CITY COUNCIL INFORMATIONAL MEMORANDUM
Date: March 7, 2023
To: Cupertino City Council
From: Pamela Wu, City Manager
Re: Response to Council Inquiries
Background: On June 21, 2022, Councilmembers Chao and Moore moved to provide the following direction to staff:
Bring back a future agenda item for a study session to review past partnership and support for Cupertino Chamber of Commerce and discuss options of future partnership with the Chamber.
Staff is working on drafting an agreement with the Chamber of Commerce. Responses to the remaining items numbered 1 ‐ 10 are included in this memorandum.
Including information:
1. Information on other cities and their relationship with Chamber In 2022, staff conducted research on 10 cities in the County and their relationship with the local Chamber of Commerce. All cities surveyed have partnerships with their Chambers. Only 4 out of the 10 cities surveyed had a formal agreement in place. Some cities have one‐time agreements with their Chamber for specific projects. Funds provided to the Chambers in various cities have ranged from $295 to $1,461,601 annually.
The following table shows the details on the partnership other cities in Santa Clara County currently have in place with their Chambers.
City Chamber
Partnership
(Yes/No)
Payment
Amount to
Chamber
(annually)
Type of
Agreement
Additional Details
Campbell Yes $295
membership fee
No formal
agreement
Annual membership
Gilroy Yes $200,000 Formal agreement
in place until FY
19‐20
Collaborated on the Welcome
Center. City paid the Chamber
$200,000 annually for the
Economic Development
Corporation function until FY 19‐
20. Gilroy Yes $15,000‐$20,000 No formal
agreement
The Chamber facilitated business
grants for the City and were paid
15% of each approved
application.
Los Gatos Yes $60,000 Formal agreement Chamber operates the Visitor Center as well as Leadership Los
Gatos
Milpitas Yes $1,000
membership fee
No formal
agreement
Chamber partners on economic
development projects. Chamber
representative serves on the
Economic Development Trade
Commission
Morgan
Hill
Yes $550
membership fee
No formal
agreement
Annual membership plus
support for events and initiatives
Mountain
View
Yes $10,000 (for Tech
Showcase event)
Lease agreement Chamber leases City‐owned
building for nominal rent. Visitor
Center is also operated by the
Chamber, City covers the rent
City Chamber
Partnership
(Yes/No)
Payment
Amount to
Chamber
(annually)
Type of
Agreement
Additional Details
San Jose
(these are
one‐time
agreements,
unless
stated
otherwise)
Yes $95,000 in 2009 Formal agreement
with the Hispanic
Chamber of
Commerce in 2009
Chamber to help low to
moderate income entrepreneurs
in the City through
programming and integration of
newly formed businesses with
Business Owner Place online
platform
$50,000 in 2014 Formal agreement
to San Jose Silicon
Valley Chamber of
Commerce in 2014
Chamber to develop a Business
Development Strategy to
support job growth, business
retention, expansion, attraction,
and promote City’s positive
attributes
$76,000 in 2017 Formal
agreements with
the Hispanic
Chamber ($40,000)
and Black
Chamber (36,000)
in 2017.
Ethnic Chambers to provide
technical assistance to small and
ethnic businesses. City is
currently negotiating a new
agreement with the Hispanic
Chamber for FY 22‐23
$50,000 in 2018 Formal agreement
with San Jose
Silicon Valley
Chamber in 2018
Chamber to provide services to
enhance the environment for
small business community,
branding the City, workforce
readiness of residents and meet
with visiting international
business delegations
$100,000 in 2020 Formal agreement
with Black
Chamber of
Commerce
($35,000) and
Hispanic Chamber
of Commerce
($65,000) in 2020
Chamber to raise consciousness
to buy local and focus on
supporting local businesses
impacted by COVID‐19 and
facilitating small businesses
reopening
Santa Clara Yes $1,461,601 Formal agreement
(one‐time) with
Chamber in 2017
Chamber to provide Convention
and Visitors Bureau Services
City Chamber
Partnership
(Yes/No)
Payment
Amount to
Chamber
(annually)
Type of
Agreement
Additional Details
Saratoga Yes $17,137
membership fee
in 2022
Formal agreement Chamber to provide services for
walk‐in, telephone, email, or fax
requests on tourism &
information materials, city
information & materials,
quarterly report
Sunnyvale Yes $1,000
membership fee
No formal
agreement
Annual membership
2. What other payments are made to contracts which do not have any written agreements? The chamber is the only contract we are aware of that had a verbal agreement.
3. What other payments are made for evergreen contracts, which will continue without any Council approval?
The City’s contract management
system (Cobblestone) shows that there are no evergreen contracts.
The City has drafted a new Purchasing Policy, which is being reviewed by staff and the City’s internal auditors for conformance with industry best practices and which will establish procedures for recurring procurement of goods and services from the same vendor. This review will include evergreen contracts. Once staff has completed their review, this policy will be brought to City Council.
4. What process is there to confirm an invoice contains enough information to justify the amount of the invoice?
The City has a multi‐step process for invoice entry and approval. Department staff are responsible
for reviewing the invoice and determining if there is sufficient information to pay. The same staff person enters the invoice and documentation into the City’s financial system and routes it for approval. The invoice is then sent to a Supervisor or Analyst for invoice review and payment approval. This approval includes a review of the invoice for sufficient information for payment.
Once approved the invoice is routed via the City’s financial system for Finance’s review. This review ensures an invoice is attached, the amount on the invoice and amount entered match and the selected account being billed to is reasonable.
5. Whether Chamber qualifies for nonprofit fees for facility rental The Cupertino Chamber of Commerce is registered as a nonprofit and has received the nonprofit rental rate for booking City facilities. The Chamber provides the City the IRS 501 c Determination letter per City’s Fee Schedule requirements.
6. What communication methods do we have with all businesses who have Cupertino business licenses?
There are several methods of communication in place for all business license holders in Cupertino including annual renewal notices, email, Business Connect newsletter, Cupertino Scene, and Minimum Wage Mailers.
7. How do we support ALL Cupertino businesses?
The Economic Development Division aims to connect with and support all new, existing, and even prospective businesses in the City. The Division works closely with various City departments including CDD, Administrative Services, IT, and Public Works, as well as external partners such as the SBDC, Chamber, and SVEDA to help understand the needs of our local businesses and share resources with them. In addition to these efforts, Economic Development staff has recently launched several initiatives to provide support to and connect with all businesses in Cupertino including the Cupertino Business Outreach Program, Business Connect Newsletter, and local economy survey, with more programs currently in the pipeline.
8. Liability insurance certificate from Chamber or waiver signed by staff? Liability insurance is not required for groups renting facilities unless alcohol is being served.
Organizations running festivals are required to provide liability insurance, and staff receives this insurance from the Chamber of Commerce.
9. I Love Cupertino contract and subscription and itemized expenses In 2022, City Council had directed staff to provide a report on payments made by the City to the Chamber for I Love Cupertino Program. In 2018, per Council’s direction at the time to develop the program, the City partnered with the Chamber to launch the I Love Cupertino program.
The amounts paid by the City for I Love Cupertino program are shown in the table below. These costs include design and development of the platform and concept implementation during program launch, as well ongoing cost for database subscription, website hosting and website maintenance. There have not been any invoices submitted or payments made for the program since July 1, 2021.
Fiscal Year Cost
FY 17‐18 $30,215
Logo concept and design
Program implementation
Data subscription
Website concept, design, layout and deployment
Domains
Social media content
FY 18‐19 $25,175
Data subscription
Website hosting
Website Maintenance
FY 19‐20 $5,556
‐ Member management subscription for business directory (Membee) FY 20‐21 $4,224
‐ Member management subscription for business directory (Membee) FY 21‐22 $0
FY 22‐23 $0
Total $65,170
10. Why IT Department did not help build the website
IT was not involved in this project. When this program was created, IT was working on multiple critical projects and would not be able to deliver to meet desired timeline. Therefore, staff did not ask IT to work on this project. Instead, staff partnered with the Chamber of Commerce to design and host the program.
Next Steps: Although the future agenda item added by Councilmember Moore and Councilmember Chao at the June 21 council meeting calls for a study session in order to get answers to the questions in this report, staff has addressed all the questions in detail via this informational memo. If Council wishes to discuss this further, this can be added as a future agenda item by Council.
Sustainability Impact: No sustainability impact.
Fiscal Impact: No fiscal impact.
_____________________________________
Prepared by: Tina Kapoor, Economic Development Manager
Reviewed by: Matt Morley, Assistant City Manager
Chris Jensen, City Attorney
Approved for Submission by: Pamela Wu, City Manager