In the meantime, Fred Chan, who had agreed to contribute $250,000 to the $1.2 million fundraising campaign to furnish the library has withdrawn his donation following the council's flap over whether to place a plaque with his name on the exterior of the community hall building.

"The library fundraising effort has been severely crippled," said Barbara Rogers, chairwoman of the fundraising committee and a former Cupertino mayor. "Presently, prospective donors are reluctant to give because they do not want their names disparaged and defamed publicly by any council member from the dais at a council meeting."

Rogers said she thinks the character and motives of the fundraising committee also have been impugned.

Although donor Fred Chan said he sincerely wants to contribute, he says he does not want to be stuck in the middle of a very confusing situation.

"There's too much confusion and misunderstanding," Chan said. "I want to help the community, not create confusion. The council should know what they want to do before soliciting donations. I would donate with name or no name recognition, but they need to figure out what they want before talking with donors. I am a low-key person; I don't want to get involved with politics."

According to Chan, to further contribute to the fundraising efforts, he has asked several of his friends to donate as well. But since the heated debate took place, they have all decided to hold onto their money until the situation is resolved.

Chan, 54, is the chairman of ESS Technology, a semiconductor producer in Fremont. Although he and his family reside in Los Altos, they are no strangers to Cupertino. Chan's parents have been Cupertino residents for more than 20 years, and his children currently attend Cupertino schools.

An immigrant from Hong Kong, Chan attended the University of Hawaii. He and his wife run a charity, the Ohana Foundation, that contributes to schools there. He also makes regular contributions to other educational institutions, such as Stanford University.

To better understand the current situation, one has to go back on the timeline to the outset of the fundraising process.

As part of the campaign to raise $1.2 million to furnish the library, a group of three—former library foundation president Dorothy Stow, supervising librarian Mary Ann Wallace and then-mayor Richard Lowenthal—created a list of structures for naming opportunities. The city council unanimously approved the list in July 2002.

In spite of the unanimous vote, a controversy began when Vice Mayor Sandra James said at a later meeting that she did not understand that placing the community hall on the list meant the whole structure would get a naming plaque.

This was after the fundraising committee solicited Chan to give $250,000 to the project, and in recognition of his contribution, the committee submitted Chan's name for a plaque that would go on the outside of the community hall building.

During two council meetings March 17 and April 7, James explained her opposition to the Fred Chan plaque.

She said it was her understanding that when the council approved the list, donor plaques would only apply to interior rooms, not the building itself. She said she didn't believe in selling the rights to name a public building that is paid for with taxpayers' money, though she didn't see a problem with naming rooms inside a building. James also expressed concern that the committee might not know the donor well enough. She highlighted a case in which an award-winning coach at a local university was recently accused of rape.

Her four colleagues on the council, on the other hand, understood their unanimous approval of the naming list to include the community hall building itself and not just the interior rooms. So when the council decided again on March 17 whether to include the community hall building in the list, a 4-1 vote was cast to keep the whole building as one of the naming opportunities.

When the issue came up again at the April 7th meeting, council members as well as several members of the community engaged in a heated discussion.

Mayor Michael Chang said he was uncomfortable with the sensationalization of the issue and criticized James' use of the word "selling" for offering name plaques to donors. He argued that the risk of putting a "rapist's" name on a room or a courtyard is equally high.

"Either we support the library foundation with the concept of raising money with recognition or not. I am just asking for some integrity and consistency in this process," he said.

Chang also said, "The same list has existed since last July, and in eight months, there hasn't been a single issue raised by anyone from the community. It was only when a donor was solicited that suddenly there was all this concern."

Since that emotional debate, the fundraising committee has stopped its solicitation efforts, leaving in the bank the $73,000 already raised.

Some involved with the process, including Chang and Rogers, believe James is raising the naming of the community hall building issue because the prospective donor is Asian American.

"It's a crying shame, completely unnecessary," Rogers said. "I believe the community has been badly damaged. Many people have worked for more than 15 years to build trust between neighbors who started out not knowing each other very well. Many good things were accomplished. Now it is generally understood that one council member speaking publicly at a council meeting from the dais has cast aspersions on one member particularly and by innuendo all of the Asian community. This is absolutely unacceptable in Cupertino. I am angry, appalled and grieved."

In addition to Fred Chan, Rogers said, other Chinese Americans are considering making donations.

"This is absolutely ridiculous," James said. "It is not a race issue; it's an issue of process, policy and what the community wants. I was just thinking selling the naming rights to our public buildings is a big change and the community needs to participate and talk about process. There are many possible complications related to putting names on public buildings. I don't think the community wants that."

Dorothy Stow, said she never intended to include the community hall building but did include the rooms inside the building. Nevertheless, the majority of the city council understood the item differently.

James does not see why the committee stopped its fundraising efforts, but she said there is nothing wrong with taking a break to think about the matter clearly.

"My suggestion is that they stop fundraising right now and wait until the construction bids come in," James said. "If the bids are lower than what the city has budgeted, then we won't need to fundraise. And there's a good chance that the bids will be lower. Barbara Rogers said two conditions have to be met before the fundraising campaign can be resumed.

The first is that the fundraising efforts must include businesses, trusts and foundations in Cupertino or have a Cupertino connection as potential parties from whom donations may be solicited.

In addition, Rogers said the city council must assure that no individual council member would use her or his office to disparage or defame, directly or indirectly, any prospective donor.