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• City of Cupertino
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  Cupertino City staff proposed new Capital Improvement Programs for FY 2024-25 at 3/19/2024 Council Meeting. Six (6) new projects were proposed with total cost about $19.5M.

  At the same time, there are seventeen (17) existing projects with remaining funds more than $25.8M, 6 nearly completed projects, and 5 completed projects. See here for a complete list.

  Because Cupertino is in a budget crisis right now, the city's capital reserve is expected to drain out in two years.

  Weeks later, city staff proposed City Work Program (CWP) for FY 2024-25 at 4/3/2024 Council Meeting.

  Comparing with proposed CWP staff proposed one year ago (4/4/2023), the new proposed CWP staff proposed on 4/3/2024 has a noticeable change: the new CWP didn't include any budget information. Some of the CWPs appeared in the 2023 CWP list which contains budget information. But there are some new CWPs (like "Speed Limit Lowing") totally missing budget information.

  The list of new CIPs can be found here. Below are the screenshots for each of them.

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  Which CIP do you support?

• Cupertino Union School District
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  District staff presented on CUSD property matters at the board advance meeting on January 23, 2025. The presentation can be found here.

  Current Property Conditions

  Below is the screenshot for property current conditions.
  75ed7db3-0010-4415-963a-ac5e8891bf83-image.png

  Options for Meyerholz and Finch

  Meyerholz Elementary School:

  Meyerholz Elementary School, which was closed (see here for more detail), currently houses Cuperdoodle, a district-run preschool, utilizing the portable structures of Meyerholz. For more details, see here.

  Finch Property:

  The Finch property is a 1.48-acre vacant lot purchased by the district around 2017. The house on the property was removed, and the contaminated soil was cleaned up. It is currently zoned R1-6, indicating single-family homes with a minimum 6,000-square-foot lot.

  Finch Property Options
  During the meeting, several options for the Finch property were discussed:

  Central Kitchen District Educational or Recreation needs City needs Revenue generation

  The first two options were briefly mentioned with high cost/maintenance. The option for city needs remains undecided due to a lack of formal communication with the City of Cupertino.

  Potential revenue options: The consultant presented three potential revenue generation options.

  Senior Project:. Estimated value range is $5.5M - $6.5M, but this option was ruled out due to the site's unsuitability for a senior project. Single Family Project: Estimated value range is $9M - $10M. Townhome Project. Estimated value range is $10M - 11M. Please notice it would be up to developer to change the zoning.

  The consultant advised that the district should not act as the developer. The recommended approach involves:

  Selling the property to a developer with a plan Purchasing another commercial property to generate rental revenue.

  These steps can be combined to appear as an "exchange" to the district.

  However, several questions require further exploration:

  Do we need to sell the Finch property? Keeping it vacant incurs maintenance costs, and the government might begin charging property taxes. If we sell the Finch property, should we exchange it for a commercial property?

  (Disclaimer: this article is NOT investment advice.) According to investopedia, the S&P 500 index has significantly outperformed real estate over the last 50 years. Also,

  The index comprises 500 top companies, offering more diversification and lower risk than specific real estate investments. The index ETF also provides quarterly dividends, offering the district a cash flow as well. Additionally, the index ETF is a "buy and hold" investment, eliminating the need for property management, tenant acquisition, and concerns about natural disasters.

  Meyerholz Options

  Currently, Cuperdoodle occupies the portables at Meyerholz. There are two rental options for Meyerholz: with or without the portables. Renting all buildings would generate more rental income, but the district would need to find a new site for Cuperdoodle if all buildings are rended out.
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• About
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  Patent pending Pofetl Voting Platform has following features:

  Voters are verified with two-factor authentication. A verification code is generated for voter after voting. The voters can use the verification code to verify their votes without worry about leaking privacy information. Final results as well as all the ballots identified by the verification code can be published after the voting period.

  It's much safer than current voting systems. Voters can be confident with the result because they can verify the results themselves.

• California
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  AB 2098 is wrong in several places:

  Unprofessional conducts should be treated the same, regardless of whether they are related to COVID-19 vaccines. Evaluating the long term effects of vaccines normally takes many years. It is against scientific method to say anything not align with current scientific consensus is misinformation. The vaccination/booster is still an ongoing process. It is impossible to say the current scientific consensus is settled. All vaccines have side effects. If a physician or surgeon promotes COVID-19 vaccines, and the patient is harmed by the side effects, should the physician or surgeon be hold responsible, too? Physicians and surgeons are protected by the First Amendment, too.

  There are many research shows the side effects of the COVID-19 vaccines, like this one.

• Announcements

  Announcements regarding our community

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  The mission of Pofetl Inc is to upgrade our society to Democracy 2.0.

  To achieve this mission, we urge all candidates for legislative branch, no matter which level you are running for, School Districts, City Councils, State Assemblies and Senates, or the Congress, to declare to be Pofetl Complaint.

  Pofetl Complaint incudes two promises:

  After elected, Pofetl Complaint Representatives should publish all the bills they are going to vote on pofetl.com in advance. People can deliberate on all of them, and they can vote on each of them after deliberation. In official votes, Pofetl Complaint Representatives should always vote according to the result of their districts. In other words, Pofetl Complaint Representatives will faithfully represent voters in their districts regardless their own opinion.

  List of Pofetl Complaint candidates or representatives:

  Long Jiao, candidate for California Assembly Member.
• General Discussion

  A place to talk about whatever you want

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  Welcome to your brand new NodeBB forum!

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• Comments & Feedback

  Got a question? Ask away!

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• Blogs

  Blog posts from individual members

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  Don’t make me wrong. I like the idea of Democracy. But I don’t like our current practices of Democracy.

  Our current practice is the Trustee Model of Representation. Voters vote for a candidate based on the belief that the candidate will represent them properly. Once elected, the representative works on their own for two, four or six years based on the length of the term. But voters basically lose control of their representative.

  This model fails in both theory and reality.

  There are only four ways of spending money.

  You spend your own money on yourself. Our everyday life works on this model. Fortunately it is also the most efficient way of spending money — you always try to spend your own money in a way that serves you the best. You spend your own money on someone else. Thinking of giving gifts for a coworker’s baby shower. You tend to not care about the gift, with staying under the budget being your main concern. You spend someone else’s money on yourself. One legal case is that if you are on a business trip your company can compensate for meals. You tend to spend as close to the limit as possible. You spend someone else’s money on someone else. You tend to not care about how much you spend and how the money is spent. Unfortunately, our Government falls in this model.

  The case is not only limited to money, but to everything, like natural resources and even the safety of the society. Even worse, most representatives are trying to convert some resources from Model 4 to Model 3, which is they can benefit from the resources they control for all the people. That’s why most people think their representatives are out of touch and even corrupted. Representatives who wholeheartedly work for the people are rare. You should cherish them if you are lucky enough to have some.

  Is there any solution? Fortunately, the answer is yes. With the help of modern technology, we can convert representatives to the Delegate Model of Representation. In this way, people as a whole controls how to spend their own money on themselves. Suddenly we return to the model 1 of spending, which is also the most efficient way.

  It will also be the first time to fulfill an American dream: the Government should be of the people, for the people and by the people.