Itching for American? WEEKEND | P.14
MARCH 4, 2011 VOLUME 19, NO. 9
INSIDE: MOVIES | PAGE 17
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MountainViewOnline.com
Offer to move, restore historic home
Seniors’ day care at risk
By Daniel DeBolt
By Nick Veronin
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he dilapidated 1880s home at 902 Villa St. near Chez TJ could become a major part of a Mountain View history museum under a proposal by developer Roger Burnell. A “sale pending” sign now Roger Burnell hangs out front of the house as Burnell tries to build community support for his proposal to move the house to the Cuesta Annex museum site and restore it on his own dime. He wants to make room for a high quality office building, and possibly a coffee shop or retail space on the ground floor. But sitting in the way is the house, which Burnell said was built before 1887. Planning director Randy Tsuda said it could be legally demolished, but whether the City Council would allow that is uncertain. “You can’t just tear it down and throw it away,” said Mayor Jac Siegel.
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DANIEL DEBOLT
The historic Pearson house on Villa Street has seen better days. A developer has offered to move and restore the house.
Burnell called his plan for the house a “win-win” solution, allowing for the economic development the city wants downtown while also preserving city history. Office space is in unusually high demand downtown, he said. A former Mountain View resident, Burnell said he has “a passion” for the museum project and local history, and is a
member of the Mountain View Historical Association which is backing the museum. He also has experience restoring historic buildings, including the Alliance Land building in San Jose. “We’ve had a lot of inquiries on the property,” Tsuda said, but this is the “first proposal of any specificity. A lot of the developers who inquire “don’t
have experience with historic houses. That gives him (Burnell) an advantage,” he said. The home’s first owner is believed to be Swedish immigrant Charles Pearson, who once owned a general store two blocks away on Castro Street, Burnell said. In “The History of Santa Clara County,” Pearson See PEARSON, page 10
New research center to open at El Camino LOS ALTOS HILLS COUPLE’S $4 MILLION GIFT WILL ENABLE HOSPITAL TO ATTRACT ‘CUTTING EDGE’ TREATMENT By Nick Veronin
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new clinical research center is opening its doors this month on the El Camino Hospital campus thanks to a sizeable donation from a Los Altos Hills couple. Officials from the hospital and the Fogarty Institute of Innovation said the Taft Center
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for Clinical Research — made possible by a $4 million gift from Edward and Pamela Taft — will provide local residents with increased access to cutting-edge treatment and help attract top medical talent to El Camino. “It is a very big deal,” said Ann Fyfe, CEO and president of the Fogarty Institute — the nonprofit medical innovation incu-
bator located on the El Camino campus. The institute works closely with the hospital and will be in charge of running the Taft Center. Expanding the hospital’s clinical trials operation is important for a number of reasons, said Dr. Eric Pifer, chief medical officer at El Camino. According to Pifer, the center will help the hospital
GOINGS ON 18 | MARKETPLACE 20 | REAL ESTATE 23 | VIEWPOINT 12
grow while at the same time enhance the health of the community. The Taft Center will make the hospital a destination for clinical trials for top physicians and medical innovators, Pifer said. “Doctors who are participating in these clinical trials tend to be See TAFT CENTER, page 6
he state may soon cut MediCal reimbursements to a Mountain View center that provides healthcare and daycare services to disabled adults and the frail elderly — something that would leave many Peninsula seniors and their families in the lurch, according to an official from Avenidas, the organization that runs the center. The Avenidas Rose Kleiner Senior Day Health Center — which serves adults who have difficulty caring for themselves — would have to turn away about half of the men and women that currently depend on its services if California halts Medi-Cal reimbursements to adult day health care centers, as the governor has proposed, said John Sink, vice president of programs for Avenidas. Medi-Cal pays more than half the cost associated with attending the center, Sink said, and about 50 percent of the center’s disabled and elderly are on Medi-Cal. “The people that get squeezed out are those folks who are least capable financially of coming up with other alternatives,” Sink said. “People who are relatively well off will continue to attend. For them, it’s a good deal.” Currently, Medi-Cal enrollees get a free ride at the center, where it costs about $125 a day to take care of one senior at Rose Kleiner, Sink said. Medi-Cal — the state- and federally funded health insurance service for the needy — pays about $76 of that. Avenidas raises money to make up the difference. However, if Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to strip adult day care centers of their ability to collect Medi-Cal reimbursements goes forward, that would all come to an See AVENIDAS, page 10