Council Actions Newsletter
City Council Meeting
Watch the March 15, 2022 Meeting (Part 1, Part 2)
City Council Actions:
Ceremonial Matters and Presentations
1. Recognize Receipt of CSMFO Innovation Award
Council recognized the receipt of the California Society of Municipal Finance Officers (CSMFO) Innovation Award for the City's Resident Tax Calculator and Budget Forecast Tool.
Reports by Council and Staff
2. Councilmembers provided brief reports and announcements on their public activities since the prior regular Council meeting.
3. Councilmembers provided updates on their Committee assignments.
4. City Manager provided City and pandemic-related updates.
Consent Calendar
City Council approved Items 5-7, 9, and 14 as recommended in the Agenda.
8. Setting Application Deadline and Interview Dates for Teen Commission Terms
Council continued this item to the April 5 meeting.
Ordinances and Action Items
10. FY 2021-2022 Council Work Program Item to Develop ELI and BMR Housing Units for Developmentally Disabled Individuals on City-Owned Property Along Mary Avenue
Following staff presentation and discussion, Council provided direction to staff to prepare a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the property to be developed for 100% affordable housing with a preference for the intellectually and developmentally disabled population, and to provide flexibility to staff members compiling the RFP and RFQ to optimize the chances of having a successful project.
Council reordered the agenda to hear Item 15 before Item 11.
15. 2021 General Plan Annual Report and Housing Element APR
Council received the 2021 General Plan Annual Report and Housing Element Annual Progress Report (APR) on forms required by the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD).
11. Review of Homeless Jobs Program
Council received a report from staff and adopted Resolution No. 22-026 accepting Accounts Payable for the period ending January 10, 2022.
12. Consider Issuing Request to CUSD Board for Reconsideration of Future Closures of Regnart and Meyerholz Elementary Schools
Council discussed taking a position that the Cupertino Union School District should reconsider its decision to close Regnart and Meyerholz Elementary Schools.
13. Chamber of Commerce Services and Payment Included in the Accounts Payable Period Ending December 20, 2021
Council consented to table this item until a later date.
Mayor's Corner with Darcy Paul
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
Happy Ides of March, or thereabouts. While The Bard wrote of the middle of the third month of the calendar year as a warning by a character in a play, the nice thing about the human condition, or at least one nice thing, is the power to make adjustments.
And we see a few nice adjustments on our horizon that should give us good cause for optimism. The most notable one that I’ll address here is the re-opening of City Hall next month. The next regular Council meeting, on April 5th, 2022, will be a hybrid meeting. State law during the pandemic emergency will still cover meeting participants who will be videoconferencing in to the meeting, but the plan is to be back in Community Hall for those who wish to attend our live meeting. City Hall itself is slated to open to the public on a regular basis starting on April 11th, 2022, the following Monday.
Right next to Community Hall, the Cupertino Library has been open again for full Sunday hours since January 26th. Progress on the Library Expansion is going swimmingly, and we look forward to our Grand Opening and Ribbon-Cutting there on Friday, April 29th for this amazing new space. That’s a good long-term adjustment coming on the historical heels of another adjustment when our current Library was originally constructed almost twenty years ago. Some of those resources were allocated to making Community Hall, which over time we have to say has served the community well, but it also left a gap in the Library itself insofar as meeting and programming space went. And so, now we make another adjustment, and things will be just fine.
We are constantly making adjustments, and how we approach them defines our user experience, so to speak. Do we choose the path of constantly finding undue fault with others, in support of undisclosed interests? Or do we take a more optimistic, open and sustainable approach, one grounded in doing the work and having a generosity of spirit coupled with a reciprocal respect for our shared humanity?
I hope that we choose the latter. Our community in another current example of making good adjustments is taking on the issue of increased litter along our freeways and waterways. Recently, at a VTA Board meeting, I learned that Santa Clara County in this current decade-long period has not been allocated a proportional share of funding for cleanup along the highways. These allocations change about once every ten years. What do we do about this? Well, I know that we can complain. That is always an option. But I’m extremely grateful to stand with, and to work with, those who will also go out there and do something about it. On April 2nd, groups of volunteers and the City Council will be out next to the 280 freeway, in coordination with CalTrans and VTA, cleaning up the litter. I know that this will result in more good action, because it is in itself good and honest action as well. Mark your calendars as well for Saturday, May 21st, because on that day, we will be working with the Water District for their annual volunteer creek clean-up day.
With regard to the sooner-in-time volunteer highway clean-up event, originally, this event was supposed to take place this weekend, on March 19th. But, as luck would have it, after the driest January, February and first half of March in history, it is supposed to rain on March 19th! Not a great time to be next to the highway cleaning up the shoulder. But let me tell you about the last adjustment I’ll cover here. The good representative of CalTrans that I spoke to regarding this pointed out that this extra time will give them the opportunity to reach out to the unhoused individual in one of the triangles of the De Anza Boulevard exits and on-ramps that are the subject of our volunteers’ efforts. The time will allow us to see whether supportive services can be provided allowing us to help this person towards a better situation.
I want to close this month with the “Ides of March Adjustments” Mayor’s Corner column to beseech you and our community to start thinking very seriously about what we can be doing to provide these services ourselves, directly and within our jurisdiction, with partners, of course, to the unhoused. Council has made a great start in the last couple of years with a homeless jobs program in-house in our City as well as starting to formulate a plan. But we also need facilities and we need supportive services from all sectors – private, public and constituent-driven. I am confident that by pulling together we can bring forth to the world a great model for doing this. I fully understand this will be challenging work, yet it will also be rewarding in ways beyond measure. This past Council meeting we also took meaningful steps toward housing for the extremely low income and developmentally disabled. Let’s once again change the world for the better and work to find a way to turn the plight of the unhoused around.
Thank you for your kind partnership, keep making those good adjustments, and we’ll see you in April.
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