APPROVED MINUTES

SUNNYVALE CITY COUNCIL

TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2008

5:00 P.M. SPECIAL JOINT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY MEETING-Study Session - Update on Latest Plans for Downtown Sunnyvale Project and discussion of possible amendments to the Amended and Restated Disposition and Development and Owner Participation Agreement (ARDDOPA) and Special Development Permits for the project.

6:30 P.M. SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING (Closed Session)- Conference with Real Property Negotiator, pursuant to Government Code §54956.8.  Properties: Kasik Parcel and Tasman Parcel. Negotiating Parties: Amy Chan (City); Andy Kasik (Kasik Parcel); Susanna Pau (Tasman Parcel). Under Negotiation: Price and Terms of Payment.

SALUTE TO THE FLAG

Mayor Spitaleri led the salute to the flag.

ROLL CALL

SPECIAL ORDER OF THE DAY

Ceremonial Oaths for Newly Appointed Board and Commission Members.

CLOSED SESSION REPORT FOR JULY 15, 2008

Conference with Real Property Negotiator, pursuant to Government Code §54956.8.  Properties: Kasik Parcel and Tasman Parcel. Negotiating Parties: Amy Chan (City); Andy Kasik (Kasik Parcel); Susanna Pau (Tasman Parcel). Under Negotiation: Price and Terms of Payment.

Vice Mayor Hamilton: Council had a Closed Session: Conference with Real Property Negotiator, pursuant to Government Code §54956.8. And the meeting was adjourned. We did not finish the discussion so the meeting was adjourned to after this Council meeting and there’ll be a Closed Session Report next week.

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Mayor Spitaleri: Thank you. Now it’s time for public announcements. Councilmember Howe.

Councilmember Howe: Thank you Mr. Mayor. I have two of ‘em…two announcements on behalf of the City Council. The first one is the 2008 State of the City Award nominations. Nominations for the 2008 State of City Community Awards are now being accepted. Nominations are due by Friday, August 1st at 5 p.m. This year the State of the City celebration will be held on Saturday, September 13th at 11 a.m. Mayor Spitaleri and the City Council will present awards to outstanding members of the Sunnyvale community including 1) Outstanding High School Senior, 2) Outstanding Business Person, 3) Outstanding Community Volunteer, 4) Outstanding Contribution to the Arts, 5) Outstanding Educator 6) Outstanding Environmental Achievement; and the last one is the Distinguished Resident of the Year. For additional information call the Communications Division at 730-7535 and I also believe it’s on the City’s website under StateoftheCity.inSunnyvale.com. That’s one of the two messages or announcements. The other one in on Thursday, July 24th at 7 p.m. the City Council will hold a community workshop to present an update and the path forward on the City’s environmental activities. The workshop will be held in the Council Chambers. That’s right here. Topics will include updates from key departments on significant City activities over the past year including both policies and projects, as well as plans for the newly budgeted sustainability coordinator. Public Comment will also be taken. For more information, it’s a slightly different website, green.insunnyvale.com. Or you can call the Office of the City Manager at 730-7480.

That concludes the two there. I would like to take just one moment and thank two of my previous colleagues, Dave Simons and Laura Babcock having served a full eight years on the…on the Commission. And I was lucky enough to serve with both of them during some of that time.

Mayor Spitaleri: Thank you. And I don’t have any additional cards for public comment.

CONSENT CALENDAR

Councilmember Whittum pulled Item 1.A.

City Manager Amy Chan pulled Item 1.I. on behalf of staff.

Mayor Spitaleri stated there was one public card requesting to pull Item 1.I.

Vice Mayor Hamilton moved and Councilmember Howe seconded to approve the Consent Calendar with the exception of Items 1.A and 1.I.

VOTE: 7-0

Fiscal Items

Contracts

Other Items

STAFF RESPONSES TO PRIOR PUBLIC COMMENTS

None.

PUBLIC COMMENTS

Mayor Spitaleri: Now is the time for public comment. I have a few cards here. First one is Chris Wilder

Chris Wilder: Good evening everyone. Thank you. My name is Chris Wilder and I’m here tonight to provide some information for you all on Measure A. Measure A has been placed on the November ballot by the County of Santa Clara. And Measure A, if passed would address a very, very important need in this community. And that is the seismic safety of Valley Medical Center. Valley Medical Center, as I think you all know, is the largest hospital in Silicon Valley. We are the public hospital for the County of Santa Clara and we provide care for one in four residents who live in the County. Last year we provided care for more than ninety seven hundred residents of the City of Sunnyvale and those numbers are going up every year. The problem that Valley Medical Center faces is that the state of California has a seismic mandate for all hospitals in the state, that they become seismically safe by 2013 to withstand and 8.0 earthquake and more than half of Valley Medical Center’s beds are in buildings that are not seismically compliant. This is a problem facing many hospitals in our community. But Valley Medical Center, of course, being the County hospital, doesn’t have any funding to deal with this. In fact, this is the largest unfunded mandate every handed down by the state of California. And so Measure A was drafted and placed on the ballot and if passed by two thirds of the voters of Santa Clara County this November, would provide eight hundred forty million dollars to address this problem. If this measure doesn’t pass, what we face is potentially disastrous. Valley Medical Center, if faced with a loss of more than half of its beds, would not be able to operate its level one trauma center or its burn center. Many of you know that there only two top level trauma centers in the state of California, excuse me, in the County of Santa Clara. One being at Stanford and the other being at VMC. A lot of folks have the misconception that VMC is the hospital for the poor and the uninsured. The safety net if you will. And while VMC is that, it also is a hospital that provides the top level burn care, spinal cord injury, brain injury and many other specialty centers for folks of all economic strata. And if faced with the loss of more than half of its beds and the loss of its trauma center, burn center, and other specialty centers, we would also be losing two hundred seventy two beds in a community that already has fewer hospital beds in it per capita than any other metropolitan area in this country. If Measure A does pass, what we will see is the main…the maintaining of the safety net institution for this county for a…for a…for public health. In fact, Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, has called this the number one public health crisis facing our community. So there’s a lot of education going on right now. We’ve already seen some information in the Mercury News. My hope is that the City of Sunnyvale will endorse Measure A, will help advocate and educate the voters of this community and others to make sure that folks realize how important Measure A is to pass. I have some information to hand to the Clerk if it pleases the council that I can leave with you.

Mayor Spitaleri: Thank you. Thank you for coming. See [unintelligible] to the clerk. We do have couple of questions. Councilmember Swegles.

Councilmember Swegles: Yeah Chris. You present a very interesting argument in regards to why we should support this. We do have…I did understand you to say how many residents of Sunnyvale have used your facility?

Chris Wilder: More than ninety-seven hundred residents of Sunnyvale received care at VMC last year. That number is up from the previous year and we have every reason to believe the number will be up again this year. In fact, the numbers of residents receiving care at VMC have gone up forty-five percent in the last five years.

Councilmember Swegles: Now when you’re serving this number, do you ask for their insurance when they come in?

Chris Wilder: We don’t. Valley Medical Center is the County, the public hospital. We provide care to everyone regardless of ability to pay. And in fact, the nurses who see our patients are proud of the fact that they never know whether or not our patients are well insured or homeless and have no insurance. We provide the same quality level of care to everyone.

Councilmember Swegles: So you’re asking…this is on the November Ballot?

Chris Wilder: That’s right.

Councilmember Swegles: And if we were to take the endorsement or do the endorsement, how soon would you need something of that type?

Chris Wilder: Well, as soon as possible. My hope is that this may not be a controversial issue, but the more support we have from the cities in Santa Clara County, the more likely we are to get the word out to voters. So the sooner your endorsement could be ratified the better, as far we’re concerned.

Councilmember Swegles: Okay, thank you. When you’re ready, I’d like to address that.

Mayor Spitaleri: Vice Mayor Hamilton.

Vice Mayor Hamilton: Yeah, I have a question of exactly who are the voters that are going to be voting on Measure A?

Chris Wilder: Measure A will be a County-wide ballot measure so all voters in the County of Santa Clara. The issue is that we need two-thirds to approve this before it passes. This is unlike the Measure A of two years ago, which was a more general county assessment. This is specific to Valley Medical Center. It is a general obligation bond which means it’s specific to construction of new hospital buildings. And because of that it needs two-thirds of the voters. Because the electorate is likely to be larger than we’ve ever seen before, there’s a lot of education that needs to be done.

Vice Mayor Hamilton: I seem to remember voting a few years ago for another hospital bond, because I live in a public hospital district. So, correct me if I’m wrong, but essentially there will be voters out there who are basically being asked to pay for two separate hospitals, is that correct?

Chris Wilder: Well it depends on where you live. Certainly there was recently a bond for, I know, El Camino hospital, if that’s the one you’re referring to.

Vice Mayor Hamilton: That’s the one I’m referring to.

Chris Wilder: Which was, of course, very important to do. I think what’s important to remember is that Valley Medical Center serves the entire County and in fact is the only one that takes everyone regardless of ability to pay, as I mentioned. We don’t turn folks away, regardless of whether they’re on MediCal, completely un-sponsored and so for a growing number of residents of Sunnyvale and the rest of our cities, VMC truly is the only place to go. And regardless of whether you’re insured, if you’re in, for example, god forbid, a bad traffic accident, VMC provides the only level one trauma care, other than Stanford University in this County.

Vice Mayor Hamilton: Okay.

Mayor Spitaleri: Thank you for your information. Next speaker we have is Laura Hughes.

Laura Hughes: You may know that the Heritage Park Museum is going to be opening in September and they have this beautiful new facility. And a group of us have gotten together and organized a raffle for a dinner for six inside the new museum. It will be beautiful, elegant setting. You win and you invite five of your friends. And I have tickets. The raffle, Sunnyvale Toyota has sponsored this and Cinnabar Winery has donated the wines. So it’s going to be catered by Cosmopolitan Catering. So if anybody wants tickets, let me know. And if you’d like more information, that’s AnneStewart@sunnyvaletoyota.com. Anne with an “e”. Thanks.

Vice Mayor Hamilton: And what is the cost per ticket?

Laura Hughes: Twenty dollars.

Vice Mayor Hamilton: And the raffle is being held on?

Laura Hughes: September 27th, the opening day, right at 3:45 I believe.

Councilmember Swegles: And how many tickets are you selling totally?

Laura Hughes: We have a thousand tickets. Would you like them all? I’ll package them up for you.

Mayor Spitaleri: Next speaker is Eric Huang.

Eric Huang: Greetings, Mr. Mayor, Sunnyvale Council. In mainland China there is only one television station that broadcast accurate and unbiased and uncensored information for all Chinese audiences, unlike the CCTV. This station is called NTDTV and is headquartered in New York. The news that the Chinese communist government desperately tries to cover up, like the SARS epidemics, the shabby workmanship of the school buildings that collapsed a mess at the Sichuan earthquake, and also most recently a hundred thousand people riot in Grido Province. They smash the police building because the police was harboring rape and murder victims because they have relationship with the public officials. News is broadcast over satellite at WO5 which is owned and operated by the French company, Eutelset. The Chinese regime hated NTDTV so much that it tried to bribe Eutelset with new creative contracts. Thanks to the intervention of the U.S. Congress and the European Union, these efforts was exposed and stopped back in 2005. On June 16, 2008, NTDTV’s signal went dark over China again. This time Eutelset claimed that their satellite transponder had some power supply issues and three weeks passed and they just kept playing this delay game. Renown NGO reporters without borders recently, just a few days ago, announced that they uncovered that this whole thing is a hoax set up by Eutelset. In a recorded conversation they also posted on the web site that their reporter posed as a Chinese official, talked with Eutelset representative in Beijing and that representative admitted that it was Eutelset’s CEO, Mr. Barretta, in France, who decided to stop NTDTV’s signal. Because we got repeated complaints and reminders from the Chinese government. The representative admitted that Eutelset worries only if U.S. Congress and government intervene again. So I’m asking all my fellow Sunnyvale residents, please call our congressional representatives, Anna Eshoo and our two California senators ask them to speak out, to tell the French companies that they must respect the principles of equality of access, pluralism and non-discrimination enshrined in Article 3 of Convention governing the operations of Satellite companies. Please call, your voice with help. Thank you very much.

Mayor Spitaleri: Thank you. Next speaker is Maria Pan.

Maria Pan: Good evening Councilmembers. Good evening City of Sunnyvale. I’m here to speak about homeless housing. And I understand that there’s going to be a new homeless housing project built in Sunnyvale and I would just like to recommend that the project be developed by a faith-based organization. I believe that a faith-based have more compassion for the homeless, for individuals with special needs. So I hope that the councilmembers will consider giving a faith-based organization the opportunity to develop homeless housing in Sunnyvale. Thank you.

Mayor Spitaleri: Thank you. Next person is Pat Meyering.

Patrick Meyering: Good evening. I’m Patrick Meyering. A couple of reports the City recently produced contain some mistakes of promises made by this city council in June 2007 to support The Blind Center. That center applied for funds along with other non-profit agencies and their purpose was to serve very low income blind Sunnyvale seniors. The center competed against other non-profits for a limited amount of city money. And the Blind Center indicated the types of services they provide. You decide that Sunnyvale would provide forty-five thousand dollars and that was a part of what the Blind Center was requesting. Regulations require that a written project agreement be prepared and the City took four months to prepare that document. The Blind Center was unable to sign that document because it misstated the services the Blind Center was going to provide. The Blind Center provides rehabilitation. It helps blind people learn to live independently and remain active. The document that Sunnyvale produced indicated that the Blind Center was going to provide residential facilities for clients to stay overnight. The Blind Center has never provided residential facilities. It has never proposed to. This mistake by the City of Sunnyvale blocked the forty-five thousand dollars from being received by the Blind Center. The Center asked that this mistake be corrected. And the City claims in their May 23rd 2008 report that this amounts to a request for new money. In the alternative, the City suggests that blind Sunnyvale residents can obtain rehabilitation at three other identified centers, one in Sunnyvale, one in Palo Alto and one in San Pablo. The City’s mistaken on both of these counts. It’s not a request for new money and the Blind Center already went through the competitive process one year ago. You stated at that time that Sunnyvale was going to provide forty-five thousand dollars to the Blind Center. Forty-five thousand dollars has not been provided due to the City’s mistake. On the second count, the three mentioned cities do not provide a realistic alternative to Sunnyvale’s blind residents. Those blind residents came to the council meeting three months ago and explained that that Sunnyvale organization does not do rehabilitation. It’s an employment referral organization and that specific agency refers blind Sunnyvale residents to the Blind Center for rehabilitation. The Palo Alto agency focuses on San Mateo County. The San Pablo agency is fifty-five miles away. That’s one hundred ten miles round trip. So Sunnyvale’s solution to Sunnyvale’s mistake is to tell blind Sunnyvale residents to take nine different bus connections to go fifty-five miles to get north of Berkeley, when their rehabilitation is available locally at the Blind Center. So the City broke its promise to Sunnyvale’s blind residents and to the Blind Center and action is needed to correct that. Thank you.

Mayor Spitaleri: Thank you. Next person is Chung Lim.