On Wednesday, April 2nd, residents gathered at Cupertino Community Hall to protest potential eviction from their homes. The Foothill-De Anza College District is entering a contract to purchase the 94-unit McClellan Terrace apartments on 7954 McClellan Rd. But this will displace the apartment’s existing residents and numerous families with school-age children, whose units will be provided to students attending the community college.
Residents are now upset at the prospect of being evicted not only from their homes, but also having to leave the CUSD/FUHSD school district and the City of Cupertino. Neighbors are worried that the loss of sixty-seven K-12 students will exacerbate the decline in public school enrollment, leading to more school closures.
In 2020, voters passed a Foothill-De Anza College District bond including projects to “plan, construct, acquire or contribute to affordable employee and student housing units.” The College District’s consultant recommended purchasing the off-campus McClellan Terrace apartments, but failed to disclose that the apartments are heavily populated by local K-12 school district families, and that these apartments are more affordable than others in our community. McClellan Terrace is one of very few apartments within a half-mile of Lincoln Elementary School, Kennedy Junior High, and Monta Vista High School.
Per county records, Prometheus purchased the property in 2022 and is assessed at $52M. The College District would purchase the property for $67M and make it ready for approximately 332 students for an additional $28M, for a total of $95M; the deal would not be finalized until at least July.
Via CBS news, McClellan Terrace resident Rachel Green said she did not receive any “official correspondence from the property management company.” The only information she and neighbors had was via news reporting. “All the communication we see online is that we have to be out by the summer,” said Green.
The new resident-focused Council majority acted with expedience to address the situation. During the April 2nd meeting, Mayor Chao proposed a special session to study the city’s position on the conversion of multifamily housing to student housing, evaluate existing bills on student housing, and compare with other jurisdictions. This motion was approved unanimously by the City Council. Vice Mayor Kitty Moore emphasized the time-sensitivity of the discussion, since the purchase is already under process. Councilmember Ray Wang added, “I think it’d be prudent to let the College District know that we’re heading in this direction so that whoever’s in escrow knows this could be an issue.”
Residents wishing to express feedback should attend the next College District Board Meeting, held at 6:00 P.M. on Monday, April 7, 2025 in the District Office Building (D700) at Foothill College, 12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills. They can also email the College District Chancellor’s office and the District Board at Carla Maitland [email protected].
Additional information:
Fox 2 coverage of the April 2nd resident protest at Cupertino Community Hall:
KPIX CBS News Bay Area Coverage of the McClellan Terrace Purchase:
In the March 18th City Council meeting, Mayor Liang Chao, Vice Mayor Kitty Moore, and Councilmember Ray Wang voted to approve the 2025-27 Cupertino City Work Program, which seeks to improve economic growth, fiscal sustainability, and public health and quality of life in Cupertino. Councilmembers Fruen and Mohan voted against the 2025-27 City Work Program.
The new initiatives are summarized below (view the full list here):
Economic Development for Retail and Small Businesses: Streamline permitting for small businesses, explore options to retain and recruit businesses, explore themed events like restaurant weeks and festivals, explore creation of a small business council, restore the Economic Development Committee, and explore a Grants Analyst position.
Permit Streamlining and Simplification for Small Home Upgrades: This will be a suite of improvements to (1) improve access to, and (2) speed the processing of permits for small home upgrades to enhance compliance and improve efficiency. This includes setting SLA’s, customer service KPI’s, and internal staff expertise to reduce consulting expenses.
Financial, Investment, and Cashflow Policy Review: Review and assess the City’s investment policy and best practices. Establish a cashflow management policy with the goal to reduce the total percentage in cash from 20% to 2% and to reduce the total percentage in cash and cash-equivalent to at most 10%, on par with other cities.
Defensible Impact Fee Nexus Study for Traffic Impact Fee, Retail Impact Fee, BMR Impact Fee, and Parkland Impact Fee: Review impact fees and other means of offsetting conversion of commercial land uses to residential to ensure impact fees are defensible against legal challenges.
Enhance Senior Services: Utilizing survey results conducted in 2022 and 2023, consider consultant services similar to Palo Alto or Saratoga Senior Center to enhance services, while reducing cost to the city.
City Hall Retrofit and City Hall Annex Renovation including the EOC: Implement the previously approved 2022 Council plan with EOC migration funds
Planning for Optimal Use of City Properties: Future planning strategies for Stocklmeir house/ garages, Blech House, Blue Pheasant, McClellan Barn, and the house at the entrance of Blackberry Farm, with a goal of judicial use of city-owned properties. Investigate potential purchase of CUSD Finch/Phil property.
Emergency Operations Readiness: Review fire, earthquake tornado, active shooter, Tsunami, hazardous transport accident policies. Ensure EOC is active and functioning with a permanent position, not a consultant.
5G Ordinance: Prepare an ordinance to regulate small cellular facilities in the public right of way.
Unhoused Policies: Determine best practices for limited-budget smaller cities to manage the unhoused. Review RV practices in surrounding cities for impacts and potential adoption. Review transitional housing outcomes in surrounding cities. Policies to include nimble contingency plans.
Water Conservation Policies: Reduce irrigation while increasing pollinator-supporting vegetation (turf conversion). Optimize irrigation systems including CUSD use agreement sites.
Urban Forest Program: Create an Urban Forest Master Plan that includes an updated and expanded tree list which will increase the number of trees, enhance the City’ s tree canopy, and promote landscaping throughout the City
Add notifications for SB 330 and other projects during the application and approval process: Consider a community meeting requirement for any major project application, especially those requiring a general plan amendment, as some other cities have adopted. Consider increasing notification radius from 300 feet to 500 (or 1,000) feet for any project application, especially those requiring a general plan amendment. Improve notification methods for SB 330 preliminary applications, streamlined projects not requiring planning/council approval, and other projects
While many of the items reflect the fresh perspective of the new Council majority, the plan also continues several work program items from the prior council, including bicycle facilities, preserving and developing BMR housing, and the Vision Zero plan to reduce fatalities and severe injuries on roadways by 2040.
Once approved, staff determines the resources needed to accomplish each Work Program item, and requests them during the Budget Adoption process. Via the staff report, the 2025-27 Cupertino City Work Program “will officially launch in July at the start of the new fiscal year.” Projects in the City Work Program are expected to consume about 10% of City staff time. The remainder of their time is largely devoted to day-to-day operations.
An unusual expense is raising questions amongst Cupertino’s City Councilmembers and residents. Last year, while Cupertino was struggling with a fiscal deficit, City Manager Pamela Wu and current Councilmember Sheila Mohan (former Mayor) used city funds to cover luxury hotel stays at The Ritz Carlton in Bangalore (Bengaluru), India.
Mohan and Wu had been visiting Bhubaneswar, Cupertino’s Sister City in India. But oddly, according to publicly released expense receipts, both flew into a different city, Bangalore and stayed at the Ritz-Carlton for multiple nights on the city’s dime. Afterwards, the pair proceeded to the Sister City, Bhubaneswar for another four nights.
What Cupertino-related business could justify the expense of staying in Bangalore? Bangalore is Mohan’s hometown, but it is over 800 miles away from the Sister City, Bhubaneswar.
Distance between Bhubaneswar and Bengaluru (Bangalore), India
During the April 2nd City Council meeting, the Bhubaneswar Sister City organization made a presentation covering its partnership with Cupertino to date. None of the activities for Mohan’s visit were located in Bangalore.
During the March 18th City Council meeting, Mayor Liang Chao raised concerns over the fact that the trip and its over $6,000 in associated expenses (across Sheila Mohan and Pamela Wu) were never approved by council. Cupertino’s Sister Cities policy clearly defines a City-supported delegation as one that includes students. Committees with only adults or fewer than 4 students must be “considered” by Council. However, the most recent trip did not bring any student delegates to Bhubaneswar.
The goal of the Sister City program is to foster educational, technical, economic and cultural exchange between Cupertino and its Sister Cities. Why were city funds used for activities unrelated to Cupertino, without Council approval, and in conflict with city policies? The challenges are significant when some are attacked by special interests, while others are able to coast through with egregious improprieties such as luxury travel on the taxpayers’ dime.
Sheila Mohan’s tenure as Mayor ended with more than one decision lacking in transparency and proper protocols. In addition to the unexplained luxury trip expense, the regular City Council meeting scheduled for November 4th—just two days before Mohan and Wu’s trip—was apparently unlawfully canceled without Council approval. According to the Cupertino Municipal Code, any cancellation of a regular Cupertino City Council meeting requires a majority vote from the Council.
As written in the law, there is agendized public business at every regular Cupertino City Council meeting. The right of the public to speak at any regular public meeting regarding any concern within the purview of the City Council is specified in our Municipal Code (“Every agenda for regular meetings of the City Council shall provide an opportunity for members of the public to address the council on any item of interest to the public that is within the city’s jurisdiction.” Cupertino Municipal Code 2.08.105.A).
As such, the City Manager cannot decide by herself to cancel regular Council meetings. The right of the public to speak applies to every agenda for regular meetings of the City Council. Then-Mayor Mohan, the City Manager’s international luxury travel partner during this time, allowing the City Manager to cancel a regular meeting would be clear-cut “Councilmanic interference.” We were unable to locate any public process or rationale behind the cancellation, which created more than a month-long gap between regular meetings and supplanted the work of the public, during which time both the City Manager and Mohan were enjoying a taxpayer-funded stay at the Ritz Carlton in Mohan’s hometown.
In contrast, the connections between integrity and efficacy are clear, and are demonstrated with our current Mayor, Dr. Liang Chao, who is in her seventh year on City Council. Since beginning her term as Mayor, Chao has made strong efforts that are foundational to increasing and restoring transparency, public awareness, and ensuring a healthy and vibrant democracy in Cupertino. In addition to ensuring that public issues are heard rather than canceled, with respect to this issue, Chao has called for clarifications to the Sister Cities policy to ensure the City’s funds are properly used in the future.
In this post we cover two topics: 1. Valley Church of Cupertino land being included in the Housing Element Site without informing them 2. Rod Sinks’ campaign misleading residents about retail at Westport
Valley Church: Designated Housing Element Site Without their Permission
A resident made us aware of a situation where four parcels of land owned by the Valley Church of Cupertino were put on the Housing Element Priority Site List, without ever consulting the Church!
The church had to write to the city to ensure that their lands, which were being used to provide community resources like tennis courts, were not converted for private profit.
This is illustrative of the lack of transparency and notifications about the change in zoning proposed in the housing element development process carried out by the Builder’s Controlled council since the November 2022 election. Any open space in Cupertino was at the risk of being rezoned for builders to profit from.
Residents of Linda Vista drive have expressed similar concerns of the rezoning of Evulich Ct. site from R1 (1-5 units/acre) to R3 (20-35 units/acre), where they did not receive any notifications. In the case of the Valley Church, even the property owner was not notified or consulted about the city’s plan to add their land to the Housing Element
Rod Sinks’ Campaign: Misinformation About Westport
Rod Sinks’ campaign sent out text messages and email claiming that the Westport development (Oaks Redevelopment) only provides homes, but not retail. He is also claiming he can negotiate a better deal. As usual with the politicians aligned with builders, the facts do not justify the claims.
20,000 sq ft of Retail Space at Westport
The Westport development has approval for 20,000 sq ft of commercial retail space, 37,601 square feet of common open space and 2,400 square feet of common retail outdoor space. For context, a typical Starbucks store is between 1500-2000 sq. ft. So the Westport development has plans for about a dozen stores of the size of the typical Starbucks.
Westport has a combination of owner occupied townhomes, senior housing, and assisted care facilities, and the retail spaces will open as different segments are built and occupied.
And it is important to remember that the original plan for Westport was based around giant towers with more than 800K sq ft of buildout with bulk of it as office space which would have significantly worsened the traffic at the Stevens Creek/Hwy 85/Hwy 280 junction (see picture below)
The plan being built is traffic neutral with the previous Oaks Plaza, provides valuable senior housing which our aging population needs, and helps address the housing shortage by providing more choices at a price point lower than single family homes..
Rods Record of Negotiation
Rod Sinks has a record of conceding every demand of developers, especially Sandhill Properties, in spite of massive protests by residents impacted by them. Most residents in neighborhoods near Vallco have a deep mistrust of Rod Sinks based on their bitter experiences lasting almost a decade.
Any successful negotiation and agreement, requires an element of trust between the parties involved. Rod simply lacks the trust of the residents most impacted by future development at Vallco, and his claims of being able to negotiate are specious at best.
One big part of the disinformation network run by the Builder-Politician complex is to stifle voices which provide an alternative perspective. They achieve that by removing content or banning users who disagree with their narrative on Nextdoor, a social media network for neighbors..
In the lead-up to the election, the following people have had their content removed or their accounts suspended.
1. Steven Scharf: Former Mayor of Cupertino 2. Muni Madhdhipatla: Planning Commissioner & former Vice Chair 3. Vikram Saxena: Former Vice Chair of Planning Commission 4. Rhoda Fry: 2022 Crest Award Winner for Public Safety 5. Seema Swamy: Parks & Recreation Commissioner 6. San R: Safe Route to Schools.
7. James Murasighe: Nextdoor Lead for Inspiration Heights
All of the people whose voices were stifled, support resident focused candidates, Ray Wang and Kitty Moore for the City Council, and Long Jiao for CUSD.
We include some of the posts which were deleted; these posts attempt to reproduce the deleted post since the authors can not access them any more. These posts reflect the authors personal opinions and not as of any city official
Ray Wang and Kitty Moore: Will take Vallco Forward
Rod Sinks is highlighting his negotiating skills and saying he will make Vallco happen.
What he does not realize is that most residents in the neighborhoods around Vallco, do not trust Rod Sinks at all. This is the result of the favors he has granted to Sandhill over the past 12 years. In fact, any agreement with his fingerprints, will automatically be suspect for a large section of the population in Cupertino.
For those who are truly interested in the redevelopment of Vallco, Ray Wang & Kitty Moore offer a fresh start. They do not bring in the baggage of the past decade which Rod Sinks, Gilbert Wong and Barry Chang bring with them; plus their resident focus approach will help create more trust in the agreement.
History of Builders’ Bullying in Cupertino
Builders Cupertino bullying is at a different level: they bully the entire city
• Using the City Manager to pressure Sears to sell to Peter Pau of Sandhill (2014) • Amend City’s General Plan to add 2M office space since Peter Pau asked for it (2014) • Removing all height limits at Vallco (2014) • Putting residents at risk of cancer by not revealing the toxic contamination and Cortese List listing of the Sears site (2016) • Not putting back height limits at Vallco when SB35 was about to become law (2017) • Forcing the City Attorney out when he did not agree to SB35 approval (2018) • Closing three schools in the middle of a 100 year pandemic when CUSD was projecting its highest ever surplus (2021) • Harassing city councilors and commissioners who were not aligned with their agenda (eg: Grand Jury which was tossed out by the DA) (2023) • Fighting City’s lobbying registration requirements with a lawsuit, and after losing it amending them to not have builder’s lobbyists to register (2022-2023) • Trying to upzone 1600 single family R1 lots to R3-condos to enable 5-story buildings towering over our single family homes. (2023) • Sending each household a hidden tax of $3500 by agreeing to waive $77M in development fees for Vallco
You can build without destroying what already exists.
Pro-Residents is NOT Anti Development
There is a canard spread in Cupertino, that people who want the city council to consider the interests of residents are anti-development. The term anti-development is often used by groups backed by big-real estate to stifle discussion about sustainable development.
A well-functioning city-council will balance the concerns of the residents with the developers’ right to develop their property and earn economic benefit. The developers try to maximize the square footage of what they build, but have little interest in how it impacts the people around their development.
Until the November 2018 election, the Cupertino City Council was in control of politicians who are quite close to developers. KT Urban, which was driving the redevelopment of the Oaks Plaza, a project called Westport, wanted to build more than 800K sq ft of offices. They tried to get the office allocation but were asked to wait. The City’s politicians were focussed on enabling the Vallco project and had already given almost all the allocation added to the General Plan (2 Million sq ft) to Vallco.
Cupertino does not get mass transit like BART, Caltrain, Muni or Light Rail. Being a transit desert means that any new office space will lead to a direct increase in vehicular traffic which will make our commute time traffic jams even worse.
After the resident-focussed City Council took over, KT Urban realized that getting the office allocation was even less likely than before because there was resident opposition to it. They decided to pivot the project to housing.
The Westport being built, was negotiated by the pro-resident council. It consists of townhomes, senior housing, an assisted living facility and retail. It is traffic neutra and provides much needed senior housing in Cupertino, and along with a bike path.
The transformation of Westport from giant office towers to much needed housing is a great example of how a resident focussed city council can enable development in Cupertino in a manner which is sustainable
Unlike what the developers want us to believe, pro-residents means sensible development; it does not mean anti-development.
Giant office towers which would have worsened the traffic situation on the Stevens Creek and Hwy 85 junction
In this post we cover another form of disinformation used by the builder-politician complex: claiming credit for accomplishments they had little part to play in. We have two write-ups to share from community members on debunking claims made by Rod Sinks in his election website.
Rod Sinks Claims Credit for SV Hopper
Refuted by ex-Mayor Darcy Paul
“The Silicon Valley Hopper started as Cupertino’s Via Shuttle when our Mayor was Steven Scharf. It’s strange how some people like to label us the so-called ‘Better Cupertino’ City Council, and then take all the credit for things that we did while blaming us for various things that we didn’t do.
I was the Mayor when Via Shuttle was being voted on by the City of Santa Clara to expand to their city as well. At the same time, I was the board member for VTA representing the West Valley cities. There are twelve members of the VTA board, and the West Valley seat has five cities.
Well, as you would expect, VTA does not automatically support competitors to its services. However, the expansion of Via Shuttle to become the Silicon Valley Hopper did gain that support when I was on the VTA board of directors, and this happened in 2022, when I was Mayor.
As to the City of Santa Clara, I reached out both to their Mayor, Lisa Gilmor, as well as to her colleague Councilmember Raj Chahal to help secure their city’s unanimous support. And so, regardless of who else tries to take credit or blame us for this or that, the fact of the matter is that we did significant amounts of work on making this transit option available for the residents of Cupertino.”
Former Mayor Darcy Paul, City of Cupertino
Rod Sinks Embellishes His Role in Reducing Pollution from the Lehigh Plant
We are publishing a detailed rebuttal from Rhoda Fry. In 2022 she was honored by a CREST award for Public Safety for her work to change the time for garbage pickups so as not to interfere with children going to school and for providing the City with an analysis of the quarry use-permits to put an end to illegal truck traffic between the two quarries
Rhoda Fry moved to Cupertino in 1983 after graduating from CMU to work at Tandem Computers. She became active in City affairs when she discovered that the City was about to enact an emergency illegal tax. She fought and won. Since then, she has been involved in issues related to the environment (especially Lehigh-documents from last century), public safety or fiscal accountability. This year, her efforts contributed to a new County ordinance that protects ground-water quality from the ravages of mining. She also discovered that the City had misused funds that were intended for below market rate housing.
Rod Sinks Misled Public about Lehigh- by Rhoda Fry
As many people know, I have worked on Lehigh issues for over fifteen years and was alarmed by statements made by Rod Sinks who incorrectly claimed to have reduced air pollution at Lehigh while sitting on the Bay Area Air Quality Management Board (BAAQMD). At the Diya TV candidate forum, he stated “I helped secure a deal with the Lehigh cement plant to drastically improve our air quality.”
In 2019, a new air-pollution rule was proposed as part of a consent decree involving many states to address a 2010 EPA violation that would be implemented in 2021. In 2019, there were multiple industrial incidents at the cement plant and BAAQMD did little for us residents. In 2020, Lehigh shut its cement plant down when it became clear that the County would not allow an expansion of its limestone mining operations referred by County Supervisor Joe Simitian as “don’t chop the top.”
Consequently, the new air-pollution rule was never implemented. It would not have mattered because the new rule did little to protect us residents. Residents wrote letters (Consent Decree Public Comments) begging for a better rule but were not heard. Gary Latshaw, Chair of the Bay Area for Clean Environment Group wrote,
“We do not find that the consent decree provides adequate protection for the air quality in the region. Notwithstanding the potential of the “test and set” methodology for SOx, the specified required regulations for NOx and SOx are only marginal improvements over existing conditions. Even under optimistic assumptions, the emissions would still degrade the health and longevity of Bay Area residents.”
For example, while the maximum allowable sulfur pollution was 0.2 lbs/ton at other Lehigh cement plants, the Cupertino facility’s maximum allowable sulfur pollution was ten times more at 2.1 lbs/ton! And the so-called new sulfur limits in Cupertino represented a mere 3% reduction of only 0.07 lbs (from 2.17 lbs/ton to 2.1)!!!
Rod Sinks claiming any credit for negotiating a deal or reducing air pollution is usurpation of credit due to local volunteers who tirelessly worked to save our environment from excessive pollution by Lehigh for many decades.
Lehigh History: At the end of Stevens Creek Blvd, is a massive quarry and industrial site on over 3500 acres that spans three jurisdictions, Cupertino, Unincorporated Santa Clara County, and Palo Alto. The quarry has mined for limestone that is very high in naturally-occurring contaminants, such as mercury and selenium.
Until 2011, usable waste-rock was crushed into aggregate and sold. That operation was re-built a decade later and presently is the only commercial activity at the site. The rest of the waste-rock is spread over 200 acres of thinly vegetated moonscape.
The limestone is the main ingredient to make cement in a giant kiln fueled by petroleum coke, a filthy polluting fuel that is a by-product of oil refineries. Among California’s industrial air polluters, Lehigh ranked #2 for Sulfur, #3 for Hydrochloric Acid, #4 for PM 2.5, #6 for VOCs, #7 for Nitrogen, and #10 for Hexavalent Chromium.
With the revelation that the County would not allow Lehigh to access anymore limestone, the cement plant closed permanently in 2020. There have been hundreds of environmental and labor-safety violations at the site from both the mining operations and quarrying, some of which remain unresolved.
Political Connections:
Over the years, Lehigh has been protected by the San Jose and Cupertino Chambers of Commerce and numerous politicians. Among others, the following politicians have been employed by the quarry and cement plant: County Supervisor Tom Legan; Cupertino Council member, BAAQMD representative and aspiring County Supervisor Barbara Koppel; Cupertino council member Sandy James; and Assemblymember Jim Cuneen.
Many council members would not respond to resident concerns and were reluctant to even send a letter to the County. Gilbert Wong was one of those reluctant council members. Barry Chang became a Lehigh activist but lost credibility when he became overly vocal and has not been active on Lehigh issues since 2018. Strangely, current council member J. R. Fruen ran a PAC in 2018 with primary funding from Vallco which paid $10K to Ed McGovern, a Lehigh Lobbyist.
Lehigh Future:
Moving forward, Lehigh needs to shore up the over-mined crumbling ridgeline between the quarry and Rancho San Antonio by filling the quarry. The approved 2012 plan uses onsite mining-waste to shore up our scenic ridgeline however their new proposal turns the quarry into a for-profit landfill, importing soil from construction sites at a rate of 600 trucks per day for 30 years. We need a City Council who really works for residents first to prevent this unnecessary traffic. We need to regain a resident-friendly council majority by re-electing Kitty Moore and electing Ray Wang.
A video explaining what led to builders targeting Ray Wang
A followup on the Rod Sinks-Andi Jordan Harassment Case
A video response to malicious attack on Ray Wang
We made a video highlighting why Ray Wang is being attacked. Please watch it below
More Instances of Questionable Behavior by Rod Sinks
n an earlier article we had covered how a local publication Cupertino Matters, grossly misrepresented facts to hide Rod Sinks central in Andi Jordan harassment settlement. Rod denied Andi health insurance because her husband had it which is illegal discrimination based on gender and marital status; Cupertino Matters did not even mention Rod Sinks name even once in two articles.
A reader pointed out this in not new.
Rod Sinks Hated him (Randy) because he is Chinese
In 2018, the builder’s proxies running Cupertino City Council decided to fire the City Attorney Randy Hom because “he voiced his opposition to the city’s illegal and unethical conduct”. In his tort claim against the City Randy Hom stated that Barry Chang told him that:
“Rod Sinks hated him because he is Chinese. Mr. Sinks hates the Chinese and never wanted him in the City Attorney position in the first place”– Barry Chang
The city settled Randy Hom’s tort claim after spending more than $400K.
In this post, we want to cover yet another instance of disinformation carried out by Jean Bedord’s Cupertino Matters, this time to cover-up Rod Sinks’ misogyny.
In 2022, Andi Jordan, Executive Director of the Cities Association of Santa Clara County, threatened to sue the Association because of discrimination & harassment. One of the core pillars of her complaint was illegal discrimination based on gender and marital status, both protected categories, in the 2019 refusal of health insurance benefits by the executive committee.
A married woman "did not need benefits because her husband had them" - Rod Sinks
Andi further claimed, that even after her husband lost his job in December 2020, the Association refused to offer her health insurance!
However, the coverage of this issue, by Jean Bedord’s local publication Cupertino Matters, raises serious questions about journalistic integrity and the deliberate misrepresentation of facts.
Rod Sinks becomes Invisible
Cupertino Matters covered the topic in two articles: the April 5, 2022 issue and the July 26, 2022 issue. Neither of the two articles madeany reference to Rod Sinksor his illegal sexist and misogynist behavior. Instead, their reporting places an undue emphasis on the involvement of Councilmember Liang Chao, who joined the Association much later, after Rod Sinks termed out in Q4 2020.
Further the articles blame Liang Chao for the city’s share of $8030 in the settlement involving 15 cities. This skewed focus not only misrepresents the core issues at stake but also misleads readers about the true nature and timeline of the controversy.
Liang Chao’s Actual Involvement
The facts paint a very different picture of Liang Chao’s role. Chao joined the Cities Association after Rod Sinks had termed out, well after the discriminatory events of 2019. Her participation was limited to attending quarterly board meetings; she had no role in determining Andi Jordan’s compensation, and was not part of the executive committee. During one of the board meetings in August 2021, Liang Chao asked for some details about the case, which could have been misconstrued as an illegal request since harassment cases are protected.
Regarding the August 2021 board meeting incident, Chao provided the following statement:
“That was at an open board meeting, when I had no idea Andi Jordan was even under investigation. It was all confidential, including who filed the harassment complaint. I thought it was a consultant’s attorney that filed a complaint. So, as I remember, I asked about something and they said it cannot be discussed but I had no idea why. I would have to have the prior knowledge that Andi had filed a harassment complaint in order to know it was unlawful to discuss. But since I had no knowledge about the complaint, I had no idea that it could be unlawful”
Media Responsibility and Bias
The stark contrast between Cupertino Matters’ extensive focus on Chao’s minor, unintentional action in 2021 and its complete silence on Sinks’ central role in the 2019 discrimination case is deeply troubling. This imbalance, maintained across two separate articles, raises serious questions about the publication’s motives and journalistic integrity.
Exposing the Misdirection
Cupertino Matters’ coverage completely ignores Rod Sinks’ sexism and misogyny while unfairly implicating Liang Chao. This misdirection is especially egregious considering that Chao had no involvement in Andi Jordan’s compensation decisions and was not even part of the Association when the discriminatory events took place. The publication’s failure to address the core issue of gender-based discrimination in health-benefits that occurred in 2019 is a serious dereliction of journalistic duty. Instead, it has chosen to focus on a peripheral issue from 2021, misleading the public about the true nature, timeline, and seriousness of the situation. And of course Rod Sinks name is not brought up even once even though the denial of health insurance because Andi was married was a clear violation of the law, and the foundation for Andi’s complaint.
Cupertino Seniors’:Victims of Disinformation
Many of the recipients of Jean’s newsletter are retired long-time Cupertino residents, who are committed to doing the right thing for our community. Their understanding of local issues is shaped by Jean’s regular updates. However, in an effort to serve the interests of builders, Jean deliberately misleads them. In this case, she placed the blame for the $8,030 fine the city incurred on Liang Chao, despite the fact that the root cause of the entire situation was Rod Sinks’ refusal to provide medical insurance to a married woman. It’s particularly disheartening that Jean, as a woman, understands the struggle for fair treatment in the workplace but still chooses to cover for Rod Sinks while scapegoating another woman, Liang Chao.
Bloomberg, CNBC, FoxBusiness, and many other leading media orgs have Ray Wang as a guest a few times a week. All of them do background checks to not bring people with dubious history on their panels.
Redwood City Council Person Endorses Ray’s Commitment to Residents
The video below is from a two times Redwood City Council Women Colleen Hallinan, acknowledging how Ray worked so hard to defend residents from harm due to greedy builders and resisted harassment from builders, about 20 years ago.
Disinformation Attacks: History & Motivations
After JR Fruen led builders-YIMBY took over the City Council they decided to take control of the Planning Commission. As part of the process to remove Ray Wang from the planning commission, they orchestrated a disinformation campaign about an incident in Redwood City/Shores two decades ago.
They are rehashing some of the articles they published in local outlets to denigrate Ray. Please do not fall for the disinformation. These attacks are malacious and without substance, and are being distributed because the builders are afraid Ray will resist their efforts to make Billions in profits on the back of our quality of life.
What happened in Redwood City Two Decades Ago?
In 2003, Ray challenged Redwood City’s decision to grant permission to a builder to use recycled, non-potable water in areas accessible to children, who may not realize that it’s not fit for drinking. Not being able to dump that non-potable water would have increased the costs and reduced profits for builders.
One local politician, Rosanne Foust, was leveraged by the builders to sue Ray Wang. Foust has a close relationship with developers and was fined $3000 by the FPPC in 2014 for the misuse of her position as the Vice-Mayor to champion another big project.
Ray, whose wife was pregnant with their first child at that time, decided to settle instead of going through a jury trial. He pleaded no-contest to charges of leaving an annoying message for Foust on her phone.
Related charges accusing him of sexual harassment were summarily dismissed. Ray has stated that he had an open wifi network (these were early days of wireless internet) and a builder’s agent may have connected to it to sign-up Foust’s email for web-sites which may deliver adult content, in order to frame him.
Please Defend Your Rights from Builders
After Ray was removed from the Planning Commission, the builders took control and stopped having meetings, Out of the regularly scheduled 24 meetings, only six were held in 2023.
This limited transparency and opportunity for public input, while the city’s Housing Element was being redone to favor builders. That allowed the builders to hide their shenanigans like the proposal to upzone all corner lots in single family homes to R3 to allow construction of five story condos in single family neighborhoods. Strategy HE-1.3.6 of the 2nd HE draft
Earlier this evening, the coterie of ex-mayors resurfaced and sent out an email message spreading disinformation about how and why the Housing Element was delayed leading to Builder’s Remedy.
Stealing Design & Claiming Copyright
In their message, they included a picture taken from the “Save Our Neighborhoods” sign which some residents developed to highlight the risk of high density construction in single family lots. They not only did not give credit to the person who had created the sign, they even claimed copyright to it! Further while the signs were meant to support Kitty Moore and Ray Wang, the deceiving mayors used them to support their opponents.
We are including a video from the resident who created this sign, who shares his outrage at the theft of his intellectual property, and the unethical attempts by the ex-mayors to deceive Cupertino Residents.
The residents demand an immediate retraction from Richard Lowenthal, Dolly Sandoval, Kris Wang, JR Fruen, Hung Wei, and Sheila Mohan for stealing our intellectual property and attempting to falsely copyright it. This is emblematic of your unethical leadership and it is unacceptable .
Screenshot from email sent by the three ex-mayors
Disinformation Barrage Continues
A lot has already been written about how the builder’s took over the city council via their YIMBY proxy JR Fruen & Sheila Mohan) in November 2022.
Instead of adopting the existing Housing Element draft and submitting it for approval, they waited till after the deadline to even submit it. While evaluating that submission, HCD declared that it “addresses most statutory requirements. For context, Palo-Alto’s draft was judged to “address many statutory requirements”, a lower level of compliance.
HCD also noted that many YIMBY orgs including JR Fruen’s Cupertino For All shared comments about why the draft required revisions. Thereafter they delayed the housing element by 18 months exposing the city to Builder’s Remedy. In their legal settlement with JR’s buddies in other YIMBY orgs in early 2024 the City invited Builder’s Remedy projects. All Active Builder Remedy projects were filed after that settlement.
Please do not let these unethical people succeed in deceiving you.
