Cupertino council race recount decided by 63 votes

R “Ray” Wang has won a spot on the Cupertino City Council in a tight race that triggered a recount for one of two open seats.

Wang will take the second open council seat with 7,641 votes, or 18.5% of the vote, as of Dec. 2 at 4:30 p.m. He got 63 more votes than Rod Sinks, who received 7,578 votes or 18.4% of the vote. The contentious, at-large race automatically triggered a recount by the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters, which happens when the margin of victory is either less than 0.25% of ballots cast or fewer than 25 votes. The recount ended Monday for the five-person council and final results will be certified Dec. 5.

Wang could not be reached for comment.

The results signal a significant shift in the Cupertino City Council’s power balance. Wang, a former city planning commissioner, ran on a political slate with frontrunner Councilmember Kitty Moore. Wang and Moore will shift the council majority — which consists of Mayor Sheila Mohan, Vice Mayor J.R. Fruen and Councilmember Hung Wei — from its pro-development stance to a less development-friendly one. Both Moore and Wang said they are resident-first and advocate for responsible development.

Wang said he’s grateful for the grassroots campaign he and Moore ran.

“We’re just massively overjoyed in the sense that residents are looking for more responsible and responsive services from the city. There’s a chance to actually make sure that they see that, and more importantly, we get more resident input,” he told San José Spotlight.

Sinks, a former mayor who pushed a pro-development campaign, ran alongside Wei on his own political slate. He advocated for completing The Rise, Cupertino’s largest housing development at the former Vallco Mall site despite its status as a ministerial project — meaning the city council doesn’t have as much say. His campaign was complicated by Wei’s stage four lung cancer diagnosis.

He congratulated Wang and Moore on their win, but voiced concern over the outcome and the city’s future under their leadership.

“I think the city is going to fall on challenging times now because I ran on a platform of economic development,” he told San José Spotlight. “We will, I think, lose the opportunity to get a downtown at  Vallco.”

The last time the council majority flipped was in 2022, when Mohan and Fruen were elected. Other council candidates included Parks and Recreation Commissioner Claudio Bono and former mayors Barry Chang and Gilbert Wong.

Mohan said over the past few weeks, she had a sense Wang and Moore would win. She’s hopeful the council will be able to collaborate even though Mohn will be in the minority.

“I am confident we’ll all be able to work together, to continue to make our city safer, more affordable, more vibrant than it has ever been,” she told San José Spotlight. “These are visions or ideas that we all have in common.”

The election was divisive this year, with topics such as development and the budget splitting residents. All candidates touched on The Rise, which promises nearly 2,700 homes, including 890 affordable ones, and about 1.95 million square feet of office space. The next city council may have some say over the project, but not as much as other developments because its ministerial status allows it to bypass some requirements.

Candidates also addressed the strained budget — largely a result of the loss of Apple sales tax revenue after a state audit. The city was recently told it could keep the more than $70 million in sales tax revenue officials thought it might have to give back. Councilmembers voted to allocate about $10 million of that windfall into a public employees retirement benefit plan last month, but officials still anticipate future budget shortfalls.

Cupertino resident San Rao, who’s lived in the city since 2013 and worked in it since 1998, said he’s glad Wang and Moore won because previous city leadership accepted staff recommendations without thoroughly vetting the information.

“Residents were able to see through what was going on in the city,” he told San José Spotlight. “It is a victory for the residents and let us hope that common sense can prevail once again.”

Wang said once he officially takes the seat, his goals include increasing fiscal accountability, economic development and public safety.

The more you speak with people and learn what they need, bring people together — that’s how you build community inside of a city,” he said. “At the end of it, that’s really what we’re trying to do, is build a better community.”

Contact Annalise Freimarck at [email protected] or follow @annalise_ellen on X, formerly known as Twitter.