Economic Development Committee - Regular Meeting

Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Economic Development Committee of Cooper Teal. Today is Thursday, July 30th of 2026. My name is Jane Lin, and I'm the chair of the EDC. Welcome to everyone here in the Queensland conference room, and to those joining on Zoom, I will call this meeting to order. Staff, will you please open your call?

Committee Member Asala.

Here.

Committee Member Bonham. Here. Committee Member Carter.

Here.

Vice Mayor Tau. Here. Committee Member Daunty. How about we do another round of introductions so she knows everyone.

I think so. My name is Jane Lee. I'm the chair of this year, and I represent the commercial real estate. I will speak for this meeting. I'm Selena Kang.

I'm the chair of the EDC, and I represent the technology sector.

I'm Mantilia Osama. You represent which sector? Education. I think my thing is that we need to look at both of your stipulations and stuff.

Casey Casalcheron, representing Planning Commission.

Jack Carter, representing Sustainability Commission.

Lindsay Nelson, Administrative Assistant.

Jen Fine, City Staff.

I'm Astrid, also City Staff. Thank you, everyone. I'm Leanne Chow.

I'm Balram Blanti. I represent the TIC Commission.

And I'm Talia Divono, Hospitality and Parks and Rec.

Right. And everyone knows . All right. So let's move to approval of minutes. The subject is to approve the April 30, 2026 Economic Development Committee minutes. The recommended action is to approve the minutes. Are there any corrections or additions to the minutes? If not, then I'll move to approve the April 30, 2026 minutes. Is there a second? Second. Thank you.

All right. So to roll call vote, Committee Member Asawa?

Yes.

Committee Member Bono?

Aye.

Committee Member Parter?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Chapp? Yes. Committee Member Daunty?

Yes.

Committee Member Gasol? Yes. Vice Chair Kang? Yes. Chair Lynn? Yes. Asking carries. Let's Committee Member Yip absent.

Okay. And the next agenda item is postponements. Is there any postponements? No. Oral communications? Any oral communications?

Yes, we have two speakers in person. Our first speaker is Kathy Helgerson.

Hello. Hey, go ahead. I'm very concerned about the setbacks on single-family homes that have been added now. Additional... apartments, and I've run to the city about this, and I've also gone to the apartment department, the building department, and there's a conflict. I saw a picture, took a picture of it, and she saw it too. It's not even a foot and a half. This is what I always think, some rules and regulations. You've got the second person in the city and I was out and I'm not getting anywhere. Okay, now I tried going to a housing center, county, or excuse me, the state housing facility. You can't get through. You can't call them and you can't email. You can't do anything. It's really bad what's going on right now. I'm very concerned. It's houses looks like hell. It's astronomical. And there's this little house in the middle, and there's going to be housing projects on both sides. You say what's in there, and nobody's doing anything about it. So I talked to some of the city, and nothing's happened. Maybe the city council members could tell me. I haven't gone to their meeting. So I'm very concerned that maybe you guys can do something about this to find out what's going on, because it's very important. It's not just, you know, if not, well, if that's you know, like what, everything's economic. If you buy a house here in Cupertino, if you develop it, if you deal with builders and all this, it's an economic development. You're developing the property, you're developing the houses, but what they're doing is wrong, okay? If you guys, it's on Bearden and Hanover, and right over there on Delmar, and it's a nightmare. I need the city to look at this. I need every department in the city to look at this. And also, I wanted to bring it up with the state, make it through. And I'm trying to say I've got a county, but they're sometimes liking it too. Trying to get through these people's minds. So I want, that's why I'm here. Okay. I want to comment or a clarification. All right. And I want you guys to help me out. Excuse me. Find out what's going on here. And the city council was not notified about any of these bills. They completely overriding the city council said that someone is something that is that the set is working here. With this epic I had pictures they want to have this moment in here and then and not be with somebody has to do something about this. So I'm hoping that the best of the council members here to meeting or online or whatever please do something about this problem is there.

Thank you. Thank you, Kathy. Our next speaker is Michael. Welcome, Michael.

So I just wanted to talk about our economic plan in the city. I think the number one thing is that we're not a destination for young people like me. There's like no, there's nothing like in Mountain View where there's an actual downtown. There's like, what is here is just residential and then there's like Whole Foods and then there's Main Street and then That's it. That's literally it. So I'm thinking we need a 10-year plan to actually build a downtown or something like that in order to get the economic years of the city turning. Because we, as we all know, we have a deficit. We only have $60 million in our budget left. And if we don't do anything, if we don't increase our tax base, what are we going to do? Are we going to raise more taxes on the old people here? Like, this is a major problem that we all need to deal with. And, you know, that might require changes. You know, you said you don't really like housing, but, you know, we might have to do that because, you know, young people can't pay five million per house. You know, this is this is not ten of them. So we need to do something about that.

What do you want?

Like, how do housing prices need to go down in this city? Well, you know, look at our school districts, you know? They're paid per student, and the number of students are going down. Why is that? Because people who have kids look at our housing prices, and they say, I want to go somewhere else that I can live. That's affordable. And what happens is that, like, people sit on their houses because they want to give them to their kids and all these houses are empty and there's no more, there's no more kids in our schools and then they have to close down our schools. So, I mean, you might not like it. We all might not like it, but this city has to change in some way, sometime.

Thank you.

Thank you, Michael. We have no remaining speakers in person and no hands raised on Zoom, Chair.

Thank you. It seems like the address has a lot of problems related to And the next item is old business and there's no agenda on that. So we'll move to new business. And it also shows no agenda on the world on star formal agenda. The first item is a filming permit program. Do we have a president?

Yes, Eugene chair. I'm giving the colleagues ask this globalist. Great.

Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you. Okay. Well, as my colleague said, my name is Ashton Robles. I'm the assistant city manager here at the city, and I'm here to present on filming in Cupertino. So if you can scroll down. There you go. So the city has a newly adopted ordinance that regulates film production in the city. The ordinance established a clear process that regulates any commercial filming on public property and requires a filming permit with the exception of news media, any private videos that are not intended for sale and studio filming. Commercial nonprofits and student films do require a permit but are exempt from any fees. There are various reasons why we would want to regulate filming in the city. First, the permit requires payment and fees, and obviously those fees will bring revenue to the city. It also sets a clear process for staff and production companies to avoid any confusion and increases But most importantly, requiring a permit allows the city to protect its residents and neighborhoods by regulating noise levels and reducing impacts to day-to-day activities like parking, garbage pickup, lighting, and street uses. Here is a little snippet from our city website. So if you want any other information about filming in general, the ordinance, the fees, you can find it here under the communications portion of our site. This is also where you would go if you want to apply for a permit. So this is live now. As I said, it was adopted in May. So it just went into effect last month in June. So it's still new. But this is live now.

Go ahead.

And our website has this on there, which is just a clear step-by-step overview for anyone who is interested in applying for a permit. It does require some time, so we ask people to start looking into documentation and things a month or two in advance, but the ordinance requires the application to be submitted at least 14 days before filming, and at least 30 days if any of the filming activity is going to affect traffic or public safety. Staff will review the application, and then the applicant will pay their fees, and then you'll receive a permit, and we will send notices. So we will do noticing for neighborhoods within a 300-foot radius at least seven to two hours in advance so that people know that you have filming going on. And then filming can begin. And so before this, we didn't have a process. So there was not clear regulation. There was not clear times when you could film or not. So this process allows us to do that consistently when we get requests.

Go ahead. Last slide, everybody.

And here's a snippet of our fees. This is just included with the adoption this past month. And so here's a snippet of our fees. They are comparable to what we saw in other cities. We did do research on this process. And then I'll just close with saying, as I said, it's new. We have yet to receive an actual application yet, but the city manager's office will monitor this and regulate and see how many we get. And we'll go from there. But I wanted to bring this to you all today just for awareness that this is new. Feel free to share it if you have any people that you know who are interested in filming any type of commercial or something for their business. Just let them know that this exists and information can be found on the website and you can reach out to me and my colleagues for any questions. So thank you.

Any discussions?

I just want to say Wonderful that you just did that because as you all know, and if you don't know, CBS will air in October a new TV legal drama by the producers of The Good Wife called Cupertino, which that will help us a lot a year from now. And I just got back from Japan for a sales mission. They love The Good Wife. They even created their own. But that's going to create such a huge economic development in tourism. And we're hoping, obviously, Netflix, all of those other channels. And as you know, The Good Wife, the same producers had it for 19 series. It's a very acclimated industry. TV drama series, and hopefully with the name Cupertino, that will attract a lot of tourism and maybe more people wanting to film. It's great that this is part of the end of it. And I just wanted to give it two cents.

I have a question. So when my students, my kids, the school, they did some class projects where they went around filming. So it was not completely private. And since you do show to your classroom, So will that require a permit or?

So this only applies, sorry, this only applies for commercial filming. So anything intended for like sale. Yeah. Okay. Any project intended for resale, right, or for publication, you're going to sell it or it's going to be broadcasted, not any home videos, any student projects. Obviously, if a school was going to do some type of commercial, they would need to apply for a permit, but they would be exempt from fees. So, but that's great.

You have for commercial operations, right? A quick question. What about real estate filming?

Yeah, so I guess if you're going to put it on your website and let's say you're making a commercial and it's going to be out there for business, I think that falls under commercial.

For the sale of the residence, you put it up on Zillow or?

Oh, you're talking about for per house?

Yeah.

That's a good question. I thought you were talking about a real estate firm trying to gain business. Yeah. Let me look into that a little bit further to see if that's required, because I don't think if you're filming your phone right for sale, I'll have to look into that if that's considered because the video itself is not what's for sale, it's the home, right? The purpose of this is for the actual video, right? You're talking about movie, film and all that. And like, you're not gonna sell the video of your house a hundred times, right? And that I think is, it's a nuance, but I don't think it counts, but I can confirm.

What is the benefit to the film folks?

For the production firm. Well, so actually, I think we found it surprising that most of the people that had reached out to us were surprised to find that we didn't. And so I think that it is they're used to this. They're used to having a process. They're used to paying fees. We're talking about like big production companies. Right. We've had requests that asked us, do you have a permit? What do we do? And we didn't have anything. And so they were surprised. Right. And so. One of the benefits is that our guidelines are clear. Right. So there's no issue about any, you know, any any there's no gray areas about where they can film or where they can't film and all that. So I think it just provides clarity to anyone who wants to film here. And I think it'll be it was a surprise that we did it. Right. And so now I think we're more in compliance with other cities. Like we're talking about major places that film like L.A., and other places that film all the time. They have all these regulations, so this is not a surprise to them at all.

I'm just, I guess, I'm coming to the point of, I mean, this guy has worked on me in terms of, we're selling stuff, right? And so, how are we selling this? This is something they expect, then how are we selling having this place? I think Cupertino's great, but how are we selling?

Sales fits. I just have a quick question. So if you are, say, a business or anyone that's just trying to create their own advertising video, do they have to get a permit? Like anytime you're not reselling your video, you're just advertising yourself.

Yeah. I think it kind of falls a little bit with what I was saying earlier about real estate. But I want to get that confirmation and can definitely make sure that is spread around here so you can make sure that it's clear. But yeah, you're right. That's an advertisement for their business. But I would want to confirm with our legal team whether or not that applies.

I think my preference would be that we not add additional burdens on our businesses that are trying to just promote themselves and do well. And, you know, if everyone has to come get a permit, and especially if it costs money, that's...

Right.

Yeah. Now we've just added. Yeah. So I would assume, again, I would want to double check, but I would assume like, because you're not selling the video. Right. Right. So that's, I think that's the main difference. Okay.

That would be helpful because I think right now it just mainly says exemptions are for nonprofit. And so to me, I look and I'm like, well, what if I'm not a nonprofit, but I'm still not selling my video. So awesome.

Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I'll get back. I'll make sure to clarify that. Okay.

I just want to clarify any, the length, right? For example, a 30-second commercial will be counted as part of the commercial. Yes. All right. So we're finished with this discussion here. We can open up for public comments.

We have one speaker in person, Kathy Helgerson. One moment while I... And also Michael.

And Michael. Okay.

Go ahead, Kathy. Well, number one, the piece of pretty high. Okay, so if the city is trying to make money. Second thing is parents have to sign off and what's going on with other cities? What are they doing? Nothing was brought here telling us, well, this is how this works. These are some of the companies that they do business with. I'd like some history. So maybe somebody here on the commission, the sub-commission, can go back and find out what's in history. What's San Jose? Find out what they're doing. See what the adults need to do to make all of this safe. Because a lot of times it's not just good promotion. It could be bad promotion. Is there regulations that say you cannot put anything on, you know, film anything, especially a city council, you know, website that is not beneficial to the city? It could be very negative. It could be both opinions, one way or the other, you know. I'm really worried about what this could do, okay? And also, what kind of drama are we allowing on there's we're talking about this one drop that they're presenting as a movie or whatever regulates that we have to look at once again and stuff okay before we build an approach there who's going to approve this oh it's a committee is it this committee or is it another department what department is approving this and where are the one permanent strong you know who's going to be optimizing Well, the city council looked at these permits, which is something I'd like to see. The city council needs to oversee a lot of things that are going on, and they're not, okay? And yes, they're very busy. They probably have a lot of jobs on the side, blah, blah, blah. I think this is really important. So if you have a subcommittee, maybe they can look into some of this. I was curious about why do we need a subcommittee? What are you guys supposed to be doing? I don't understand this. So my feeling is we need to, put some really strong regulations on this. Let's just go ahead. Let's just do it. We're making a lot of money. Okay. So just be careful about that. Okay. And how do they come up with these fees is another story. So I'm very concerned about this. So maybe at the next meeting you guys can bring in some more information about this and what I've said. And probably at the next meeting I'll be bringing something in writing so it can be put on the web so other people can read it out I don't know how many people you'd get the word out about you guys, economic development committee, on how many people, 6,000 people, are you sending notices up? Thank you, Kathy. That is your time.

Our next speaker is Michael White. Welcome, Michael.

I'm very used by this policy because it's surprising to me since, especially since we're in this Silicon Valley that doesn't seem to take into account that social media exists. So let's say like I'm a YouTuber I'm in Cupertino, I'm pointing a camera at myself, me and my friend are doing a video podcast. I uploaded to YouTube, I gained like $300. So in every week I'm doing a podcast, right? So if I could go to Cupertino City Hall, for every podcast that I do, like two months in advance and say to Cupertino, I'm doing a podcast series I'm uploading on YouTube, I get negatives from all the permits I'm doing, right? And there's also a scale, right? So let's say, like, I'm uploading a 60-second short to TikTok, and I'm getting $50 for each TikTok. Do I have to go to City Council for that? Like, then also maybe, like, a little higher. I'm on social media, or, like, I'm a podcaster company. I have, like, five employees. It's in my house. I have, like, a little studio room. You can't tell us in Cupertino. It's just, like, a white wall in the background. Like, does that also count as, like, production and filming? Like, maybe we should have something where, like, you can tell it's a good routine now. Or, like, I'm also very surprised, like, there's this, like, public property component to it. Like, I don't know. It's just my values. Like, maybe we should be able to do what we want with our private property. Like, maybe we should have cut off or, like, treat. you know, when people film, like, how big their company is, like, what's the, what's the size, is this, like, an actual, like, Warner Brothers production, or is this, like, a couple of friends who, like, get together and, like, want to do something and upload it to social media? Well, schools have already, students are already exempted, but there's, like, a lot of considerations here that I don't think you guys have considered at all. Yeah, I just think, like, There's so many different things about social media. So I just want you guys to maybe look into that.

Thank you, Michael. We have no speakers in person and no hands raised.

Thank you. So the recommended action for this subject is to receive an update on the implementation of the city's film and permit ordinances. Do we do a motion then?

So I'd like to follow up on some of the issue raised by the speakers. So I think one question was, what if the video content is not good? I think as a city, we cannot regulate on content. It's a free speech. So all we are regulating is the impact to the community. And I believe that you don't need any permit if you are filming indoors in someone's house. This is only if you are filming outdoors, right? Public property. Public property, inside public property or outdoors. For in terms of private property.

Talking about if it's in the house, it's considered a studio.

Yeah, so those are, you don't need permit. So still private property is that also, meaning if you are filming outside of outdoors, or a private property. But if you are like on Apple campus doing an Apple video, you don't need the permit. It's their own private property. It's only if they are using public street and filming Apple, for example.

That's the only thing we can regulate. Okay.

I just wanted to clarify. And who will review the permits? I think you have that in the slides, the staff will be implementing the policy and reviewing the permits. The council doesn't need to be involved. And regarding the fees, my understanding is the fees is recovery, post-recovery based, right? So it's based on how much staff time we need to process the notification for the permit. We, legally, we are not allowed to make any money from the fees, right? Just want to confirm. Okay. I think it's a good question about the social media. What if someone made a video, but they put it on YouTube for free, but they actually get paid by YouTube for the number of visits. That's an interesting. So is that considered a commercial video? Maybe that needs to be clarified because I think the initial intent might be that the video itself is for sale for a price. But this kind of social media click-based payment, if that should not be considered, maybe that can be clarified when we revise it. Yeah, so that's... Yeah, I wanted to follow up on that, too.

My idea, you know, I would love for you to consider is a very valid point around social media. And I think the purpose of this ordinance was to regulate large film productions because they are disruptive to traffic and neighborhoods and all of that. And I would generally consider a social media video on the iPhone, or even if they have a small team, is not disruptive. So, you know, maybe if there's some criteria that can be added around, like, just... you know, size of filming is less than five crew. Right, like neighborhood impact. If there's, you know, less than five, I don't think it's much of an impact.

So maybe that can be considered for the next one. Right.

You have to be really careful because that's loophole right now. Because then YouTube is either, you know, some very tiny thing that nobody does anything, or it's a major production. And if YouTube has become, and I watch YouTube things that are news oriented with commercials and the whole bit. And so it's just, I'm just saying, you put it out, look for the loopholes.

Right. Yeah, I just did my quick research. It took a second to look into it. If you're a YouTuber and you earn money on it, you need to have a business license at the cost of $185 a year. That's really what it is. And there are some exemptions. If you're doing less than $300 earning, you might be... having a little waiver on that, but that's what it is considered. Someone that earns money on social media pays a business license for it. $181 plus $4 from the state, which is SB 1186.

And that is when you film in Cupertino, or do you live in Cupertino?

If you live and you're a YouTuber and film in Cupertino, you're still required to get a business license for the city of Cupertino.

And now you would also be required for the... Reduction lessons?

I invite to do a quick search, even on AI, you're fine. It's super easy. I mean, we cannot put staff time on this. Anyone can do our research. It takes zero seconds.

So we still do a motion, right?

We still need a motion for this item because it's an information item.

Okay, sounds good. So coming into the next item, which is the small business permit streamlining, I believe staff also has a presentation.

Thank you. The next item is the small business permit streamlining. I'm sorry for my voice. I'm getting over a cold, so fully healthy at this point, but my voice is still coming back. So bear with me if I'm not very clear. So just a quick background on the Small Business Permit Streamlining Project. This is part of the city work program that I mentioned in a previous meeting. Council adopted to your see program and those projects get implemented over to your period and so the fiscal year twenty five twenty seven. work program, including economic development for retail and small business item. And that item in particular focuses on improving the building experience for small businesses. So that's an item that I'm bringing today to this committee to get some feedback before we begin any formal initiation of this item. So that way we can include a process that's going to be conducive to all our small businesses, provide us with the that we need to develop a new program that can help our small businesses in the permitting process. That's a quick background on this item. Next slide. The approach is to look at a three-phase approach, basically to focus on stakeholder outreach, engaging with businesses, with small businesses who have recently been involved in the permitting process with the city. and try to gather some of their challenges, some of their experiences on what it was like to go through the process and really try to drill down on some of the specifics. So it would not only just be small businesses, but also their technical experts, like their architects and contractors, because we need to hear kind of all sides of the experience. Phase two would focus on operating and having conversations with your students in Santa Clara County. We can't have been listening I appreciate your recommendations on that. It's looking at other cities, understanding what other cities do as it relates to supporting small businesses. Getting a better understanding in cities within the county or outside the county expedited permit permit programs or just different types of support mechanisms to support these small businesses in their communities. And then phase three is to look at our external agencies that have some collaboration there with Santa Clara County Fire, for example, Cupertino Sanitary. We as a city of Cupertino, we don't have a full service. We do have outside agencies that also are a part of the permitting process. So having collaboration and conversation with those agencies will be very helpful because they are part of the process. There have been in the past various challenges that small businesses have experienced that they've shared with staff. So we know to have those conversations as we try to develop a program for small business permitting improvements. So with this three-phase approach, we're hoping to enhance the permitting experience. We're hoping to identify process challenges so that way you can better understand delays, point of confusion, and other bottlenecks that are impacting small businesses during the permit process, and then strengthen our interagency coordinations going forward. So that's kind of the high level of this presentation. And with that, to the recommended action, it's to review and approve, review and provide feedback on some proposed approach to evaluate opportunity, streamline the permits and processes I have provided. questions for EDC to kind of think about as you provide your feedback. These are questions that perhaps could ask staff to go back and rephrase the approach. You don't have to respond to these questions directly.

Let's open up for discussions.

We all know that

Retino changed to HDL, right? The system and all of that. So do we have any feedback? Is it even better for anyone using it? Do we have any type of feedback on that? Is that streamlined the process? Are we having more happy customers?

That is HDL payment for the business license process.

Yes.

I don't have all that information at this time, but for this particular item for small businesses going through the permitting process, that we use for our system.

Could you, for people like me, do you deal with HDL?

HDL is a third-party platform that we use to manage our business license. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I see. And how long is this process going to take? Because you have a three-phase approach, right?

Yeah, I think by end of the year, early 2027, I think we should have some good traction on what we're going to be able to do with this item. So I would say within the next six, seven months, we're hoping to have something

Do we receive any complaints before regarding, you know, permitting process and stuff like that? And which type of industry? Are they restaurant, hospitality? I know retail rarely have any other industry. Do we have a survey before?

Yeah, so I think the way I would respond is I think early businesses, as they go through the permit process, depending on how complex the changes are for the improvements, could to kind of create a longer time for them to get through permit compliance. I think also a lot of it is really at the at the team level, but not necessarily the city's staff. It's more of the submittal that they're providing in complete applications, not responding to the questions that have been asked for them to respond to. And so we'll look at all of that as we try to improve this process for the small businesses. But there's a lot kind of to that question, right? And some of it is, You know, response time, some of it is what the business is and how they submit the information and how to complete information. And then just other business issues happening where the business may not be responding when they would like to because they have other matters that they're dealing with, right, would delay their process.

So, I think that's a, I think that's a really good point and I think always collecting data is really important as you sort of structure as you sort of structure the stakeholder outreach and how you collect that data. I would absolutely look at how we. Look at both qualitative and quantitative data. So a lot of the points that you're making around. Response time, lead time, system responses, things that can actually be validated in a factual way. I think we should ensure that those metrics are consistently aligned and agreed upon when you collect that. The qualitative aspect, which I think can sometimes, because people complain, people have very different experiences, people's recollections vary. I think that's always an aspect, but I think helping to kind of ground that feedback so that the recommendations we do make, also taking into consideration actual realities versus perceptions, I think is really important. Considering your 2027 timeline, too, as well, I think looking historically, always good, but we continually have businesses applying to appointments. It might be who was to perhaps think about engage with some of these folks as part of that process to help kind of gather it as they're going through it too as well. So not to influence their experience, but perhaps letting them know that we would be more interested in their feedback as they're going through it right now, right? So I think different sort of data points to kind of help us come to alignment and agreement on how we move forward would be a good way. Yeah, you know, case study, just, like I said, just engaging some of them, just letting them know, like, hey, as you're going through this permitting process, we'd like to ensure that we touch base with you three times to kind of gather more recent impressions, for example. So I think just different ways to collect some of that data to help sift through the noise, perhaps, that's...

Currently, when we have this small business permitting process, after the permit is issued, do we solicit for any feedback from that business? Do we have any small set of questions?

Yeah. So with this project, I should mention there will be collaboration with the building division. I know the building division does have a survey form that they push out to applicants that do complete the permit process. I don't know how often they're completing those surveys. But I think with our effort here, there will be an opportunity for us to collect those solutions.

Yeah, I think that would be very useful information because they'll have the process very fresh in their mind having gone through that process, right? And maybe we can include a carrot at the end of the survey so that they're motivated to fill out the survey.

Yeah, and... In my role, a lot of what I do is assist businesses through the permitting process. So there is a number of businesses I know, you know, J and O businesses. There's a number of businesses that I know that they make decisions. We'll certainly be tapping into those businesses to get more complete . Thank you. This is quite an important

action I made, because this is actually the very first interaction for the small offices. Sometimes if they come to the city conference for the first time, this is the very first interaction that they have with the city staff and also the city in general. So are you gonna be providing, or the staff will be providing feedback or like progress along our meetings, or we'll wait till October 29th, right, to get them?

Yeah, so we've had initial discussions currently. I think at some point, hopefully the next meeting coming up, the staff would come to EDC and give a presentation on building some of the process and some of that stuff. So we've had those conversations. So yeah, I think we're going to continue to engage with EDC as we continue to work on this project. That's very collaborative in that way.

Yes, just from a professional standpoint, I really hear a lot of not complaints, but commons on retrofitting. Because a lot of time when the business want to come in, if they are a completely different type, for example, it used to be a retail and now a restaurant, and then the shopping center might be a little bit dated. Now the new restaurant owner have to come in and provide walkways, do a lot of the retrofitting, and that costs them a lot of money. And also they have to work with a lot of external agents. So that is actually really dragging the process. I'm not sure how many, but these are some of the feedback I've heard. So maybe that can provide you some insight for the staff to look into as well about retrofit. Because if they continue doing their business, you know, if they don't sell or they don't transfer to a new business, then they grant out or in, and they don't have to do any adjustment. However, when a new business comes in, they have to bear all the costs of providing new equipment and facilities and stuff like that. But that's what I've heard. So it'll be helpful as well.

Yeah, thank you so much.

I was just going to say thank you for bringing this item because I think this is something that's been really important to me. And it's great that we're able to come in at this early phase because that's where we want to wait. I agree with Commissioner Tang about just looking at existing data. I think that, you know, serving people, you're going to get like one subset of responses. But actually, I think, you know, we had this discussion recently because we on planning commission, we just talked about streamlining permits for small homes. Yeah, and so it's a similar thing. You know, you have a lot of the data that will tell you where businesses are getting held up in the permit process. So if you can definitely look at that, that I think would yield a lot of insights. And then, you know, I think I wanted to clarify When we talk about streamlining permitting, most of it is really on the building side, right? I mean, excluding building, it's really just getting the business license.

Or small business.

Sometimes planning will work on the parking.

So there's a parking analysis. It's for commercial shopping centers. There's a parking analysis that's required, which basically just requires these shopping centers to certain number of parking requirements per space. So there is that analysis part that happens. But from the permitting side itself, it's mostly coming from

Okay, great. Then my ask would be that we look not only at systems and where the system can be streamlined, but also from a permit standpoint, are there steps in the process that can be eliminated or are there types of permits that aren't necessary that maybe other cities aren't doing. And I think it's great that you have the comparison with your cities. I know that some cities have like streamlined processes for certain types of businesses. So yeah, I think in addition to figuring out, you know, where the pain points are, it's really actually, are there types of permits that maybe aren't actually necessary and we're just doing for whatever reason, historically, legacy they've been carried over.

Vice Mayor.

Oh, Vice Chair, yeah.

So. Yeah, I think that initially was confused like Commissioner Bono. I was thinking of business license and which is why HDL was mentioned because that is third party that we just got to manage the business license. So this is about the building permit process and so more so that will be small business who have a break the motor motor store in property now. Okay. And so I'm guessing the phase one would be, so it seems to be, yeah, I think we, do we already have some data that we have collected? Those who have applied permit and what's the process, what's the timeline? It seems we should collect those data first. not just based on stakeholder outreach, because we already have those data in the city, right? And what permits people are applying, how much time it takes from the application submission to the final, and then what they need to go through. So if we can get those data and... Well, then if things don't go

if everything goes smoothly. I mean, basically, you can't say that it's going to take this time to just chime in when they find out that there's some problem, you know, and they dig up a native burial site. I'm throwing something out there. My brain can't go, but, I mean, things go wrong.

Yeah, I know. But then, so there will be outliers in the data we collect, of course. But then if we already have data, then we can get some like, what is the current status? I think before we talk about any movement, we should know where we are now. And then maybe other similar cities, we can, maybe they have done some kind of data analysis to see what's their length of permitting. I believe Palo Alto has done some audit of their process, but I'm not sure if it's how it works or permitting of it or their process. And then I know some business have reached out because of some holdup at, for example, Fupertino Sanitary, they don't respond. So it will be nice if we have good information so that they know if they are stuck with either sanitary or PG&E or fire, or who do they contact? For example, sanitary, their sanitary district or that is not very responsive. You may reach out.

Are you bringing the fact that we needed an ombudsman?

Someone that would- I don't know.

And say like, okay, how do I-

that person would go and- Maybe the city can just provide, here is the list of people you can contact for each of this department. Then if there is any question, maybe it would be nice if a city staff could be a person who know that department, that sanitary well, and maybe can help follow up that. So they are, in case of anything is stuck, yeah. That's what is.

What you're saying is what's within essentially the city of Cupertino's control versus.

Yeah, something is beyond our control. But for our small business, a lot of times they don't, they are at a loss in case they are stuck at an external agency. But our staff likely already have someone who is familiar with another person. A phone call can quickly check up a status. But a small business will be very hard for them to get a status update. So if there is a contact person, who is familiar with sanitary, another person familiar with the fire or PG&E, then that would be helpful.

I do want to make one other comment. It also sounds like, as you're also looking at the permit process as well within your commission, it does sound like there are various efforts, essentially, that are just happening at the same time. It also might make sense to look at root causes, things that we look at solving this as well, maybe across various areas, not necessarily just EDC, but I think that's where that collective weight of our recommendations and findings might be helpful towards that, because there may be systemic issues versus things that are very specific to certain areas. And so I think it would be great as data shows that like oh it's a systems process it's just a really long application and that's something that's consistent across various you know various types of permits even even right things like that um in addition to i think the peer city research the external agency i think those are always great benchmarks but um i think collectively too as well within what's the control of our uh within the control of our city i think we should also always explore first I guess that was a great point that was brought up.

Yeah. Albert, do you have something to add?

Well, I'll just say overall, for small businesses, I hear what you're all saying, but I think it's nice for the city to try to streamline. But I think that whatever information slash feedback we're going to have is going to be skewed because there are certain areas, like Daniel Degout mentioned, that if there is incomplete permit requirements, or if it takes from the fire department, these are all things that will always technically delay. Cupertino is known to have even OTC on the same day permit provided or one to five days or 20 days. So I think we should stick to what we know and that it has to be, I think, If you're doing a small business or trying to redo a whole thing that will bring fire or this and that, it will take longer than certain other permits. And maybe there should be from the very get-go an estimated time of the wait due to the nature of the permit itself or what they're trying to achieve so that we can give them a direction. But I think overall, the permit department is to their benefit to try to issue with ASAP so that we can get money. But again, like we said earlier, there's other factors that will come in and that is beyond anyone else's control, whether it's the owner of that small business that is unresponsive. So whatever feedback they're trying to get at the end, it will still be somewhat skewed up to XYZ recent. Now can the city maybe can come up and say, You're trying to change the whole thing, and that's going to bring all those certain areas that requires long permitting. And so your estimated time may be, I don't know, six months or something. I do know we did a match opening, and they were complaining that it took about a nine-month process. But again, human nature will complain about anything and everything, but I'm not telling you if they were responsive or not.

It's like an antidote. I can follow up on that because I think we can learn from PG&E. PG&E actually take a lot of blame on a lot of delay of the project, even though it's sometimes not their problem. So what they came up with is they have a dashboard. Whenever you submit an application, they will tell you the staff have how much time to respond, how many days to respond. And then so that we can use that as a benchmark. And then the applicant will understand, okay, they have a deadline of X, Y, Z day. So I shouldn't bother them. until then or maybe a week or two weeks earlier than that. And then they will, let's say they submitted, the application was submitted and then the PG&E come back with comments. Then the ball is at the applicant's floor. So the PG&E should get off hook from that because they're not responsible for any of the reply time, right? And then the next time, so it's a very systematic process and nobody can really blame them because it seems like every time they're within their timeframe. As long as you tell them, to tell the applicant that I'm going to take this much time, maximum. Sometimes I do a little earlier, but I never delay. And that way it will be a good database for the city to really check in. And then let's say if an applicant does not reply within three months of commenting, then the applicant should be notified saying, hey, do you, did you have any problem? Is it with the external agency so that we can maybe jump down? So this type of process that PGA was doing very well. Something we can also take a look at. And sorry, Vice.

Yeah, thank you. Good idea, the dashboard. So I wonder, do we currently conduct any survey after a permeating process is finished. So we collect the qualitative data. Do we currently do any of those?

Yeah, I need to double check, but I believe you mean the building level. I believe that.

So we may already have some data.

The building department said they have a survey, but very few people fill it out.

So can we incentivize them to fill out? Maybe if they fill out, next time they get a higher priority for them.

Five percent discount on your next application.

Yeah, that could work because they're going to renew it.

We'll need an expert.

I think it's a good idea to have the dashboard because I did receive some complaints from people that this was for a home extension.

They did not receive any response from the city staff. And there is no estimation of when we will give you a response. So they waited, they waited, they waited, and don't know when they will even get one. So I think it's nice if there is at least here we will take 30 days, and that's a limit. But then if in case things load up, we couldn't respond, then you at least tell them, um here are the reason we need another extension so people do we have the system to do we already have that system in place or the dashboard we don't have the dashboard but at least there should be we should give people an estimate the time of response right yeah so our

My solar projects at home, when the thing that controls everything goes out, I got a case manager. Now, that's not as big as what we're talking about here. The case manager is someone that I can go ping, and they come out and ping me. so i mean is that too labor intensive for the city to have basement for applicants we already do have technician that was helping with the process yeah there's stuff that is available with permanent questions at the counter by phone yeah but i mean okay so then When you're just going to the counter or whatever, then you don't know who's there. If you have a case manager, you have a particular person that's assigned to your case. Yeah, so when... And they're also, they also would have like the things, you know, alarms going off. There's nothing to happen over a six-month time. And they call the customer, right? The customer said, I think it's waiting on you.

Yeah, I think some of this conversation are very helpful for a future EVC meeting when the staff will be here and we can talk into the details. I think that will give an opportunity to talk about Acela, how the platform works, how notification happens, the timeline and all of that. I think all of that could be discussed at that meeting. And some of these questions that are being asked right now will be answered very well. That would be great.

I think one of the questions from staff was, are there specific types of businesses we should prioritize during the stakeholder outreach phase? I'm thinking not exactly during the stakeholder outreach phase, but are there specific types of businesses we should prioritize in health care? Maybe those way prioritized assigned caseworker. And but then I don't know what type of business we should prioritize. Maybe the commissioners can provide input.

I think you've got to have the. Building stuff, right? I mean, if I'm a small business person, I'm doing so down in my home. My process is going to go real fast. If I have the supermarket that's going to be turned into a food court, it's going to go, I need help.

I just look at the business to generate more and more and more and more revenue. Because so many businesses don't generate any tax revenue.

That's true. Service business does not generate. So prioritize those who generate sales tax revenue.

And also who are already in the process because there will be immediate income to the city.

Yeah.

If they're already in the process, then you can use them as a case study. Everything is very well done. I believe staff also get a look back to the next round of presentation. So we haven't opened up for public comment yet, right? Yes.

Before we go to public comment, I'd like to remind everyone that members of the public may speak only during the designated comment period after we We allow each speaker to complete their comments without interruption, so everyone has an equal opportunity to be heard. And our first speaker is Kathy Helgerson. One moment while they bring up the streamer.

All right, go ahead. I don't know why we're going to streamline. Have you had a lot of complaints? Is that what this is all about? I'll give you an example of SB 330, the housing part of the bill. They're streamlining it, okay? That is causing a lot of problems, losses. I mean, it's just horrible what's going on here, okay? And you guys want to put streamlining there. And what that means is who's going to keep track of checking what's going on, okay? They've even, with the building thing, CEPLA has been overriding it. They don't want to check the soil to see if there's anything that needs to be cleaned up. Now, Costco is going to be putting in another building. So they bought the land, OK? So I don't know how long that's going to take. I haven't been checking into it. I don't know what the streamlining is, if there is any. The city has a certain way of doing things. There's already something implemented. Why are we doing this streamlining thing? And what are the consequences? And what problems the city is going to have, OK? You guys have to start worrying about this. You can't just go streamlining everything. This is what's happening. It's like, oh, this is great. Let's do it. That's not the way the whole system works. Because when you do something like that, you're going to overlook a lot of regulations and rules. And who do you think is going to supervise that? The staff. You think the city council members are going to do this? You think you guys are going to do this? No. It's down there. It's the building and permitting departments. And there's problems down there, big ones, big problems. I just mentioned that earlier. So I don't believe in this streamlining. Take the time to review the properties. Take the time to review the companies, okay, big and small. I don't care which ones they are. Obviously, the smaller ones are not going to take as long as the bigger ones. But let's face it, if you're going to go on streamlining everything, you know, there's certain regulations that you also have to deal with. There's state and federal regulations. Remember that. Don't overlook this. That's very important. And I'm working on it right now with this housing thing, which is really annoying. So the city has to say to themselves, yes, we'll get some complaints. We'll try to get better, okay? Maybe take a month off or off of them, six months. Or, you know, do something like that. But don't make everything streamlined, okay? It's not going to work. You're going to have a lot of legal problems, okay, if you're not having a priority. And I don't like it. I don't think it's a good thing. And based on this housing bill, believe me, that's a perfect example. And Gavin Newsom is taking 15 cities to court about not being able to comply with the housing crisis bill. You guys have to see what this is a perfect example. You start something and there's a bigger problem. You've got to look at this from all the directions. You cannot just go in, oh, we're just going to stream on everything. That'll be great. Small businesses. It says small businesses here. Thank you, Kathy.

That is your time. We have no speakers in person and no hands raised. Okay.

But this also skipped the most, right? Because it was just information. Okay. So let's go to the next item.

So chair, can I clarify? So I think that's, Katie made a good point that at the state law level, a lot of streamlining is achieved by skipping existing regulations, like the CEQA regulation. But my understanding is for the primary streamlining, we're not trying to I don't see anything where we are reducing the requirement, right? We are just looking at our process, see where the bottlenecks might be. We might help to make it fast because for a business, when they rent a storefront and they are paying every month the rent, while they are waiting for a permit and not being able to open their business. That's a real cost for them. So by streamlining the building permit, we are helping the business to reduce their cost of doing business in Cupertino. So just want to confirm, this streamlining has nothing to do with, we are not checking everything, right? We will still check all the, things that need to be checked.

That's a very good point.

Do we need to extend the time? I think we are over time, right? One hour?

Yeah, we're always over time.

I'll check if the membership is willing to stay to continue. I'm here.

I'm here too. I'm here too.

I'll go to the next slide relatively quickly. And if you have to leave.

Okay, let's move to the next item. Second to last item, which is the shop local program review and staff has a presentation.

But the shop local program review, as Lindsay pulled up the presentation now. So this shop local program, we've had City Shop Local campaign since July of 2025. July of 2026. So I've been, myself and my colleagues have been looking at some of the data to try to understand how we are performing. And the goal of this presentation is really to share some of the. The next item after this is to look at UBC subcommittees. There will be a subcommittee for Shop Local. So the subcommittee, I think, can play a good role in helping kind of improving our Shop Local programming. So this item is just more of sharing some information. And then if any of you are interested in serving in that subcommittee, we use the next item to invite those members to participate. So these are seven of the six Shop Local campaigns we've had. Dine Out, Restaurant Week, Holiday Shop Local, The Big Game, Life to Work, and Summer Celebration. Well, all of you are participating in a one-way shape or form when these Shopify campaigns are happening. So just for a little background, there's really a two-phase campaign. There's a free launch where we're working on recruiting participating businesses, distributing marketing materials for participating businesses, and developing all the platforms necessary to host our campaigns. During the campaign, we start to promote the businesses, the offerings, and we start to leverage the events to bring more awareness. And then we utilize social media. We will add other mechanisms to marketing our campaign. Just a little bit on the marketing and engagement. So you can digital, online, campaign components. You have print and physical materials as well. With the print material, physical print materials, and you do have banners, postcards, and posts. Just overall observation with the long kinds, I think that's something for two. observations, so that's something we'll look to improve on. But overall, it's trying to create awareness of the campaign with these workers. And in this participation, we've had 133 total businesses participate in these six campaigns, averaging around 50 businesses per campaign, 50 unique businesses in total, and about 72% are returning. So we're having

Businesses that are engaged in our campaigns.

You'll see 14 participating one time. Many of these 14 are the ones, are new ones that participate in the Summer of Celebration, actually. And then when there's two campaigns, we have nine businesses participating, 12 businesses participating in three campaigns. 10 businesses and four campaigns and then five businesses that participate in the five campaigns. So retention is obviously happening for campaigns and that's good because it's showing that as we continue to have these campaigns, more and more businesses are finding them interesting and helpful. Here is some social media performance. The kind of key highlight here is that our restaurant week in 2025 had the highest overall engagement with 106,000 views, driven primarily by Instagram. And then the big game, which was around the Super Bowl, that generated the second highest views with 62,000. The other campaign kind of in between. around 10,000 to 20,000. Still strong numbers, but the restaurant rate really very strong. And we're having Restaurant Week happen in October of 2026. And we've already opened up the recruitment. So sign up and we'll continue recruiting through October. We also create videos for our Shop Local campaigns, and the videos have done very well. Restaurant Week had 15,000. Market Well Business Saturday had 12,000 views, and our Silver Bowl and World Cup video had about 8,500 views. Our Google Ads performance, so as we all know, CCC provided an excellent recommendation at our, I think our last meeting. about integrating Google Ads. We did that. We did see some strong with the integration of Google Ads. 58,000 global impressions, 27,000 tweets. 92% of impressions were from smartphones, not from desktops and tablets. And then we saw peak engagement occur on July 2nd, so 2,400 impressions. And then we saw the largest impression from the age group of 25 to 34. You can see on the bottom right, it shows the different, the active users from different countries, United States, India, France, United Kingdom. So we're really capturing- International crisis. Internationally into the Bay Area. So in this case, that type of diversity and interest And we do have our Explore Cupertino webpage. This is the page that was launched in 2026 as part of the big games initiative and the summer celebration. This page has gotten a lot of views between January and July of 2026. We've had almost 6,900 views. The highest paid views were in February, June, and all peak months for our shop level. So with that, recommended action to receive the report and provide feedback if you have any. I have some questions here if you're interested, but again, the main point was to provide information and to share some of the things that we've seen with the shopping mall campaigns.

Of course, Commissioner Vaughn.

I just wanted to say you would be surprised how much more impression and traffic you would get if per on an event basis you would do an Instagram Live. You would capture thousands and thousands. That is an insane amount, but it has to come from officially city of Cupertino County. That is the only challenge, but I guarantee you for some events we have over 300 plus thousand views. So you have an opportunity there as well as maybe sponsor it through certain companies as well. So these are great numbers and it's a great stuff. But you will see the live will explode all those loops and metrics.

Thank you.

One of the areas that we have, which is pretty big in Cupertino is the wineries, right? They're relatively unknown. Only Napa and Sonoma, all those counties are known for wine tasting. So there is some campaign we could include the wineries as part of, because that draws a lot of people in. And it can improve, it can add to our sales tax revenue.

A couple of questions, actually, just around the business participation. It sounds like we had 133 total business participations. What does that represent in terms of total businesses that we would want to potentially target for involvement in some of these top-level campaigns? Like, essentially, how many businesses do we have in Cupertino? The 133 represents, like, 50,000? Okay. I think from...

I think we have around 200. Okay. I need to double check that. Okay. I think it's around seven.

Okay. So the 133 roughly, but that doesn't cover all sort of sectors. And then do we have, is there a way for us to get numbers around essentially the uplift in revenue from the businesses who participated in these campaigns to really understand? Because if I think about a value proposition, right, for, someone for a business that should be participating and says, hey, during X, Y, and Z, you can anticipate, right, an increase in foot traffic and revenue and increase in things that actually matter to them. So again, I think that that might help us in terms of recruitment, participation, and then potentially as we think about formats for future as well. But I agree with the comments around just these are really, this is like just a really great start, especially just in the past year. And I guess we get towards refinement, thinking about some of these nuances and how we potentially package and market them to both businesses, as well as highlighting the importance of, you know, to our residents, visitors, et cetera, around, you know, just around sort of the retail and commercial aspects that are available here. I think it starts to probably get tighter you get some of these plans, but this is really good. Thank you.

Yes, and I actually would like to survey the participating businesses for that fact, just number one, to get their observation, right, and how we can provide improvement, but also are they seeing the actual impacts on the transactional side of it? Absolutely. Which I don't have that information at this time, but I think that is something that we should try to understand better.

Just want to clarify, is it free to join the triangle? It's free to join. Are you sure everyone already, everyone in the business already involved?

Yes, we have visited the retail businesses more than one time to promote these campaigns. Every time we have a campaign, we're going I WOULD SAY AT LEAST THREE, FOUR, FIVE TIMES TO DO BUSINESSES IN ENCOURAGING PARTICIPATION. NOW, IF THEY DON'T HAVE AN ACTIVE BUSINESS LICENSE, THEY CANNOT PARTICIPATE. THAT IS ONE OF THE REQUIREMENTS. IF YOU HAVE TO HAVE A PHYSICAL STORE, THAT'S ANOTHER REQUIREMENT. BUT, YES, IF THEY'RE ACTIVE, THEY'RE IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE CITY, THEY ARE ABLE TO PARTICIPATE.

EVEN MANY OF THE COMMITTEE MEMBERS HAVE SAID BUSINESSES TO PROMOTE BUSINESS RIGHTS.

Okay, so thank you for the data provided. It's good to see how many people participated and the views. But I wonder about promotions made by the participating businesses themselves. Have they helped promote the shop local and what views are they getting? And also, Another piece of information is have they see any increase in revenue through our campaign? Do we have any data from them? Because that's what we really need, right? What's the impact on them? So have we conducted any survey with those participating in business? And even especially those who are not participating anymore, I think we need input from them what they were expecting, but they think they are not getting. So we can see how we might adjust in the future. And also I wonder, have we engaged those shopping mall operators, not just the businesses indirectly? Have we? Yes. So if the shopping mall operators are on board, they can help promote. And then they can also give us feedback on what would work for their business in the shopping mall. They probably have more experience in terms of promoting business. So do we have any?

Yes, to answer your question, we have outreach to shopping centers, the property managers, for example. They've been willing to take our posters, for example, and post them to help promote the campaign. They've also helped with getting businesses to sign up as well. They have their own distribution list amongst their shopping centers, and they've helped kind of push out the campaign messaging that we've pushed out to them because they receive those messages. But as far as the revenues, we have not done that yet. It wasn't that.

Yeah, OK. So then another thing I'm thinking is the format of of the campaign. I see in, I think in Saratoga, they have a special Thursday night, something I forgot, because Thursday night is usually quieter than Friday, Saturday. So they have a special Thursday night promotion for their downtown big And I think Sunnyvale has actually multiple kind of like a chamber or downtown association. So they have their own business association actually involved with creating events, concerts, and those things that draw crowds to a specific shopping mall. So I've been wondering, How can we work with those specific shopping mall to help them promote their mall? Maybe it will be an event that they will partially fund or fully fund because it's for their mall, but we help promote. And I don't see a lot of those things in Cupertino. I see more of them in Sunnyvale. business-funded. I understand it's for their summer concert in Sunnyvale downtown. Businesses contribute to the cost. The closer you are to the event, you pay more. The further away, you pay less. So there might be something like that. Yeah.

But I would see also does it to they have a huge crowd like thousands of people gathered together for their summer series.

And maybe the commission members can help the staff. They don't have a lot of time. Help the staff to look at what other cities are doing with their business promotion and then and then provide the information to staff. And then another question is final. I'm sorry. The physical store is a requirement. I think it's true that a lot of this, we want to bring small business, but those small business without the physical store does generate revenue for Cupertino also, right? We have a lot of people who run their home business. They sell stuff online or sell stuff online. So like a farmer's market or the consignment kind of thing, they do generate business. So if we help them, we also help the city to generate revenue. And what might that look like? I don't know. Just throwing out.

I can follow on that. Oh, there. I just want to say a quick thank you. As a marketer, you know, I love when I see the results come back from campaigns. I feel like all too often we launch campaigns and we never see the results. So thank you for putting this together and letting us know how all the efforts went.

I want to add to that, too. Thank you for sharing with Google Ads. It was an amazing job done.

I'll just piggyback on what you said. I'm just going to do a full little summary, but EDC and Cupertino is brand new. They're not as developed as Sunnyvale anywhere else, so we have a long way to go in order to, but it's good that we do have that. Now, event viability is... and change as well, because we did have FIFA, but the big game and all of that, we were expecting over a half a million people to come in the US, here in the Bay Area, Then it slashed to $250,000, and we're talking about pre- and post-events. And I think that the security, the immigration, all the issues was very negative factors, especially for the hotels per se. It was only one of the weekend, one weekend that we had a weak rate for the weekends. Was it successful? Eh. No, but not fault of our own or anything else, but anything above and beyond, because you've heard all the nonsense from immigration security factors, the fact of coming to the United States and maybe welcoming, so it deterred people from coming. Unfortunately, and the pricing as well from stadium left and right. So there are a lot of factors. But what we know now, thanks to this, is that food and games attracts people. I have a full schedule of what's happening for the next two years in our city. So I will share those to you because we can tackle those events and do additional campaigns surrounding those. And that might be very helpful for businesses, our city, and everyone.

That's all very good idea. Just to do a little bit of checkbox. First, for everyone who signed up for this business license, are they automatically part of the shop local if they're eligible, like if their business is eligible?

So the other way around, the business has to express interest, right? So we'll reach out to businesses to help them out. they complete a form and they do meet requirement. We can't sign someone up when they're not going to have an expressive interest.

But they were given the opportunity to look at the form, right? Because that's the low-hanging fruit is whenever there's a new business license, they're doing business in Cupertino, then we're giving them a form saying, hey, if you're interested, then we can sign it for free because nobody's going to reject free either, right? Yes, yes. That's already been done. Okay. And then second, have we looked at connecting businesses to businesses? Because I know that there are businesses that always have like meetings that needs catering. And when they have team building opportunity, they have to spend a certain budget to spend on like team building. That would also be a good idea to connect with the businesses. Because I know Apple have a lot of budget to spend on team building and they have to spend every quarter or so. And those are bigger money for the businesses. like say restaurant, because if you're for like individual people or family that come in and shop, maybe you have to do a whole day of business. Then if you do a, just one catering, you make a big revenue for that day. So that could be something that is good for the shop local team to connect as well. So there's another route, another stream of that revenue for those local businesses.

Yeah, and I think what Vice Mayor said earlier, right? This is about our way of engaging our local businesses. giving them opportunities to have visit with the community and for the community to be aware of our small businesses they may not know, right? So it's about creating that ecosystem for our small businesses to thrive and shop locally. So that could be possible for sure. That could be possible.

It's only when adding value to the businesses are they gonna keep joining the membership and stuff. So yeah, those are very good points. Shall we open up for public comments if anyone else does not?

Yes, we have two speakers in person. Our first speaker is Kathy Helgerson.

Okay, it looks like the city wants to maybe run for one of the businesses. Okay, so the housing issue is a big deal because the housing requirements are taken away for instance, the type of development. And more places are closing as we go with the bill. My problem is that housing sets high requirements. So where are all of these businesses going to go? You guys are doing research on these businesses that we're interested in. My question is, where are they going to go? You're taking them away, and the housing replaces all of them. Valco is a perfect example also. That's still sitting there, and I would not be surprised In the fall, they cancel it again, and we have to do something about Valcom, okay? All of you have to get together as a committee and go after Valcom, Sand Hill, and Valcom, and get that thing started, because I don't, September, forget. So, in housing in the city, such high requirements, you guys have to comply in the city, otherwise, the animation is going to take you to court, all right, if you don't do it yourself. So, my problem is this. You're sitting there replacing all of these a family restaurant and staples and all these coffee shops, whatever, and building these monstrous high-rise apartments, where are these people going to shop? Where are they going to eat? Okay? I guess they'll have to take a bus somewhere if they want to eat lunch or something, right? Okay, my problem is the city doesn't recognize the real problems here, all right? And you've got to start doing something about it. You know, constantly complaining to you guys doesn't mean no good. Doesn't do any darn good to do. Then you go ahead and decide, well, we're going to just do some kind of research on how many companies want to come here from all over the world. Well, what good is no research if you don't have someplace to look? That doesn't make any sense, okay, to me. I've seen what's going on. You also see what's going on. And everybody's kind of looking in the way, well, you know, we'll just dig them somewhere. Who knows where. But they will find something useful if they're interested. How many are really interested? How many signed up that day? You didn't tell us that. You didn't tell us how many signed up. You told us how many were interested. That's not the same thing. Okay? I want to know who actually, after you got through with them, signed up down here. Okay? I want to know who. And where are you going to put those people from? We're going to lease the property, the rent. If you're threatening them with putting in apartments, they're not going to come here. You can forget it. I see what's happening here. The writing is on the wall, and you guys have got to wake up to this, okay? So if you want to go fight Gavin Newsom, maybe you should. I brought this up. Get over there and fight. Because if this continues, we're not going to handle it. There's a traffic problem that we have to look at, and we need monorail. We need monorails down Stevens Creek Boulevard. Nobody wants that. Library Field, nobody wants to build in City Hall. It's ridiculous. Have you seen this? Have you seen Downtown State Hall? Yeah, I wish I had an hour to talk.

Our next speaker is Michael Wayne.

I think that this is a good start. This is going to make thousands of impressions, pretty good. But, you know, as a young person, I'm used to questions of millions more. I think one of the reasons is that from all these current events I'm looking at here, like what is the hook? What is different physically about these events on the ground? You know, it looks like any other day to me. So I think For example, other cities will close off a retail street to all the pedestrians. That's the reason to go. They're like, oh, there's something going on. There's a theme. Physically, there might be vendors coming in. There might be food trucks. There might be musical groups performing. That sort of thing. So I think more of these physical events would be good for our city. Additionally, I think Kind of like going back to the previous commenter, I think this program is a little bit of like a band-aid, like on the bigger structural problem of the shape of our city. The reason why developers aren't putting in retail is it doesn't work with restaurants going to like a new retail space and then after six months they'll move out because the market conditions are different. It's not right. So, the developers look at that and say, why am I building retail? And it's because these businesses are failing because there's not enough people around them to actually go and patronize these businesses. So, I think, you know, contrary to what the other person said, we should build markets. We should have more people go to our businesses. And maybe, Like, to get more viral, maybe you should hire, like, a social media person on the city staff. I know our reputation as a city for public service is not great right now. But, you know, like, I think we should be, this is a good start. I think we should be looking towards, you know, the million farm. And I also want to know, like, what's our conversion rate? Because I know you have like thousands of questions. We have a couple thousand clicks, but what is the effect on our city?

Great. Thank you, Michael. We have no speakers in person and no hands raised on Zoom.

Thank you. So the public comment is closed. I just want to ask if you have any comments, then we move to the next, which is the last item, which is the EDC subcommittee assignments. And I believe staff also has a new presentation ready.

So this will be an actionable item. But just for a quick background, at the last meeting, the EDC formally approved its 2026 work plan. was 11 projects. And with those 11 projects came five new subcommittees. So at today's meeting, we're gonna have the members select themselves for the five subcommittees for those projects. So that way those subcommittees can start to meet. And then we'll provide report outs at future meetings, including the next one in October. So these are the 11 work plan items. Items seven through 11 are the ones today where the membership will be establishing the subcommittee covered. So here again, these are the five items. For the broker and realtor luncheon subcommittee, the East Beach Luncheon. for the event planning, promotion, and stakeholder engagement. For the public-private partnership subcommittee, that will be to identify partnership opportunities that expand tourism, transportation, and contribute to the Latinos and economic vitality. We have the SHOP local subcommittee that will advise on campaign strategy and identify opportunities to increase business participation and engagement. We have a small business council subcommittee for regulatory relief that will be to support outreach to local businesses to participate. And a small business council focused on regulatory engagement and business networking. And then we have the business, the inventory database subcommittee will focus on key data element for a future economic development dashboard. Next slide. These are the current active subcommittees that we have in the work plan. So members have already established themselves. However, if at this meeting today, members want to move around into different committees or say, maybe we can make those decisions at this meeting as well. We just cannot have no more than four members in each subcommittee. So you can be in any community you want, just can't have more than four for one specific subcommittee. And that's the presentation. I have a slide on the next slide. This is the entire work plan. If you now can just share, I'm not sure how you wanna deliberate on this, but .

Maybe we should go back to the previous page where we can see who is on which first.

and because you mentioned like there's anyone who wanted to remove themselves out of the community or add themselves back in because it seems like three out of the four are full unless somebody removed themselves and no one's i definitely can remove myself because i'm all of them you know i'm only human but it's also because at the time when we we did this certain members were not present right so i'm happy to remove myself You let me know which one anyone wants to get in and I'll remove myself.

And maybe we should just go over each one of them and this is the role and how frequent they need to work on the item and what kind of deliverable they should be presenting time-wise, timeline-wise and stuff so people understand the workflow.

Yeah, thank you for that, Chip. So I plan to follow up with each of the subcommittees after our meeting, just in the interest of time, and we can discuss kind of the detail of what would be reported out at the next meeting, for example. We can do that now, but I know we're getting at the hour and a half mark.

That way people can kind of think through what they have done, what they're trying to do in the future. So that can be Delegate owns my offline, right? Okay. But what about the news of committees? Do we do it now or offline?

So I think if there's anyone that's on a subcommittee that wants to remove themselves, that's one thing we should note, I think. As long as someone is interested. Yeah, so if someone is interested in joining the subcommittee that already has four people, maybe good to know. And then with that, then there will be an opportunity for that person to join.

Well, if I may, I want to remove myself from number six. Daniel, if you can put it back again. There is one, two, three, four going there, so I can remove myself from there. Which number 6.

Okay, well, just to clarify, I mean, 6 is for summer of celebrations and I think that's something that is probably.

So, so I'm kind of over it over, but, um, but I still think there's an opportunity for us to engage those businesses. Um, and a lot of what we were talking about earlier with surveys. any their experience. I think we can capture that through this subcommittee. So I think there's still value, at least for the next few months to keep this going.

And I can, should we do a motion for this? Or I can just promote myself to be on number six. No need for a motion. Okay, then I can add myself. Because I plan to join some of the others. And I feel like there is a a lot of synergy as well for the small, the shop local, as well as the small business console and the inventory database. These are all like correlating to each other. Are you concerned on time? No, no, I'm just going to grab all this. This is the last item, so let's hang in there a little bit more.

I think we should probably next schedule the title time, actually. And we'll schedule for one hour, right? Yes.

You just vote on whether, do you need to vote on who's being nominated for these new subcommittees, or is that also just a nomination?

Self-nomination first, right?

Maybe for the three new ones, anyone feels strongly they want to join, they can just sign up now. Okay. Right? And then...

OK, without nomination.

And then and also join after the meeting by sending email to Daniel.

Oh, right. Yeah.

But you can stop. Can I? Yeah. Can I be added to seven and eight?

Or I would like first interest for vice chair and then for commission assault.

You know, you can please then we will hear this.

I'll join 10 and 11.

The mission of Carter and 10. And then Ray is not yeah, yeah, it's been said that the commissioner don't be I'm already and he's some of the I'll see oh no. I want to be added to the story will be all of my son.

Well that way that some 2 others as it does like that 3 of them on it.

And do you want to sell money on any of them you want.

I have to look into it again, sorry.

Then I keep going. I would love to be added on number seven and 10 and 11.

She loves it pretty much. And we can do that. Oh, actually, I think the...

Summer of Celebrations local campaign subcommittee, right? And number nine seems to be very similar to that. So I think maybe should we combine those two?

Nine and six?

Nine and three? No, six and nine.

Actually, three, six, and nine are very similar.

So actually with number three, that has kind of passed so okay because that this yeah that's sort of done number three that's done right so i'd like to add myself to number nine then if there's space definitely uh number 10.

I'm going to publish this to us so that we can organize the meeting. Yeah, because I'm recovering from surgery, so I don't have a lot of enthusiasm. In another month, I'll have much more enthusiasm to say, oh, I can be on this committee.

Oh, which I'm thinking with you. I didn't

Project 10, small business council subcommittee has four people, Tracy, Jack, Claudio, and someone else. So that's already at capacity.

And if anyone wants to be on that, I can remove myself. So just... Did you get it? Yeah.

Or maybe when we do the send out an email, you can just put optional so people know that that C can be taken. Right. That is possible.

Okay. Awesome.

All right, so we're for email, and then should we open up for public?

Yes. Yeah, the speaker is in person, and no answer is coming through.

All right. Do we not have some other links? Okay, one, two.

Okay. Okay, Kathy, how about you? Go ahead. I have a question. So do the subcommittees report to the committee, and then the committee gives the information to me? I'm a little confused with that one. You have to work that out. I've got to work that out because I don't know what's going on. Anyway, so. It's very important because we have to connect with each other. So more people just cause more work and confusion. So I'm trying to get up my handle here on how this is going to work. And then how far out do you guys reach? Are you reaching to other cities? Do they have committees like we have? Maybe you can work with another city to see what they're doing. And that might help some of the people that are on the committee, because let's face it, we don't have experience doing it. So I don't know if we get along as well. I mean, we haven't been mentioned. Should we fail? Maybe. That's who we are, right? Everything's on the web. Go ask AI. I'm going to tell you all kinds of things. But the city is trying to expand in a sense where they want to... bring in more resources. Now, I'm a little confused here. Do we need more money? We have wealth sitting there with revenue, and nobody's taking advantage of it. This is wrong. We have buildings that have been vacated for other decades that nobody's taking advantage of it, except for property taxes. So I want to see things moving along here. I want to see the city, I want to see you guys doing something about what's already there that we can bring revenue in instead of, you know, trying to promote all of this stuff. It's going to cause a lot of work. And I just want to see what's going to be brought back to this meeting that's really, you know, beneficial to everybody, not just committee members. And then how does the city council work with you? Do we go there and talk about some of these things in front of the city council? That would be kind of nice, you know, And that way the citizens would see what you guys were doing and how you're going and what you're doing. And maybe bring in some of the small businesses to talk about what they're doing and what they want and what they see the future to repeat on. What's that going to be like, you know? And that makes me feel like with the subcommittees, we have to really look at the possibilities. You have to say, well, we've got a little list here and there. So that's why I said go out to other cities and see what they're doing and maybe even meet with them. Some of you guys can meet with some of the representatives in other cities and say, wow, we'd really love to meet with you guys and let's talk things over between the two of us. This is a learning process. I don't think this has ever been done with the city. I think this is the first time. Thank you, Kathy.

That is your time. Thank you.

We have no remaining speakers here. We don't have any comments. We don't have to move on.

So just to respond to, I have the same question. So does the subcommittee provide a report to this committee? How often is that done?

So the next meeting will be in October and each of the subcommittees will provide a report out of that.

So it will be a verbal report or written report?

We have presentation.

Oh, okay. That's nice. And then the other question was about when does this committee report to the city council? What's the plan? I don't know.

We have a quarterly meetup with the mayor. And that is as far as I know.

And it's all in the quarterly meetup. Now the... Whoever attends mostly the chair will provide a written update of what the committee has been doing, which I started last year. So that's good. And that will become an info memo that's published. So actually all the council members can get updates from those, all the commissions. So another question was, do we bring small businesses to speak about what they feel, what they want to see? So I guess this is something I think Daniel is doing almost constantly, right? Talking to small business, but they are not bringing them to the committee or the city council. But they don't have time. I think they are very busy people, the small business. So it's good that they are working through the staff, providing feedback to the staff. And the other comment was about a meeting with similar representatives from other cities. I'm guessing it's about economic development people from other cities. I think each department, each city has their own economic development department. They may or may not have this committee. So I'm curious, how are they doing? Yeah, so that's something maybe commissioning, if you have interest, you can try and meet. By the way, Tina, when I, what? At one time, a few years back, I was trying to find out, okay, what other cities are doing on economic development. So through LinkedIn, I reached out to all the economic development people in other cities. And that's when I connected with Tina. So I met with her through Zoom. and understood, okay, how it works in Fremont in the time. I met with someone in San Mateo and then that somehow got Tina interested to apply for Cupertino. But I didn't really recruit her. I'm just pleasantly surprised. Oh, she replied to Cupertino. So feel free to reach out to other cities, their commissioners, and learn from their experience. Yeah.

Oh, we did. Actually, we're viable.

The idea of reaching out to other EDC is great. And a few months ago, I spoke with Mountain View. They're very active. And maybe, maybe, by concentrating and doing other events in contingency with other cities and the city might be a great for the entire area. So it's not a bad idea.

You could also invite maybe an economic development manager from Fremont to come and speak to this community. That's a very good idea. What program they are doing. Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you for bringing that up.

Thanks to Casey.

Yep. Help us brainstorm. Do we need a motion for this?

Yeah, actually. On the assignments. Oh. And it is incorrect. On the assignment, just.

Yeah, for the new ones. So what I have is Chair Lynn to add herself to number seven and number eight, Solcheron to add herself to 10 and 11, Committee Member Carter to add himself to 10, Committee Member Bono to remove himself from number five, Chair Lynn to add herself to seven, 10, and 11, Committee Member Dotsie to add himself to number nine, and Committee Member Bono to add himself to number 10.

Just a quick correction. The first two, seven and eight was vice chair.

Oh, okay.

And there was just one missing. I think number five, I was out as well. There were two of them that I was out. Quick question on number three.

If number three is done, should we remove that from the list? I need to find my own.

Okay.

Number three, we are done with that subcommittee, right? Should we remove that from our list of subcommittees?

And you combine for six and nine. Six and nine are very simple.

So five and six, what's that?

Number five and number six.

Yeah.

I'm going to read it out one more time, and then you can just get a mover in a second.

I think there is one more question. You can do that, but I don't know.

It might be helpful because for the summer thing, which is about to end, it might as well into 2020 or something else.

Yeah, as far as the motion as well, right?

Yes.

Can we get all into it? Can we make it together? Make it together? Okay, I'm going to read it out one more time. So, Vice Chair King to be added to 7 and 8. Committee Member Consulchron to add herself to 10 and 11. Committee Member Carter to add himself to 10. Committee Member Bono to remove himself from number 5 and number 6. Chair Lynn to add herself to 7 and 10 and 11. Committee Member Daunty to add himself to number 9. Committee Member Bono to add himself to number 10. To remove number 3 and to combine 6 and 9. Do I have a motion to approve? I'll second that.

Oh, question. I thought you said the nine was already at capacity.

No, 10.

Oh, 10.

10.

So as combining six and nine, how many members are there? Because six already has six. Six already have four members. Are they overlapping?

No, because Claudia was removing the stuff from members.

So combining six and nine will still have three members. Oh, okay.

So should we move for the number one?

We already moved the motion, and I second it.

Okay, so are we ready for a vote?

Yes.

Can we remember Asawa? Yes. Can we remember Bonas?

Yes.

Can we remember Carter?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Chow? Yes. Can we remember Daunty?

Yes.

Can we remember Kisseltron? Yes. Vice Chair Kang? Yes. Chair Lynn? Yes. The motion carries with committee member yetbacks.

Thank you. The next item, staff and committee reports. I assume we don't have any future agenda settings. No. Okay. The meeting's adjourned.