Written Communications
PRC Meeting
June 5, 2025
Written Communications
From:Santosh Rao
To:City of Cupertino Parks and Recreation Commission; Rachelle Sander; City Clerk; Alex Corbalis, CPRP
Subject:parks and rec facilities overrun by non-residents.
Date:Thursday, June 5, 2025 12:59:07 PM
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Dear Parks and Rec staff/clerk,
Please include the below in written communications for the upcoming parks and rec
commission meeting.
[Writing on behalf of myself only, as a Cupertino resident and taxpayer]
Hi Parks and Rec Commission,
I ask you some fundamental questions below.
I urge you to agendaize these questions in a future agenda item. I implore you to deliberate on
these questions. Please make the deliberations actionable such that coming out of your
deliberations will be a resolution or a motion to give explicit direction to parks and rec
department leadership and staff based on the outcome of your deliberations. Please turn the
output into a resolution that shall guide the priorities of parks and rec leadership and
staff when future such questions shall arise. If necessary please forward the approved motion
or resolution to a city council agenda item to further seek council approval and memorialize a
set of edicts on the core charter and purpose of parks and recs facilities and offerings such as
but not limited to tennis and pickleball courts.
What is the core purpose of parks and rec facilities such as city parks tennis and
pickleball courts?
Is it to exclusively or primarily serve Cupertino residents or non-residents or if both to
what ratio should it serve Cupertino residents?
Should our public park sports facilities like tennis courts and pickleball courts be free, paid for
annually, pay per use, or free for use but by reservations.
Should all public park tennis courts be for use by reservations with enforcement via gate codes
only obtained when a successful reservation is made? Should court gates be lockable and
unlocked only via a reservation code ?
Should reservations be allowed for non-residents?
If pay per use, what significant premium should non-residents have to pay?
Should our city tennis and pickleball courts be open to league play whereby a large number of
teams consisting of over 80-90% non-residents use the courts take over these facilities courts
during peak hours on weekday evenings? Or should the city limit the number of league teams
and apply regulations to limit the uncontrolled growth of these league teams and the number
of non-residents they bring in?
As an example I have included screen shots of an upcoming season of USTA league teams and
their roosters with city of residence. As you can see ratios are predominantly non-residents.
Should non-residents albeit paying members have input on city policy on the priority and use
of parks and rec city facilities? Keep in mind that a league team is 15 - 20 players and a set of
10 league teams can bring in 200 players of which 150 - 175 could be non-residents. If all
input is equal as a sheer numbers game non-residents will overwhelm the amount of input that
parks and rec can receive and act on.
Is the purpose of any fee charges to recover costs or to serve as profit centers?
Should costs be fully recovered or if partial what is the right % of cost recovery?
Should public works facility maintenance, operations and improvement costs be charged to the
parks and rec facility or handled independently under public works budget?
Should cost recovery factor in the public works component. Which can be a sizable factor.
Should any city contracts with vendors offering programs seek to create competitive vendors
at the facility so as to improve services and increase revenues to the city from the vendors by
achieving competitive RFP bids and improving the profit or revenue sharing split to the city?
Should parks and rec staff operate these facilities with the use of contractors so as to wholly or
largely retain the revenue and profits from the operations of any pay for use facilities? Or
should these be outsourced to vendors for convenience with the city getting a 10% split in
profits?
If wonder why I raise these questions it is because our city offers superior parks and recs
infrastructure and offerings compared to neighboring cities and we are inundated with non-
residents taking over our facilities be it our free courts in public parks or paid courts in city
facilities or in-demand classes, and events. Our public courts are almost unusable for
residents. At 6am large groups enter and take over public courts and set camp never to leave
while rotating amongst themselves. No resident stands a chance amidst such large group
coordinated takeovers.
I will be happy to raise these points and more in front of you at oral comments and public
comments but ask that you please agendaize a discussion on these questions with intent to
make the output actionable so as to direct staff or to send your recommendation to council so
as to have council direct staff.
While you may wonder if these are operational matters let me remind you that the core and
fundamental starting question is the matter of the policy setting aspects of what should be the
mission and purpose of our parks and rec city facilities and offerings such as but not limited
to tennis and pickleball courts. (Using two heavily used examples but could apply to any in-
demand parks and rec facility, class, camp or program).
Thanks,
San Rao (writing on behalf of myself only, as a Cupertino resident and taxpayer)
Screen shots of upcoming league season team rosters with city of residence by player