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Perhaps only in local government could eight years seem like not enough time, but that’s exactly how Margaret Abe-Koga describes her two terms on the Mountain View City Council.
Abe-Koga, who served from 2006 to 2014 (and as mayor in 2009), looks back on her run as a marathon of long-planned strategies, precise plans and land-use policies that are finally bearing fruit for Mountain View. She describes those years as laying out the road-map for the interesting trip the city is now embarking on.
“When I was termed out, one of my regrets was that I didn’t have the opportunity to help implement those plans,” Abe-Koga said. “Especially as the community has growing challenges, it’s important to have people with experience to navigate through these challenges.”
After what will be a two-year hiatus, Abe-Koga says she’s ready to re-enter Mountain View politics. This week, she announced her candidacy for the City Council. The brings the total to five people, including two incumbents, vying for four open seats, making the council race into a true competition.
For her credentials, the 45-year-old Abe-Koga can point to an diverse background as manager of her own fitness gym and a staffer in U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo’s office. She currently works as a government-affairs consultant for the tech company Synopsys.
Abe-Koga’s family first came to Mountain View 18 years ago, and her entrance into politics came not long afterward. In 2002, she joined the Santa Clara County Board of Education. In 2004, she ran for the Mountain View City Council, but lost in a six-way race. When she tried again two years later, she won handily as the top vote-getter.
Abe-Koga describes her two terms on the City Council as an educational experience, learning how Mountain View fits into the larger Silicon Valley checkerboard and how one city politician can bring about greater change. In a Wednesday morning interview with the Voice she tested out what will surely become a campaign theme, plugging herself as the most experienced candidate in the race.
“We have a council that’s pretty young in their tenure. During my time, I learned that experience does matter,” she said. “One of the downsides of the term limit is … you end up missing out just as you’re starting to hit your stride and figure out how to get things done.”
In recent years, Abe-Koga ran unsuccessfully for the county Board of Supervisors and the El Camino Hospital Healthcare District. Since leaving the City Council she has been busy. Abe-Koga helped lead a campaign across South Bay cities, including Mountain View, to pass a timetable for a $15-an-hour minimum wage. Mountain View and Sunnyvale have both approved plans to gradually notch up hourly base wages to $15 by 2018 while other several other cities are still mulling options. Abe-Koga points to the minimum-wage as one example of an issue in which Mountain View has taken the lead.
Yet she doesn’t count herself as a proponent for some of the other policies being promoted by local activists. Abe-Koga says she opposes the city rent-control measure being advanced for the November election, describing it as a “flawed” plan that could end up hurting those struggling for housing more than it helps. Due to state law, only apartments built prior to 1995 would be eligible for rent-increase restrictions, which would mean any rent-control measure would create a two-tiered system. She said that a more balanced approach could be conceived.
“I have strong concerns that it will end up restricting the supply of affordable housing,” she said. “There’s been good conversations of different ways to stabilize rents, but I’m not convinced that we’ve had the conversations with all the stakeholders around the table.”
Even though Abe-Koga has been off the council for only about 18 months, much has changed in that time. Perhaps the biggest development from the Mountain View’s changing of the guard in the 2014 election was the new council majority swiftly changed course on the contentious issue of adding housing to the North Bayshore tech hub. The new council directed staff to dramatically revise the neighborhood’s precise plan to add zoning for thousands of homes. Before she left office, Abe-Koga had opposed residential growth in the area.
Asked about this, Abe-Koga said the the city’s new direction toward North Bayshore meant city staff had to draw resources away from other neighborhoods slated for housing, particularly the East Whisman area.
“That was an area we thought would have been great for housing, and that’s now been delayed due to the North Bayshore plan,” she said. “There could have been opportunities if we stuck with that plan.”
In addition to Abe-Koga, Parks & Recreation Commissioner Thida Cornes, Human Relations Commissioner Lucas Ramirez and first-term council incumbents John McAlister and Chris Clark have declared their intent to run for the four seats on the November ballot.
Email Mark Noack at mnoack@mv-voice.com
I’m in love with MAK ! Or is that MA-K? She will ‘fully fund’ my massively expensive experiment upon the transportation infrastructure of El Camino Real. No testing needed – just do it – its under $200 million dollars isn’t it?
And – why have new starter housing near new jobs anyway? What kind of a transit plan is “walking” anyway?
This is such good news for our city. The current council is being pushed in the wrong direction for our city. Bring back some of the previous council members who turned our city into the desirable place that it is today, and let’s keep it that way.
Let’s also get Matt Pear, Tom Means and a few others. We desperately need them now.
Abe-Koga will have our vote.
Abe-Koga ran for the hospital board but lost. She has been a proponent of VTA bus-only lanes on ECR. No thanks.
I’m a bit confused from the article– it implies Ms. Abe-Koga preferred studying housing in East Whisman, but how does she feel about the current proposal for housing in North Bayshore? What would be the number of housing units in East Whisman?
Abe-Koga has been accused of pursuing a career as a professional politician, has denied it (including before she attempted to run, but unsuccessfully, for two county offices at once in the last major election), and has just as frequently demonstrated the charge’s truth. Here we go again; I gather the Council is her fall-back option.
Also, when a glowing endorsement such as the comment above from “Awesome News” quickly accumulates a count of “Like this” clicks that’s grossly statistically anomalous (more already in a few hours than most comments receive in months), it creates an impression of someone playing games. To repeat: here we go again.
OMG, not this bought and paid for career politician again. Good grief. Her performance on the council was the reason she lost her bid for her last attempt at the hospital post. She needs a job, this is how career politicians do it, but she’s on the downhill slide so she’s now back tracking. We need fresh ideas. not failed career politicians.
She’s good at making signs and has strong family support who want her to stay employed, I get that, but she’s a TERRIBLE choice, esp in this environment. The woman wants BRT for goodness sake!! She is the new VTA stooge they are trying to sour our council with. No thank you please.
I wondered this morning how long it would take to get the intolerant people who do not agree with them to attack her.
I would also like to see Jac Siegel run for council again. Let me be very clear so people do not confuse Jac Siegel with the current Lenny Siegel.
Its called politics, and she’s VERY used to it. Tell the VTA to take they’re career politician away. MVCC is not up for sale.
Deelighted with the news. Has my vote. Welcome back Margaret.
The career politician comment is exactly my sentiment, and is what I thought at the last election. Please step aside, Margaret, and let people who will stay focused be our city council members. You would run for dog catcher, because you’ll run for anything. And you can’t stay focused when you’re always seeking your next elected gig, whatever, whenever, and wherever it is. Thank you.
Wish we could bring back the councils of the 70s. They were local business folks, not with motivations toward higher office and not political hacks.
Kaprinack is a good indication of such “carrer” types. EGADS..Don’t let Mtn.View be a training ground…Lets elect people who are local, local ties and who just want to help here….NOT trying to move up the ladder.
It has been truly disgusting in reading some of these personal attacks against Abe-Koga. We never had this type of politics in our city before, the art of personal destruction.
She was elected twice by the voters, and the voters shall make the final choice.
There is no candidate that does 100% of what I would like, but having lived here for 40 years and having seen many candidates in that time, and having watched her as a city councilwomen, I can see myself supporting her again.
What some others are saying is nothing more than hate and maybe even racism, in order to scare off voters who do not know her.
Dear residents of MV,
I think we should listen to people before spewing out labels, such as career politician or didn’t win a hospital board election. I think MAK is running because she cares about our city. Maybe some or many of her for former constituents have asked her to run and she is doing so for them and their concerns. So hold your horses with the labels.
I am happy she is running because the current council has not yet impressed me and each one seem to have their own personal agenda and it is not my agenda (their constituent). Actually, I think they are way over their heads and do not know what they are doing. So, I don’t mind a seasoned council member who is authentic and has major roots in the community.
She has my vote.
regards,
hold your horses and don’t rush to judge
tho her machine works hard on msg boards.
@Jeremy Hoffman,
You have your facts wrong, and or you probably did not live here for the last 15 years.
From 2001 thru 2008 our city, and the valley, was in a depression. During the middle of that decade, office buildings where being torn down and residential housing went up. The city resident’s at that time voted in candidates to stop the residential growth.
Council can only approve projects that people bring before them, residential housing costs the city money, commercial buildings do not.
Rents crashed 45% from 2001 to 2003. Market rent took until 2011 to recover to the 2001 level.
You are obviously supporting candidate’s that support taking rights away from others so that you can give more rights to people who will vote for you or for those that support redistribution of perceived wealth.
I wish I could find the interview where she claimed to not be a career politician.
I’m sure Abe-Koga is a nice person who has done a lot of good things for our community, and I thank her for her eight years of service on City Council.
Unfortunately, during those eight years, our City Council oversaw the worsening jobs-housing imbalance, and instead of trying to correct course, they doubled down, approving massive new office and retail construction without housing to match in the 2030 General Plan.
That means skyrocketing rents (15% increases year after year!), displacement of our neighbors, extra traffic from long commutes, and unfilled service jobs from teachers to cashiers.
I do agree with Abe-Koga that rent control is a “flawed” short-term band-aid plan that usually hurts more people than it helps.
The long-term fix that helps the most people is shrinking the more housing near jobs and transit, including more housing options where it makes sense to build them for those who would prefer more dense or car-free housing.
Maybe Abe-Koga has had, or will have, a change of heart on the urgency of the housing crisis. For now, I will continue to support candidates like Lucas Ramirez and Thida Cornes who have been leading the way on smart planning, which must include “less unaffordable” housing near jobs and transit.
Some words got clipped out of my previous comment: “The long-term fix that helps the most people is shrinking the [JOBS-HOUSING IMBALANCE, PROVIDING] more housing near jobs and transit,”
Mark, thanks for the information, if not for your tone. I’m always trying to learn more about the complex issues facing our city and region. I’ll reply to this line of two unconnected statements:
> Council can only approve projects that people bring before them, residential housing costs the city money, commercial buildings do not.
To the first part: It’s true that city council isn’t in the business of hiring contractors to build housing. However, it’s not like housing projects are never brought before them. To the contrary, many housing projects are brought before them, only to be rejected, delayed, or downsized. You’re probably aware of the noteworthy example from 2008 of the killed Hetch-Hetchy housing project on Whisman:
http://www.mv-voice.com/news/2008/04/23/hetch-hetchy-project-a-no-go
In other cases, like in San Antonio Phase 2 in 2014, the developer that wants to build up would have agreed to whatever council requested, whether that was two office buildings that we ended up with, or one office building and one residential building.
So it’s not for a lack of proposals that housing growth is constricted.
To the second part: I’m aware of the unfortunate financial incentives. In this tragedy of the commons, it seems every town wishes to build all the office and retail and none of the housing. But that’s obviously unsustainable — people need to live somewhere! Even just from normal population growth if we didn’t have an economic boom.
Do you really want Mountain View workers driving in from Morgan Hill and Livermore? What kind of message does that send: “You’re good enough to work for me, but you’re not good enough to live next door to me”?! Whether you’re a renter or a homeowner, you should feel uncomfortable about that.
So the financial issue is one that a responsible leader would tackle head on, and not pass the buck. Work with other cities. Figure out a way to share the responsibility of housing our population.
@Jeremy Hoffman
You owe Abe-Koga a public apology.
I will be waiting to see it here.
You made completely false allegations towards her for her time in council.
Everything you said that happened, and what you claim she did was WRONG!! it did not happen.
This is what you said,
“Unfortunately, during those eight years, our City Council oversaw the worsening jobs-housing imbalance, and instead of trying to correct course, they doubled down, approving massive new office and retail construction without housing to match in the 2030 General Plan.
That means skyrocketing rents (15% increases year after year!), displacement of our neighbors, extra traffic from long commutes, and unfilled service jobs from teachers to cashiers.”
How can you have the nerve to come onto a public forum and spew out such garbage when the exact opposite happened.
You are clearly an activist who wants an activist city council so that they will take rights away from others, to then give them to others. This would be harmful to our city.
This is what your side is doing now, you can not tell the truth on any issues, you have no idea what reality is or how things work, but instead you have to lie to people and trick them to support your agenda.
This locking the threads on this site to only registered users after such comments like this is becoming quite the norm now. This is done to discourage any further comments.
The public should pay close attention to this conduct by the Voice.
The Voice/Mountain View Tenants Coalition/ Day Worker Center are all the same group of people pushing a moral and social justice issues, and wants the public to pay for all of it.
I’ll probably regret it, but I’ll jump in here. Mark, what are you disagreeing with?
Jeremy said: “Unfortunately, during those eight years, our City Council oversaw the worsening jobs-housing imbalance, and instead of trying to correct course, they doubled down, approving massive new office and retail construction without housing to match in the 2030 General Plan.
That means skyrocketing rents (15% increases year after year!), displacement of our neighbors, extra traffic from long commutes, and unfilled service jobs from teachers to cashiers.”
Mark said: “How can you have the nerve to come onto a public forum and spew out such garbage when the exact opposite happened.”
(Me:) If you think Jeremy is spewing garbage, what do you think actually happened? The city has added jobs faster than housing, rents have gone up, workers are commuting farther. Even for those of us who agree with the council during the Abe-Koga/J. Siegel/Bryant era, you have to admit that all of that happened.