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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. It is one of the major cities that make up Silicon Valley, and thus, by necessity, it has many notable Silicon Valley companies either headquartered here or with a large presence. Google headquarters (the Googleplex), Red Hat, the Mozilla Foundation/Mozilla Corporation,AOL, Microsoft’s MSN/Hotmail/Xbox/MSNTV divisions, Intuit, Silicon Graphics, Spectra-Physics, and NASA Ames Research Center are just a few of the high tech institutions that are located in Mountain View. Other nearby companies with a large presence include Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, Lockheed Martin, and Loral Space Systems.
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 1960s. Row crops and orchards were common during this era when there was 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. Most people 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 ) and Walker's Wagon Wheel on Middlefield Road near Whisman. Folklore was that semiconductor pioneers were collaborative and met at the Wagon Wheel to discuss problems they were having with production. Employees are more wealthy, competitive and proprietary today and tend to err on the side of protecting their company's intellectual property and trade secrets, usually having signed forms to do so as part of their employment. Downtown 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. 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 2006, the City Manager is Kevin Duggan, the Mayor is Nick Galiotto, the Chief of Police is Scott Vermeer and the Interim Fire Chief is Mike Young. 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. 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. 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." The City Attorney's Office is responsible for drafting contracts pertaining to the City's business. Schools Beginning with the 2006-2007 school year, Mountain View will have twelve public and eight private schools. The public elementary and middle schools (with the exception of Springer Elementary) are governed by the Mountain View-Whisman School District are: Bubb Elementary, Castro Elementary, Crittenden Middle, Graham Middle, Huff Elementary, Landels Elementary, Monta Loma Elementary, 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 has remained roughly constant. In Mountain View public elementary schools the class size ratio is 20.4 students per full-time-equivalent teacher, while that of the neighboring Palo Alto Unified school district is 16.9. 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, whereas neighboring Palo Alto is, by virtue of its greater property tax base, a "Basic Aid" district, 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 District 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. 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. Google has leased the former Slater Elementary for use as a private preschool and corporate daycare. 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 San Jose (SJC) and San Francisco (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. Mountain View is the first city in the United States which will be entirely covered by a free wireless Internet access network provided by Google. Notable features
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