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Eight candidates are running for three seats on the Mountain View City Council this November. With the three incumbents – Alison Hicks, Ellen Kamei and Lucas Ramirez – all termed out, the field is made up entirely of newcomers.
Six of the candidates are running for the City Council for the first time: Samuel Ali, Alexander Amoroso, Robert Cox, Paul Donahue, James Kuszmaul and Silja Paymer. Erik Poicon and IdaRose Sylvester both ran unsuccessfully in 2024.
The top three vote-getters will win four-year terms on the seven-member governing body, which sets the policies and overall direction of the city. They will join current council members Chris Clark, John McAlister, Emily Ann Ramos and Pat Showalter, who each have two years left on their current terms.
To help voters compare and differentiate between the people running, the Voice sent a questionnaire to all the candidates, asking about their policy positions across a wide range of issues. The topics included housing, transportation, economic development and the city’s response to the Trump administration.
The Voice allowed candidates to include brief explanations, capped at 150 characters, along with each of their answers. However, they were encouraged to only include additional information when necessary.
See below for their side-by-side responses.
Check out our 2026 Election Center to view more of our recent coverage. In the coming weeks, the Voice will also be publishing individual profiles of each City Council candidate, reporting on campaign fundraising totals and hosting a candidate forum on Oct. 8.
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I wonder if “less” was an option for any of the resource allocation questions.
Yes, candidates were also given the option to select “fewer” or “far fewer” resources. However, no one picked those choices.
Very interesting details here! Thanks for issuing the questionnaire and publishing the results, including candidate comments. I would have liked to see maintaining roads and sidewalks as two separate questions, however. They really aren’t the same thing.
Thank you for doing this, very helpful!
Great resource! Thank you to the Voice for putting this together!
you guys did a good job on this. thanks to the candidates.
This is super helpful. Thank you!
Kudos to Mountain View Voice for a very informative decision grid.
Looking at answers to the “Resource Allocations”, no candidate wants less allocation for anything but same, more or far more for everything.
Assuming flat resources, a good follow up question would be how will they balance the budget without allocating less to anything?
I just saw the installation of 8 new apartments in the spot where 24 cars use to park in. That location will now need 32 possibly more car spaces where there was already limited parking and streets filled with cars. The land owner may be thrilled to get the increased rents but the cost to the quality of finding a parking space in the big city has now come to Mnt View. If people work from home they just leave the car at home too we cant walk to the stores or shops.
Imagine if we could just have something this great up front instead of having to compare and contrast the same generic platitudes on countless mailers.