Two Cupertino councilmembers at the center of a recent investigation accused city staff of cutting backroom deals, criticized them for their work and often made large requests for information, according to hundreds of pages of newly released emails by the city.
The 185 emails between Councilmembers Kitty Moore and Liang Chao and City Manager Pamela Wu would normally be exempt from public view but City Attorney Christopher Jensen posted the emails on the city website following a recent council decision to release a portion of the communications included in the investigation.
The investigation, which was conducted by Santa Rosa-based employment attorney Linda Daube, revealed a culture of distrust in city staff by Moore and Chao and show how emails sent by the pair were often construed by their recipients as “threatening, accusatory and somewhat coercive.”
Tensions have intensified in recent years between councilmembers, particularly those backed by Better Cupertino. Since 2014, the resident group — of which Chao is a founder — has focused on what they call a balanced growth approach to the city and the regional housing crisis.
Daube — who was commissioned by the city to conduct the investigation — reviewed more than 1,500 emails and interviewed 16 former and current executive and management staff to determine the validity of complaints about the strained relationship between the council and staff. In a memo, Jensen said the remaining emails would not be released because they are protected by attorney-client privilege and other exemptions.
Councilmember J.R. Fruen, who was one of three councilmembers who voted to release the emails, called the email dump “illuminating” as to “how petty some of the concerns” were — specifically noting a complaint made by Moore about the food provided at council meetings.
In a Feb. 11, 2023 email to the city manager, Moore called food provided at council and planning commission meetings “grossly fattening,” stating that she wanted “low-fat and low-sodium heart-healthy options.” Two days later, Wu responded that they would keep her dietary concerns in mind for the next meeting and also suggested that Moore could opt out of eating dinner with the council ahead of its meetings.
Moore responded, invoking HIPAA — a privacy law that deals with information in healthcare settings.
“I believe I have rights regarding having dietary needs met when meals are provided so that I am not discriminated against and it is such that HIPAA protects me from privacy violations,” she wrote. “While you may have thought suggesting I don’t have a meal was cute, you are violating my rights.”
In a Jan. 30, 2023 email, Moore accuses city staff of cutting “back door deals” with the Cupertino Chamber of Commerce.
“What is particularly disturbing is that the Chamber not only took thousands of dollars without any contract and a back door deal with staff, endorsed and contributed thousands of dollars from the Vallco developer to council candidates, lobbies for various legislation and is now cutting an official back door deal apparently at a dollar amount that will allow it to be signed by staff and not even go to council?”
Moore has been a critic of the controversial redevelopment of the Vallco Shopping Center, which would bring 2,402 homes, 400,000 square feet of retail and 1.8 million square feet of office space to the city.
She told the Mercury News that she was referring to an invoice the city received from the Chamber of Commerce for doing work on the website, which the councilmember said there was no contract for.
She also criticized the council majority’s decisions to release the emails, saying that “three councilmembers voted to remove the privacy of the attorney-client privilege and indelibly harm the free flow of communications in an effort to completely silence my ability to have an opinion and to ask tough questions.”
Emails from Chao to the city manager show large requests for information as well as the councilmember making accusations and critiques of how city staff is doing their jobs.
In a Feb. 4, 2023 email regarding a safe routes to school newsletter and the mention of a bicycle garden in Memorial Park, Chao wrote, “I would like to know the appropriateness of the city staff utilizing the city newsletter to advocate specifically for one element in a park. I thought the city staff should follow directions from the council through the city manager, rather than ‘advocating’ for one specific outcome. This puts staff in a position that some members of the public might perceive as ‘biased.’ This is especially sensitive when the position the staff advocates coincides with some special interest group, who works closely with staff.”
Chao told the Mercury News that she believes it’s her duty to “ensure that Cupertino residents are well served by the city government with transparency, accountability and community engagement.” She added that she would like Daube to release the full transcripts of the interviews “so that we don’t rely on selective narratives in a report, which do not capture the whole truth.” Chao has been outspoken about what she considers is the one-sidedness of the report.
In the emails, both Moore and Chao are often seen requesting large amounts of information, which Wu has noted would take many hours of staff time to gather. Fruen said the requests could be classified as policy direction by the councilmembers, which is typically made by the entire governing body of the council.
“In the emails, they seem to think they’re asking questions, but what they’re doing is demanding an inordinate amount of staff time,” Fruen said. “They know this and yet they continue to behave this way and don’t understand what the nature of the problem is.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com