Change is always on the menu WEEKEND | 17 JANUARY 17, 2020 VOLUME 27, NO. 51
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MOVIES | 19
Voters to decide on RV parking ban CITY COUNCIL’S PARKING RESTRICTIONS ON RVS, OVERSIZED VEHICLES SET FOR REFERENDUM VOTE IN NOVEMBER ELECTION By Mark Noack
T SAMMY DALLAL
Kurt Harl, assistant manager at Game Kastle in Mountain View, holds the original version of the board game Catan. The San Antonio shopping center store found success using a business model that attracts gamers to the tournaments, events and club meetings it hosts.
Beating the odds MOUNTAIN VIEW GAME KASTLE IS THRIVING, DESPITE TOUGH TIMES FOR RETAIL By Mark Noack
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lways in the back of Shaw Mead’s mind is a board game that he could someday design. He calls it “Humans & Hobby Stores.” Players each represent a small retail shop trying to keep the
lights on amid online competition, fickle customers and ever-rising costs. The rules are hard to pin down, but the game requires resource management, worker placement and creative thinking. The player with the most money at the end wins. Mead, 44, has been playing
this game for most of his adult life — and he’s become quite the expert at it. As the owner of Mountain View’s hobby emporium, Game Kastle, he believes old-fashioned, tactile board games are the perfect antidote to See KASTLE, page 11
he final decision on whether to prohibit oversized vehicles like RVs from parking on most city streets will be up to Mountain View voters this November. In a unanimous vote at its Tuesday, Jan. 14, meeting, the City Council decided to bring its September parking ordinance to a popular vote following a successful referendum to overturn it. The city’s parking ordinance, referred to as the “RV ban,” will be suspended until the election, the council decided. It was a rare easy choice for Mountain View leaders even though it dealt with the city’s most vexing issue. Council members quickly agreed the voters should make the final decision on where large vehicles, including inhabited RV and trailers, are allowed to park in the city. “It’s time for the voters to vote, but I don’t expect us to suspend our work with finding solutions,” said Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga. “Our safe parking is just getting off the ground, and I do believe
that as we learned from other cities, it goes hand in hand with some restrictions.” The parking ordinance passed last September on a 4-3 council vote. The ordinance called for all-hours restrictions on oversized vehicles parking on narrow streets, defined as any road less than 40 feet in width. These oversized vehicles would include any cars, trucks, vans, motor homes or trailers measuring more than 22 feet long, 7 feet high or 7 feet wide, albeit with some exceptions. The parking ordinance touched a nerve for many Mountain View residents because the brunt of the restrictions would have fallen on people living out of their vehicles. Social justice advocates immediately blasted the ordinance as a thinly veiled attempt to push the homeless out of the city. City officials have insisted the parking rules were designed to improve traffic safety, particularly the visibility problems for drivers caused by rows of large vehicles lining the curbs. So far, the city has not specified See RV PARKING, page 7
More delays, higher costs as flood protection projects near the finish WATER DISTRICT BOOSTS FUNDING TO $88M FOR MCKELVEY PARK, RANCHO SAN ANTONIO BASINS By Kevin Forestieri
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onstruction projects aimed at providing flood protection to thousands of Mountain View properties is over budget and more than a year behind schedule. The Santa Clara Valley Water District’s board of directors signed off on another round of
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funding in November for $4.7 million, aimed at offsetting cost overruns that ate through most of the project’s contingency fund. As of this month, the flood protection projects are now expected to cost $88.5 million, according to district staff. The funding boost addresses the latest in a series of overruns that have ballooned the
cost of the Permanente Creek Flood Protection Project, which includes two detention basins designed to take on floodwater and protect homes primarily located in Mountain View. The basins — located at Rancho San Antonio and McKelvey Park — would protect large swaths of the
VIEWPOINT 16 | GOINGS ON 20 | REAL ESTATE 21
See FLOOD, page 7
SAMMY DALLAL
Work on the Rancho San Antonio flood detention basin is 16 months behind schedule after the “unexpected archaeological discovery” of Native American remains. The basin is intended to divert floodwaters and protect properties downstream.