associated Students of Thanks and “All Hands on Foothill College (ASFC) student budgets. Alex Baker of Foothill and Anita Adams of De Anza were honored as Deck” for November outgoing student trustees. I look forward to seeing all of you at our annual Mary Sullivan, De Anza's health services meeting on June 21 at Michaels at Shoreline to end a coordinator, said the college's Health Zone has very busy year for our League and to set the stage for activities and information to combat stress and what’s to come in the fall and improve sleep, eating and safety. She invited the board beyond. to visit. For the past year, I’ve had De Anza student Vinay Kowshik told the board the privilege to serve as your that Students for Justice is working for a safer campus president and I can tell you after a sexual assault last fall at the Media & Learning without reservation that we Center. have a “rock star” board and Faculty Association President Rich Hansen cadre of observers and reported on the unfunded liability of the California volunteers who make the Los State Teachers' Retirement System. Hansen is secretary Altos-Mountain View League for Faculty Association of California Community respected and engaged in our Colleges (FACCC). He said Foothill political science communities. instructor Meredith Heiser was elected to the FACCC Our volunteers register voters, organize candidate board and De Anza ESL instructor Mary Ellen and community forums, observe and write about the Goodwin is a regional representative. governance of our cities and special districts, push for Randy Bryant urged sign-ups for the Caracci affordable housing, recruit speakers for the “Lunch Classic Golf Tourney on June 6, which benefits With the League” series, manage our website, Twitter students in De Anza's Automotive Technology and Facebook, publish what I think is the best monthly Program.

Load more