Open Letter To Cupertino City Council

CUPERTINO, CA - From Gary Jones, Cupertino Thrives: Honorable Members of our City Council:

When you took the oath of office as members of this body, you pledged to uphold the laws of the State of California and of the United States of America. In addition, you swore to well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which you were about to enter. These duties include the legislative and quasi-judicial functions you perform as our representatives in making critical land use decisions. Your choices in these matters reach well beyond the current residents of our city and its boundaries. They carry forward for decades and impact our neighbors and those who call this city home during the day.

The decisions you make in 2018 will bear heavily on you, as land use for our city remains a contentious and passionately debated topic. Good governance under this pressure to capitulate to please a particular group or any specific property owner will present a challenge. Pressure from your peers and advocates will likely be strong.

As you endure the burden of these soil-to-brick-and-mortar decisions, I and many others plead that you give added weight to a visionary future where technology developed in our valley will solve our basic human problems related to the environment in which our growing population lives: the need for shelter, food, healthcare, education, transit, and widely shared opportunities for prosperity and increasing happiness.

Social media in an age of increasing connectivity and entitlement has provided some citizens with a type and volume of voice that transgresses the historic norms of local civic discourse. That voice rages against the need to change. It is the magnified voice of the classic NIMBY. In reaction to this phenomenon, many new voices in opposition now rise: those who seldom (or never) leave their footprints before the podium at council meetings; those whom you have not previously heard through letters to council or in local media; those whose busy lives hinder their participation.

Who are these new voices? We are the other side of the coin, those citizens, residents and neighbors of Cupertino, interests in government, and not-for-profits--both near and far--who sincerely hope our efforts foster resolution to over a decade of disharmony so we can move on to a future for the common good. Who are we? We are YIMBY.

2018 could be the year that we fashion a better future for our city and community. It could be the year that we open a path to the dignity of housing opportunity for an entire generation presently locked out of our town. I applaud this council's decision to take a thoughtful and measured approach to addressing the state's new housing laws. Because of this decision, we will avoid wasteful haste. Cupertino can now be an honest part of the solution to our common housing crisis.

Respectfully,
Gary Jones, Cupertino Thrives

Image via Patch Graphics