The remarks drew ire from housing advocates
In an annual address, the mayor of Cupertino said, in an apparent joke, the city would build a wall around itself and make San Jose pay for it. (screenshot/Cupertino State of the City)
By EMILY DERUY | ederuy@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: February 5, 2019 at 4:45 pm | UPDATED: February 6, 2019 at 1:16 pm
Bay Area housing advocates are pushing back at what they see as a tasteless joke from the mayor of Cupertino at a time when thousands of families are struggling to get by in one of the nation’s most expensive real estate markets.
In a reference to President Donald Trump and his promise to build a border wall and have Mexico pay for it, Cupertino Mayor Steven Scharf suggested recently that the city would build a wall around itself and that San Jose would foot the bill.
“You’ve heard about the wall along our southern border,” Scharf said toward the beginning of his State of the City address, showing a picture of the city surrounded by a black border. “This is the wall around Cupertino. We have a big problem with all these Teslas coming through our city from Saratoga, and other people from other cities, so we came up with this proposal. San Jose will be mainly paying for it. It’s not going to come out of our own taxes.”
The apparent joke drew some chuckles when it was delivered. But the comments have drawn ire online, particularly from housing advocates who have criticized the city and other wealthy suburban towns for failing to add enough affordable housing. Plans to build housing at the old Vallco Mall site have been met with intense pushback from community members.
“Our housing crisis and the pain it is inflicting on thousands and thousands of Bay Area residents is no joke,” the Bay Area Council said in a tweet responding to the mayor’s address.
Reached by phone Wednesday, Scharf said the comment was a “joke.”
“They look for every opportunity to bash Cupertino,” the mayor said.
The city, Scharf continued, has given the green light to a number of affordable housing projects. But, he acknowledged, few projects move forward quickly.
“We’re kind of in a quandary,” Scharf, who was endorsed by Better Cupertino, a group opposed to high-density housing, said.
Still, housing groups and elected officials in San Jose aren’t finding humor in the mayor’s comments.
“Congrats to Cupertino Mayor Steven Scharf for out-Trumping Trump on the night of the [State of the Union] by declaring Cupertino will build a wall and make San Jose pay for it. We are not amused,” tweeted San Jose City Councilman Lan Diep, the only remaining Republican on the council.
“Okay. Then let’s see how many Apple employees show up for work on Monday,” tweeted Diep’s fellow council member, Dev Davis, who left the Republican Party last year.
A couple of years ago, the tech giant built a massive spaceship-looking office complex in Cupertino, home to some 13,000 workers. Housing groups called on the city to add to its housing stock.
But, Scharf said, the idea that all those Apple workers were new to the area isn’t fair. Before the spaceship, the area was home to a Hewlett-Packard office complex and most workers at the new Apple office were existing employees of the company.
The idea that the spaceship threw the city’s jobs-housing balance out of whack, he said, “is just not accurate.”
Scharf also criticized CASA, a regional group made up of private and public sector members aimed at increasing housing production in the Bay Area, particularly affordable housing.
“It’s called the Committee to House the Bay Area but I really call it the Committee to Destroy the Bay Area,” the mayor said during his address.
The funding scheme, Scharf added, is “very scary,” with the group wanting to take property tax revenue away from smaller cities. He also suggested building high-density housing would drive up house prices.
“We really have to start not falling for the false rhetoric that we’re being presented with,” Scharf said.
San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo declined to comment. But in the past, Liccardo, who has called on San Jose to add some 10,000 affordable homes to the city’s housing stock in the next several years, has urged the mayors of surrounding cities like Cupertino to do their fair share to address the region’s housing crisis.
This isn’t the first time Cupertino’s elected officials have made controversial remarks about housing.
Last year, then-Cupertino Mayor Darcy Paul suggested during his own State of the City address that the city’s lack of housing was not “dire,” sparking anger from housing advocates
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