The Cupertino Courier

City's stagnation won't be cured without a more consistent vision

By R.A. Blais

The laments over Vallco are misplaced. Cupertino residents don't deserve more "upscale" businesses. I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of upscale businesses--retail merchandise and restaurants--that have closed their doors in Cupertino during the last 38 years without comparable replacement. (Not to mention the not-so-upscale, e.g. Kmart, or the vacancy rate at The Oaks.) It seems that the citizens of Cupertino are not terribly interested in "upscale." The citizens of any community generally get what they are willing to pay for, unless they can get outsiders to pay the way for them.

Well, how does parochial Cupertino find these outsiders to pay for its local services? It must draw outsiders into the community.

What are the tourist attractions in Cupertino that will induce outsiders to get out of the car and walk around? Not much. Sign ordinances preclude discovering an attraction in time to safely stop, park and walk to it. The width of sidewalks certainly discourages them: they must walk single file to accommodate the other outsiders coming the other way. And finally, what attractions are there that a visitor from Atlanta might be interested in or aware of? Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Tandem headquarters are the only ones I can think of. Are these firms prepared to host tours, like Hershey does at Oakdale?

Workers in Cupertino who live elsewhere make up another group of outsiders that can spend money in Cupertino, and many do, but not enough to support the "upscale" hankerings of the City Council and Planning Commission. How come?

Access to The Oaks is really the pits--one entry from Stevens Creek and a couple from the grandest dead-end street in the county, Mary Avenue (emasculated by the citizens of Cupertino!). Access to Vallco is similarly constrained, only one entry on Stevens Creek for eastbound motorists and three labyrinthine ones off Wolfe. Contrast this to the access at Valley Fair and El Paseo and Westgate, which is surely a long cry from "upscale" and still struggling. And the management of the traffic signals on Stevens Creek is so abominable that just going and coming between Tandem and The Oaks can blow a lunch hour.

The problem envisaged by the City Council and Planning Commission is a shallow reflection of the true problem--citizens who enjoy being in a backwater community as long as it has world-class amenities. So the Planning Commission acts in ways that discourage public access to private facilities and raises the costs of private investors bringing income into the community; the council endorses these steps to protect its citizens from the madness of the outside world while bemoaning the lack of income-producing business in Cupertino. Until the council and citizens recognize you can't have your cake and eat it too, there will be no relief from the stagnation facing Cupertino.

R.A. Blais lives in Cupertino.

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