Cupertino Matters
- Local News
- TONIGHT – Planning Commission, Tues., July 22, 6:45 p.m.
- RECAP – City Council, Tues., July 15, 2025, 6:45 p.m.; Closed Session, 6:00 p.m.
Hope you are enjoying family time and summer travel during this hiatus before school starts up and the fall season begins.
In city news, congratulations are due to Tina Kapoor as the city council formally approved her contract as reported in San Jose Spotlight: Cupertino contracts Tina Kapoor as interim city manager in wake of Pamela Wu’s departure.
In environmental news, there is progress on the Lehigh/Heidelberg Cement Plant and Permanente Quarry on the border of Cupertino which has been controversial for decades. The county was able to negotiate a permanent shutdown of the cement plant in 2023. Sierra Club’s successful lawsuit against Lehigh Southwest Cement Company will begin to show on-the-ground results as the company officially breaks ground on the Permanente Creek restoration project July 22. The project will remove thousands of tons of toxic mine waste that were dumped from Lehigh’s quarry into Permanente Creek upstream of Cupertino. Required by a federal court order signed by both Sierra Club and Lehigh, the company must restore 3.5 miles of the mining-ravaged watershed by 2030 according to the Mercury News: Cupertino quarry owner to begin multimillion-dollar cleanup of mining waste in creek: Permanente Creek project is part of a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club; fate of quarry site still undecided
Santa Clara County Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga invites residents to an important community meeting to discuss the current status. The meeting will provide updates, share key information, and offer residents an opportunity to ask questions and voice their concerns. The meeting will take place on Thursday, July 31, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Quinlan Community Center.
In traffic safety news, the City of Cupertino has just released a Collision Dashboard, a first step toward Vision Zero. The Cupertino Vision Zero Action Plan (VZAP) guides policies and programs with the goal of eliminating fatalities and severe injuries on Cupertino roadways by 2040 for all roadway users, including those who walk, bike, drive, ride transit, and travel by other modes. According to the San Jose Spotlight, there were “1,950 traffic collisions between 2018 and 2024, compiling data from the California Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System. The data reveals that within about six years, collisions resulted in 47 severe injuries and 10 fatalities primarily along the city’s major corridors, including Stevens Creek and De Anza Boulevards, as well as Homestead, North Wolfe and Bollinger roads.”
Vision Zero is an international effort to eliminate all fatal and serious injury traffic crashes. Adopted by communities across the United States, Vision Zero reflects a view–well supported by extensive data–that these crashes are preventable and that changed attitudes and approaches will enable success. Vision Zero programs prioritize safety over other transportation goals, acknowledge that traffic fatalities and serious injuries are preventable, and incorporate a multidisciplinary Safe System approach.
For research, past issues back to January 2020 of Cupertino Matters are posted on the website. Encourage your friends who would like to become better informed about our community to subscribe to our email newsletter at CupertinoMatters.org.
UPCOMING – Planning Commission, Tues., July 22, 2025, 6:45 p.m., Regular meeting
Item No. 2: Study Session: Sample Objective Design Standards. Cupertino is preparing new residential design standards, known as objective design standards (ODS), to accommodate changes in state housing law. Staff and the project consultant, PlaceWorks, conducted a Planning Commission Study Session for the ODS project on May 13, 2025. This is a followup to solicit additional feedback using a sample of the structure of these design standards.
Commissioners prioritized the following to support the direction of local housing design:
- Ensuring that new buildings are sensitive to the surrounding lower-density residential neighborhoods.
- Ensuring that new surface parking, vehicle loading areas and utilities are sensitive to surrounding lower-density residential sites.
- Minimizing the potential privacy impacts of new multifamily development on adjacent development, particularly lower-density neighborhoods.
- Preventing a transition to a local “concrete jungle,” or heat island, with an inadequate number of trees and greenery enhancing the City’s appearance and improving the pedestrian experience for residents and visitors alike.
- Activating retail visitation and walkability.
Item No. 3: Selection of Economic Development Committee Representative. The City Council re-established the Economic Development Committee (EDC) which will meet quarterly with representatives from several business sectors and commissions. The initial term of commission representatives will be until January 30, 2026 after which each subsequent representative will serve on a one year term ending January 30 of each calendar year. Moving forward, the representative will be selected for appointment by Council at the same time as the annual election of Chair and Vice-Chair to ensure continuity in representation (typically in February of each year).
RECAP – CITY COUNCIL, July 16, 2025, 7:00 p.m., Non-Televised Special Meeting (Housing Commission and Public Safety Commission Interviews)
Item No.1 Interview and appoint to fill vacancies on the Housing Commission (Business Representative) and Public Safety Commission.
A representative was chosen for the Public Safety Commission. No new representative was chosen for the Housing Commission following disagreement among the councilmembers as to whether to fill the vacancy now with the available applicants who had applied or to wait to fill the vacancy alongside the interviews for the Economic Development Committee. Council deadlocked on this point and the matter was continued by order of the Mayor. Councilmember Wang was absent–his second absence from commission interviews and appointments.
RECAP – CITY COUNCIL, Tues., July 15, 2025, 6:45 p.m. Regular; 6:00 Closed Session
YouTube: Part 1: 1 hr. 35 min. Part 2: 3 hr. 2 min. Note: Councilmember Wang appeared via Zoom from Mumbai, India.
Closed Session: 6:00 p.m.
Item No. 1: Conference with Labor Negotiators pursuant to Government Code § 54957.6 (Kristina Alfaro and Christopher Boucher). There was no reportable action.
Open Session; 6:45 p.m.
The Consent Calendar with six routine items was approved unanimously. This included Item No.7: Approval of Interim City Manager Employment Agreement; Proposed Amendments to the Appointed Employees’ Compensation Program, which formally appointed Tina Kapoor as the Interim City Manager.
Item No.10: Approval of lien assessment and collection of fees on private parcels resulting from abatement of public nuisance (weeds and/or brush) for the annual Weed and Brush Abatement Programs. Four property owners contested the assessments; these were resolved by the county weed abatement inspector. Council approved 5-0.
Item No.11: Study Session to review an application to develop new ELI (Extremely Low Income) and BMR housing units for Developmentally Disabled individuals (IDD) on City-owned property along Mary Avenue (APN: 326-27-053). Council spent over an hour and half on this so-called study session to consider this project which has already been thoroughly vetted and previously approved by council as a Priority Housing Element affordable housing site–the only one specifically intended for extremely low income residents. There have been multiple community meetings over the more than ten years, as evidenced by the strong community support in public comment. Parking continues to be a trumped up objection, despite the over 5,000 parking spaces available across the street at De Anza College. Despite Mayor Chao’s motion to delay yet the project yet again, which would have threatened funding for the project, the substitute motion by Councilmember Fruen to move the project ahead with informational memos to address various nonsubstantive council concerns was approved 3-2, with Chao and Wang voting nay.
Item No.12: Study Session regarding possible updates to oversized vehicle parking restrictions in the public right-of-way (Continued on July 1, 2025). At 10:07 p.m., Mayor Chao recognized that there were two more items on the agenda, yet spent over an hour on this item. Oversized vehicle parking is more complicated than a simple revision of parking regulations envisioned by Mayor Chao. Other cities beside Cupertino are grappling with the same issue of oversized vehicle parking on city streets, but there is no consensus on the optimal approach. While there was some general agreement on requiring vehicles to move 1500 feet, and not return for 72 hours, as well as signs at the city entrance, other details need to be fleshed out. Requiring permits for all resident recreational vehicles and increased code enforcement is a substantial cost, not addressed in the staff report. The staff accepted direction and will return with more fleshed out options, with no vote.
Item No. 13: Acceptance of the Stevens Creek Boulevard Corridor Vision Study Due to Councilmember Wang’s airline flight, Council voted to postpone this item even though it was time-sensitive. The vote was 4-1 with Fruen voting nay.
CUPERTINO COURIER: July 18, 2025
The front page and community brief on page 5 is entitled Concrete status update: County supervisor hosting meeting on local cement plant. Additional community briefs are (1) Music in the Courtyard at the library and (2) Industrious volunteers sought. Page 5 has two previously published articles from the Mercury News entitled (1) Two 99 Ranch supermarkets ordered to close temporarily, due to rodent infestations, and (2) PE facility set to get $53 million renovation at De Anza College. There are no legal notices.
Warm regards,
Jean Bedord
Cupertino Matters
Publisher and Editor
