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Silja Paymer
Los Altos High School teacher | siljapaymer.com
Top priorities
- Bike and pedestrian safety, especially for children
- Expanding access to green space with more parks
- Strengthening neighborhood and community engagement
Community Involvement
- Cuesta Pollinator Habitat founder
- Mountain View Education Foundation
- Bubb Elementary PTA vice president
- Bike Bus co-founder
Silja Paymer, a teacher at Los Altos High School, is stepping out of the classroom and running for City Council with the stated goal of making Mountain View the best place for a child to grow up.
For Paymer, that includes creating safer streets for walkers and bikers, expanding parks and other open space, and ensuring affordable housing is available so people can live and grow old in Mountain View, she told the Voice.
“My top thing is safety for kids in terms of their transportation,” Paymer said. “Making the streets safe for biking and walking for all users, but once it’s safe for kids, I think it’s accessible to the majority of users.”
Learn more about this race
Candidate Comparison Grids: Mountain View City Council
To help voters compare and differentiate between the people running for Mountain View City Council, the Voice sent a questionnaire to all the candidates, asking about their policy positions across a wide range of issues. Check out their side-by-side responses.
View the comparison grid ➔In this November’s General Election, Paymer is one of eight candidates vying for three seats on the Mountain View City Council, which sets policies and the overall direction of the city. There are seven Council members in total.
With street safety a top priority, Paymer wants to see a sense of urgency from the city to improve infrastructure for bicyclists and pedestrians. Paymer criticized the city’s plans for Moffett Boulevard and Middlefield Road, describing them as “repaving projects with green paint” that don’t include enough nature or protections for bikers and walkers .
“It just feels like we haven’t done enough to make it so that kids can be safe outside,” she said.
Paymer also expressed dismay with the recent California Street pilot project, which reduced vehicle lanes to make space for protected bike lanes and planter boxes. The city should have fully committed to a “green complete street,” with planted trees instead of the boxes, Paymer said. That would reduce parking conflicts and improve visibility for cars exiting driveways, she added.
“It was a little bit of Solomon’s baby,” Paymer told the Voice. “It got cut in half, and no one was happy.”
Read about the other candidates
Another top priority for Paymer is expanding green space in the city and making it easier for residents to interact with nature. It’s important for Mountain View to maintain momentum towards meeting its carbon neutrality goals, Paymer said. She added that she favors efforts to incentivize electrification while trying to keep options affordable to lower-income residents.
“We don’t want to be punishing people or pushing out our lower income residents in order to meet these goals.” she said.
With respect to housing, Paymer said she wants to see more homes built in Mountain View, particularly affordable housing, but has concerns about state legislation placing requirements on cities. She opposes California Senate Bill 79, a law passed last year that allows for denser housing to be constructed near major transit stops.
Paymer thinks the approach doesn’t allow for enough nuance, especially in places like Mountain View, which have already gotten a lot of community input on their plans for more housing.
“It kind of nullified all that work,” she said, in reference to SB 79.
Paymer supports the city developing “objective design standards” to try and maintain more local control over building projects. However, she noted that “change is the only constant.” While Paymer wants to keep the historic feel of downtown Mountain View, she also said it can support more development.
With respect to the issue of homelessness, Paymer supports further restricting oversized vehicles from parking on city streets due to environmental concerns. She is worried about the toll of RVs running generators and moving every 72 hours, as required by a city ordinance. She also questioned whether living in vehicles was in line with city policies for adequate, safe and reasonable housing.
“We have to have standards for housing and at some point hold those standards for the sake of everybody in the city, including those that are struggling to find housing,” Paymer said.
So far, the best option is providing safe parking lots with amenities, Paymer said. But she proposed other possibilities as well, like building tiny homes.
Paymer also wants to focus on investing in the downtown area, especially Castro Street. She favors making the street and sidewalk level along the three blocks of Castro Street that are closed to cars. That would improve the accessibility and functionality of the outdoor space, Paymer said. She also supports implementing paid parking on downtown streets, but not city garages, noting that more visitor turnover could help businesses.
Paymer also backs implementing a vacancy tax to fill empty storefronts but added that it wasn’t her highest priority.
With respect to the city’s budget, Paymer says she would like to approach it from a cost/benefit perspective, focusing on seeing where small investments could make a big difference. Over the next few years, Mountain View is projected to face modest budget deficits.
“Sometimes we get a better turnaround on those small ticket items,” Paymer said.
Paymer supports the city asking voters to approve revenue measures, like the hotel tax that is on the November ballot. She is also in favor of increasing the city’s business tax on major tech companies. But Paymer abstained when asked whether she would back a bond measure, noting that it depends on what the money would be directed towards.
“I could see a bond measure working if it was focused on what the community said it wanted,” she told the Voice.
Check out the Voice’s 2026 Voter Guide, which includes in-depth coverage of this and other local races and ballot measures.
