The URL can be used to link to this page

09 - September 25, 2025 - Mayor's Commission Chairs Meeting September 17CITY COUNCIL INFORMATIONAL MEMORANDUM Date: September 25, 2025 To: Cupertino City Council From: Tina Kapoor, Interim City Manager Re: Mayor and Commission Chairs Meeting on September 17, 2025 Background On September 17, 2025, Mayor Liang Chao convened the fourth Mayor and Commission Chairs Meeting of the year at the Quinlan Community Center. All Commission Chairs were present, with the exception of the Audit Commission Chair, whose Vice Chair Hanyan attended on their behalf. This meeting was structured differently from prior sessions, as the primary focus was on reviewing nominations and selecting the recipients of the 2025 Cupertino Community Servi ce Awards (CREST Awards). Interim City Manager Tina Kapoor and communication staff led the selection of CREST awardees. Commissioners had been provided with nomination materials in advance, and the meeting was organized to allow for discussion and voting across five award categories. These categories included: Lifetime Achievement, recognizing a member of the community who has volunteered in Cupertino for ten or more years; Volunteer of the Year, recognizing individuals who have made a difference to the Cupertino community through volunteer service; Organization of the Year, recognizing organizations that have contributed significantly through volunteer service; Rising Star of the Year, recognizing an individual who has volunteered in Cupertino for three years or fewer while demonstrating a continued commitment to the community’s future; and Hometown Hero, recognizing an exceptional individual who exemplifies the City’s spirit through their public safety service. During the voting process, Planning Commission Chair Rao recused himself from the Rising Star category because a relative was among the nominees. Following discussion and deliberation, the recipients of the 2025 CREST Awards were selected. This year’s honorees include Raymond Lancon as Volunteer of the Year, Cupertino Little League as Organization of the Year, Dennis Whittaker for Lifetime Achievement, Aalok Patel as Hometown Hero, and both Sarah Shelke and Reena Shah as Rising Star Award recipients. These individuals and organizations will be formally recognized at the City’s 70th Anniversary Celebration on October 29, 2025, where their service and contributions to Cupertino will be honored publicly. The meeting also provided a valuable opportunity for Commission Chairs to collaborate with the Mayor in selecting honorees whose service reflects the values and priorities of the Cupertino community. It was a productive meeting and commission chairs enjoyed moon cake courtesy of Mayor Chao and a special treat from Zhao Tea who donated premium tea for the meeting. In response to the Mayor’s request, each commission’s three summary bullet points are attached for your reference. Sustainability Impact No sustainability impact. Fiscal Impact No fiscal impact. California Environmental Quality Act No California Environmental Quality Act impact. _____________________________________ Prepared by: Serena Tu, Executive Assistant to the City Manager/Council Reviewed by: Kirsten Squarcia, Interim Deputy City Manager/City Clerk Approved for Submission by: Tina Kapoor, Interim City Manager Attachments: A – September 17, 2025 - Mayor’s Commission Chairs Meeting Summary Bullet Points ATTACHMENT A 2025 Mayor and Commission Chairs Meeting Quinlan Community Center, Social Room 10185 N Stelling Rd, Cupertino, CA 95014 MEETING AGENDA Wednesday, September 17, 2025 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM 5:10 PM – 5:50 PM 5:50 PM – 6:00 PM ATTACHMENT A AGENDA ITEMS Please use this space to include up to three summary bullets highlighting key activities from each commission. AUDIT COMMISSION Audit Commitee meeting held on 7/28/25 recommended to make the following three changes to the current municipal code section covering Audit Committee responsibilities to clarify scope and benchmark vs comparable municipalities 1. Change the name of the Committee to “Audit and Finance Committee”; 2. Modify the wording of current Item G. to be “To review the City’s internal controls and internal audit reports”; 3. Add new item I: “To review the use of Artiﬁcial Intelligence in the City’s ﬁnancial reporting, internal control over ﬁnancial reporting, risk management and compliance.” A special meeting was held on 8/4/25 with the following decision and next steps 1. A special subcommittee was established (with Eno the chair, and Vice Mayor Kitty) to address the budget format change and will report back to full committee in the upcoming full committee meetings (targeting Oct’25 meeting). ARTS AND CULTURE COMMISSION 1. Arts and Culture Commission meeting held on 7/28/25. • Discussed the Commissioner’s handbook and distributed a copy. Applied the suggestion of coming prepared for agenda items, rather than brainstorming during the meeting. The process was eﬃcient and very helpful in deciding the theme for 2025 Artist Awards program. • 2025 Artist Awards program underway. Entries due by 10/1/25. 2. Special meeting was held to visit Palo Alto Art and Culture Center on 8/30/25. 3. Upcoming Arts and Culture meeting on 9/22/25: • Art-in-Lieu policy: next steps in the process. • Discuss process of subcommittees. New ideas from the Palo Alto Art Center visit could be explored in this format. • Update on 2025 Artist Awards program. ATTACHMENT A BICYCLE PEDESTRIAN COMMISSION • Reviewed Active transportation plan phase 1 summary and phase 2 kickoﬀ, and BPC provided recommendations. Key points included below (full details in BPC Aug’25 meeting minutes) o Focus on the overall citywide active transportation policy based on community input, council input, rather than treating individual projects in isolation. o Identify key focus areas like Pedestrian safety, school safety, and high injury corridors safety for the next 5-10 years supported by implementation packages and measurable outcomes o Speed reduction on streets (alternative to main corridors) with safe pedestrian crossings and non-barrier bike lanes and features for slowing traﬃc without reducing vehicle lanes (safer routes for schools) o Create a structured plan with clear articulation of ATP policy with top 3 priority areas, implementation packages, include modern technology use, data/usage collection methods, with measurable outcomes • 2025 Fall Bikefest planning & coordination discussion HOUSING COMMISSION • Council held interviews September 15 for two Housing Commissioner vacancies: The Business Representative position and a resident commissioner. Upon her resignation, former Vice Chair Yuyi He called for the creation of a new specialized position on the Housing Commission for a Renter Representative. • On September 25, 2025 the Housing Commission will receive a presentation on the 2024-2025 Consolidated Annual Performance Evaluation Report (CAPER) on Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and other Housing division activities that took place in FY24-25. • On September 25, 2025 the Housing Commission will hold a study session on two executive orders, made by the Federal and State executives respectively, which urge local cities and counties to consider policies for homeless encampment clearance. ATTACHMENT A LIBRARY COMMISSION • The Cupertino Poet Laureate Subcommittee interviewed two candidates, held discussions, evaluated their qualiﬁcations, and provided a formal recommendation to the Library Commission. • The ﬁve Library Commissioners reviewed the subcommittee’s recommendation, heard the rationale for selecting one candidate over the other, and approved the recommendation. City staﬀ will issue an oﬃcial oﬀer letter to the chosen candidate. • The Cupertino Library oﬀers excellent programs for both adults and children. However, many residents are often too busy to regularly check the website. To increase community engagement, commissioners distribute program information in PDF format to residents and actively promote upcoming events. PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION • Discussed non-native invasive plants which is not ideal for the Parks and Recreation. Looking forward to updates from Public Works. • Support the City Council’s Pickle Ball quiet racquets during peak hours. Potentially look into extending the hours. Recommend posting notices around the courts. • Staﬀ presented information on policy for reserving the facilities. PLANNING COMMISSION • Planning Commission was in recess during August 2025. As a result only 2 Planning Commission meetings have occurred since the last Mayor-Chairs meeting in July 2025. • Planning Commission held a hearing on 07/22/25 on Objective Design Standards (ODS) and provided the following feedback and recommendations: • Review Objective Design Standards (ODS) from other Bay Area cities to have a competitive data baseline to guide Cupertino’s approach, focusing on simplicity, clarity, and alignment with existing plans such as the Heart of the City Plan. • Present ODS in public-friendly formats like checklists and conduct outreach to both the community and applicants for meaningful feedback. ATTACHMENT A • Planning Commission elected Vice-Chair Kosolcharoen as its rep to the Economic Development Committee for the remainder of 2025. • Planning Commission held a public hearing on 09/09/25 for updates to Cupertino Municipal code to incorporate new state laws, and make some changes for consistency and clarity. During the hearing PC discovered there were changed municipalities codes introduced that were neither part of state laws nor considered minor editorial consistency and clarity changes. These involved changes such as requiring R1 SFH single family owners to pay for a peer arborist review, a lapse of application status if incomplete items are not addressed in 6 months etc. PC moved to accept changes for state laws, and minor edits for consistency and clarity but to bring other muni code changes back as a separate update for public transparency and engagement. • PC heard an update on the Active Transportation Plan and made suggested changes to prioritize inclusion of speeding cameras, red light cameras, and adaptive right turns rather than the use of “no right turn on red”. PUBLIC SAFETY COMMISSION • New Commissioner Gregory Klein joined to ﬁll the vacant position • Good presentation from Santa Clara County Emergency Management on AlertSCC o It’s useful. But opt-in system (400K subscribed) o Enrollment is not easy o Need more community awareness o Request to amplify the message • Staﬀ report o Covered activities of CARES, CERT, MRC and Block leader program • Fire Dept and Sheriﬀ’s report o Overall ﬁre response time are in green zone o Flock system is helping o Overall crime rate month-to-month are ﬂat to down trending • PSC subcommittee report summary from diﬀerent commissioners: o Improve on process: Commissioner Rajaram has investigated this part. ALPR system is super eﬀective. But it took about 18 months to implement ATTACHMENT A this since this was ﬁrst discussed in TICC in 2017-18 and City council voted on Oct’24. Lot of time was spent on approval and use policy. We need to see how we can improve our process and make things faster from ideas to policy to implementation. We will try to understand from Santa Clara County Board of Supervisor oﬃce on the approval process as well. o Slow case handling and lack of actions from Sheriﬀ’s oﬃce: Many Cupertino residents who faced the burglaries and crime shared this message to PCS. Commissioner Begur and community representative Sonali investigated this and did a deep dive with Sheriﬀ’s oﬃce. Key observations and reason for slowness are as follows: • The current investigative framework is overburdened and outdated, placing immense pressure on a small team of dedicated detectives. E.g. 4 detectives for Cities and each handling 80-90 open cases at any point of time! Criminals are evolving faster than the system can adapt. While structural reforms will take time, strategic tech adoption, community engagement, and interagency cooperation offer the most immediate paths to improvement. Improving outcomes requires investment, innovation, and alignment between law enforcement, prosecutors, and the public. • They shared some short and medium term actions which includes: • Increase Public awareness • Explore to give trained volunteer help to Sheriﬀ’s oﬃce on many low-priority tasks • More technology adoption and grants • Integrated database • Scheduling change • Statute Reform Advocacy o Lobby for extensions to statutes of limitation in cases with forensic delays. • Judicial System Education o Host DA–Police roundtables to align on evidentiary expectations and case thresholds. • Recruiting: We learnt form Sheriﬀ’s oﬃce that recruiting was a challenge. They sometime have to go out of County or even State to attract recruits! PSC Chair ATTACHMENT A Das followed up on this work thread. Summary call of action is that we can help raise the awareness, reward and positive impact of Law-and-Order profession among our residents and students in city. This is a relatively less attractive processional path in City residents. PSC can take more meaningful actions for campaigns, host events and outreach for this via schools and community events. • We are also setting a special meeting with Assemblyman Ahem with PSC and Cupertino residents to share these concerns and some of these recommendations. SUSTAINBILITY COMMISSION • Sustainability Commission tabled at Fall Festival this past weekend and will be tabling at Bike Fest this month. • At the last meeting, the Commission set our priority projects for the next two years. • Jack Carter was nominated to represent us on the Economic Development Committee. TEEN COMMISSION • Teen Commission welcomed ﬁve new commissioners in September (commission term is on the school year calendar) and elected a new Chair and Vice Chair. • Teen Commission received a presentation and evaluated an application for a Teen Commission highlight from a Youth Led Organization, Lead and Inspire Future Transformation (LIFT), an organization that works with teens in the foster care and juvenile justice system to develop ﬁnancial literacy and professional development. • Teen Commission received a presentation and gave feedback on the 2025.2026 calendar for teen programs. • Teen Commission received a presentation on the teen organizations in the city including the Youth Activity Board (YAB), Recreation Event Volunteers (REV), Leaders in Training (LITs) and Teen Commission. TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION & COMMUNICATION COMMISSION • TICC is hosting Cupertino Cybersecurity Public Awareness Event, Thursday, October 9, from 6 to 8 PM PST at the Community Hall. The 5 speakers are: Ramesh Gupta – CEO and ATTACHMENT A Co-Founder of Identra.AI, Don Hester – Cybersecurity Advisor to the Department of Homeland Security, Ilaiy Elangovan-Head of Cybersecurity R&D at VISA, Pravat Lall-CEO & Founder of Smart Heritance, and Trupti Shiralkar-Advisory Board Member Backslash Security. • TICC Chair Prabir Mohanty has reached out to Google Deepmind CEO Demis Hassabis and Microsoft AI EVP Mustafa Suleyman to start discussions on comprehensive AI framework that not only enhances city services and data driven decision-making but also fundamentally deepens civic engagement and transparency. He will also be reaching out to other AI Leaders such as OpenAI, Perplexity and Anthropic soon. • TICC Commissioner Balaram Donthi is joining the Cupertino Economic Development Committee.