Picture this.
Your daily commute to a neighboring town takes you over a high ridge, from which you see, away in the distance, a shimmering blue lake surrounded by trees, which looks like a delightful place for a picnic. Of course, you're too busy with the demands of your work to ever take time off to go there, but you think to yourself, 'One day, if ever I have the time, I'll drive out there and take a closer look.' For years, though, you never do.
Then, later in life, when you have a bit more leisure time, you decide to take a ride out to that lake because it really does look lovely. As you get nearer though, you notice that there's a bad smell coming off the water because trash gets thrown in, making it unsanitary. You park your car, and as you get out to look around, you step in some mud and ruin your shoes, then you brush against some poison oak as you make your way along the shoreline. You notice a dead animal floating near the lake shore, probably a dog, drowned when it got caught up in the weeds which clog the water just under the surface. Mosquitoes start biting you, so you turn around to go back to your car, only to find its wheels have sunk into the soggy ground and you have to get it towed out. And what you thought would be a wonderful day out, something you've looked forward to for years, has turned into a nightmare. Afterwards, you think to yourself, 'I should never have come here. Some places are best enjoyed at a distance. It just seemed so nice when viewed from afar.' Has anything like that ever happened to you?
Well, that's the experience we have had since coming to Mountain View. Some years ago, before I had ever heard of this place, we needed to have some rather complicated dental work done, so I did some research to find the best practitioner in the field. I found an excellent surgeon, and we began coming here every few months or so for treatment. Every time we came, we were impressed by how gentle the climate was, and how pretty the town seemed. We would arrive from the murderous heat of Phoenix in the summer, or from the aching cold of Boston in the winter, and Mountain View was always pleasant and welcoming. Then, when the recession started to bite and my work began to demand less frequent travelling, we discussed where we would like to settle. It was an easy decision. We weren't ready to purchase a home immediately because we didn't know which part of the City best suited our needs, so we decided to rent until that became clearer.
Thank God we discovered how corrupt this city was before buying anything here. Home owners frequently have contact with the City administration in connection with planning permission, zoning variances, tree removal etc., and at any point a mistake might be made by an official, perhaps something quite trivial which could easily be corrected. Well, in this city, that correction would not happen. This city is incapable of correcting its slightest error. It wouldn't matter that in failing to correct the error, the home owner's life was being blighted, or that it might be endangering their family members – protection of the position of the city employee who had made the error would be the prime concern.
But you know, there was a clue that everything was not as it should be here, a clue which we might have taken more notice of, with the benefit of hindsight. As we were looking around for suitable rented accommodation, we noticed a home on the north side of Rengstorff Avenue with slogans painted on the front of it complaining about the City's mishandling of a code enforcement issue. I don't know the details, or the rights and wrongs of the case, but clearly, someone was feeling ticked off about City Hall, and possibly believed that there was no other way forward than to make a public protest.
A bit like this website, I guess!
Corruption in the way the City is run is making Mountain View difficult to live in safely by decent people, and I'm not surprised that they are leaving in droves. Just look at the real estate listings. The decent people still remaining here may not be able to leave because of needing to sell up, and that takes time. I hope that this page serves as a warning to others who may be contemplating moving here. Don't be deceived by the prettiness. Unless you are very, very wealthy, buying a home in this community means you will be stuck here for several years at least, without the option of just packing up and leaving, if things turn sour, and the likelihood is that they will. When you are looking to buy a home you research any prospective area carefully, to make sure that it meets your needs and those of your family, and a big part of that research should include the trustworthiness of the city government which will be making decisions affecting you and your family while you are here.
I really think you'd be better off looking elsewhere.