January 9, 2018
Thank you. I am indeed fortunate to be serving this community and especially so in this time of change. It is my hope that we will preserve all of the things we love about Mountain View—our quality of life, our diversity, and our vibrant economy—while we embrace and manage our path into the future.
For those who don’t know me, I’ve been an activist—indeed, a community organizer—most of my life. I moved to Mountain View in 1972. My wife’s family arrived here years earlier. I’ve been working in Mountain View since the mid-1970s. My son and daughter attended our local schools. So I’ve seen a lot of changes, some for the better, some for the worse.
As an elected official, I see each issue that we address as an opportunity to engage the public. As my friends and I declared in the 1960s: People have a right to make the decisions that affect their lives.
A Well Run City
Mountain View’s city government is well-managed, well-staffed, and on sound financial footing. Last year we successfully negotiated agreements with our employee groups that recognize their service in the near term while making sure we have the resources to maintain compensation and benefits in harder times.
I’m going to take a moment to mention a few things that our city government does for us, but I believe the strongest testament to the city’s performance is the fact that we take for granted so many of the services that we all enjoy.
People who attend Council meetings know that our City Manager keeps our Hydra-headed Council in line, insisting that we set priorities and achieve clarity at the end of each agenda item. His office also represents our interests on issues as diverse as immigration, homelessness, intergovernmental relations, aircraft overflights, and any special projects we come up with during the year. It also manages employee negotiations and Human Resources, including the award-winning BeWell program.
Our City Attorney’s office not only provides support for all city departments, it helps the city implement Measure V—the rent control law—addressing new challenges such as figuring out how the local initiative interfaces with state law governing Mobile Home parks. It also leads the city’s development of regulations that will allow and govern recreational marijuana sales in Mountain View.
While we have just lost our City Clerk to retirement, I expect more smooth elections and campaigns. The implementation of local campaign contribution disclosure rules was carried out without a hitch.
Our Community Services department manages one of the busiest Performing Arts Centers in California, oversees our nationally recognized parks and world-class entertainment venues, hosts many community events that attract thousands of people from around the Bay Area, and has just celebrated the signing of an agreement to bring a Magical Bridge all-inclusive playground to Mountain View.
Our Finance and Administrative Services Department makes sure that our City sails through audits, is consistently honored for its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR), and maintains a AAA bond rating. Moreover, it has developed a strategy capitalizing on the strong economy to pre-pay pension liabilities.
We notice when our Firefighters travel to Wine Country or Southern California to fight wildfires, but did you ever wonder why we have so few fires here in Mountain View? That’s because our Fire Department has a long history of doing what it takes to prevent fires.
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to download documents associated with City Council meetings? You can credit the Information Technology folks as well as the City Clerk’s office. IT also runs the Geographic Information System that provides easy access to public data, maintains the City’s digital infrastructure, and will blanket our downtown with free, public wi-fi.
I’m always impressed to see the children’s reading groups at our library. My wife and I did that with our kids. Now they’re available in multiple languages. The library also offers public information sessions on important topics such as immigrants’ rights, classes to learn new skills, and a wide variety of adult classes to remind us that we all still have a little kid inside who wants to color, play with Legos, and is not afraid to sing along to a ukelele. Well, maybe not all of us.
Our Police Department, with its high training standards, apprehends lawbreakers without firing shots, and they also maintain a compassionate approach when addressing problems associated with homelessness.
Our Public Works Department keeps the city running and is constantly taking steps to ease traffic, such as activating new signal timing on Shoreline Blvd. It acted quickly to provide a bypass on the Stevens Creek Trail after it was washed out last year. And Mountain View remains a leader in the use of so-called “purple pipe” recycled water.
Finally, our Community Development Department runs our affordable housing program and is in charge of our sustainability programs—but its biggest task is planning. I take umbrage at the suggestion that Mountain View needs better planners. The recently adopted North Bayshore Plan is just one example of how our planning staff is systematic, imaginative, and articulate. Furthermore, I know from my day job—working with communities across the country on toxic cleanup—that Mountain View is a national leader in the safe reuse of contaminated property.
Of course, to a large degree our strong fiscal position derives from the economic success of our businesses, from our local restaurants to global companies such as LinkedIn and Google. Mountain View is home to startups, established firms, and companies based elsewhere that set up shop here to take advantage of our immense pool of talent. Mountain View firms are leaders in social media, automotive technology, cybersecurity, accounting, education, biotechnology, and much, much more.
Our community values our ethnic and cultural diversity. We welcome tech workers, construction workers, and service industry workers from around the world. We enjoy access to a wide range of food, entertainment, and perspectives from a myriad of countries, cultures, and religions.
The Twin Crises of Housing and Transportation
So much for the good news.
While in many ways we are the envy of cities across the country and around the world, we face the daunting, inseparable twin crises of traffic—local and regional—and housing—costs and availability. I don’t think I need to go into the details.
I am proud to say, though, that Mountain View is leading the Bay Area in confronting these problems. We are planning for medium-density, mixed-use neighborhoods near employment and transit that will dramatically increase our housing supply. We are increasing the requirements and finding funding to make 15% to 20% of those affordable. The voter-passed Rent Control law and our Tenant Relocation ordinance help prevent additional displacement of people who form an integral part of our community and provide essential services that we, as a community, rely upon.
Working with our community and County partners we have helped open a new winter shelter for homeless women and children; we hope to offer a small pilot safe-parking program soon with a local faith non-profit; we provide outreach counseling services with our Community Services Agency; we offer shower and laundry facilities to the homeless; and we encourage the building of Permanent Supportive housing. But we need to do more, especially in finding better places for people who live in vehicles to live.
With our renewed ability to require 15% below-market housing in apartment projects, it’s even clearer now that the best way to provide subsidized housing is to approve suitable market-rate developments to increase the overall supply and keep a healthy mix of housing for every type of household. Not everything will look like North Bayshore, but elsewhere in town we need to pay similar attention to designing new neighborhoods properly and sustainably. It’s my hope that this year we will complete the East Whisman Precise Plan and begin to create a neighborhood vision for the Terra Bella area or, as I call it, “South Bayshore.” These are areas where landowners, developers, and even employers want to plan for housing.
I also expect that we will move forward with affordable housing developments on Lot 12 and elsewhere in the community. By expanding our housing supply in ways that preserve our quality of life and environment, we are setting an example for other cities in our region. And I have already begun telling them that. Guess what? They are listening and watching.
Our list of transportation infrastructure projects is long and expensive. We are improving access to North Bayshore. We are developing a plan to turn our downtown train platform into a vibrant, multi-modal transit center that serves as a gateway to our busy, increasingly walkable downtown. In fact, I’m expecting that we’ll soon be looking at some imaginative, distinctive proposals. We also have a plan for a vehicular Caltrain grade separation at Rengstorff, and we are working on bike/ped undercrossings all along the Caltrain corridor.
Among the many improvements coming to our bicycle infrastructure, I would like to see us move forward with plans for cycle paths along Caltrain, taking advantage of development projects that could be served by such improvements.
As we study the proposed automated, elevated guideway that would link downtown with North Bayshore, we are all learning a great deal about both the technological options and potential routes. Some of us have been talking to officials in neighboring communities about having such a system be the starting point for fixed, elevated transit along Highway 85.
To finance and accelerate such major undertakings, I believe we should explore both the proposed employer tax—an expansion of our Business License Tax—and public-private partnerships. New transit would serve, among others, some of the richest corporations in the world, and it’s my intent to seek their help in making speedy convenient, advanced transit a reality.
Federal Issues
In case anyone hasn’t noticed, much of what we are trying to do in Mountain View in under attack from our federal government. It’s getting harder to fund affordable housing and social services. Immigrant families face a constant threat of forced separation through deportation. Federal policies that helped combat climate change are being rolled back, while programs that have long protected us against pollution are being quietly undermined. Deductions for local taxes have been limited. Efforts to guarantee universal health care are under constant attack. State-permitted marijuana sales are threatened. Even Internet neutrality seems to be on the way out. The list goes on and on.
Where relevant to the work of City government, my colleagues and I have adopted policies, sent letters, and even joined in litigation to protect our residents and economy. I am proud that Mountain View has become a center of the resistance to federal actions, with thousands of people taking part in a series of local demonstrations while hundreds have volunteered to help in contested electoral campaigns elsewhere. I expect that the City will continue to challenge unacceptable federal policies where appropriate, and I also expect personally to continue joining my neighbors in the plaza and in the streets.
An Accessible, Collegial Council
As a Council member, I have enjoyed direct contact with constituents, developers, and employers. As mayor, I will continue my predecessors’ tradition of accessibility, holding regular “Lenny is Listening” chats throughout our city. We are fortunate to live in a city where anyone can give his or her two cents’ worth to the people they elect. I believe that I learn when I listen to people who disagree with me. I only ask that they be prepared to hear me push back.
I also plan to initiate regular bicycle “Rides with Lenny.” These group bike tours will not only provide a glimpse of our bicycle infrastructure. I find that one sees a lot more while traveling around Mountain View at the speed of a bicycle, or at least the speed of my bicycle.
Finally, I will do my best to continue the tradition of collegiality in Mountain View politics. That is, I expect there to be differences, but I expect to continue working with large employers, small businesses, and developers on some projects even while we disagree on other issues. I also anticipate that there will be policy differences among the seven of us on the Council, but it’s my hope that we will approach each issue in its own right, not voting for or against a motion because of who proposed it.
It should be clear by now that I consider Mountain View a leader. We are a leader in the way our City government operates. We are a leader in working to solve our regional housing and transportation challenges. We are a leader advocating for our community’s interests at the state and federal level. And we are a leader in working together.
Let’s keep it that way.