The Cupertino Courier

Photograph by Skye Dunlap

During Sorensen's council tenure, Cupertino purchased the Sports Center and Blackberry Farm and began development of Creekside Park, set to open next year.

Heart of the City

Lauralee Sorensen still loves Cupertino-- but she won't miss all those meetings

By Pam Marino

To those who worked with her over the years, it was the qualities that made Lauralee Sorensen a good nurse that also made her a good Cupertino councilmember.

More than one council colleague, past and present, used the terms "compassionate" and "conscientious" to describe Sorensen.

Term limits have brought Sorensen's eight-year council run to an end. With her additional years on the Planning Commission, Sorensen has given 13 years of service directly to the city of Cupertino.

Yet her service started long before that. Sorensen, who moved to the city 33 years ago, served Cupertino's children and parents as a school nurse for 23 years, while she and her husband, Martin, raised two boys. The job was ideal, she said, because her work schedule and her children's school schedule were nearly identical. "It was a good career, it really was," Sorensen said. She still works on occasion for the district, as a consultant for the school attendance review board, reviewing truancy cases.

Because she was involved in cases with school families who were in financial need, Sorensen joined Cupertino Community Services as a sort of unofficial district representative to the board of directors. She eventually served as the board's president and still sits on the agency's advisory board.

It was Cupertino's sister city program with Toyokawa, Japan, that brought Sorensen to City Hall. Her family hosted two Japanese students in an exchange program with Toyokawa one year, and to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the program, Sorensen joined a delegation that visited Toyokawa in 1983.

"That's when I decided I wanted to get involved," Sorensen said. "I wanted to give something back to the community."

Sorensen decided to apply to the Planning Commission and was appointed soon afterward. At that time in Cupertino, the city was experiencing a period of rapid growth, especially with companies such as Apple and Hewlett-Packard expanding. "I learned an incredible amount about planning issues," Sorensen said.

About one year before Sorensen's first City Council election, the ice rink at Vallco Fashion Park became a hot topic in Cupertino after mall owners announced they wanted to get rid of it.

"The community came unglued," Sorensen said. "The council wasn't aware of how upset the community was."

Sorensen was very aware of community sentiment, however, and she found herself thinking what she would do to handle the situation if she were on the council. She realized then she would run for office.

In 1989, voters concerned about growth issues swept out incumbents in favor of three newcomers, Sorensen, Nick Szabo and Marshall Goldman. Sorensen credits her work in the schools for helping to get her elected, since many children and their parents knew her from leading human growth and development classes.

In 1992 Sorensen took her turn as mayor of Cupertino. "It was that year we did all of the general plan hearings. I had to preside over that and keep the meetings moving," she said. In addition to dealing with controversies over land use, Sorensen had to help the city make tough financial decisions during one of Cupertino's leanest years because of the nationwide recession.

"I sort of laugh now," Sorensen said of all her years on council. "You think you can change the world, and you can't." One of the most important lessons Sorensen said she learned was that to get anything done you have to compromise.

Sorensen's role on the council became one of building bridges and seeking compromise between councilmembers, and between citizens and the council. "My husband calls me the great conciliator," she said.

Fellow councilmembers who have worked with her and watched her over the years say Sorensen's attributes served the city well.

"Her decisions are very reasoned, not emotional," former Councilwoman Barbara Rogers said. "I think she has been consistently concerned with what's best for the city and the people in it."

Goldman, who served one complete term with Sorensen, agreed.

"I thought that she was a person of great integrity," he said. "She was very good to work with. Those two qualities are things that are going to be sorely missed."

Sorensen said much of her work was behind the scenes, unnoticed by the public. "I helped a lot of people that way," she said. "I have no need to be out there doing the sound bites."

She pointed to the purchase of the Sports Center and Blackberry Farm and to the development of Creekside Park, due to open in 1998, all done through compromise and behind-the-scenes work.

"That's probably what I'm going to enjoy most when I leave the council. We're going to have more parks for our kids and grandchildren."

Over the years Sorensen also worked closely with city staff, even volunteering her time to teach them first aid on a regular basis. "These folks frequently go the extra mile," she said of employees. "They're good people, and they're people who care about what they do, too."

Although leaving the council, Sorensen is not through serving Cupertino.

She said she is currently working with a small group of people to form a community foundation, a fundraising group that will eventually help financially support agencies such as CCS, Cupertino Senior Day Care and Social Advocates for Youth.

Regarding her 13 years with the city, Sorensen said she'll miss most the people at City Hall she has gotten to know.

However, not everything she did as a commissioner and councilmember will be missed.

"I won't miss the meetings."

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