Cupertino council forms ad hoc subcommittee to review community grant and festival fee‑waiver policies

Cupertino — The City Council voted on May 11 to form an ad hoc subcommittee to review the city's community grant policy and the festival fee‑waiver program and return policy recommendations for future budget years.

The subcommittee will be composed of Mayor Moore and Vice Mayor Chow and will examine whether current scoring, eligibility and program rules best serve Cupertino residents. The council motion was made during general budget deliberations after questions about why several organizations received partial funding and how the parks commission had ranked applicants.

The parks commission chair, Gopal, explained that applicants are scored against established criteria and that limited funding required partial allocations for some groups. Council members asked whether recipients are required to include the city logo on outreach materials and whether the city receives recipient reports; staff said recipient reports are provided to the parks and recreation commission and that agreements typically allow use of the city logo but staff do not always receive every marketing flyer for review.

The motion passed and the clerk announced the motion carried; the June budget adoption is unchanged by the policy review, which the council said would inform future fiscal years and could produce policy recommendations to apply beginning in 2027 or later. The council did not record a detailed roll call tally on the transcript available, and staff said any policy changes would be presented back to the full council for approval.

Council requested that staff continue to include detailed scoring information from the Parks & Recreation Commission as part of the budget packet and to provide clarity on whether festival fee‑waiver amounts should be adjusted to reflect increases in sheriff costs charged to events.