Cupertino Facts

Category: Coterie of ex-Mayors

  • CUSD: Dispelling Disinfo with Data

    This email will debunk disinformation about CUSD with data. We also include video clips from Jerry Liu, a CUSD trustee who opposed school closure, who shares his experience and goes into more details.

    Disnfo #1: CUSD Budget Shortfall? No we have surplus!


    The big reason cited for the shutdown of schools was a projected budget shortfall. CUSD’s own projections show that it will end up with a surplus (revenue less expenditure in the table below) of $39.5 Million over the next five years.


    Please listen to current board member Jerry Liu who voted against school closure, who tells us that even this year CUSD will have a surplus of $16M!


    Savings from closing school campuses? It is like saving 50 cents while we have a $200 budget,, a reminder that the projected savings from closing a school campus was minimal

    Then why close schools during a once-in-a lifetime pandemic?
    Video

    This table is from Page 18 of CUSD Budget Adoption Report 

    Disnfo #2: Collapsing Child Population? No Its Stable!

    For the past decade, we have been repeatedly being told that CUSD enrollment is declining because the population of children in CUSD is declining.

    That is incorrect.


    The children population in CUSD has been fairly stable, fluctuating in a narrow band. The overall population is at the same point as it was about a decade ago.

    From kidsdata.org

    CUSD enrollment though is declining since parents are preferring private schools due to mismanagement by the CUSD board including the deeply unpopular decision to shut down school campuses.

    From kidsdata.org

    For those interested in more granular analysis, the date from the ACS Survey is available here including age-wise breakdown within the under-18 age-group

    The Future is in Your Hands


    To reiterate, a lot of disinformation which has been spread in the community, is debunked by data.


    Disinfo #1:  CUSD shut Schools because of lack of money

    => No. CUSD is projected to have a $39M surplus over next 5 years


    Disinfo #2:. CUSD enrollment is falling because number of Children in CUSD is dropping

    => No. Children population in CUSD is around the same level it was a decade ago

    We can only speculate why the coterie of ex-mayors and their protege who they get sponsor via endorsement and campaign finance support misled us. We do know CUSD has hired professional real-estate consultants to evaluate the desirability of CUSD land for investors. 

     



    In order to save our schools, and preserve our home values, it is critical that the City Council of Cupertino opposes any rezoning of school land  and preserves it for public usage. 

    VOTE WISELY

    To save our schools and preserve home values, please VOTE for Govind Tatachari, Liang Chao, and Steven Scharf for Cupertino City Council, and Darcy Paul, Satheesh Madhathil & Jerry Liu for CUSD Board. They have taken a public stand to keep school closure off the table and roll back the past decisions. They are not funded by external special-interests and will keep the interests of residents foremost.

    Please do NOT vote for JR Fruen, Sheila Mohan for Cupertino City Council, and Ava Chiao (CUSD).  They have been supportive of school closure and giving the land to developers, and have strong endorsements from the three CUSD trustees who closed the schools.  They have also receive extensive funding from construction interests, who covet the land our schools stand on, and not signed the City of Cupertino voluntary spending limit on election expenses.

     

    Your fellow neighbors from Cupertino

    (Some more videos with Jerry speaking are attached below)

     

    Video
    Video

  • Balanced vs Unbalanced Development: Contrasting Visions

     

    Article was updated in September 2024 to add more pictures of the original proposal for Westport which was negotiated down by the resident oriented council to have one third square footage of the original proposals. Many of the concerns expressed in the article have unfortunately come true after JR Fruen's election in 2022. The city is dealing with many plans for large multi-story condo/townhome complexes in the middle of single family neighborhoods.

    This email is about two different visions about new development in Cupertino


    – The balanced approach which considers the impact on the residents, the city infrastructure especially traffic & schools, and the viability of the project.

    – The unbalanced approach which focuses on maximizing investors’ profits without regards to impact on the quality of life of residents.


    What Balanced Development Looks Like

    Westport is the name of the redevelopment of the Oaks Plaza on the corner of Hwy 85 and Stevens Creek Blvd opposite De Anza College. The project had been in the pipeline since 2016, and the original proposal was to build a mixed-use gateway with office, hotels and some homes or a large mixed use residential.


    The two drawing below are visualizations of the two proposals which were under consideration.


     


    The resident oriented city-council elected in November in 2018, collaborated with the developer to redo the project to a combination of market rate homes, senior care, affordable homes and retail. You can see renderings of the project on the developer, KT Urban’s website.



    The density of the approved project is less than one third of the original proposal, and it is traffic neutral. 


    Another mixed-use redevelopment project is Canyon Crossing on the corner of McClellan Rd and Foothill Blvd which is a mixture of housing and much needed retail.  The developments approved by the resident oriented council elected in 2018, balance various competing goals and many are in the process of being constructed..You can read more about the new developments approved by the city here. 

    What Unbalanced Development Looks like


    The contrast with the coterie of ex-mayors approach could not be more stark. Lets consider the the Vallco project which they often refer to while denigrating the resident oriented city-council the voters chose.

    What the coterie of ex-mayors fails to mention is that the Vallco SB35 plan was approved when the coterie (or their proteges) were a majority in the city-council (2018) over the objections of the City Attorney whom they fired.


    Or how they scuttled efforts by councilmen Paul & Scharf to add some height limits (November 2017) right before SB35 became law. 

    Or how they amended the City General Plan to add 2M sq. ft of office space, right after SHP bought the mall, while removing height limit (2014) in spite of overwhelming resident opposition.

    The Vallco project needs site-cleanup to remove toxic waste and contaminants which is being supervised by the County of Santa Clara. The builder sponsored council (Rod Sinks, Barry Chang, Savita Vaidyanathan) ignored residents’ pleas on this topic even though the developer was aware of the contamination as early as 2016, two years before the approval of the plans (2018)



    Hopefully, you now have a better idea of what balanced vs unbalanced development looks like.


    Unbalanced Development: 14 unit buildings on Single Family Lots (SB10)


    A new state law, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener (real-estate industry favorite), SB10 gives local city councils the authority to permit the building of 14 housing units (10 + 2ADU/2JADU) on a single family lot, as long as the home is in a transit priority area, 


    A transit priority area is defined as the region within one-half mile of a major transit stop that is existing or planned. In the map below, the blue circles represent the current areas in Cupertino which would become eligible for 14 unit buildings on single family lots under SB10. In the future, more areas can be included due to a change in the route of the existing VTA bus-lines or a new route being added (even if it is just planned). 

    For example, Rainbow/De Anza, Stelling/McClellan, Stelling/De Anza or Foothill/Stevens Creek can be the centers of new half a mile circular zones (red circles) which will then permit 14 unit homes on single family lots if an eligible service is planned connecting De Anza College to Los Gatos via 85/Prospect or De Anza College to Foothill College via Foothill Expressway/280.



    The silver lining is that local city councils can decide whether to allow such construction under SB10. Unlike other state laws like SB35 or SB9 (lot-split) the law is not mandatory for cities.
    JR Fruen: Endorsed by SB10 Author, Sen. Scott Wiener


    One of the candidates for Cupertino City Council, who has the strong financial and endorsement support of the coterie of ex-mayors, endorsements by the three CUSD trustees who shut down CUSD schools, and a long association with construction related interests is JR Fruen. JR has been endorsed by Sen. Scott Wiener, the author of SB10, on his twitter feed.

    For residents who are interested in preserving the character of their single family homes, a vote for JR Fruen would be a step in the wrong direction, increasing the chances of SB10 approval.



    Vote SmartTo preserve home values and our suburban life, please VOTE for Govind Tatachari, Liang Chao, and Steven Scharf for Cupertino City Council, and Darcy Paul, Satheesh Madhathil & Jerry Liu for CUSD Board. They have taken a public stand to keep school closure off the table and roll back the past decisions. They are not funded by special-interests and will keep the interests of residents foremost, supporting balanced growth.


    Please do NOT vote for JR Fruen, Sheila Mohan for Cupertino City Council, and Ava Chiao (CUSD).  They have been supportive of school closure and giving the land to developers, and have strong endorsements from the three CUSD trustees who closed the schools.  They also receive extensive funding from construction interests, who covet the land our schools stand on. 


  • How Regnart Elementary School was Shut Down

     

    In this mail, we go through two items: 

    (a) The painful journey to the closure of Regnart Elementary School

    (b) A note about who we are


    The Regnart Story:

    CUSD schools have one of the highest per-school enrollment in the region. A rational person would expect that the school board would prefer to distribute students evenly across different campuses. However, what happened at Regnart was exactly the reverse. 


    Regnart was one of the less crowded schools in the district. Instead of enabling open enrollment students to join Regnart, or open new programs there, the policy of the board was to do the reverse; i.e. to find opportunities to reduce the enrollment even further.

    1. The existing Transitional Kindergarten was shut down and relocated to another school.
    2. Open enrollment students who had applied to Regnart as their preferred school,were waitlisted and not allowed to enroll there..

    Regnart had a healthy enrollment of 426 in 2019. Meanwhile, neighboring Blue Hills had 361 students, and nearby Montclaire had about 445. However, those schools which also happened to be the home schools of two trustees (Lori-Montclaire & Phyllis-Blue Hills), received students during open enrollment who were channeled away from Regnart.

    This drop in enrollment, which was manufactured by CUSD by closing down the transitional kindergarten and not allowing open enrollment to Regnart was then used to justify the closure of Regnart!


    The Regnart community organized itself and offered CUSD many ideas. That included ideas for transforming Regnart into a magnet school, providing stop-gap funding to tide over the pandemic and even raising more than $100,000. However the Board Members refused to consider alternatives.

     

    Deception from the Board


    The primary reason given by CUSD to close school campuses was that they did not have enough funds. However, whenever parents dug into the data, they realized that the projections did not justify closing schools. There were two reasons:


    1. The expected savings from closing a campus was minimal because most of the expense goes to staff pay; and class sizes in CUSD were already near state mandated maxima, so staff cuts were minimal.


    2. CUSD itself was unlikely to face the funding shortage which would have justified cost cuts in the first place. CUSD had an ending fund balance of $45M at the time of closure. This has now risen to $53M and is projected to grow!

    Lack of Transparency

    A question to ask is why was CUSD in such a rush to close schools during a once in a 100 year pandemic?


    While CUSD was shutting down Regnart they were simultaneously expanding the CLIP program to a new site. That goes against their claim of funding gap leading to program closures. 

     

    PRA requests have also revealed that the CUSD board has been communicating withReal Estate Development consultants to evaluate the ‘attractiveness’ of various sites to investors. 


    Regnart is nestled in a quiet neighborhood in Monta Vista with multi-million dollar homes, and is prime land for development of expensive homes. 

     

    Choice For Voters?

    Is this the way you want your school districts to be run? Why were the lives of children and families disrupted during the pandemic, when there was no compelling reason to close already crowded campuses?

     

    Whose interests is CUSD serving: real estate investors or our children?

     

    If, like us, you feel the need for change, please do NOT vote for candidates sponsored by the coterie of ex-mayors for the Cupertino City Council (JR Fruen, Sheila Mohan) or CUSD (Ava Chiao) who also been endorsed by the three CUSD trustees who spearheaded the effort..

     

    Please vote for Govind Tatachari, Liang Chao, and Steven Scharf for Cupertino City Council, and Darcy Paul, Satheesh Madhathil & Jerry Liu for CUSD Board. They will  work to roll-back school closure, and ensure that the local agencies work for the betterment of the residents.


    A note about who we are


    Cupertino Facts is an effort is by a group of long-term residents of  Cupertino, who have come together to inform our neighbors about the misinformation which the special-interests spread in our city. Most of us hold mid to senior level professional roles in the Tech Industry, and are united by our desire to preserve the wonderful city we call home. 

    We do not have any big donors, and would love to get your contribution to help fight the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) spread in our city by special interests. We would also like to hear from you about other topics you would like to learn more about.

    .

    JR Fruen’s Campaign Finance Violations

    In closing, we would like to inform our readers that one of the candidates sponsored by the coterie of ex-mayors, JR Fruen, was issued a warning letter by the FPCC due to campaign finance reporting errors in 2020. In the 2022 cycle, there are two other violations by JR Fruen which have been reported to the FPCC under COM-08232022-02558 including Laundering Campaign Contributions.

  • Lobbying and CUSD Land Grab

     

    This email is an effort to inform you of special interest lobbying, and how CUSD schools are being closed to be sold to investors.

    Lobbyist Registration

     

    In the first half of 2021, the resident oriented City Council of Cupertino passed a lobbying ordinance asking entities who were receiving compensation to lobby with the city, to register with the city. Similar lobbying ordinances exist in many Bay Area jurisdictions including Santa Clara, San Jose and Palo Alto. At least ten entities who lobby in the city have voluntarily registered increasing the transparency and reducing conflict of interest.


    Who Opposes Registering as Lobbyists?

     

    You may have received inflammatory mailers from a self-styled coterie of ex-mayors, disparaging the council chosen by the voters in 2018. Not surprisingly, on Nextdoor, a leading member of the coterie cheered a lawsuit opposing the city’s requirement for paidlobbyists to register.

     

    The lawsuit, which challenges the requirement register as a paid lobbyist based on theFirst Amendment, was filed one year after the ordinance came to force, just in time for the elections. Multiple people, who strongly advocate for the coterie’s agenda like school closure, have had a close association with the particular local chapter of the organization (LVW) which is opposing the transparency ordinance.
     

    Special Interests Abusing Neighborly Trust


    As residents of the same city, we tend to trust our fellow residents’ view more than an entity we are not familiar with. However, this trust can be misused by special interests, when the special-interests compensate certain residents to act as lobbyists for their interests.


    The lobbying ordinance is designed to empower residents with the information to evaluate whose interests a particular person represents, and then make an informed decision. 

    That the leading member of the coterie of ex-mayors is not interested in transparency speaks volumes of their approach.

    Selling CUSD Land to Investors

    Another pet project of the coterie of ex-mayors is shutting down school campuses, in the already overcrowded schools of CUSD. During the recent school closure drama, residents were informed that CUSD has no money to run the schools; a claim debunked by many parents and invalidated by the huge surplus CUSD currently has.

    A CUSD parent discovered this email after a public record request, which clearly shows CUSD studying how attractive our closed school sites will be for real-estate investors!. 

    It should be obvious by now that our school going children and families went through the dislocation during the pandemic, so that wealthy investors could grab more land to profit from. 

     

    Note that this pattern of trying to sell the school land is not new; in 2017 CUSD, then led by another protege of the coterie of ex-mayors, tried to sell off the land for Luther School and Park in Santa Clara, to none other than the Vallco investor, Sand Hill Properties (SHP)

     

    Progress after 2018 Elections


    The resident focussed council first took charge after Nov 2018 elections, when the voters shunned the money power on display from special interests. Since then, the resident-focussed council has worked hard to fix financial loop-holes (Internal Audit, increase transparency (lobbying), ensure greater resident involvement (Engage Cupertino), and unblock sensible development.

     

    Many of the development projects like Westport and Canyon Crossing, which were stuck in the pipeline with the previous council have been approved with a usage-mix which addresses long standing city needs like senior care, without adverse impact on traffic. 

    The Vallco project is waiting for the cleanup of toxic waste which is being coordinated by the Santa Clara County Department of Environmental Health.


    Please Make an Informed Choice


    Please vote for Govind Tatachari, Liang Chao, and Steven Scharf for Cupertino City Council, and Darcy Paul, Satheesh Madhathil & Jerry Liu for CUSD Board. They will enhance the dignity and respect of our Council and School District, work to roll-back school closure, and ensure that the local agencies work for the betterment of the residents.

    Please do NOT vote for the candidates backed by this coterie, who are also endorsed and supported by the three CUSD trustees who spear-headed the effort to close schools. These candidates, supportive of school closures, are JR Fruen, Sheila Mohan (City Council) and Ava Chiao (CUSD) are a risk to our home values and should be actively opposed. 

  • Restoring Financial Accountability in Cupertino

     

    Do you know that an employee swindled nearly $800,000 from the City of Cupertino, running an embezzlement scam which lasted from 2000-2014, and was finally addressed in 2018. 

    What is surprising is that a coterie of ex-Mayors of Cupertino, who were in the council prior till 2018, have been sending extremely inflammatory mails about the resident focussed council, which was elected for the first time in November 2018. This is the coterie which presided over this period of embezzlements and weak financial controls!


    In order to avoid such scams, the residents focussed Cupertino City Council,  instituted an external audit (via Moss-Adams) of the financial operations of the City. The audit identified serious gaps in the City’s Processes, and a plan to fix them has been put in place. You can read the report here

    As the Moss-Adams report shows, the coterie of ex-Mayors presided over serious gaps, including what the auditors called a Full Gap in the most critical portions: the Accounts Payable, Revenue and Accounts Receivable, and Payroll & Timekeeping.

    Please continue to support your resident oriented city leaders who are working hard to steady the ship in Cupertino since being elected in 2018, after many years of mismanagement. They are putting in financial controls to ensure transparency and prevent scams. (Learn more here).

     

    Please vote for Govind Tatachari, Liang Chao, and Steven Scharf for Cupertino City Council

    Restoring School System (CUSD) Vitality


    Our school system, CUSD is being run into the ground with 33% of all eligible studentsnow choosing to attend non-CUSD schools. The recent closing of three campuses has accelerated this flight. This coterie of mayors also exerted a lot of influence in the board of the CUSD with cross endorsements and campaign finance support.

     

    Please vote for Darcy Paul, Satheesh Madhathil & Jerry Liu for CUSD Board. They have taken a public stance against school closures, and will work towards rolling them back.

    Coterie of ex-Mayors backed Candidates

     

    Please do NOT vote for the candidates backed by this coterie, who are also endorsed and supported by the three CUSD trustees who spear-headed the effort to close schools. These candidates, supportive of school closures, are JR Fruen, Sheila Mohan (City Council) and Ava Chiao (CUSD) are a risk to our home values and should be actively opposed. 

    Note that the three trustee of CUSD who led the school closing efforts are facing their own recall by CUSD parents living across multiple cities.


    Getting things in Order

    In order to fix the problems the coterie of mayors have left behind, it is important that both the City Council and CUSD work together to address residents’ interests, including putting an end to school closures, reopening closed campuses and adding school capacity for the thousands of new homes in the development pipeline.

    Please vote for Govind Tatachari, Liang Chao, and Steven Scharf for Cupertino City Council, and Darcy Paul, Satheesh Madhathil & Jerry Liu for CUSD Board. They will enhance the dignity and respect of our Council and School District, and ensure that the local agencies work for the betterment of the residents