Candidate for
Council Member; City of Mountain View

Forging a Sustainable City

My work with the city of Mountain View (as a resident/voter, a volunteer, an appointee, and an elected official) has been motivated by the desire to forge a sustainable city--economically, environmentally, and socially. Across various cycles, both up and down, I have experienced a pervasive quality of life in Mountain View that I would like to see preserved and enhanced, especially as we work to steer a course through the present difficult times. In the broadest sense, sustainability has been defined as "Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs."

For me, forging a sustainable city does not mean applying a "top down blueprint," a specific futurist plan for how we all ought to live, however tempting this might be for some of us; it means forging links between the present and the future, such that, "after we have taken what we need, we make sure that we have re-stocked the shelves of the pantry."

A Pattern of "Sustainable Re-Development"

In the context of managing the city, this underlying ethic or motivation is expressed as the strong conviction that the next group of decision-makers should have at least as many options open to them as we were given by those that preceded us. This means insisting on what I like to a call a "pattern of sustainable re-development." As the needs of the city and its residents change and evolve over time, we should be always proceed in a fiscally responsible fashion, by making strategic investments that protect and enhance the revenue streams that are the foundation of our excellent city services, by not spending our emergency reserves, by consistently delivering balanced budgets year after year, even if it means making hard choices, and by investing in state-of-the-art infrastructure improvements that bring us ever closer to the goal of a sustainable city in the "green development" sense.

We should also bear in mind that social or cultural sustainability means not creating a pace of change that outstrips the balance of forces that express themselves through our democratic processes; we need to continue to listen to our neighborhoods. If we replace currently vacant commercial properties with new housing developments, and replace undeveloped property with new housing developments, and replace existing housing with too many higher density condo developments, we are trading away our quality of life in Mountain View.

Additionally, if we choke our town with even more impossible traffic bottlenecks, cut down all our larger heritage trees, block all our views of the surrounding hills, remove the reserve of commercial property that we will need for the "next big thing," fail to have enough local markets to support our population, and fail to provide increased open space, then Mountain View won't continue to be Mountain View.

City officials should strive to maintain the city environment as a canvass upon which individuals and families paint the portrait of their lives, and thus as a set of tools, building blocks, and opportunities, and not a top down, one-size fits all blueprint. We need to protect and enhance the conditions for our diversity, and we need to allow people the freedom to fill in the details for themselves.

I believe that to run for city council, one should have taken the time to really get to know the city, its neighborhoods, its people, its operations, and its history. I also think that one should have served in various "journeyman roles" as a volunteer, and as an appointee for some period of time, before concluding that one is adequately prepared to serve in an elected leadership capacity. I believe I have the right qualifications and experience to meet the city's challenges. My profesional experience as an engineer, a manager, and a business development director, and my long engagement with the city and its people have prepared me well to take on the task of forging a sustainable city in all three major dimensions--economic, environmental, and social.

Finally, I approach this task without any specific agenda, either personal or narrowly ideological. I pride myself on my diligence and my pragmatism, and I have no desire to forge a career as a professional politician. My concern, first and foremost as a resident, is to forge a sustainable future for the city of Mountain View!