City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. It is 06:49, and I call this regular meeting of the Cupertino City Council on 04/21/2026 to order. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Alright. Madam city clerk, will you please call the roll?

Councilmember Freund? Here. Councilmember Rohan? Here. Councilmember Wong?

Here.

Vice mayor Chao?

Here.

Mayor Moore? Here. And, mayor, vice mayor, and councilmembers, as a reminder, councilmember Wong is participating remotely this evening. Councilmember Wong, are you in the lobby at the W Hotel in Las Vegas this evening?

Yes. I am. I'm in the lobby, and we have an agenda posted, not required.

That was my next question. Thank you. Council member Wong, are there any individuals over the age of 18 with you, and has anyone indicated to you that they intend to make public comment or address the council evening?

I have not seen anyone that has intended to address the council, as intended.

Thank you. I'll rely on you to notify me if any member of the public wishes to speak from your location. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you, madam city clerk. For the closed session report, there is no reportable action and we are going to begin with ceremonial items in recognition of the administrative services department and we will be presenting a proclamation and then take a group photo. This proclamation recognizes the Administrative Services Department for its essential role in supporting the City Of Cupertino's operations and financial health. This essential department oversees budget development, financial management, and purchasing services that ensure responsible stewardship of public resources and alignment with council priorities.

I'd now like to invite our city manager to share a few brief remarks about our diligent administrative staff.

Thank you, mayor. I'm really excited to continue the tradition to recognize our city departments and happy to kick the 2026 off with the recognition of admin services department, which plays a key role in stewarding the city's financial resources through its budget, finance and purchasing teams, helping to ensure that they are managed responsibly, transparently and in service of the residents of Cupertino. The budget division develops and manages the city's annual budget, aligning resources with community priorities and with council direction. The finance division supports the city through accounting, financial reporting, revenue management, and compliance, ensuring accuracy, transparency and fiscal integrity across all operations. And the purchasing division ensures that goods and services are procured in a fair, competitive and cost effective manner, enabling departments to deliver high quality services to the community.

The department also supports capital improvement program and citywide grants management, providing guidance on compliance and reporting to ensure processes are executed effectively and in accordance with applicable requirements. Together, these teams provide the financial backbone of the city and exemplify professionalism and public service. I also want to acknowledge our human resources team, which has recently transitioned to the city manager's office to better align with citywide operational priorities. Although they are not joining us this evening, they will be formally recognized at an upcoming meeting when we bring the city manager's team. And we value the important work they continue to do in support of our employees and organization.

And with that, I would like to invite acting admin service director Jonathan Orozco and the staff that's present from the department today to come up and be recognized by counsel.

Okay. All right. What a nice way to start the meeting. Next item is postponements and orders of the day. Madam City Clerk, do we have any postponements or requests for orders of the day?

No, mayor.

All right.

Thank you. And there's no request from

the council? All right. Madam City Clerk, we are moving on to oral communications. Do we have any request to speak for oral communications? And how many speaker cards do we have?

Mayor, at this time, I see two hands raised virtually and one or two speaker cards. Jean, are you I don't have a number. Are you wanting oral communications? Or are you twice. One on the consent calendar. Okay. Consent and 13. Okay. So one request to speak in person, mayor, for oral communications, and I see two hands raised virtually.

Alright. Thank you. Madam city clerk, will you please read the instructions and conduct oral communications?

Yes, mayor. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the council on any matter within the jurisdiction of the council and not on the agenda for discussion. Oral communications shall be limited to thirty minutes. Additional speakers wishing to comment on non agenda items may be given time to speak at the end of the agenda after the city manager's report. Individual speakers are limited to three minutes.

As necessary, the chair or the mayor may further limit the time allowed to individual speakers or reschedule remaining comments to the end of the meeting on a first come first first heard basis with priority given to students. In most cases, state law will prohibit the council from discussing or making any decisions with respect to a matter not listed on the agenda. A council member may, however, briefly respond to statements made or questions posed by speakers. A council member may also ask a question for clarification, provide a reference for factual information, request staff to report back concerning a matter, or request that an item be added to a future city council agenda in response to public comment. So at this time, we will go to our speaker in person, which is Lee.

We will welcome Lee to the podium. Lee, would you wanna speak? Oral communications? Yes.

Hi. My name is Charlene Li. I want to say we shouldn't use AI to kill a high school student. Right? We shouldn't now Google, some of P try, hire two two thousand Google employee to kill a high school student.

His name is in Taiwan called $500,000,000 high school student. The 24,000,000 people saw this person be killed. Please Google search rottenmangopodcast.com, episode three ninety two. High school boy in here, $500,000,000. Let married stranger two hour later fall temporal to death. But the problem is the crime scene, no bra. No bra at all. Look at this photo at .com episode three ninety two

I think that the comments are outside the jurisdiction of this body.

Let me know. I can have more time,

would you like me to

mute or ask her to keep

her

comments within the jurisdiction of the body.

Pardon, Ms. Li?

So, Charlene?

I don't think there is a limit to that. People cannot

come No.

No. People have to come in on our business.

Thank you, Charlene. That is your time. Thank you, Charlene. Mayor, we will move to the request to speak virtually. Thank thank you, Charlene.

Pardon? Pardon? Pardon, you're disturbing the meeting. Miss Lee, your time is up. Your time is up.

Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry, your time is up. You need to stop talking. Alright. Thank you. Madam city clerk, will you continue with oral communications?

Thank you. We have two hands raised virtually. We will welcome San Rao followed by Rhoda Fry. Welcome, San.

Good evening, Mayor Moore and council members. Speaking on behalf of myself only as a Cupertino resident. I would like to ask that the no net loss housing element cyclist additions be treated with urgency and multiple iterations of this be brought forward to both the Planning Commission and the City Council. I am extremely concerned that what happened last time around will be the same that will happen this time, which is postcards being sent to people that own lots about a certain acreage. And any lot owner that expresses interest gets added to the cyclist with no further consideration to the impact of the neighborhood.

We cannot allow a repeat of what happened last time. The process cannot be dumped down to just allowing greedy landowners to volunteer to up zone their sites just because of financial interest. This process needs to be based on a much more sophisticated criteria such as looking at Class C vintage office properties in Cupertino that would really serve the community better by being put to use for housing rather than classy office. Likewise, we need to protect our retail, and we cannot allow for our retail sites to get up zoned into housing elements. So I'm really concerned that we are almost four months in from when we first said we would need to do this, and we have seen no progress at all.

I fail to understand why we need consultants for this process. I urge you to look at what other cities are doing and whether all of those cities are using consultants for the process. It's time that we started asking our staff to do some of these things rather than relying on consultants who frankly do not know our city and do not understand the sentiment of our neighborhoods and their residents. So I urge you to direct staff to iterate this item at the Planning Commission and City Council multiple rounds. I do not believe this is a one and done and would hate to see a repeat of what happened with Linde Vista Drive, McLellan Road and various other places.

I'm already seeing signs of that with indications of properties in Cupertino coming up on LoopNet. And the timing is ominous because when we see commercial properties on Bollinger Road and other places coming up on LoopNet just in time for this kind of no net loss, it makes us wonder what is behind the timing. So I urge you to protect not just our retail and commercial properties, but also we have churches and we have other zone sites that have certain specific users. And we cannot allow for an ongoing reduction in dedicated use for non housing purposes. So let's protect retail.

Let's protect our churches. Let's target our class c offices. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam. Just a reminder to members of the public wishing to speak on this item to raise your hand within the next minute and a half. And we will go to Rhoda Fry. Welcome, Rhoda.

Hi. Good evening. To continue on the sentiments of the previous speaker, I'd like to see some more transparency as to what is going on in Cupertino as to new housing projects. For instance, there was a new there was a project that was applied for all the way back in February, of a higher density project over on Stevens Creek Boulevard and Foothill, where there's a there's a single family home and then a little office center. It's gonna get turned into housing.

Be nice if there could be maybe an info info memo that would be the planning commission level every time we have planning commission meet meetings so we know what's kind of coming. That project was kind of was quite difficult, so was not easy to find. I looked for develop like, the regular development projects wasn't on there line there. I actually found it through Exela. I did find it from some other website.

Seems like there's a bunch of different places to find projects that are going on now. So anyway, request for more we'll And to to we needed a new new new traffic business. Light. Is this where the gas station thing is, where we did the redo of De Anza and McLellan? And if so, my I would think that that would be part of a CIP, the capital improvements projects.

And even if it's not there, I'm wondering why that was charged to the general fund and not Ms. A

Fry, that is on the agenda, accounts payable.

Oh, so sorry. Okay. Yeah. I I I didn't realize it was pulled. So I sorry. Oh, so that I would have to speak to that on the account on the whatever it's called. Anyway, okay. So I'll just pretend. Can we just pretend that I just spoke to the next agenda item and I've said my piece? Or do you want me to talk again later?

You should speak to it on the proper agenda item.

Okay. I'll see you soon. Thank you.

Thank you, Rhoda. And mayor, that concludes the request to speak under all communications this evening.

Alright. Thank you. Next, we move on to the consent calendar. I believe item six has been pulled. Is that correct?

That's correct, mayor.

Okay. Are there any other items which the council would like to pull at this time? Not seeing any. Madam city clerk, are there any members of the public who would like to speak on items three through five or seven through 12?

Yes, mayor. I have two requests to speak on the consent calendar. And I see one hand raised virtually.

Okay.

So, we will go to the in person request to speak. We will, welcome, Deanne Everton followed by Jean Bedord. And as a reminder, members of the public wishing to speak under items on the consent calendar shall submit a request to speak or raise their hand virtually within the first nine minutes of the start of public comment or before the public comment period is closed, whichever comes first. Welcome, Deanne. Yes. This is the right time.

Okay. Good evening, mayor, council members, and staff. I'm Deanne Everton, rebuild executive director of Rebuilding Together Silicon Valley. Rebuilding Together has committed the last thirty five years to preserving and protecting our affordable housing stock. We've been proud partners with the city of Cupertino for the last twenty years, serving Cupertino low income homeowners, which in turn assists the city with meeting its consolidated plan's number one goal to renovate 35 units of homeowner housing by 2030.

With a relatively low investment, we make the necessary repairs to restore a home as a safe, healthy, and affordable housing option for years to come. And with low income housing at a premium, we know how important this is in Cupertino. Our clients have an average income of just 43,000 or 30% of median income. These are primarily older adults and people with disabilities making tough choices every day between food and medicine and overdue home repairs modifications. Again, due to unique challenges such as living on a fixed income or having some type of disability or health issue, these folks face significant housing barriers, putting them at a greater risk of housing instability.

All the more reason to preserve these naturally occurring housing options for long time Cupertino residents. We recently identified 1,400 low income owner occupied households within Cupertino with an older adult in the home. And we know that around one quarter of all owner occupied homes report at least one negative housing condition. We are committed to a robust outreach plan to identify those Cupertino residents in need of these critical repairs, allowing them to remain safely and affordably housed. Our critical home repairs and safety modifications not only restore healthy living environments and improve the quality of life for each recipient, but our work strengthens neighborhoods, fosters connections, and preserves the cultural and economic diversity of our community, all for a relatively low investment, while at the same time saving our community costs that far surpass the cost of the repairs.

Our work of stabilizing homes also supports generational wealth while reducing the risk of displacement. We thank you for your belief in our mission and your support of our work through our CDBG funds and the important role that home repair banks in preserving affordable housing. Thank you.

Thank you, Dan. Next, we'll welcome Jim Bedort.

Good evening, Mayor Moore, Vice Chair Chow, Council members and staff. My name is Jean Bedord, and I am a Cupertino resident. I'm speaking tonight to object to consent item number five, the new format for accounts payable. In this new format, there's a line item for $93,917.89 paid to Elshire and Winder. There's no indication that this is for legal services.

I happen to know that this bill is for the city attorney. But most residents tracking the overage on legal services would have no means of identifying relevant payments. In addition, there's no indication of the time period for which legal services were provided. The old format had this information. The new accounts payable format as submitted is not transparent.

I urge counsel to have finance resubmit in the old format for the next council meeting. Residents deserve better documentation and transparency regarding payments of taxpayer dollars. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Thank you, Jane. Next

we will move to the request to speak virtually. I see two hands raised. We will welcome Rhoda Frye followed by Sandra Rao. Welcome Rhoda.

Hello again, long time no speak. I'd like to make a comment also regarding the previous speaker as though somehow and and also her newsletter that somehow spending or investing, I should say, in our legal services is a bad thing. It's actually a good thing. And, you know, with having these contract services, we have a wonderful law firm that sits behind our our our contract attorney so we don't have to go out to get to somebody else. They have a whole bunch of people in the back office there.

And it also means that we're not paying benefits and retirement and and vacation and all those other things. It's it's it's a one stop shop. So it might sound really other thing I'm going speak to. And it will be a no surprise because I'm going to talk about that traffic light again. So regarding the traffic light, the question is where is it?

And why was it being charged to the general fund and not the capital improvement programs, CIP? And if it was actually at the McClellan, yeah, McClellan De Anza intersection, I would wanna know why it wouldn't have gotten rolled in especially wanted to know why it didn't get rolled into the CIP and how it how it relates to the entire project because we did my understanding is that, that was definitely a CIP project. And in general, why wouldn't we have traffic lights fall under fall under CIPs? And and and, yeah, where where is it? What's it for?

Why did we need it? And and just general housekeeping stuff. Anyway, thank you very much, and have a good night.

Thank you, Rhoda. Next, we will welcome San Rao followed by Carol Khan. Welcome, San.

Good evening, Mayor Moore and council member speaking on behalf of myself only as the Koopa Pitino resident. I am commenting on agenda item 12, which I had requested to be pulled. I have also requested agenda item six be pulled, I believe it was, and maybe there was another one that I requested to be pulled. I'd like to comment specifically on the chamber item on which I wrote in. The staff report, I believe, indicates as per the contract with the chamber, providing chamber membership to the city, including registration for two city staff as well as all council members at events hosted by the chamber.

I'd like you to clarify exactly what this is because providing membership to the chamber is a gift. I looked up the chamber membership rates for organizations with employees of 100 to 200, and that is $18.90 dollars This change in the chamber providing free memberships to all council members and full staff, When was that put in place? Have the staff and council members been reporting it on their statement of economic interest? And have they recused on all votes involving the chamber? I think this is critical to disclose.

I believe all council members need to recuse on this vote today because you are receiving an economic gift already. And therefore, this item cannot be voted on until you first amend the contract to exclude this item from the benefits offered to council members and staff. Therefore, I ask you to please not move forward on this. And then let's try and get a contract where there is no economic interest involved. And let's have the chamber is a good organization.

I do support it. I'm strongly pro business, but we just need to make sure that there's no gifts being offered to council members and staff, and that is critical. And on the other agenda items under consent, I have previously written in on the item around item six, I believe it was. Are we supposed to comment on all items or only the items that are not being pulled? Not clear to me if you're commenting on all items.

Only the items which are still on consent and have not been pulled.

Okay, very good. So I will also comment on item five. I'd like to urge you to review items that have spending about $10,000 We have ongoing spending in Public Works on street lamp repairs that are running into the $30,000 plus. When I look at the spending by vendor on street lamps alone, our spending has gone up significantly. And while I support investment in infrastructure, I think we just need to be mindful of where and how we are spending and a street lamp replacement at $40,000 and recurring investments with that one vendor needs to be revisited. I'd urge you to look at

Thank items you, that Sam. That is your time. Next, we will welcome Carol Kahn. Welcome, Carol.

Thank you very much. It's my pleasure to be here. I'm Carol Kahn, the executive director of Project Sentinel. We have been in the community of Cupertino for over a dozen years and are very privileged to have a partnership with the city in rendering housing services. We've been in operation over fifty years.

Our mission is to promote fairness and equality in housing for all people and contribute through conflict resolution, increased understanding and peaceable relationships between housing providers and residents, stabilization in community. And we our mission is to keep people stably housed, prevent eviction, displacement, and homelessness. And it is with the with much gratitude and appreciation that I thank the city council for its continued funding for Project Sentinel in both our Fair Housing Department and our tenant landlord counseling and dispute resolution Department. Our activities are helping to remove discriminatory housing barriers and practices. We investigate complaints of discrimination.

We administer systemic audits, conduct community outreach and events, and seek redress for victims of discrimination through enforcement. In our tenant landlord counseling arena, we are an essential service between going to court and problems that fester unaddressed. We get in the middle of those kinds of situations to render resolution and partner with other outside agencies as necessary, including code enforcement and social services in order to bring holistic resolutions to housing problems and challenges. I thank you again to the council, the mayor, vice mayor, and council members again for your support and continuing support into the next fiscal year. Thank you very much.

Thank you Carol. And Mayor, that concludes the request to speak on the consent calendar.

Okay, thank you. So I would like item five, the reformatting, to be reverted back to the prior methodology. It was more transparent, but I'm not sure how to get the current accounts payable to return to us with all that extra data in it.

Yeah, And Jonathan and I were just looking into it while we heard some of the comments. We did in fact notice that there was an error in one of the sections. So we'll fix the formatting and we'll figure out a way to reissue it or share it with, I'll have to figure out how to share it, but maybe at the next one we can attach this one as well.

Okay. Also, city manager, do you have any comments about the chamber membership item?

Yes, thank you for providing me an opportunity to clarify based on the remarks of the resident. We issued a desk item and the section, which is section four titled other provisions that talks about the chamber membership and event participation for city staff and council actually has been crossed out. That is no longer part of the proposed scope that's in front of the council today. Thank you.

Do we have a motion to move items three through five and seven through 12?

So moved.

I'll make a motion to move items three through five.

Okay. So, vice vice mayor moved it. Council member Wong, would you like to second?

Second. Here we go.

Okay. Thank you. Does the council have any any comments on these items or vice mayor?

I have a comment, but I also have some questions. I hope the staff can clarify. First of all, I'd like to thank Rebuilding Together, Project Sentinel, and the other awardees for the CDPG and other grants, West Valley Community Services, Senior Adult Legal Services, Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County, and Live Oak Adult Day Services. Thank you all for providing much needed services for Cupertino residents. And my question, I think for the chamber contract, once that is closed out, so Cupertino as a city will not be a member of the chamber unless the city decides to pay membership fee.

Is correct, yeah.

So that way we'll decide later.

If city chooses to be a member, we'll have to look at what the member benefits are. If the city wants to be a member, I believe it's roughly $3,000 a year based on the number of employees. And I just want to further clarify if I didn't. The portion for the other provisions that I mentioned, the membership and the event participation, was already crossed out from the proposed scope. It was just an error that it stayed in one of the attachments, so it was never meant to come in front of council as is.

Yeah, because the revised contract is $3,000 so that doesn't include the $5,000 that doesn't include the $3,000 membership fee.

That is correct.

Yeah. Okay, thank you. Another question is regarding the traffic light, do we know where is it? And why is it charged to general fund, not CIP?

I don't think my staff knows

offhand. We can We'll look into that later. That's fine.

Yeah, I'll look into that.

For the accounts payable, why are we going to a new format? Is that part of the budget formatting or a new system?

It was not an intention. It was a mistake and an oversight on our part. So, we will clean up that, or correct that formatting, and resubmit the accounts payable.

So, that will be in the next council meeting?

Likely, or we can bring it to as an informational memo.

Council can let us know what the preference is. We could issue it in It's the

for it at the council meeting so it's easier for people

to To track.

Yeah, I agree. Understood. Thank you.

Okay, so we have a motion and a second. Madam City Clerk, will you please conduct the roll call vote?

Councilmember Farron?

Aye.

Councilmember Mohan? Aye. Councilmember Wong?

Aye.

Vice Mayor Chao? Aye. Mayor Moore? Aye. Motion carries unanimously.

Alright, thank you. Councilmember Wong, you pulled item six. Would you please state why you would like it pulled and and then we'll see if there's a staff report.

Yes, I pulled item number six because of the amounts behind it. I also pulled item number six because we recently

Sorry. Councilmember Wong, we're gonna need you to speak up or I'm gonna ask if video has any way to

Give me one second.

Allow him to.

How's this? That should be better?

Oh, that is better. Thank you so much.

Sorry about that. Hi. Thank you, Mayor Moore. I pulled item number six for a couple of reasons. One, because of the dollar amount. Second of all is because we have been choosing we wanted to make sure that we had a better process for choosing EV charging vendors. It seems that what was chosen at the SportsCenter and the preferences and the complaints that we have with current EV charger providers, it didn't seem like we had addressed that in this process. And I was hoping that we would address that here as another way so that in the process of actually going through this item, we make sure that we go out to bid for new EV charger processes in a different manner because right now there are a lot of complaints with the existing chargers that we have.

Great. Thank you. Madam City Manager, is there a staff report on the item or can you or staff address council member Wong's concerns?

Thank you, mayor and thank you council member Wong. There is a staff report and we can further provide some clarifications. There was an email that I sent to Council Member Wong and I know members of the public may not have that information. So I will ask the Director of Public Works to provide clarification. I will say before I turn it over to Chad, for the chargers citywide, there were some operational reasons. However, we are looking to see if the RFP could be put into place going forward. Chad?

Yeah, very good. Thank you.

Sorry to interrupt real quick. Just have a clarifying question. Was this item usually, I just pulled off the consent or heard at the end of the meeting. Was there a motion to reorder this item? I apologize.

Thank you. There was not. Madam City Attorney, can I reorder the item to have it heard now? You may. All right. I move that we reorder the consent calendar items which are pulled so that item six will be heard now. Do I have a second?

Second, thank you. I was wondering about that.

Thank you. Councilmember Furwin. Aye. Councilmember Rohan. Aye. Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Chao? Aye. Mayor Moore? Aye. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you.

Thank you so much and will we continue on with the staff explanation for Councilmember Wong?

Yeah, I'll try and answer that. Chad Mosley, director of public works. Thank you for the question. For the service center, all of these EV units will be for city vehicle use. They will not be open to the public.

So there's really no service aside from PG and E and then the maker of the unit. In this case, the maker of the unit is Outel. We don't need a service provider such as EVgo or ChargePoint because those vendors provide kind of an interaction with the public where they would pay for the electricity, they would process that payment, work with those individuals directly. In this case the city is simply charging vehicles and paying PG and E through our invoices. Hopefully that answers the question.

It does. Thank you. And I appreciate the fact that you're getting ahead of the need to meet our CARB requirements. I just wanted to make sure that in the event there was a choice of providers, there was a bidding process. Thank you so much.

Great. Thank you for the question and for the response. And I see Vice Mayor, you have your hand raised.

Hi. Just curious, I think the different charger has different efficiencies. Some of the charger charge faster, those superchargers. So what kind of charger are being installed?

Mostly these are going be level two chargers, and that is because we intend to operate our vehicles through the day, and then we'll bring them back in the evening and charge them. It'll be a slower charge than we need for any level threes or what they call fast chargers. So, it's mostly just level two chargers.

Oh, okay. So, that's cheaper than we don't need the level three charger because the city can put a better plan for that. Correct. Okay. That's good to know. Thanks.

Okay. Madam city clerk, are there any members of the public who would like to speak on this item?

Mayor, I don't see any requests in person, but I do see one hand raised virtually. So we will welcome San Rao.

Good evening, Mayor Moore, council member, speaking on behalf of myself only as a Gupta resident. I am concerned that we continue spending as if it is business as usual. It is not business as usual. The city is in a state of fiscal imbalance. We are facing a steep increase in the sheriff's costs.

We are seeing a decline in our retail sales tax and we have lost our CTTFA source of revenue for the major business that was providing us a share of sales tax. We cannot continue in this mode just approving projects at this large amount on consent calendar. If there are state laws that require us to convert to EVs, we need to look at why we have this fleet. A fleet of service vehicles certainly is acceptable. A fleet of passenger automobile for the use of staff needs to be reconsidered.

Maybe it is time to age those vehicles out and to then dispose of them and to allow staff to use their personal vehicles. Maybe it is time for you to do a study of which other cities are doing this and whether a city fleet of automotives for staff is in the realm of feasibility for us. We need to make hard cuts and it can't be on residents. It's time that we start making these cuts. This is a contract for nearly 6 and $50,000 And there are many alternatives if you were to think creatively and frugally.

School districts have installed chargers. Gyanza College has installed chargers. You have chargers at the Target shopping center and there are many other places that you can use. So you really need to stop this process of spending money unchecked, especially on consent calendar. And you're losing trust and credibility with voters and restaurants to go to voters with a tax ballot measure and proposed fee hikes that will be later in this agenda today.

While you're continuing to spend at this rate is unacceptable, EVs are a luxury. Restants don't have EVs. So when you give yourselves EVs and then spend $650,000 on chargers, this is unacceptable amount of spending. And I ask you to reject this item and further bring back to counsel an item to consider disposition of the fleet so that you reduce our recurring costs and only maintain a fleet that is required for service vehicles specifically for public works and not the many automotives we have for staff today. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam. Mayor, that concludes the request to speak on item number six.

All right. Thank you. Would the city manager or director Mosley like to address those concerns and explain perhaps why we need the EV chargers?

Sure. I can can get started and Chad add on if you need to. So this is a state mandated requirement that we are, timing strategically so we can go after some of the grants. Whether or not we do this now, the state mandates us that our fleet is 50% EV at this time starting 2024. And we're quickly climbing up to 100%.

So this is infrastructure being put in place for us to be able to take advantage of that and be compliant with state mandates. I will also mention as as in as included in the staff report, there is about $225,000 of grant funding that the city is being able to take advantage of if we we take this item forward now.

And I can provide a little bit more clarity on that. We are currently mandated to have 50% of our purchase in purchases, fleet purchases annually be EV, and in 2030 that is going be shifting to 100%. If we don't comply with those EV requirements, there could be fines of up to $10,000 per day per vehicle. So we are trying to have the infrastructure ready to be able to facilitate that shift. Additionally, because we are ahead of the game here, a lot of cities are still trying to figure out what to do.

We've been able to secure a free design through Silicon Valley Clean Energy. We've also been able to have PG and E and and E probably somewhere in the $300,000 range and and for that, and E we were able to get a $225,000 grant. So we are trying to do what we can to maximize external funds and minimize city funds for this project.

Okay. Thank you. And what about the argument that you could take the city vehicles and go charge them at Danza College or somewhere else?

To a certain extent, we we could talk with them to see what possibilities there

are there,

but we do wanna have our city vehicles on our property. There would be a time efficiency. We wouldn't have to go pick them up in the morning, bring them over. You know, additionally, we wanna keep them on our property that is secure. There are a number of reasons why this, this makes sense as opposed to having our vehicles spread out throughout the city.

Understood. Thank you. Vice mayor, your hands raised.

Yes.

Yes. Thank you for getting the grant, which is great. I had some question. Thought I didn't want to bother sending them over, but now that it's pulled, I just want to clarify. So the allocated funding for this item was $560,000 And then the engineering estimate was $880,000 But fortunately, the bid came down.

The lowest bid was $651,000 something, almost $652,000 But it's still about $120,000 over the allocated amount. So I'm just but it's good that the grant that we have gotten from clean energy is covering the difference. So I'm just curious how come the allocated amount was lower, and the engineering estimate was almost like 320,000 more than the requested amount. Yeah. Yeah, I can Probably things have changed.

Yeah. Well, I mean, part of it too is, you know, when we initially came in with an estimate for that project, a a lot of it was just based on no information. Right? We're we know we wanna put in chargers. We have an idea. We come up with a cost estimate. Through that design, things got refined. And in this case, we undershot our initial estimate by, you know, $240,000. That happens on occasion. And we did look for opportunities to try and cover those funds through external funds.

Mhmm.

But, again, initial cost estimates are really us trying to do our due diligence and coming up with a reasonable cost. And then once you get into design, you can really refine what it's gonna take. And I am not an electrical engineer. I'm a civil engineer. I didn't know the level of effort it was going take to get this project through.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I would like to mention that since last year, we have requested on the agenda title, we do highlight exactly if an amount requested is more than the allocated amount. So that amount will be added. That's on the agenda title. But for this case, that amount is covered by grant, which is great. I do have a question about what happens in a power outage. How will the city vehicle handle the charging? I'm guessing you have a plan. Yes, just want to find out.

Yeah, we do have generators that we would use as necessary to facilitate that. And to a certain extent, PG and E and the city have an agreement where for

certain

power outages like PSPS, we have a preferred treatment because they know that we provide public services.

Thank you. That's all. Great.

Do we have a motion to move item six?

Actually, I do have a question through the mayor. I'm sorry. Can't see me as I raise my hand on Zoom.

Please, Councilmember Wong.

Real quick question. So when we net net all the grants and the total costs, how much does it cost the city? Like what's the total amount that we are paying for the project? Because it sounds like you've got a good percentage covered by the grants.

Yeah. The city's cost is still somewhere around $450,000

Okay. That's what I wanted to know. Thank you.

All right. Do we have a motion to move item six?

So moved.

Thank you, council member Fruin. And I will second that. Madam city clerk, will you please conduct the roll call vote?

Council member Fruin.

Aye.

Council member Mohan. Aye. Council member Wong.

Nay.

Vice Mayor Chao? Aye. Mayor Moore? Aye. Motion carries with Wong voting no. Alright.

And we are moving on to our public hearings. Our first item is the fee schedule update. Madam city manager, do we have a staff report?

Thank you, mayor. We have a staff report, and I will briefly introduce this item. So this item presents the proposed fiscal year 2627 fee schedule update. The annual update continues the city's cost recovery approach, applying standard inflationary adjustments to ensure fees remain aligned with the cost of providing services and consistent with council policy. I will now turn it over to Jonathan Orozco, our acting director of administrative services, to walk us through the proposed updates.

Thank you. Good evening, honorable mayor Moore and council members. Tonight, we'll be presenting the fiscal year twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven proposed fee schedule update. I'll provide a brief overview starting with defining a user fee, an overview of the city's fee schedules and the services they cover, and a methodology used to calculate and adjust fees.

Give me a brief moment.

Followed by the fiscal impact of the proposed fee schedule adjustments, and lastly, the staff's recommendation for city council consideration. As defined by the 2023 user fee study, a user fee is a fee or rate charged to an individual or group that receives a private benefit from services provided by the city. The city completed a comprehensive fee study in both fiscal year 2026 and 2023, which established the full cost of providing city services and set a foundation for our fee schedules. In 2024, the city council adopted a user fee cost recovery policy, which incorporated several important elements to support long term financial stability and transparency. These included a formal cycle for conducting future cost allocation plans and user fee studies an annual update mechanism to ensure fees keep pace with inflation and actual cost changes a phased in period for select fees that require a multi year approach to achieve full cost recovery, and lastly, establish a target cost recovery ranges for each service area.

Together, these tools ensure that the city's fees remain tied to actual cost of service delivery, set appropriate cost recovery goals, and provide a structured policy driven framework for annual adjustments. Tonight's fees update includes four schedules. Schedule A, or general fees. This schedule includes fees not specific to a department or division that would require a dedicated schedule, such as code enforcement permits, false alarms, and city clerk services. Schedule B, or engineering fees.

This schedule covers fees necessary for the engineering division within public works to review plans and applications for private developments, which include design and inspections. Schedule C or planning fees, this schedule is utilized by the planning division, which administers all required review and evaluation processes for proposed land use projects and maintains the goals and objectives of the city's general plan and zoning ordinance. And lastly, schedule d or building fees. This schedule utilizes and is utilized by the building division within community development department and covers general building, construction plan check, and building code enforcement. Additionally, the city has a FIT schedule, schedule e, or for parks and rec fees, which is not included in tonight's update.

On to the fiscal impact of the proposed fee schedule update. Total additional revenue is estimated to be approximately $874,000 largely in the general fund. This table shows separate, and this table separates the estimated increases by schedules in addition to the factors and basis that were used. At this time, staff is recommending the adoption of resolution approving fiscal year twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven fee schedules A through D with an effective date of July 1. This concludes my presentation, and staff is available to answer questions.

Alright. Thank you acting director Orozco. Do we have any council clarifying questions at this time? Councilmember Fruin?

Thank you. I was hoping that maybe you could elaborate on how the bingo fee was calculated.

So as part of thank you. As part of the 2023 fee study, there was and counsel's direction to try to recover full cost, it increased from $50 to approximately $250 And since then, it's been increasing by CPI.

So we'd have to go back and look at that particular report from three years ago? Correct. Pardon.

Madam City Manager, do we have people who have the bingo permits? And have they been up to date?

Yes, we have two organizations that get annual permits from the city and I believe they're both current. They got their permits in January 2026 and through January 2027.

Okay. So they've been paying the the higher rate. So we were at $50 in 2023 and then it changed.

Jonathan, can you confirm when the rate changed?

So it changed three fiscal years. So technically, I believe last year was the fiscal year 2425 was the first year that that fee was implemented or increased from the previous established $50.

Okay. Thank you. Let me go back to the home panel. Hold on. Council Member Mohan followed by the vice mayor.

Just to follow-up on the on the bingo fee, Jonathan, who who pays this? Who actually makes the payment?

There's two organizations. If you give me a brief moment, can tell you what two organizations, unless the city manager

I can answer that question for you, Councilmember Mohan. We have two organizations. We have St. Joseph Church, and we have the senior coordinating council who hosts being outside of the inside the senior center.

Okay. So I'm assuming then Joseph's church would charge the people playing bingo. Or this church absorption.

The city does not charge them to play the bingo. We only charge them to process their bingo permit application each year, which is due December 1 each year Okay. For the following calendar year.

But the two organizations, council member Mohan, do charge whoever's coming to play on their Right.

So the church is not absorbed. Does anyone know or is this even relevant? Does the church absorb the cost? Or is the cost

the church?

To the members who actually play.

The cost of the bingo permit? Yeah. I'm not sure how they pay that but they have higher I think bingo events to cover the costs.

Okay. And and what is the staff involvement in this since?

Other than processing the permit and, you know, staff does not run the program or support the program. It does not.

We do not. And three years ago, did we run it or did we not run it?

I believe there may have been a different level of staff support in the past. But there was a clarification to legal advice a couple of years ago. And since then there hasn't been staff involvement in terms of running the program. But we support the program by of course providing the permits and they play at a city facility, but staff is not helping with running the program currently.

And if I might add, when it was at $50 the fee was being subsidized by the city. So even then, even before the change in the process, city was subsidized fee with actual city time to review the application and process payments. Payments.

Okay. Thank you. I'll come back to that, Jonathan and Mayor. My other question was also about the farmer's market and the flea market. This is cost recovery. Flea market is $14 a year, and farmers market is $3 So, what kind of cost recovery is that?

If you could give me a brief moment, I can double check. There was a handful of fees that council decided not to pursue full cost recovery. This may have been one of them. Other ones included green Ford fees. So, if you give me a brief hold, I'll double Thank you.

Mayor council member Wong has his hand raised.

Okay. So it it will go vice mayor, then council member Wong, and then myself. So we can still waiting for your question to be answered on those fees.

I can wait till later.

Okay. Well, if Director would be answering the questions, think we might want to give him a moment.

Do we wait for you, Jonathan?

I can try to

multitask. So I'm sorry. All right. Vice Mayor?

Okay. So full cost recovery for BINGO, so that's exactly the amount of staff time to process the permit. That's equivalent to how many hours?

As it moves through the various departments, because from my understanding, it's not just Parks and Rec. I do believe public works or code enforcement is involved, and so across that. So you can I would estimate somewhere about an hour and a half of total time based off of the amount that we see there, an hour to an hour and a half?

Our health combined with the different departments.

Correct.

And even we are just renewing it every year, the amount of staffing time would still be that much? Correct. Okay. And then we I think legally, the city cannot operate a bingo operation, so we require a third party to operate. But the city does waive the room rent room rental fee. How much is that?

30 fivefifty.

It's 35, I think it was in the staff report. Sorry, I forgot.

50. That's 30 fivefifty annually. It was last waived in 2019, for 2019 through 2024. The city also did provide the bingo equipment. They purchased it back in it's very old, 2001. And that was about $1,010,000 dollars worth of equipment, and the city used to provide the daubers and the bingo cards as well. But I believe they stopped doing that around 2023.

So the city already subsidized this, third party that's operating the bingo on already through room rental and probably some earlier equipment purchase. Correct. The city has donated to them. I believe we have to donate the amount. It's not waived.

Yeah. The city also is supposed to annually, there there's supposed to be a report that's provided to the city that they would be evaluating. So I didn't know that there was this money exchanging hands. So I don't I don't have enough information about that. I do know that there are some bingo operations in the area which are bringing in millions of dollars each year such as Santa Clara Sporting Bingo Hall.

Yeah. I think I suppose the the law was meant for those for profit operation who might be charging a lot for playing. So senior center, we don't charge any fee for playing. Do we charge? I thought they do charge fee for playing, right?

Vice mayor, are you asking if we charge?

I mean the third senior council.

I believe that there is so a if you want to play, you'll

is a charge. Pay. Uh-huh.

Yeah. But not they won't pay the city. It's, you know, that senior center Okay. Organization.

Through the mayor on a point of clarification, I just wanted to make certain that we're talking about the senior center bingo, not St. Joe's. Okay. All right. Because that might not have been clear to other people.

Thank you. Vice Mayor. So

just curious if we know the fee, would like to know whether the fee is how much is it compared with mark market value may be like Saint Joseph or other place. Is it high or low? Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. And I would like to know who's paying for the daubers and the bingo cards today to understand that. And do we need I just don't feel like we have enough information on this on this item right now between whether or not we need to be waiving the use of the room and, you know, how much is being charged for players there to to even know if having a $50 fee is does that actually make sense? I know that the soccer leagues wanted to get in on bingo after seeing Santa Clara Sporting League was doing this. So I I would be reluctant if there is some an organization that is trying to do that and truly make make some profit there to reduce the fee because we don't really know what the landscape is.

I see council member Wong, you've had your hand raised? I have. Thank you, mayor. I just wanted

to make sure that we apply I had a few questions and these were general policy questions to make sure that the process we approved we approached was fair and equitable. I just want to know that have we applied the same cost increases and recovery methods to every area, not just Bingo. Bingo was a very small part. So that's the first question. So director Asco, is that is that what we've done? This is an even approach isn't that we've singled out a single area. We've applied the same kind of approach, the same methodology to these fee increases.

The short answer is yes. Across the board, long response would be there's a handful of fees that were identified by counsel a couple years ago that they prefer to keep them or prefer to subsidize those fees due to the nature of the fee.

Is was bingo one of those fees we subsidized? No. Okay. Just want to be clear. Alright. And we're we're spending a lot of time on the bingo issue and there are bigger issues here. I wanna ask a question about what are we doing about the residentnon resident fees and structures? Have we actually created a good separation on the non resident fees versus the resident fees?

Those fees aren't the separation of those types of fees are not applicable to these four schedules. Those the ones that you're referencing is is more aligned schedule e, which is your parks and rec fees. And that's gonna be, I believe, at a later date with the you know, I'll let council city manager answer that one.

Thanks, Jonathan. Council member Wong, there's an info memo coming forthcoming next week that outlines, you know, what we're thinking in terms of the resident, nonresident, and and how we're structuring the park fees.

Sounds good. I'll wait for that memo. Have other cities put resident and nonresident fees in place for some of the fees that we're talking about here? So for example, since we're going to spend all the time on the bingo issues since a resident wrote in on this, I I wanted to make sure, like, do we separate resident and nonresident fees once we do that once they do something with the bingo center?

No. You wouldn't see at at least I have not seen this with any other agency nor was it brought up during the the fee study.

Okay. Just making sure. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time.

Alright. City manager? Mayor, just wanted to clarify. I was trying to get information on on Bingo if you need anything else. Is the senior advisory council is currently paying for everything. The only thing that the city is covering at the moment is the facility fee waiver.

Okay, so would it be possible that we could have some, an informational memo regarding this? And do I need to have a second for that request? Okay.

Yeah, I

think that would be very helpful to get an update. The last staff report I think might have been 2019 that went into this a little bit. Okay. Madam City, Vice Mayor. Yeah. So

actually I would like to request an info memo maybe eventually be posted on the finance department site with because every time this comes across, I try to look in the twenty twenty three-twenty four agenda and what exactly we decided. So the fee recovery policy and exactly what we decide to waive or not waive if that can be summarized so we have an easier place to look.

We can include that on our website as well as identifying those handful of fees that were, that are being subsidized per council direction.

Thank you. I have a quick question regarding the flea market that's at De Anza College. Do they pay any kind of a fee for that? And are we receiving, just kind of a side issue, are we receiving any sales tax from that?

It would far as sales tax, it would land on the the retailer or the the seller to report that accurately. And so we don't necessarily have the ability to audit that. We could ask HCL, our consultant, to look into that. But judging by the amount of taxes that would be generated, it might be a little difficult for them to kind of pin it pin that dollar amount. As far as what we're collecting, I do see as far as kind of getting back to the farmer's market cost, it does not look like that the farmer's market was adjusted for cost recovery.

It was, I believe, without outside of the scope of Matrix's review of our study, or for this particular one, it looks like it's just been increasing per CPI. That's why it's at $3 or $4 today.

I could quickly

Counsel Member Mohan, please. Thank you.

So, question still would be who collects this $3.38? How does this, what's the process?

So they would actually have to come to the city and pay for that permit. We don't have too many of those at this time. I think originally there were some discussions about it being part of maybe having it here along Torrey, And I I think that was the intention, seeing that that's not there, we haven't really seen this fee too much activity with this fee.

Okay. So there's no one coming forward to pay this?

No. And for that reason, I think it fell outside of Matrix's scope. Okay. Thank you.

Vice Mayor, your hand's still raised. Okay. You're set there. Okay. Madam city clerk, do we have members of the public who would like to speak to this item?

Yes, mayor. We have two requests to speak in person here at community hall and I'm currently seeing one hand raised virtually. Alright. Thank you. So at this time, we will welcome Jean Bedord followed by Heather Dean. And as a mem as a reminder to members of the public wishing to speak regarding this item shall submit a request to speak or raise their hand virtually within nine minutes of the start of public comments or before public comment period is closed, whichever comes first. So welcome, Jean.

Sure.

Welcome, Heather. Good

evening, counsel. My name is Heather Dean. Is this okay? I have been a resident of Cupertino, hard to believe, for fifty years. I call it my little bit of heaven.

And when I say that out loud to people, they look at me like I'm crazy. But I'm here in the capacity tonight to ask you to please lower the fee for Bingo. I'm the caller at Bingo at the senior center. And it's great fun for our residents, our senior residents. They get very disappointed when it has to cancel because the facility is used for another event or the senior center is closed, they just throw a hissy fit.

I think the reason they enjoy it so much is perhaps they live alone and they don't get out a lot. So when they get out, they're among what becomes their friends. Sitting around playing bingo together, talking together, visiting together. We take a break at bingo. They have coffee together. So it's a social function. And a lot of times you think playing bingo is just putting beans on a card. And if you get a straight line, you get a bingo. But we different patterns that we play. So I like to think that their minds are working hard because they're keeping up with what is going on.

And it's fun. So you're having fun, but you're thinking and you're communicating with people. So I would ask you please to consider reducing the amount that the senior advisory council pays. And we pay for the paper and we pay for the dabbers. What people pay for when they come to play bingo is the paper.

And the paper allows them to dab their numbers and get bingo. They don't, as it were, pay for entering the hall. So I would like you to consider, please, reducing the amount and letting our good seniors have a good time. A lot of time we have, in fact, we have do I have time? A group of pioneering Montevista seniors, students, ex students, that come and play bingo.

And a lot of times they bring their parents. So generational. It's a lot of fun. If you don't have something to do one day, you should come on a Friday and play a game. Thank you for your time and consideration. Bye bye.

Thank you, Heather. Next, will welcome Jean

Good evening. My name is Jean Bedord, and I am a Cupertino resident. It's awfully hard to follow that testimonial by Heather. She's a great bingo caller and certainly bingo is much more complex than I ever thought it would be. Anyway, on behalf of the Senior Center Advisory Council, I am speaking tonight to request a reduction of the fee to $50 from the proposed $268.22.

I already sent an email citing fees from comparable cities and citing the factors for setting service fees, highlighting accommodation for targets of the service such as senior residents. In addition, one of the factors in setting fees is consistency with city public policies and objectives. The city has an objective of services to seniors. Bingo is a program which reaches seniors with diminished physical and mental capabilities who can't participate by and large in other senior center activities. For a number of participants, this may be the only time they leave their homes.

Bingo is their incentive to interact with other seniors and the center volunteers, and they do have fun. The program operates for roughly three hours on Friday, somewhere between 40 to 45 times in a calendar year. It's run by volunteers, such as Heather, not city staff. This is essentially a tax on the volunteers and it keeps increasing every year. I urge the council to reduce the fee to a nominal fee of $50. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Thank you, Jean. Next, we'll move to the request to speak virtually. So at this time, we will welcome San Rao. Welcome, San.

Good evening, Mayor Moore, Weisner and Chao Council Member speaking on behalf of myself only as a CooperTeam resident. We have had multiple years of double digit fee increases ever since this cost recovery policy was passed by the last council, and it is astonishing that we spent this much time talking about bingo. This is a case study in how a council majors in minor things and minors in major things. I am all for no fee hikes on seniors, and I'm okay with the bingo fee deduction, but I actually would go even further and reject this item entirely. We have had three years of double digit fee increases.

This is not sustainable. Furthermore, the presentation is evasive. Just purely based on the presentation that does not put out absolute numbers for percentages of fee hikes, this item should be sent back and staff should be directed to come back with transparent, honest, frank, upright reporting of absolute percentages of hikes. I have never seen a report that shows fee hikes in the format that is in presentation that shows a number plus EPI plus labor. What is labor?

What is EPI? This is just unsustainable. And I want to remind you, you're protesting with the county against cost allocation imposed on you while you continue to impose multiple years of double digit cost allocations on us. Residence already fund the city payroll through our property taxes and sales tax. When you come back to restaurants a second time to try and get another round of fees out of us based on cost allocation, that is double dipping.

You are welcome to charge non residents. While we talked about the senior center and bingo, there has been no talk about what percentage of senior center membership are nonresidents. Nonresidents do not fund the city with either sales tax or property tax. Sales tax is negligible. And so I'm urging you firstly to reject the fee hikes across the board to send this item back to come back with absolute percentages rather than what is in the presentation and to focus all fee hikes on nonresidents only.

I'm continuing to see in the appendices that are red line appendices across the different departments. We are continuing to have high single digit fee hikes. We are continuing to have fee hikes that year over year continue to now go into the double digit. We cannot have this anymore. What you need to do is cut costs. You just spent $650,000 or $590,000 on charges that you didn't need, and now you come back with fee hikes again. And don't tell us that planning and building can afford to make those charges because those people living in homes should be doing a remodel. Many a time, it's homes that are 50 years old. A remodel is basic maintenance. And oftentimes,

those are

the easiest Sam. That is your time. Mayor, that concludes the request to speak on this item.

Thank you. For purposes of deliberation, do we have a motion and a second on this item?

I will motion the staff recommendation.

All right. Do we have a second?

Am I out? I'll second it with the caveat that the bingo fee will come back. Are we doing another report?

That's different than the recommended action, which was the main motion.

All right. Right. For now, I'll go with this. I'll second the main motion.

Okay. For purposes of deliberation. So, I just want to mention with regards to the resident and non resident issue with bingo that bingo needs to be open for all. And, I don't believe that they can discriminate by charging an extra fee to somebody if they're a non resident according to our municipal code regarding this. Okay. Alright. Thank you. Do we have any further questions? Vice mayor, I see your hands raised.

Yeah. So I see that most of the increase is of fees is about like two point something percent, three point something, but there are some almost 5% increase. So are these all CPIs? Why is there a difference?

So, CPI was 2.5%. CCI, which is Construction Costing Index, it's actually decreased by point 12%. And labor costs, which as stated in the staff report, is just the cost of labor or staff time or staff year over year, so which includes salaries and benefits, including our accrued or sorry, unfunded accrued liability, is what we pay, what the city pays for pension costs. So that's largely what drives that 3.8.

So what's the percentage increase for labor?

Labor's 3.8%. You'll

see So if an item has higher item, means it needs more manual, city staff time to process?

So there's a handful of fees that were adjusted. For instance, there's a handful of building fees that were, that you'll see much higher, is somewhere around 20 to 30% increase. These

30 were the seven ones that were for plan check fee, up to 51%. Yeah. 2829% for inspection fees.

Correct. These were deliberate. So, when we went to full cost recovery starting last year, these fees were identified as too high to increase in one single year. So, there was a phased in approach, a three year phased in approach. So, with this proposed schedule,

this

would be the last of the three increases. So beginning the following year, fiscal year 2728, it would just follow the labor cost or CPI. Now there's also another handful of other fees like those relating to the massage parlors and the reviewing the permits and doing the site visits. So, those were readjusted for actuals, the time it takes staff to go out to these various locations. So, that's one of the reasons that one increased by more than just CPI.

The plan check and inspection is under building fee. According to the fee policy, we are doing currently 80% to 100% recovery. So what did I think the implement model, if we can before and after, so what was our cost recovery before? And so you are saying this 37%, it was because we increased from whatever percentage before, but we are stepping it up every year.

We were So,

it was much, much lower

than Substantially, if I remember correctly, somewhere around the 20 to 30% is what the city was recovering at that time.

It was Building fee.

Yeah, so that one was much lower, and for that reason, because it was such a large fee, was unreasonable to increase it in one single year, and counsel decided to pursue that one as a phased approach.

Yeah, if we can have before and after fee recovery percentage, that will be very helpful. And for bingo fee, I see it's under schedule A for general. The current fee policy says 100% recovery. So do you know how much was it before?

So I just looked at our past fees. That particular fee, even though we had thrown around $50 it was at never $50 In fiscal year, when it was first proposed in fiscal year twenty sixteen-seventeen, is the first year the fee went into effect, it was $157 So this is ten years ago. It was $1.57. So over the course of ten years, it's increased to nearly So twice as it wasn't 50? No.

There may have been discussions had in the past. Surrounding cities do have it at 50, and they subsidize that fee. So, what's being proposed today is the full cost it takes the city to administer that fee or process it.

Okay. So, thank you so much for the information. Think this is my comment. I think for bingo fee, it makes sense to be 100% recovery because any commercial operator could be running a big O bingo for a profit. However, if we want to make an exception to donate or waive things for senior centers specifically, that shouldn't be addressed at the fee schedule level.

That should be addressed if there is a need, if the senior operating council can show us financially they cannot sustain with this kind of fee, then maybe the city can consider when we adopt budget to have some kind of compensation for that. But I think it should be a separate discussion. Thank you.

Do you have a question for the city manager, perhaps the city attorney? With regards to that bingo fee. Well first, it seemed like city staff used to be helping do the setup and breakdown. I don't know if they were doing calling, but it was done a little differently in previous years. So that has fully moved on to the senior coordinating council I believe.

And then we were purchasing the cards and the dabbers before. So that was maybe, I don't know, 1,600 and I don't know how long it would last. So now all of that cost has moved to the senior coordinating council. All right and would you happen to know if they're, are they having a surplus of funds during these bingo events where people are going home with prizes because they're paying so much? Like looking at Santa Clara sporting, they've got hundreds of dollars worth of prizes and they're running it Friday night, Saturday and Sunday.

It's a huge event. Would you have any of that information?

I don't have it offhand but I know that they provide the annual report to the clerk's office every year.

They are doing that? They are doing that. Okay and that takes a little bit of time to look over I would assume.

Yes but we have the information from the two organizations.

Okay so we could receive that in informational memo with regards to that. I kind of like the idea that kind of depending on what turns up in the informational memo that we could at a later date consider like a consent item as a waiver to the bingo fee for organizations that we believe are deserving of that. And kind of depending on what we see in the informational memo, we could do it that way.

Yeah, think that makes sense. We will issue the info memo, council can take a look at that and you know, based on what you're saying between the two organizations or both however the information looks, if there's interest, the council would like to waive the fee based on what you're seeing, then

we can add that on consent for council to agree to. Okay. And I think that kind of would address the the issue if there is someone potentially going to be running bingo for for lots of profit like the Santa Clara Sporting is doing. I I think that works perhaps. Council member Fruin.

Yeah. We've had previous requests from folks who do run bingo in the city with respect to what the total prize payout is and I think that we're currently capped at something like $250 So it's just not the same as a lot of other places. It would be useful to have some information on that when we do bring the item back. I really like the idea of a waiver program. That way we can differentiate in a meaningful way. And then I'll have some separate questions for both the city attorney and the city manager with respect to the way that the different churches are treated with respect to this, the current bingo permit. I won't address that here though.

Going back to the Santa Clara sporting, if anyone is interested in getting a bingo permit, you need to check out their operation and it helps subsidize the soccer program there and the parents all volunteer to help. But like I said, it's a multimillion dollar operation. I'm not seeing any further hands raised. Believe Madam City Clerk, will you please conduct the roll call vote?

Can I make one comment? We did talk briefly about the farmers market and the flea market. Does it make sense to charge the farmers market $3 if we're not really collecting it, or we don't know if we're collecting it. And we don't seem to have a process to collect it.

There is a process in collection.

Which they to come up to the city hall and pay you $3 right?

Correct. We can include as far as the actual activity with the follow-up memo. And so you can make a decision maybe in the subsequent year whether you want to continue that fee.

Okay. And similarly with the flea mark? Correct. Okay. Thank

you. Yeah. It probably takes more staff time to process $3 than that's worth. Okay.

Through the mirror. One quick question.

Yes, please. Council Member Wong.

I'm just curious. Can we can we ask for ex parte communications on the for either from Saint Joe's or the senior center on this issue on the senior center bingo fee item?

Madam city attorney, is that ordinary for this item? It it I would I'm curious

to see who by the ex parte communications on this. So I wonder who's lobbying for this.

I don't think that that's would be required or ordinary, but it certainly is not disallowed.

It's a public hearing. It's a little unusual. Ordinarily we do that for development proposals. Correct. Well if anyone wants to comment on that, please do. I'm not seeing any hands raised. Madam City Clerk.

I I

have not had any ex parte communications with anyone here. I just wanted to declare that since no one else is gonna get on this. I've not talked to anyone, either the St. Joe's or the senior center about the bingo, nor have I talked to, you know, Jean Bedore who wrote the letter. So I just wanna be clear there. Anyone else?

Alright. Thank you, council member Wong. I started researching the bingo maybe back in 2019, seeing that there was a it falls under state gambling law, but I have not spoken to the senior center or the senior coordinating council about it. Vice mayor.

Oh, I have not spoken to anyone. But I'm curious why is the farmer's market permit fee so low? What does it really cover? I can get the information later. I'm just very curious.

All set. Alright. Madam city clerk, will you please conduct the roll call vote?

Council member Fuhrman. Aye. Council member Mohan. Aye. Council member Wong. Aye. Vice Mayor Chao.

Aye.

Mayor Moore. Aye. Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you and thank you acting director Roscoe. So next we move on to the action item, action calendar. Why don't we take a five minute break here? And so we'll be back at 08:31 and moving on to the action calendar. Our single use carryout bag ordinance, madam city manager, do we have a staff report?

Thank you, mayor. We do have a staff report, and this item is an update to the Muni code regarding single use carryout bags. The proposed updates to the code simply bring the city into compliance with state law. We have Ursula Sirova, our environmental program manager, and she also plans to provide some helpful information on reusable bags and which bag is the best reusable bag. And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to our Public Works team, director Chad Mosley, and Ursula Sirova, our environmental service manager.

Great. Good evening, mayor Moore, council members. Video, I do have my PowerPoint ready to roll when you are. I'm Ursula Sirova, environmental programs and sustainability manager for the city, here tonight to present on amendments to the city's carryout bag ordinance, and my presentation will take about five minutes. Tonight's recommended action is to approve the ordinance amendments to align with state regulations and conduct the first reading.

The city's current municipal code as written allows for carryout plastic bags to be considered reusable bags if they meet certain criteria, primarily being at least a certain thickness. California bag regulations from 2016 also allowed these thicker plastic bags. The unintended consequence of both state law and local code was that stores switched from the very thin, banned, single use plastic bags to the thicker ones, meaning an overall increase in the amount of disposable plastic entering the waste stream. Senate bill ten fifty three, now in effect, closes that loophole on the thicker plastic bags and eliminates plastic bags at checkout entirely. The only allowable single use checkout bags are now paper bags made with recycled content, and those must be sold for no less than 10¢ each.

We also took this opportunity to update local code to reflect the requirements of state senate bill ten forty six, which requires pre checkout bags, such as produce bags, to be either recycled paper or compostable as defined in the public resource code. The stated intentions behind the state regulations include closing that loophole on the proliferation of thicker plastic carry out bags, incentivizing shoppers to bring their own reusable bags when shopping, and reducing plastic pollution. As we were preparing for this item, Mayor Moore asked the question, which is the best type of reusable bag from an environmental perspective? Given the wide variety of reusable bag types out there and different manufacturing processes and geographic locations where bags might be produced, it is a tricky question. We looked at it from two perspectives.

One, are there life cycle analyses out there that have considered this question? And two, what does cal recycle say about the materials these bags are made of and their potential recyclability? I included our research findings in attachment C to the staff report, and we'll run through them quickly here. The most common types of reusable bags can be categorized into plastic derived textiles and natural fiber textiles. The photo on the left shows a typical nonwoven polypropylene bag that looks kind of like fabric, another nonwoven polypropylene bag that has a shiny coating on one side.

The green bag is made of recycled PET from recovered water bottles, and the gray one on the far right is nylon. On the right are cotton bags. Life cycle analysis or LCA is a tool that considers environmental impact from production through disposal. Outcomes from LCAs that I looked at varied widely depending on fuels used to produce the items and whether they'll be recycled, landfilled, incinerated at the end of life. But the broad comparisons between bags hold up.

So from an LCA perspective, the plastic textile bags require fewer uses to reach the low production impact of a thin single use plastic bag. However, the LCAs I reviewed did not include consideration of microplastics. Microplastics and nanoplastics are a growing concern for ingestion by animals and humans, potentially leading to disruption of bodily systems. Scientists are working to quantify the impact of microplastics on organisms in a way that can be incorporated into life cycle analyses, but the studies reviewed for this work did not yet include it. These pictures show examples of what this plastic degradation looks like on nonwoven polypropylene bags happening even as I staged the bags for photos.

The state regulations have determined what is actually and realistically recovered and recycled in California in terms of curbside recycling and the larger recycling markets. According to those findings, plastic bags, plastic textiles, and even nonplastic textiles are all considered nonrecyclable and noncompostable, but bags can be donated. And if they are not usable, they may be routed with other waste textiles to be shredded for use in padding or insulation. So back to the question of which bag is best, the recommendation shared by studies out of Stanford, Columbia, and York University in Canada is that, quote, the shopping bag that has the least impact on the environment the bag the consumer already has at home. And I would add that it's the one you're willing to use and remember to bring.

That said, if you are buying a new bag, look for a well made one that's designed for durability. The lightweight nonwoven polypropylene bags often used as giveaways are not as durable as cotton or recycled PET bags. And when your reusable bag wears out, maybe give it one last use as a garbage bag. With that, we come back to the recommended action for tonight's item, which is to approve our proposed ordinance amendments to align with state regulations and conduct the first reading. And that's my last slide.

Thank you so much, manager Sirova. Do we have any questions from the council this time? I believe the vice mayor. Okay.

So how so this would regulate retail business. Right? How about those food delivery services?

Our ordinance does also apply to food service.

Who deliver in Cupertino?

For origin for restaurants in Cupertino. If yeah.

But then if you order, I guess, from another city, then it doesn't apply. Apply. Yeah. But then it's a state law, so it should apply.

The state law doesn't cover restaurants.

Oh, it doesn't cover restaurant?

We already covered restaurants under our single use plastics ordinance from 2022.

But state law doesn't? Correct. Okay. So where can people report violations if they see any?

So there is a 311 for food foodware concern that would probably work, but a general three eleven there's

So they would put to the CT? Yeah. Okay. And, for the compostable bags, I hear that some of those are not even on the bag they have labels that it's compostable only at specific facility, which we may or may not have.

I think So. Generally that refers to sending it to an official commercial level composting facility as opposed to your backyard composting bin, for example.

And for our food for our for for our ecology collection, these kind of compostable bags can go in the yard waste, waste our organics?

Yes, at this time they do allow the compostable plastic bags for food scraps collection to go into your green carts.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Alright. I'm not seeing any further hands raised from members of the council. Madam City Clerk, do we have any members of the public who would like to comment on this item?

Mayor, I don't have any request to speak in person, but I do see one request with a hand raised virtually. So at this time, we will welcome San Rao.

Good evening, council members and, mayor Bor, speaking on behalf

of myself. There.

Can you not hear me?

I can see that you're unmuted.

I can hear him on Zoom, but you can't hear him in the audience.

Thank you, council member Wong.

Can you hear me?

We can hear you now. Thank you.

Okay. That's that's great. Speaking on behalf of myself only as a resident, I, wanna, firstly recognize this is a state law issue and the options are limited. Having said that, I urge counsel to do the minimal needed to comply with the state law and no more, recognizing that the real impact of this is on retail businesses. The more punitive and statutory you get with retail businesses, the higher their costs, and their customers will just go to another city that is either doing the minimal needed or is not doing proactive enforcement.

So you really need to understand Cupertino restaurants can just drive one street away, they'd be in Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Saratoga, West San Jose, or Los Altos. They have choices. And when you impose burdens on restaurants that do not make it feasible to actually conduct their day to day life, they will just step one street away and do business, and you lose the sales tax that you were hoping to get at a local retail. So so let's just do what is needed to comply with the state law, but not bring in our personal sort of agendas into this and keep the broader picture in mind, which is encourage the right behaviors by encouraging retail to do the right things. There are many things that you could do.

For example, economic development could encourage loyalty rewards for bringing your own bag. Retail could be encouraged to do a bag preordering so that they have, a lowered cost, and economic development can help with that. You can basically do no bag just like you do no water unless asked. You do no bag unless somebody asks. You could use signage to indicate bag fees so that people recognize the cost and can actually avoid having to pay that cost.

So there are things you can do to encourage good behaviors without trying to get overly punitive and trying to impose city laws on top of what the state's already done just because we think that's the right thing to do. It may be the right thing to do, but it certainly is not the right thing for the retail ability to run a business and to maintain their costs and to actually have customers walk in the door. A simple example of this is your paper cup ordinance or the single use ordinance. The coffee served in those paper cups in Cupertino tastes really awful, and the cups cannot handle the heat. And many times with those paper lids, you just can't use it at all.

And so and so the answer to that is people just go to Pete's in Saratoga or they go somewhere else. You just need to think about the economic aspects of this and not just kind of think a little really focus on the environmental aspect, which is a good thing, but we just need a balance here. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam. Mayor, that concludes the request to speak on this item.

Thank you. Would any member of the council like to move the recommended action? Vice mayor. So moved. Thank you. You're second. Seconded by council member Mohan. Do we have any further requests to speak on this item, or are we ready to I do. Okay. I do. Council member Wong.

I've been thinking about the economic impact to our retail businesses and restaurants for these kind of for these kind of regulations. And I do want to point out that in the single plastic use ban, what actually happened is we went to paper products and that costs restaurants probably 5% to 10% more. And they also put more PFAS in our paper products than they're actually in the plastic products because many of these, the coatings that are required for hot coffee, for example, contain a lot of PFAS. And so I just want to make sure we understand the unintended consequences of going with this vote as opposed to going with a minimum vote in terms of just complying with the state regulations because there are impacts to retail. We do.

I mean, I personally do shop in other places if I do need to get to a bag, especially when I'm buying produce or other things where I actually need that. If you go to the grocery stores, what's really happening is people are using the produce bags to carry their stuff out because that's the only way they can get a bag sometimes. And so we've created unnecessary burdens on a lot of our residents at the same time. So I would just appeal to actually think about our retail businesses and our residents and let them make their own choices as opposed to implying and imploring a dictatorship approach to what we want on environmental policy. I think our residents can make their choices on their own.

And I really do feel that most of ours are environmentally minded, but there are situations where that plastic bag is a lot more useful than what you're going get on a cloth pad and a lot more safer from a public health perspective as we all recognize during COVID. So that's my piece.

Thank you. I do have a question for Ursula. Did we go above and beyond what the requirement is from the state? Or are we simply being compliant with what we are required to implement?

We retained the broader scope of impacted stores. The state is limited to larger grocery stores and larger retail. We already had on the books an application to all retail and restaurants, so we retained that.

Okay. And so now, like, if you go to Trader Joe's, they had the very popular woven plastic that was printed on bags. So that would be something that would be they wouldn't be allowed to be selling that any longer, I would assume.

They're allowed to sell any kind of, you know, bag elsewhere in the store as a commodity. But when you get to check out, the only allowable single use bag is the recycled content paper bag for 10¢.

Okay. Alright. Thank you. Vice mayor?

Just a comment. I usually don't I'm I'm concerned when we are adding extra cost to business. But on this particular issue, if you I'm I'm from Taiwan. I would encourage you all to visit Taiwan. I think since fifteen years ago or earlier, every takeout container is paper.

And that's just I think a lot of times, if I see a boba shop that use paper container, and then I realize, oh, it's a shop that came from Taiwan. So just imagine if we put all the plastic into the landfill, it will take many, many years for them to decompose. And, Taiwan is a very small island. There is no choice. They have to reduce the amount of waste.

Yeah. We have a lot of land in The United States, but we we don't have unlimited landfill. So if we can do something, it's a little inconvenient. But once you get used to it, it's not inconvenient. It's a lifestyle.

So I think we need to take that first step. I still see a lot of takeout containers that's plastic in here that some people rewash and use it again, but many of them just go in the dump. So, the paper containers are not really costly. So, we really need to put some responsibility on the consumer and the producer of plastics so that we can can change our behavior. I think it's a mindset issue.

So this I fully support. Although, I think the cost is really not that high. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. And I I think the message is also to remember to bring your reusable bag. Don't leave it in the car. Don't leave it at home. I don't see any further hands raised. Madam city clerk, will you oh, council member Wong.

I just wanted to point out that the a lot of the paper products used in Taiwan had contained a lot of PFAS. And if you're worried about that, well, it's a great trade off on the environmental side. It might not be a great trade off on the public health side. So I'm also from parents of originally from Taiwan and I do see that they are very environmentally conscious. I'm not trying to not be. I'm just saying that there are some public health implications from what we've done with those paper straws, what we've done with those paper cups. And so just think about that in terms of a cost structure, not only just on cost of business, but also the public.

As a point of clarification, our single use plastics ordinance requires the foodware without PFAS.

Thank you. Thank you for for bringing that up as well. Madam city clerk, will you please conduct the roll call vote?

Councilmember Freud.

Aye.

Councilmember Rohan. Aye. Councilmember Wong. No. Vice Mayor Chao? Aye. Mayor Moore? Aye. Motion carries with Wong voting no.

Alright. Thank you. And we are moving on to item 15. It's the introduction and first reading of an ordinance to amend the municipal code of with regards to the California Building Standards Commission. Our building code adoption. Madam City Manager, will you do you have a staff report for us?

Thank you, mayor. We do have a staff report with agenda, and I'll briefly introduce and turn it over to staff. So this item is a request to update amendments to ensure the city's building standards address specific local safety needs while remaining compliant with state mandates. And here today to make the presentation and answer questions are the city's building official, Sean Hatch, and deputy building official, Fong DeVries. And with that, I will turn it over to you now.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council members. As stated, my name is Sean Hatch. We're back again with some code info. I'm accompanied here by the deputy billing official, and supported by our director, Benjamin Fu. Tonight, we are here to introduce and perform the first reading of the ordinance to amend the Cupertino Municipal Code Title 16 and the supporting resolution.

The primary purpose of these amendments is to receive full acceptance from the California Building Standards Commission for our local amendments and the adoption of the twenty twenty five California codes and regulations. We have a quick presentation to provide some background on the activities since the council's approval last November. We will discuss what is being amended and then open it up for any questions. So on slide two, oh yeah, you're on. Okay.

So just to kind of give the background with some of the timelines, right? As explained there on the screen, the adoption of the twenty twenty five California codes and regulations was approved by council on 11/18/2025. And the final step of this process is sending copies of our ordinance and our resolution to the California Building Standards Commission for their review and acceptance. And so these copies were emailed to them on 11/26/2025. And then on January 16, the California Building Standards Commission issued us a partial acceptance.

That's why we're here today. So they requested additional formal findings for three of the proposed appendix chapters, one from the residential code and two from the fire code, and then two residential code amendments from the residential code. And this just to kind of point it out that the partial acceptance letter was attachment E with the staff report and all that. So it kind shows what we got from them. Slide three.

And so as a result of this, the partial approval was discussed with the Santa Clara County Fire, and a preliminary response was drafted and submitted to the California Building Standards Commission on February 10. Before I went through this process or we went through this process, I wanted to bounce the ideas off of them and so that's when I did this. So this response expanded on the topographical and geographical findings for the three appendix chapters and noted that the two residential code sections were substantially equivalent to what was already adopted in our 2022 codes as required by AB 130. So I sent that to them. So then I got back on February 18.

They responded. And they accepted everything except for one section for the amendment that we'd made to R330.4 for the location of a battery at your residence. They said due to the added language and the constraints of AB 130, that specific amendment would need to be removed from our local ordinance for full acceptance. That is exactly what is being proposed tonight, the removal of one amendment. So I kind of think at this point that's kind of a good point to simplify what we're here doing.

We are expanding on the findings for the already adopted appendix chapters and removing one amendment to that reference code section R330.4. In the one sentence that was added was and shall not be located below or above any emergency escape or rescue opening. That was the one sentence. So that wasn't in our 2022 code. So they said well because of AV one thirty, no go. So that's fine. So we've made that change. So by adopting these so we're on slide four. So here's kind of the options. So by adopting these findings and amendments, we ensure full acceptance from the California Building Standards Commission.

We promote a regional consistency by aligning the residential and fire codes, and we preserve the adoption of the three appendix chapters in question. Without this action, the city will remain in a state of partial acceptance. It generates a conflict between the residential and the fire codes. We lose the adoption of the three appendix chapters and the approved amendment that was previously approved in R330.31 which was for spacing of batteries. So with that, staff recommends the adoption of the revised resolution and ordinance to finalize the Cupertino code title 16 adoption.

These actions ensure our local building code amendments meet California Building Standards Commission requirements for the 2025 code cycle. That concludes our presentation and we are here to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Yeah. City council, do we have any clarifying questions at this time?

Yes, mayor.

Council member Wong?

Yeah. Just a quick question. Is this is there anything part of this that's retroactive or it's only perspective?

Nope. It's just going forward just so that we can get full acceptance from the California Building Standards Commission literally removing that one sentence from our already adopted code. Yeah.

Sounds great. Thank you very much for the hard work and doing the research required to to make it compliant.

Thank you.

Thank you. Madam speaker clerk, do we have any members of the public that would like to speak on this item?

Mayor, I don't currently see any request to speak on this item.

Alright. Do we have a motion to move the recommended action?

Make the motion as well to

Thank you, council member Wong. Second. A second by council member Fruin. I don't see any further hands raised. I wanna thank Saf for providing such a very clear explanation and presentation. Madam city clerk, will you please conduct the roll call vote?

Councilmember Fuhrman. Aye. Councilmember Mohan. Aye. Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

Vice mayor Chao. Aye. Mayor Moore.

Aye.

Motion carries unanimously.

Alright. Thank you. So now we're moving on to item 16. This is the introduction and first reading of an ordinance to amend the municipal code to establish chapter 5.51 to regulate film production. Madam city manager, do we have a staff report?

Thank you, mayor. We do have a staff report, and this is an item that we're bringing back with very minor updates to the film production ordinance to further clarify that it does not apply to filming that occurs fully on private property. And with that, I will turn it over to interim city attorney, Floy Andrews, to provide a brief presentation.

You see the presentation on your screen?

Could

you make sure Floy's screen is being shared?

Oh, there we go. Great. Good evening, mayor and council. You will recall that in November, we brought first reading of a film ordinance to council. And let me switch this.

And that was to establish chapter 5.51 to the municipal code to allow the city to regulate film production and also to allow the city to pass a fee schedule in connection with individuals producing commercial films in the city. Council unanimously approved the item at the time. Certain community members suggested that the terms were somewhat ambiguous as pertaining to filming on private property and asked us to take a look at that again. And so we did. And staff now recommends that we approve the second first reading of that ordinance.

Let's see if I can get this to move forward. There we go. This is an odd mouse. There it is. It's easily lost. I don't know why it's not. Oh, there we go. Perfect. So, this is what the revision is clarifying. The ordinance now applies to now does not apply to commercial filming.

We made a little tweak in the language to make that very, very clear. And the ordinance does not apply to commercial filming if it takes place entirely on private property, including all vehicle parking, production staging, and storage of equipment or props. So before we had the ordinance applying to filming, the ordinance did apply to filming on private property to the extent that additional equipment, traffic, trucks would be present on in the public right of way or on public property. So in that instance, even though the actual filming was happening in private property, the fact that you were taking up space on the street, etcetera, required you to get a permit. In this instance, A specifically clarifies that, but we also added B, activities that are covered by an encroachment permit.

So that means that if you are filming on private property and you have an encroachment permit to allow for commercial vehicles, etcetera, parking on a public street, you would still be exempt from having to get a permit. So that's the basic change here. And that is the full extent of the changes. So the recommended action is to pass the first reading of the second first reading of this ordinance.

Thank you, madam city attorney. And at this time, I see a hand raise from council member Mohan. Your question

for the city attorney. When when would this take effect?

Well, we would, bring it back for a second reading. And I think the plan to do that is to bring it back at the next meeting. Is that correct? May. One of the meetings in May will bring the second reading back. And once that's passed, then it will be effective.

And the second reading can

be on consent. Okay. So this big film that they're making on Cupertino. So I'm assuming The television show. So I'm assuming this does would not apply to them.

Well, the film ordinance likely would. If they are filming in private property, let's say a household, and they have an encroachment permit for their vehicles outside, then they would not need to get a permit. But if they're filming in parks, on city property, on property that isn't private property, or if they don't get an encroachment permit, then they would have to get a permit.

No, I just assumed that that filming was already done since they're talking about a fall release.

Oh, I see. I I have to admit, I don't have any specific information on whether the TV show has begun to film. Thank you.

Okay. I'm not seeing any further hands raised. Madam Singh.

Mayor. Sorry. On Zoom. Sorry.

On Zoom. Okay. Councilmember Wong.

Oh, yes. Through the mayor. Thank you. I do have a question. I believe filming has actually begun in Hasbrooke Heights in New Jersey, and they haven't filmed here yet. And I wanted to mention that are we doing anything to encourage them to come film actually in Cupertino? That's question number one. Question number two is I really want to just make a comment and thank you for creating the private exemptions. I think they're very good for nonprofits as well for some of the private entities and corporations that are here. I think the research was thorough and I thought it was really important to make sure we carved out that exemption on the private piece. So thank you very much there. But have we reached out this to the city manager or to anyone on EDC? Have we reached out to see if they're filming with us?

Councilmember Wong, their team reached out to our communications team. So there I think that there is interest in at least understanding what the process is if they want to come here and and film. I I don't think that they've been in our city just yet, but we're in touch with them, and we can continue encouraging them. Now, especially now that our ordinance is going to be in place and provides clarity. I I do imagine it's more than just one season. So we'll hope hopefully We hope they make

it more than one season. Yes. Yes. We do. So thank you very much.

Alright. Thank you. Madam city clerk, do you have any members of the public who are requesting to speak?

Mayor, at this time, I'm not seeing any request to speak on this item.

Alright. So we'll bring it back. Do we have a motion to move the recommended action?

Motion to move.

Okay. Council Member Wong. Second. And seconded by Council Member Fruin. Council Member Okay. Not seeing any further hands raised. Madam City Clerk, will you please conduct the roll call vote?

Councilmember Freud? Aye. Councilmember Mohan? Aye. Councilmember Wong?

Aye.

Vice Mayor Chao? Aye. Mayor Moore? Aye. Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you. So we've finished that. Let's see. We've moved on to the end. We just have some reports which you can peruse. Believe we have completed the agenda. Yes. Okay. So prior to adjourning, I'd like to remind everyone that the Toyokawa Cupertino Sister City Cherry Blossom Festival is this Saturday and Sunday at Memorial Park, and we hope to see you there. And with that, this Tuesday

Yes. Mayor?

Yes.

Can I propose a future agenda item, please?

Pardon. Is that

yeah. Is council member Wong suggesting a future agenda item? I'm not

I would like to propose if suggest the future agenda item, if possible.

Would you like to email me and the mayor, council member Wong?

I'll do that. It is related to file safety and spending some time creating an evacuation routes for our residents on the West Side.

So in the past, we did have council member propose under DAIS and get a second on the future agenda item. We haven't had time to get to that.

We haven't. Yeah, it's true. Very much true. We haven't.

So would the mayor want to entertain that?

This is Okay. So for future agenda items, we have the upcoming draft agenda items report, a tentative council meeting agenda calendar that lists upcoming city council meeting dates and tentative agenda items, all of which are subject to change.

I would just like to propose a study session on evacuation routes and safety and how they tie back to ATP. I think it's very important given the housing bills that we've approved as a council and given the impact to residents, think it's very important that we address the fire safety issue. And if we can put a study session to that on the agenda item at some point. That's just my suggestion. If I get a second, that'd be great for the mayor if you want to do this now. If not, I'm happy to write and put that into writing for you.

Yes. I I actually want to see this clarified with the city attorney with regards to our the draft agenda items report is because it seems almost like it's not really written up to suggest future agenda items even though it's under a future agenda items heading and maybe we want to touch on that in our council procedures manual that we're going to be looking at to to clarify this particular item. So is that within is that within this this agenda item? Because it just says upcoming draft agenda items report. It's a report. It doesn't seem to be requesting.

I I think it's appropriate for a council member to make a suggestion on a future agenda item. I don't think it's appropriate as the current agenda is set up that we would actually vote to make that happen.

Okay. So council member Wong, it might be best that you send in an email and ask for a second. I think you'll you'll get it. That that's not the issue. It's just how we have this

No, sir.

I'm happy to follow process. So

Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much.

I'm happy to end the meeting early too.

Mayor, so I am confused because ever since I got on the council in 2019, we have had the future agenda items item at the very end, and we have had proposed items in Garden 2nd on the. And when we didn't have the draft agenda items report, The draft agenda items report was recently added last year when we revised the council agenda. And it seems the consequence is now making future agenda items a category and not an item. You can comment on that.

Well, I think lucky for us, I believe it's May 5 that we'll be looking at the Council of Procedures

meeting. Yeah. Would, I think the correct way is actually for item 19 to still be titled the future agenda items. And then the draft agenda is an attachment as the information. The title shouldn't be draft agenda items report because we don't put usually an info report as an agenda item. So, I think it is appropriate according to the council the intent of the revised council procedure's report is that.

Okay. So May 5, we'll bookmark that and make sure that that gets discussed. And I definitely see your point there. I've

So can I still propose an item?

Not the way it's written. So but you can, as soon as the meeting's over, Just send an email if you're trying to get something get a second on something.

I I hope the city can host a screening of the small is beautiful screening. And since this is an issue that we all care about, It'll be nice if the city can host it. Yeah.

The the council procedures manual actually does say that we can do this right now, even though how the agenda sits. So just just for future reference, I'm happy to follow what the mayor's preferences are, but the procedure manual does say this today in the manual. So I'm happy to end the meeting early too as well. I

think in the future how we have this noticed needs to be expanded is the only difference. So if it it doesn't say that we would be adding items to it. It just says we're getting this report. Okay. So and please attend the Cupertino Sister City Cherry Blossom of Festival this Saturday and Sunday at Memorial Park and without this Tuesday, 04/21/2026 regular meeting of the Cupertino City Council is