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What a pro-residents City Council did in last two years:
- Held staff accountable
- Proactively to revise city code to protect the city’s interest
- Push staff to look for better process to give – for example, for new cell towers building plan
- Community garden – push to reduce cost and add satellite gardens
- Push to mitigate impacted residents
- Push city staff to abide by city code without exceptions
- Proactively to represent Cupertino at regional level
- Lehigh cement – pushed back to Lehigh with letters written by expert attorneys
- Pushed for long term Spending plan for capital projects
- Fixed communication with commissions
- Commissions are more active when filled with residents who care, rather than political favors.
| What the pro-developer Council did (before 2018) | What the pro-resident Council did (2019 ~ present) |
| Give in to developer demand for exceptions | Insist on compliance with the law |
| First gave away huge entitlement to Vallco, such as 2 million sqft office allocation without height limit or desity limit, in 2014. Then refused to clarify zoning at Vallco when the state bills like SB 35 were weaponized against cities, in 2017. | Clarified zoning at Vallco to remove office allocation to avoid creating a demand for 6000 more units of housing to worsen the housing crisis. Clarified zoning to identify 13.1 acres for residential to maintain the remaining site as commercial zoning to serve residents’ needs |
| Complacent to aggressive state laws that take away local control or even celebrate with state legislators for the fruit of weaponized state laws, such as Vallco project | proactively represent the residents’ interest Re-activate legislative review committee to take positions on bills to protect the interest of Cupertino residents Form coalition with other city councilmembers to protect the interest of small cities versus the legislators from the big cities Proactively to propose bill ideas to request more funding for affordable housing or to de-commoditize housing to fix rising housing costat its root. or to require higher percentage of much needed below-market-rate housing |
| Where was the transparency and community outreach? Focused only on narrow community engagement in exclusive contexts, for example, those clubs requiring hefty annual membership fees. | Open and fair process resulting in much better development projects in 2019 and 2020. The Cupertino Hotel and Westport (Oaks) are examples of good results from good policy, which promote honesty, transparency and mutual respect. |
| Some Councilmembers never responded to emails from residents. Only listen to elite clubs with hefty annual membership fees. Hard to see real community engagement. | More meaningful engagement with residents, more accessible with park walks, bike rides, coffee hours. Proactively request more information on the website, such as the Open City Hall page. |
| Let Main Street developer, Sand Hill, to modify their original development plan passed in 2009, allow developer to increase building heights, to reduce senior units, to triple office allocations, to remove community benefits… | Kept a close watch on new development projects. Is making sure that the De Anza Hotel and Westport Cupertino (Oaks Shopping Center) developers deliver on their promises. These examples show how developments can take shape when our council works for us. Real community benefits result from good policy. |
| put developer profit ahead of residents’ legitimate concerns | put residents ahead of for-profit companies in either development or cell towers |
| No action when industry lobbyists got FCC force small cells on city light poles | Responded proactively to residents’ conserve to push for alternative locations for macro cells and push for tighter city regulations to protect residents’ interest |
| Let McClellan community gardens die without any consideration for resident needs. | restored the McClellan community garden — pushing for more community gardens around the city |
| The Council majority ignored the park deficient area in Cupertino. | Push for speeding up the land purchase process for future Lawrence-Mitty park. |
| Rubberstamp staff recommendations, even for projects costing millions of dollars | Request for detailed cost breakdown. Request for cheaper alternatives or involving volunteers to reduce costs. |
| Never enforced city or state laws during project review phase to prevent potential legal disputes later. | Clarify City laws to avoid loopholes, which could be weaponized by developers, to reduce legal risks. |
| Was complacent to aggressive state laws that take away local control or even celebrate with state legislators (Scott Wiener and Evan Low) for the fruit of weaponized state laws (Such as SB35) at Vallco | Proactively represent the residents’ interest 1) Re-activate legislative review committee to take positions on bills to protect the interest of Cupertino residents 2) Form coalition with other city councilmembers to protect the interest of small cities versus the legislators from the big cities 3) Proactively to propose bill ideas to request more funding for affordable housing or to de-commoditize housing to fix rising housing cost at its root. or to require higher percentage of much needed below-market-rate housing |