(Redirected from Mountain View, Santa Clara County, California)
'Mountain View' is a city in
Santa Clara County, in the
U.S. state of
California. The city gets its name from the views of the
Santa Cruz Mountains. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 70,708.
Mountain View's
sister cities are
Iwata, Japan and
Hasselt, Belgium.
Geography
Mountain View is located at (37.42223, −122.08429).
Mountain View is located at the north end of
Highway 85, where it meets
Highway 101. The historic route
El Camino Real also runs through Mountain View.
Mountain View is bounded to the northwest by
Palo Alto, to the southwest by
Los Altos, to the southeast by
Sunnyvale, and to the northeast by the
San Francisco Bay.
According to the
United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 31.7
km² (12.2
mi²). 31.2 km² (12.1 mi²) of it is land and 0.4 km² (0.2 mi²) of it (1.39%) is water.
History
After the former
rancho of Don Mariano Castro was split, the south eventually became the city of
Sunnyvale, and the north became Mountain View. The town began as a stage stop on the route between
San Francisco and
San Jose (corresponding to
El Camino Real), close to present-day Grant Road. With the coming of the railroad, the center of town eventually moved to its current location at Castro Street.
Much of Mountain View was agricultural through the 1940s, 1950s, and most of the 1960s. Row crops and orchards were common during this era, when there was still open space between Palo Alto and Mountain View. In ''Bittersweet: Memories of Old Mountain View, an Oral History'', residents of Japanese ancestry recall their family's strawberry fields adjoining Moffett Field. Orchards lined much of Grant Road and Miramonte. In the early 1900s, grapes were a common crop in the area of present-day Continental Circle.
Phylloxera ended grape production in Mountain View in the early 1900s.
During the
Cold War, the drone of Navy P-3 turboprop aircraft was a constant presence, Moffett Field being the home of squadrons of them and their almost constant touch-and-go training flights. The horns of railroad locomotives were also frequently heard.
The
El Camino Hospital District, a government entity called a ''Special District'' under the California Government Code, came to life in the 1960s. The hospital facility at 2500 Grant Road has been in continual operation since.
Nearly anyone using the term ''
Silicon Valley'' would include Mountain View in that region. An early Silicon Valley company was Fairchild Camera and Instrument Company, located along Whisman Road. Several of Intel's founders came from Fairchild. Local watering holes for workers included Chubby's Broiler (which once stood at Ellis and Fairchild near Hwy 101, but which moved in 1999 to near Tasman and Lawrence Expressway in Sunnyvale
[1]) and Walker's Wagon Wheel on Middlefield Road near Whisman (since torn down). Folklore was that semiconductor pioneers were collaborative and met at the Wagon Wheel to discuss problems they were having with production.
Downtown
★ Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown along Castro Street that is six blocks long.
★ The 100 block is next to the
Caltrain lines.
★ The police station is two blocks away on Villa Street.
★ Going south towards El Camino Real, there are four blocks of restaurants and shops. The restaurants leave their chairs out on the sidewalk overnight.
★ Kapps Pizza displays many photographs of the downtown from 100 years ago.
★ In a one-block civic center are nestled City Hall, the Center for Performing Arts and the Mountain View Public Library. Behind these buildings is Pioneer Park, which enjoys a quiet environment resulting from the Civic Center blocking out the noise on Castro Street.
Demographics
As of the
census of 2000, there were 70,708 people, 31,242 households, and 15,902 families residing in the city. The
population density was 2,263.7/km² (5,861.4/mi²). There were 32,432 housing units at an average density of 1,038.3/km² (2,688.5/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 63.77%
White, 2.53%
African American, 0.39%
Native American, 20.67%
Asian, 0.26%
Pacific Islander, 8.32% from
other races, and 4.07% from two or more races.
Hispanic or
Latino of any race were 18.26% of the population.
There were 31,242 households out of which 23.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.0% were
married couples living together, 7.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 49.1% were non-families. 35.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.25 and the average family size was 2.97.
In the city the population was spread out with 18.0% under the age of 18, 8.3% from 18 to 24, 43.4% from 25 to 44, 19.8% from 45 to 64, and 10.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 106.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 106.9 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $69,362, and the median income for a family was $80,379. Males had a median income of $64,585 versus $44,358 for females. The
per capita income for the city was $39,693. About 3.6% of families and 6.8% of the population were below the
poverty line, including 7.2% of those under age 18 and 5.9% of those age 65 or over.
Corporate residents
Mountain View is one of the major cities that make up
Silicon Valley, and has many notable Silicon Valley companies either headquartered there or with a large presence, including:
★
Microsoft’s
MSN/
Hotmail/
Xbox/
MSNTV divisions
★
Intuit
★
Google Headquarters (the
Googleplex)
★
Red Hat
★
Mozilla Foundation/
Mozilla Corporation
★
AOL
★
Silicon Graphics
★
Actel Corporation Headquarters
★
VeriSign
★
Jajah Headquarters
★
Intuit Headquarters/
Quicken Financial Software
Mountain View also has a number of major corporate installations located just beyond its borders, including:
★
NASA Ames Research Center at
Moffett Field
★
Sun Microsystems and
Hewlett-Packard in
Palo Alto
★
Lockheed Martin,
Loral Space Systems, and
Yahoo! in
Sunnyvale
Government
Mountain View has a
council-manager government system. An executive
city manager is in charge of several
departments, while the
city council, supported by several
boards, commissions, and committees, is the legislature responsible for the ordinances of the
city code. The executive in turn
enforces the code and promulgates administrative regulations to execute it. The city
clerk and
attorney perform supporting roles. The
Community Development Department is the agency responsible for planning and zoning.
As of March, 2007, the City Manager is Kevin Duggan, the Mayor is Laura Macias, the Chief of Police is Scott Vermeer, and the Fire Chief is Mike Young.
State and Federal legislators
Mountain View is part of:
★
California's 13th State Senate District (
Senator Elaine Alquist)
★
California's 22nd State Assembly District (
Assemblywoman Sally Lieber)
★
California's 14th Congressional District (
Congresswoman Anna Eshoo)
Scandals
In April 2002, after five years of conflict, former mayor Mario Ambra was found guilty of misconduct and removed from office for directly ordering city employees instead of going through the city manager.
[2][3]
In May, 2004, City Attorney Michael Martello admitted to having an extramarital affair with Pamela Read, the head of
Foothill Disposal Co., the city's garbage company, who was also president of the Chamber of Commerce's board of directors. Martello was accused by Read's husband of lying to city council members about when the affair began, and misusing city funds in supporting an increase totaling over $740,000 for the garbage company.
[4] While the accusations concerning whether Martello promptly disclosed the affair were not resolved, he was cleared of financial wrongdoing after sixteen city employees said that he "had no involvement with the increased garbage fees or any other matters involving ... the Chamber of Commerce."
[5] The City Attorney's Office is responsible for drafting contracts pertaining to the City's business.
[6]
Schools
Beginning with the 2006-2007 school year, Mountain View has twelve public and eight private schools. The public elementary and middle schools, which are (with the exception of Springer Elementary) governed by the
Mountain View-Whisman School District, are:
Benjamin Bubb Elementary School,
Castro Elementary,
Crittenden Middle School,
Graham Middle School,
Huff Elementary,
Landels Elementary,
Monta Loma Elementary,and
Theuerkauf Elementary.
Springer Elementary, located within the city's borders, is governed by the
Los Altos School District. The public high schools, governed by the
Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District, are
Alta Vista High and
Mountain View High School.
Mountain View-Whisman School District students
qualified for free and reduced-price lunches |
| Year | Enrollment | Free | Reduced |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1999-0 | 4710 | n/a | n/a |
| 2003-4 | 4418 | 1375 (28%) | 454 (10%) |
| 2004-5 | 4391 | 1593 (37%) | 435 (10%) |
| 2005-6 | 4313 | 1898 (44%
★ ) | 409 (11%) |
Source: MVWSD/Sodexho Food Service Dept., November, 2005
and 2005-6 General Fund Budget Assumptions Presentation
★ inconsistent percentage values verbatim in source |
Recently, the public elementary schools in Mountain View have suffered declining enrollment. While the number of students qualified for free lunches — economically disadvantaged students — has increased substantially, those qualifying for reduced-price lunches have remained roughly constant.
In Mountain View public elementary schools the class size ratio is 20.4 students per full-time-equivalent teacher,
[7] while that of the neighboring
Palo Alto Unified School District is 16.9.
[8] The Mountain View-Whisman district is a "Revenue Limit" district, meaning that the state provides additional funding to bring per-pupil spending up to a certain minimum limit, while the Mountain View High School District and neighboring Palo Alto's school district are "Basic Aid" districts, meaning that no additional funding is required to meet the state's per-pupil spending minimum, and the district keeps any excess above it. Mountain View taxes a large portion of its most valuable commercial and industrial properties in the Shoreline Regional Park Community at very low relative levels, and until the creation of a joint-powers agreement (JPA) in 2006, none of those property taxes reached any local schools. After the creation of the JPA, the Shoreline Regional Park Community will be sharing less than $1 million per year with the elementary and high school districts.
[9][10]
Private Schools
★
German International School of Silicon Valley - provides bilingual education for PreK-12
★
Yew Chung International School of Silicon Valley - provides bilingual Mandarin and English eduction for PreK - 12
★
The Girls' Middle School - an all-girls middle school (6-8) with specialization in technology and entrepreneurial education
★
Saint Francis High School - a Catholic high school
Usage of Slater Elementary by Google
Because of declining enrollment, and after a long decision process, Mountain View-Whisman School District opted to close the well-performing Slater Elementary School.
[11][12][13] Google has leased the former Slater Elementary for use as a private preschool and corporate daycare.
[14]
Library
Mountain View has one central public library, the
Mountain View Public Library, offering video, music, books, self-check out, and access to the Internet. Circulation was 1.4 million items, including 600,000 video and album loans during fiscal year 2004-5, during which holdings were 300,000, including 210,000 books and 700 periodical subscriptions. The building was built in 1997. The second floor of the library has a special collection in a room devoted to the history of Mountain View, next to a portrait of Don Mariano Castro, for whom the downtown main street is named.
Transportation
Mountain View is served by the
Caltrain rail system, which runs from
San Francisco to
Gilroy. It also served by the
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, including various bus lines and the
Mountain View - Winchester light rail line.
Moffett Federal Airfield is located just north of Mountain View, but its use is restricted to aeromedical, government and military users. The nearest major airports are
Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC) and
San Francisco International Airport (SFO). The nearest
general aviation airport is the
Palo Alto Airport of Santa Clara County.
Communications
In late 1997, as part of a major area code relief in the Bay Area, Mountain View's area code was switched from (
415) to (
650).
On
August 16 2006, after over a year of test deployments, Google declared, as planned, that its implementation for free
IEEE 802.11g wireless service for all of the City was fully operational.
[15] Mountain View is the first city in the United States entirely covered by a free wireless
Internet access network provided by Google.
Notable features
Centennial Plaza at the Mountain View Caltrain station
★
Shoreline Park runs along the bay north of
Highway 101. It includes
Shoreline Amphitheatre as well as historic
Rengstorff House.
★
Stevens Creek runs through Mountain View from the south. A lengthy paved pedestrian and bicycle path, the
Stevens Creek Trail, runs alongside the creek for nearly its entire distance in Mountain View.
★
Moffett Field is a Federal Airfield near the bay; that is home to
NASA Ames Research Center .
★
Castro Street is at the center of Mountain View’s downtown. It features a large number of restaurants, particularly of the Asian and Italian variety.
★ The
Jehning Family Lock Museum is located on Castro Street.
★ The
Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts is located at
500 Castro Street in Mountain View, adjacent to City Hall.
★
San Antonio Shopping Center is a popular shopping mall in Mountain View, California.
★ The
Computer History Museum is located at
1401 North Shoreline Blvd in Mountain View, just north of Highway 101.
★ The historic
Huff House, built by the first postmaster of Mountain View in 1929, is located on Diericx Drive.
1960s Mountain View logo.
★ Famous Los Angeles Radio DJ
Rodney Bingenheimer was born in Mountain View. In addition to recently receiving a star on the walk of fame, he is credited for being the first DJ in America to break bands like
No Doubt,
The Donnas,
Oasis,
Coldplay and many others.
★ Scenes from the movie
Raising Cain, starring John Lithgow, were filmed at Mountain View City Hall.
Notable residents
★
Chirgilchin, Tuvan traditional music group
See also
★
Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District
★
Mountain View-Whisman School District
References
1. From burgers to burritos, Chubby's eatery has it all
2. Timeline of some key events mentioned during Ambra trial
3. Ambra guilty of misconduct
4. Letter prompted city probe
5. Council clears city attorney
6. City of Mountain View - City Attorney
7. District Detail for Mountain View-Whisman Elementary
8. District Detail for Palo Alto Unified
9. "Flush times at high school district," ''Mountain View Voice,'' June 30 2006
10. "Mountain View Shoreline Regional Park Community Act," uncodified Act of the California Legislature, 1969, Chapter 1109.
11. Mountain View Schools
12. Slater's neighbors want their space
13. Closure would end math program
14. Google may lease Slater school
15. Google Says It Has No Plans for National Wi-Fi Service
External links
★
City of Mountain View
★
''Mountain View Voice'' newspaper
★
City Library
★
City Police Department
★
Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts
★
A Guide to Restaurants in Downtown Mountain View
★
Other points of interest
★
The Pear Avenue Theatre
★
''Monta Loma Neighborhood'' Neighborhood Web Site
★
''Old Mountain View Neighborhood'' Neighborhood Web Site
★
Babysitters of Los Altos Local student childcare group
★
El Camino Hospital Health Library and Resource Center
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