Spring has sprung WEEKEND | 21 APRIL 13, 2018 VOLUME 26, NO. 12
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MOVIES | 24
City accountants regret business license mess OWNERS DIDN’T GET FIRST NOTICE OF HIGHER FEES By Mark Noack
M
JAMES TENSUAN
Western tussock moth caterpillars had a population explosion this spring and are infesting Mountain View and neighboring cities.
A plague of caterpillars hits Mountain View UNUSUAL WEATHER FUELS AN EXPLOSION OF HAIRY CRAWLERS ALL OVER TOWN By Kevin Forestieri
I
t’s hard to get around town without running into them. Hordes of hairy caterpillars, freshly hatched after a warm February, can be found
all over Mountain View and neighboring cities dangling down tree branches and wriggling on cars, playgrounds and garbage bins, leaving behind trails of stringy silk. And while the hairy,
crawling critters tend to make their debut around this time every year, Mountain View parks staff acknowledge that there’s an usually high number
ou nt a i n Vie w ’s finance department is sending out a mass apology after thousands of local businesses were sent letters warning they were delinquent in paying a new fee. The pink warning letters were mailed in mid-March to about 2,700 businesses, or roughly two-thirds of the licensed businesses in the city. Business owners were notified in the letter that they were behind $3 on their license payments. If the business didn’t immediately rectify the unpaid bill, owners would face additional fines or penalties, the letters said. Mountain View resident Mike Lehner said he was baffled as he read the notice sent to his wife Jennifer’s health consulting business. He felt like the city was about to revoke their license. “This was the first we heard about this,” he said. “It gave us less than a week’s notice, and it
said it was the second and final notice, but we never received anything before.” So in late March, Lehner went to City Hall with his wallet, and he found he wasn’t alone. A crowd of other frustrated business owners was lining up outside the Finance Department office, angry about the abrupt warnings over $3. City staff seemed to be struggling to control the livid group, he said. The city did offer an online payment system, but many business owners were miffed that they would be charged a $1.25 convenience fee for using it. Finance Director Patty Kong agreed it was quite the mess. The last week of March her team had to deal with hundreds of irate business owners, in person and over the phone. “It was an unfortunate event that this had gone out in this manner,” she said. “There were quite a few people who had thought they had paid their See BUSINESS LICENSE, page 8
See CATERPILLARS, page 9
Family plans to sue over Tesla crash LAW FIRM ALLEGES FAULTY TECHNOLOGY LED TO DEATH OF SAN MATEO MAN By Kevin Forestieri
T
he family of a man who was killed in a fiery crash involving a Tesla Model X vehicle plans to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the car company over allegations of a faulty Autopilot system, according to an announcement by a legal firm representing the family. San Mateo resident Walter Huang, 38, suffered major injuries and later died after his 2017 Tesla
INSIDE
collided with a median on Highway 101 in Mountain View on March 23. Vehicle logs recovered by Tesla showed that Huang had been using the vehicle’s Autopilot function at the time of the crash, when the vehicle hit a cement barrier between Highway 101 and the Highway 85 carpool flyover, according to the company. In an online post Wednesday, the law firm Minami Tamaki stated that the family intends to file the wrongful death suit against
Tesla, and could potentially extend the suit to any subcontractors involved in the design and construction of the Autopilot system. An early review by the law firm indicated that the Autopilot system installed in the Model X may have misread painted lanes on the roadway, failed to detect the concrete median and failed to brake the car, according to the post. “The firm believes Tesla’s See TESLA, page 12
VIEWPOINT 19 | GOINGS ON 25 | MARKETPLACE 26 | REAL ESTATE 28
NATALIA NAZAROVA
Jennifer Lehner was one of about 2,700 owners who received a surprising warning notice claiming they were behind on paying business license fees. Mountain View city officials later apologized for the misfire.