CC 10-30-23 Item No. 2 Public Employee Evaluation - City Manager_Written CommunicationsCC 10-30-2023
Written Communications
Item No. 2
Public Employee
Performance Evaluation
for City Manager
From:Rhoda Fry
To:City Council; City Clerk
Subject:Comments October 30, 2023 City Council Agenda #2 City Manager Performance Evaluation
Date:Sunday, October 29, 2023 10:52:17 PM
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Dear City Clerk,
Please add the following comments for October 30, 2023 City Council Agenda #2 City
Manager Performance Evaluation
I am resending the comments I sent this past July.
I am even more discouraged by the actions of the City Manager now than I was in July.
I am very worried that City Manager has ignored council direction and has taken actions that
should have been directed by council.
Council directed staff in February to continue on the City Hall Annex project.
No work has been done and it was reported in October that the work had been abandoned.
If the City Manager believed that work should be abandoned on the City Hall Annex project,
she should have notified the council much sooner.
The City Manager has reduced government transparency. Parks and Rec meetings are no
longer recorded and live-streamed. The excuse is that there is no money. According to an
agreement with Silicon Valley Clean Energy, the City charges only $68 per hour to record
their meetings in Community Hall. There doesn’t even appear to be rent for City Hall. So if it
only costs $68 per hour, I think that these meetings should be recorded. But more importantly,
the City Manager should have brough this issue to the City Council because it is a policy
issue. The City Council should decide whether the Parks and Rec meeting should be recorded.
Planning Commission, Audit Committee and other meetings have been canceled. Items that
normally would have gone to Planning Commission seem to be handled by an Administrative
Hearing.
The City Manager has not been candid about the City’s financial situation and this is required
by municipal code. The information has been provided much too late and makes no sense.
It appears that the City Manager has been building her administration rather than building
community. The budgeted number of employees and their cost is going up and it should be
going down. Certainly, we have much fewer public meetings yet we have more employees. I
put together this table for the employment negotiations and was shocked by what I found. The
City should be investing in Community Programs. They don’t cost much. Why is budgeted
headcount increasing when our population and City income is decreasing? It makes no sense.
2019 2023 % Increase
Contract Services $21.6M $24.8 15%
Employee
Compensation
$19M $24.7M 30%
Employee Benefits $8M $11M 38%
Employee Headcount 203 225 11%
Community
Development
28 37 30%
Administration and
Administrative
Services
30 42 42%
I was shocked to see that City Manager failed to take Council direction regarding the City
Hall. The City Staff jumped to looking at private-public partnerships in a $170K contract
without asking council first. Council and the public should have been given the opportunity to
decide whether we wanted to consider tearing down our 20-year-new community hall in order
to line a developer’s pockets with money so that the developer could build a private housing
project on public land.
The City Manager has not moved forward on the housing element. We were told – “all hands
on deck.” Instead, efforts were focused on a sister-city program. Franky, that report was not
ready to be shared with the public. Suggesting that the City subsidize a program that had only
1 student in it was laughable. And there’s more and more focus on the morals of the council
members. What about the budget as well? The City Manager has also failed to reveal that our
City now has a builder’s remedy project in the works. This is unacceptable.
Another area that is severely lacking is that many of our City’s businesses do not have
business licenses. Getting those up to date could certainly pay for livestreaming our Parks and
Rec meetings. City Staff also needs to look at revising the business license tax to be more like
that of our neighbors. Furthermore, given the likely loss of significant sales-tax revenue, we
need to get parity with neighboring cities pertaining to property tax revenue.
Under the direction of our former Mayor Paul and his fellow councilmembers, the City
Manager appeared to be by far more poised and responsive to council and the community’s
needs.
It saddens me to see that the City Manager appears to have disdain for our City’s community
members. I fervently hope that she can change her outlook.
Thanks,
Rhoda Fry
40-year Cupertino resident
From: Rhoda Fry <fryhouse@earthlink.net>
Sent: Thursday, July 6, 2023 1:45 PM
To: 'City Clerk' <CityClerk@cupertino.org>; 'citycouncil@cupertino.org'
<citycouncil@cupertino.org>; 'City Attorney's Office' <CityAttorney@cupertino.org>; 'Cupertino City
Manager's Office' <citymanager@cupertino.org>
Subject: July 6, 2023 City Council Agenda #3 City Manager Performance Evaluation
Dear City Council,
Please read below input regarding July 6, 2023 City Council Agenda #3 City Manager Performance
Evaluation.
Dear City Manager Wu,
I felt really badly for you the day you first came to City Council. Jean Bedord had made some
scathing mean comments. I felt compelled to write you a friendly welcome note. At the beginning of
your job, I was impressed by your checking in to clarify direction provided by council. However,
things changed with the change in the new mayor. I’d really like to see the old you back.
It bothers me to see you interrupting your own staff during public meetings. It makes it look as
though you do not trust them to do their job. I’d like the City Manager to provide a platform for the
staff to show their own best work. It would be best to address any differences behind closed doors.
The public should not see that you have no confidence in your own staff. Likewise, it troubles me
when you interrupt council members. You were so mean to one of our constituents that she was left
crying buckets in our community hall. This is not the behavior that is to be expected of a City
Manager.
You have also made erroneous statements during public meetings that are bad for the city’s
governance. You abused your power by telling council members that Public Storage would sue the
City and win if they were not allowed to install a new sign on the basis of public speech. This was
incorrect (I spoke with no fewer than 4 expert attorneys on this issue). Legal advice should have
come from the City Attorney. The fact is that the City incorrectly permitted the first sign, which
allowed the second sign to be considered. You should have protected the public interest, not that of
the storage company. And, by not working in a collaborative manner with Public Storage, the city
residents will be dealing with a public nuisance – and that in itself puts the City at risk of litigation. I
had hoped that your City Planning experience would have been of use here and it seems that is one
of your biggest assets in coming into this job.
More recently, residents asked that the City comment upon State bills. The City has commented on
state bills in the recent past, such as Evan Low’s gay marriage amendment. The request to comment
on state bills was handled very poorly. First was to tell the public that the City would look at the bills
in December. During the council meeting, it became apparent that you full well knew that the fate of
the bills would have been decided before December. Why not just state that you didn’t want to look
at them? Or ask the City Attorney as to whether it would be prudent to issue an opinion. Instead, the
agenda made it look like the City would consider it - - - but in fact it would not. It felt disingenuous. I
felt a lack of trust and transparency with the City. And you made matters worse, you said that the
City staff would not have time to look at it and it would take too much attorney time. And then the
City Attorney corrected you and told you it would not take him much time at all. So why did you
make up an answer instead of asking the City Attorney as to whether he had time? It was a very bad
look for the City.
Councilmember Fruen had suggested that we take another look at the sign ordinance and you shut
down the discussion and said that it would be a huge project like doing a heart-of-the-city plan. That
doesn’t seem right to me and now I doubt it given that you have made incorrect assumptions about
staff time in the past.
With respect to your city-paid trip to Taiwan, I truly think that you should have taken it as vacation
time. And if you didn’t have vacation time, you could have borrowed the vacation or taken time off
without pay. The optics were really bad about leaving at a time when we’re “all hands on deck” with
the housing element and the budget. You need to set an example for the City staff. Now City staff
will feel entitled to taking a vacation when they’re really needed at City Hall. Separately, residents
would like to see a full report of the economic development you achieved while in Taiwan.
I was shocked that you spared no time in getting rid of commissions and committees. Commentary
on the new bills could have been discussed during a legislative committee, but that committee is
gone. I served on the environmental review committee and I think that it provided great value to the
city. I wish that you had spent some more time as city manager to make these decisions. We also
have a paid lobbyist and it is unclear to me that we are making use of that contract. We need to
receive updates from this lobbyist.
I’d like you to make sure that the council and public receive timely financial updates, particularly
now. Our municipal codes continue to be disregarded. Additionally, we need to clean up our
contracts – we must have contracts for expenditures and this is not happening. The “buck stops
here” with the City Manager and it behooves you to make sure that the City’s reports are correct –
otherwise you put our City at risk.
City Manager Wu, you have shown yourself to be capable in the past and I hope that you can do so
moving forward. Right now, it doesn’t look like you care about our City, our Staff, our Council
Members, or the public. Please consider leading from the heart.
Regards,
Rhoda Fry
From:Griffin
To:City Council
Cc:City Clerk
Subject:2023-10-30 City Council Meeting Agenda Item2- City Manager Performance Evaluation
Date:Monday, October 30, 2023 3:32:23 PM
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Please include this email and any attachments as part of written communication for the above city council meeting agenda item.
Dear City Council,
I am including the comments I submitted in early July 2023 again since City Manager Wu’s performance evaluation was “postponed”
according to what the public was told was the result of the Closed Session.
In addition, I would like to point out that under the Cupertino Municipal Code section 2.28.040 Powers and Duties, City Manager Wu
shall act under the direction and control of the City Council. In February, she was instructed to continue the work on the City Hall Annex
yet in October staff reported that this was stopped! This was done without City Council approval or knowledge!
Also, in February she was instructed to look into the feasibility of a new city hall but what resulted and was presented to Council in
October did not look anything like what was requested! No one mentioned housing on public land! Staff did not ask Council if this
sound be considered. It was another decision done behind closed doors without public or Council oversight!
City Manager Wu is making decisions that should be done in public with Council direction and public comment. The Housing and
Planning Commissions have been completely left out of any participation in the Housing Element input on policies and procedures and
their meetings have just about all been eliminated! Decisions have been made without public oversight or input!
This is not how our city should be run. Video recordings of Parks and Rec meetings have been eliminated using cost as a reason yet
money is spent on meals and travel that far exceed the cost of video recordings. Priorities need to be adjusted!
Maybe it’s time for a change in management and improved oversight? Please do your job and fix this! It has gone in too long and it’s
not improving.
Sincerely,
Peggy Griffin
“ 2.28.040 Powers and Dutes.
The City Manager shall be the adminisrative head of the City government acting under the direction and control of the City Council
except as otherwise provided in this chapter.”
From: Peggy Griffin
Date: July 6, 2023 at 1:37:38 AM PDT
To: City Council <CityCouncil@cupertino.org>
Cc: City Clerk <CityClerk@cupertino.org>
Subject: 2023-07-06 City Council Meeting Agenda Item3 - City Manager Performance Evaluation
Dear City Council,
With regard to City Manager Wu’s evaluation, please consider addressing the following issues:
ISSUE #1: CUTTING PEOPLE OFF
Often during City Council meetings, City Manager Wu cuts people off, not allowing them to finish their statement or answer questions that were
asked of them, not the City Manager. This has happened to her staff, the City Attorney, and to the minority City Council Members. It does not
happen to the 3 majority City Council members.
From the recently passed “City of Cupertino City Council Procedures Manual”, Section 6 “Relationship with City Staff”, Section 6.5 Decorum. “All
Council members and City staff shall treat each other with dignity, courtesy, and respect.” This applies to the City Manager-City Council
relationships and City Manager-Staff relationships.
ISSUE #2: NOT ANSWERING QUESTIONS IN COUNCIL MEETINGS
VERY OFTEN, when a City Council Member asks a question she refuses to answer it and responds that it will be taken offline and answered in a
memo. Sometimes, questions are brought up during public comment on an item and Council Members note them and repeat the question during
their comment time. These questions need to be addressed in public and often the answers can impact the vote.
This comes across as arrogant and condescending, as if the information is not important enough to be addressed in public. There is no follow up.
The public never hears the answers to these questions and the vote is forced without an answer. When a Council Member asks a question, the
City Manager should answer the question or find someone who can!
ISSUE #3: KNOWINGLY ALLOWING MUNICIPAL CODE VIOLATIONS BY STAFF TO CONTINUE
Since December 2022, the City has been in violation of California state and Cupertino municipal code regarding the timely reporting of monthly
financial information. During the February 21, 2023 City Council meeting, Agenda Item #5 Accounts Payable for Nov. 22, 2022 the frequency of
the Accounts Payable reports coming to council was brought up. City Manager Wu insisted that these reports would adhere to the requirements
specified in Resolution 5939, Section D Number 3. She repeatedly said this on February 21, 2023!
Even in June, these reports were presented late. The City Manager has been aware of this the whole time yet it was not corrected for over 6
months!
Please address these 3 issues when discussing City Manager Wu’s review. Hopefully, by identifying and discussing these issues they can be
resolved which would help improve communication and relationships.
Sincerely,
Peggy Griffin