Petition: Stop Extravagant City Hall. Be Fiscally Responsible.

Today (Tuesday, August 18th) the City of Cupertino will spend $70 million of your money to build a extravagant new City Hall by paying $7 million in cash and getting a loan of $65 million. A petition was started late Monday afternoon to urge the Council the stop any further action to implement the Civic Center Master Plan. The Council should clearly disclose the cost of the entire project, the individual items of the project and the funding options considered. The Council should justify such spending among various other demands on the City.

Please sign this petition (http://tiny.cc/stop-city-hall) and, most importantly, attend the meeting in person to stop the nonsense spending that the City appears to have been trying to hide from Cupertino residents.

Within 6 hours, the petition has collected almost 200 signatures. We will present the signatures and comments from this petition at the Council meeting today (August 18, 2015)

Petition: Stop Extravagant City Hall. Be Fiscally Responsible

In August 18, 2015 Cupertino City Council meeting, the City will sign contracts to pay $7 million dollar to consultants to start the implementation of the Civic Center Master Plan, whose price tag is at least $70 million and climbing. In addition, the City plans to finance $65 million with a 30-year loan. The loan adds a $4 million annual debt payment to the $3.4 million annual debt payment for an earlier loan. That’s 10% of the City’s annual revenue, which is only around $70 million.

Please sign this petition and email citycouncil@cupertion.org to urge the Council to stop any further action on the Civic Center Master Plan. The Council should first disclose the cost of the entire project and the individual items of the project and the funding options considered. The Council should clearly justify such spending among various other demands on the City.

It would cost only $14 million to renovate the City Hall with seismic enhancement. The Council should issue a formal statement to justify the need of a new City Hall.

The price tag $70 million for the Civic Center Master Plan (new City Hall, library expansion and underground parking) was not mentioned in either the meeting agenda or meeting minutes for Oct. 21, 2014 or July 7, 2014 meetings when the plan was approved. Furthermore, the agenda of Aug. 18, 2015 Council meeting did not mention the loan amount of $65 million either. The agenda item vaguely mentioned “Adopt Resolution No. 15-075 declaring its official intent to reimburse itself from the proceeds of debt financing for certain expenditures related to the Civic Center Master Plan Implementation.”

The Cupertino City Council approved a new general plan in December 2014, which replaced policies that relieve vehicle congestion by policies that encourage multi-modal transportation. Ironically, for the parking problem at Cupertino Library (a shortage of 40 parking spaces), the Council resolved to build a new city hall because its roof might be unsafe during severe earthquake. Yet, it would cost only $14 million to renovate the City Hall with seismic enhancement.

The 2010 projection of the Association of Bay Area Governments estimated a 30 percent growth in Cupertino’s population over the next 25 years. To cope with such dramatic growth, many city services will need to be expanded or updated, such as library, community center, police and public safety. In addition, the Cupertino Sanitary District states that the aging sewage system is close to its capacity and will not be able to accommodate future growth. Not to mention traffic congestion, which would either require wider roads and highways or more investment in public transportation or both.

We urge the Cupertino City Council to stop any further action on the implementation of the Civic Center Master Plan. The Council should issue a formal statement that clearly outline the cost of the project and funding options. And the Council should justify the necessity to build a new City Hall among other necessary city services. The Council should be fiscally responsible to its residents.