CC 05-01-2018 Exhibit Oral CommunicationsLetter to Editor To San Jose Mercury News
Vallco Redevelopment Not Supported by Residents
Your aiiicle ("Community draws up alternative development plans for Valko
mall," 4/19) was grossly misleading. Most participants at the design meetings run by
consultant firm Opticos were not Cupertino residents, but mostly out of town YIMBY s.
The design process oddly looked for "alternatives" to a SB35 plan proposed by
the developer, Sand Hill Prope1iy, which was not approved by the city yet. The Opticos
design criteria included massive office development which has never been supported by
residents or even the out-of-town housing advocates in previous meetings.
The developer surely intends to use its plan as a Trojan Horse to revive its
proposed huge office park which would guarantee to worsen the housing crisis ,
deterioration of traffic jam, school crowding and quality of life.
Incidentally , Sand Hill's proposal is full of miscalculations and inflated amount
of "residential amenities" and tens of millions of parking and common areas to skirt
strict SB35 requirements.
Cupertino unfortunately has to deal with these nonsense all because three of the
council members (Rod Sinks, Barry Chang and Savita Vaidhyanathan) illegally blocked
the removal of the provisional office allocation for Vall co in the city General Plan on
November 21 , 2017 as shown in video meeting minutes (available on Youtube
https ://v o utu .be/Y tGZH bZ gJI). It was clearly in violation of the Ralph M. Brown
Act (a.k.a. the California Sunshine Law) by removing an agenda item from a
public meeting without public notice 72 hours in advance. Curiously, the agenda
item (#14), published as required by law, wa s quietly removed by the city, presumably
under the direction of the city manager with the consent of the city attorney.
Ignatius Y. Ding
42 -ye ar resident of Cup ertino , CA
Contact Phone: ( 408) 692-5757
THE
BROWN
ACT
OPEN MEETINGS FOR
LOCAL LEGISLATIVE BODIES
Office of the Attorney General
Bill Lockyer
Attorney General
Prepared by the Division of Civil Law
Chief Assistant Attorney General Andrea Lynn Hoch
Deputy Attorney General Ted Prim, Editor