The Cupertino Courier Photograph by Skye Dunlap Mayor Wally Dean presented a dense state of the city speech, exploring a variety of city priorities, from the expansion of the senior center to increasing Vallco's retail sales. Technology tops the list at State of City By Michelle Ku The future was clearly present at Mayor Wally Dean's State of the City address on Thursday. With some flash and panache, Dean emphasized what will be the future of the city: students, technology and growth. Deporting from traditional state of the city addresses, Dean presented five students with technology awards and had five young speak about their perspectives on the community and the future. Dean's multimedia speech, titled "Technology and Service," presented a clear-cut vision of the issues he feels the city needs to tackle in upcoming years. During the eight years in which Dean has served as a councilmember, he has seen a change in the technological resources of the community. When he first took office in 1991, the computers in City Hall weren't yet connected to each other.Today the city also has a comprehensive website. To continue the technological improvements, the city is looking into a voice recognition system as well as an online business permit form and records information search. Recently, TCI Cablevision installed a new fiber-optic system providing clearer pictures and high-speed cable Internet services at home. The look of the city will continue to change, Dean said. Within the next 12 months, Stevens Creek Boulevard, from Foothill Expressway to Lawrence Expressway, and De Anza Boulevard will be repaved. Landscaping work will continue based on the "Heart of the City" plan. Five hundred trees have already been planted on Stevens Creek and another 500 will be planted by June. The Parks and Recreation Department will work on a campaign to eliminate graffiti within 24 hours of a tagging incident. Dean touched on the upcoming library, senior center and Cupertino Sports Center expansions. The initial project estimate for the library was $6 million, but now it's $25 million. With retail sales on the decline, the redevelopment of Vallco is an important issue. Vallco's retail sales figure of $172 per square foot is lower than at the two closest major shopping centers, Stanford Shopping Center and Valley Fair. The figure is even lower than the $206 average for malls in the western United States. With the surrounding competition--Stanford Shopping Center, Sunnyvale Town Center, San Jose Town and Country and Valley Fair--redeveloping and renovating, Vallco will be left behind. Looking toward the future, population density is an issue as development continues and the city completes the annexation of Rancho Rinconada. "Do we build up, or do we hold our own?" Dean asked. Garden Gate, another county section, might be annexed into the city. And then there's the issue of the San Jose annex from Bollinger to Prospect roads and De Anza Boulevard to Lawrence Expressway. The area petitioned to be incorporated into Cupertino in the 1980s, but San Jose wanted to keep the retail strip along De Anza. Speaking of awards, Dean named Alan Busby from Monta Vista High School, Yosen Lin from Cupertino High School, Rory Loeb from Homestead High School, Kiel Sturm from Fremont High School and David Wortham from Monta Vista as honorees for their contributions to the community as website creators, school system administrators, volunteer work and academic achievement. "Instead of the old days of athlete awards, things have changed and the technology in the area, especially from the kids, is unbelievable," Dean said. Each of the high schools in the Fremont Union High School District was represented by a student speaker: Macy Armstrong from Cupertino, Ankur Bahl from Lynbrook High School, Brian Dong from Monta Vista, Sujata Ganpule from Homestead High School and Ebony Winston from Fremont. When Dean was serving his first term as mayor, he also had five students speak at the State of the City address. "The first time I did it, the frightening thing was the kids spoke a heck of a lot better than us," Dean said. Dean also presented special City Employee awards to Bob Cowan, director of community development, and Bert Viskovich, director of public works, for their 30 years of service to the city. "One of the things you can do as mayor is create your own awards," Dean said. The Chamber of Commerce also recognized the public safety officers of the year at Thursday's lunch. Deputy Ron Karrle and Deputy Kim Morgenthaler were honored for winning first place in a statewide police motorcycle competition, where they competed against the largest police departments in the state and the California Highway Patrol. The Chamber also tapped firefighter engineer Bob Connolly for his willingness to partake in the department's fledgling paramedic program when it began in December 1995. [ Back to Contents Page | Cupertino Courier Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Cupertino Courier, February 3, 1999. ©1999 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.