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The Mountain View City Council race this November is shaping up to be a crowded one, with seven contenders entering the fray so far.
The top three vote-getters in the Nov. 3 election will replace outgoing Council members Alison Hicks, Ellen Kamei and Lucas Ramirez. All three will leave office in January after serving two consecutive terms. Due to the city’s term limits, they are not eligible to seek reelection until 2028.
Mountain View resident James Kuszmaul, a software engineer, is the latest candidate to announce his intention to run for City Council.
The race includes familiar faces and newcomers. Earlier this year, Mountain View residents IdaRose Sylvester, an entrepreneur and local activist, and Erik Poicon, a longtime community organizer, threw their hats in the ring, after running unsuccessfully for council two years ago.
Other contenders include Mountain View residents Robert Cox, a retired Intel project lead, Silja Paymer, a Los Altos High School teacher, Paul Donahue, an engineer, and Alexander Amoroso, a U.S. Army officer.
Candidates have until Aug. 7 to enter the race before the official nomination period closes. Write-in candidates have until Oct. 20, according to the city. Whoever is elected in November will join Mayor Emily Ann Ramos and Council members Chris Clark, John McAlister and Pat Showalter on the dais.
James Kuszmaul
James Kuszmaul, who currently serves on the city’s Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee, identified his top three priorities as street safety, housing affordability and working at a local level to protect people’s rights from encroachment by the federal government.
Kuzmaul wants to see the city make changes to reach its “Vision Zero” goal, which aims to eliminate all traffic fatalities by 2030. That includes making infrastructure changes to improve safety for pedestrians and bicyclists, he said. A member of Mountain View YIMBY, a local housing advocacy group, Kuszmaul also said he wants to see more homes built in town so that people don’t have to spend a large portion of their income on rent.
Additionally, Kuszmaul supports policies that aim to keep federal immigration enforcement authorities out of Mountain View and opposes having Flock surveillance cameras reinstalled in the city.
“Anyone should be able to live and work and be safe in Mountain View,” he said.
Good to see more candidates.
We need practical people with experience and expertise.
Focus on an efficient and effective city government.
I am not very keen on the activists who focus on issues irrelevent to running a local government. And don’t have practical experience running an organization and have only a vague understanding of economics.
Excellent comment. Sounds like my husband.