Indonesian oasis WEEKEND | 14
JUNE 27, 2014 VOLUME 22, NO. 22
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MOVIES | 17
Council deadlocks on San Antonio housing By Daniel DeBolt
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MICHELLE LE
Occupy Google protesters, trying to rally support for net neutrality, set up their banners at Google’s headquarters on June 24.
Net neutrality activists occupy Google 10 ARRESTS AS GROUP CAMPS OUT AT CHARLESTON ROAD HEADQUARTERS By Daniel DeBolt
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ents went up at Google headquarters Tuesday as a group of activists called on the company to take action against proposed FCC rules on Internet neutrality. The group of about 20 set up camp Tuesday afternoon, June
24, at Google headquarters near Charleston Park. Police say Google was supportive of the group’s right to protest and the group was not immediately asked to leave, even though organizer Zaigham Kabir said much of the camp was on Google property. A group of 10 were arrested later in the
evening, after they refused Google’s requests that they leave for the night and return in the morning, police said. They were booked into San Jose main jail. Google, Facebook, Amazon and other companies have See NET NEUTRALITY, page 7
ity Council members found themselves considering a change in course Tuesday after a group of residents called attention to a proposed “precise plan” that they say would exacerbate the city’s housing shortage in the San Antonio shopping center area, driving up rents and increasing commute traffic. “This is a place everyone in town seems to think is a great place for housing, but we’re going to have three times as many jobs as we have housing,” said Lenny Siegel, who spoke at length on behalf of members of the Campaign for a Balanced Mountain View during the study session on the San Antonio precise plan. The plan is a blueprint for future development in the San Antonio shopping center and surrounding area. “We can’t build our way out of the (housing shortage) if we are building all of this office space all over town,” Siegel said, referring to plans for Google, LinkedIn and others to build office space for tens of thousands of new workers, on top of already explosive job growth. At the end of a contentious three-hour meeting that ran until midnight, council members
Schools seek tastier hot lunch fare By Kevin Forestieri
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ost people don’t have fond memories of school lunches, but the Mountain View Whisman School District is taking steps to change that by revamping menus, improving the quality and bolstering student participation. In a collaborative effort with the school district, Google and Lunch Lessons LLC conducted
INSIDE
an assessment of the district’s Child Nutrition Department. Their findings were grim, spurring the district to launch a comprehensive reform of its school meals program. At a board meeting last month, Ann Cooper of Lunch Lessons explained that average daily participation in the food program had slipped another 2 percent in the 2014 school year, continuing a downward trend. The decrease
was across the board: breakfast, lunch, free and reduced meals, and at both elementary schools and middle schools. Free and reduced lunch participation took the biggest hit, dropping from 80.8 percent to 73.8 percent in one year. In her presentation to the board, Cooper suggested that the Child Nutrition Department revise its menus to reflect a changing demographic, and keep
VIEWPOINT 11 | GOINGS ON 18 | MARKETPLACE 19 | REAL ESTATE 21
up with what kids want to eat. “The district, as you all know, has changing demographics,” Cooper told the board. “We’ve seen menus that have been very similar for 20 years while peoples’ palates are changing.” Beyond outdated school menus, the department has a number of other problems. It has run over budget since at least 2011, with See SCHOOL LUNCH, page 9
appeared to be deadlocked 3-3 on the jobs-housing issue and decided to continue the discussion in a different, more “collegial” venue, as City Manager Dan Rich called it. They set a new meeting for July 8, delaying the council’s annual summer recess. With member John Inks excusing himself because he owns property nearby, council members voted 6-0 to have city staff come back with a report on “the implications of increased housing” and decreased office space in the San Antonio precise plan. As proposed Tuesday, the San See SAN ANTONIO, page 8
MV MAN ARRESTED IN FBI RAID A Mountain View man was arrested after the FBI carried out search and arrest warrants across the Bay Area Wednesday, including at a residence on Houghton Street in Mountain View, in an ongoing investigation following the shutdown of San Francisco-based MyRedBook.com. Eric Omuro, 53, was arrested following an indictment by a federal grand jury on charges of using mail and the Internet to facilitate prostitution, as well as counts of money laundering connected to the escort-service website. Omuro allegedly engaged in money transfers to move website revenue into bank accounts he controlled, and was involved in more than 20 transactions to launder profits derived from the facilitation of prostitution, according to a press release from the San Francisco U.S. Attorney’s office. The indictment seeks Continued on next page