Mayor's Corner with Darcy Paul
February greetings. This month I would like to highlight a couple of items affecting Cupertino that have been, respectively, of long-standing and more recent importance to our residents, each deeply felt and visible.
The long-standing item relates to mining on the outskirts of and partially within our western borders. We have set forth in Cupertino support for a referral by the County Board of Supervisors to the staff of the County of Santa Clara to be returned to the County Board within 90 days of February 15, 2022, options for closure of mining activities on the outskirts and just within the western borders of Cupertino. We on City Council directed our City staff to issue this support later on the very same day that the County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to support this referral, which was authored by the Supervisor who represents our district in the County, Supervisor Joe Simitian.
Communication was integral to being able to take on the role that Cupertino took on for this item, which was Item 18 on our February 15 meeting Agenda. Four of my fellow Mayors – Anita Enander of Los Altos; George Tyson of Los Altos Hills; Pat Burt of Palo Alto; and Larry Klein of Sunnyvale – joined me in issuing a press release indicating our individual support for the referral to County staff to look into the issue of options of closure of mining activity, and for County staff to bring the results of this examination back to the County Board of Supervisors. On the evening of February 15, 2022, our City Council discussed and also voted unanimously in favor of the referral.
Why were we able to do this successfully after years of concerns expressed but no public action taken of this nature in the direction of examining closure? Indeed, it did start with the long-term meticulous work of our residents and members of the public. This made it possible to indicate that not only was the public sentiment there, so was the attention to detail. Extending from that, our Cupertino City Council has established itself as a group of elected representatives that will do the challenging work.
Our Council is able to handle the difficulty inherent in issues. As such, after Mayor Enander of Los Altos suggested that a few Mayors issue a press release in conjunction with Supervisor Simitian’s press conference regarding his then-prospective referral on February 10, 2022, I was able to coordinate the press release with the elected representatives from our neighboring jurisdictions, with much appreciation to our City Attorney Chris Jensen for the work and good thought in generating draft background content. I also very much appreciate my colleagues on the Council for standing firm with integrity and attention to detail, and forming that foundation for being able to put forth this effective work.
On that note, the Lawrence-Mitty parcel on the eastern side of Cupertino has been acquired by our City as of November 2020. While administrative work regarding annexation proceeds, as the space itself is within the City of San Jose’s borders, we need to focus upon stewardship of the space in the context of public involvement and awareness. Ultimately, this is going to be public space. As we wait, the space itself, which adjoins Saratoga Creek, has, like several of our spaces around the County adjoining the freeways, become subject to significant amounts of trash and litter being discarded, creating environmental and health-related problems.
What do we do about this? Again, this is largely about communication and dealing with the problem rather than getting bogged down. In this case, most immediately, we have jurisdictional issues to consider. Cleanup of litter along Saratoga Creek is also something that the Santa Clara Valley Water District is able to and in fact needs to help us address, if we are to address the issue at all. In that vein, I’ve reached out to the Water District in order for us to work together to allow some of us to get out there, be trained, and start cleaning up the space.
My hope is that we can have a productive conversation and be able to evince our willingness to roll up our sleeves and get the job done by, in this case, having both permission and possibly even partnership in getting said job done. I’m very glad that the Water District has responded quickly after I spoke with Board President Gary Kremen about this. Although not the only component by far, I see this particular slice of the equation as purely volunteer work and I both hope and predict that we will get great community support for this effort, because that’s in essence the kind of community we are, getting things done by getting them done, even though sometimes it’s not an altogether short or quick line to the starting point of the work. Again, I understand and it is stipulated that ongoing stewardship is not the exclusive domain of volunteer work. But by this we can certainly both kickstart the activity and get our community members into the mode of familiarity with the space with an eye on long-term use and care.
On a somewhat related note, and on a larger scale, although the State has set forth very significant amounts of funding for litter clean-up throughout California, locally, for us in the Bay Area, in this current 10-year cycle, our district for CalTrans has not allocated the funding needed to keep the areas next to our freeways clean in Santa Clara County. Similarly and hopefully compared to our immediate experience with our local Water District, I hope that the transit agencies that serve us can allow us to evince our interest effectively, and work to help us. And of course we will be assiduous about watching out for the opportunities for resources and funding to respond to opportunities such as grant funding for clean-ups.
Well, have a good rest of February, stay healthy and stay safe.
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