The City Council dais looked quite different at the end of Tuesday’s council meeting, after the city clerk swore in three newly elected members and Laura Macias moved into the mayor’s seat.
It was all applause, laughter and praise as the ceremony proceeded in a council chambers packed with friends and family. Angee Salvador, city clerk, asked new council members Jac Siegel, Ronit Bryant and Margaret Abe-Koga to raise their hands for the oath of office, which in part requires members to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the State of California against all enemies.”
The new council members would soon take their seats, but not before what Mayor Nick Galiotto called “The Liz Kniss hour,” where outgoing members Michael Kasperzak and Greg Perry were commended by the county supervisor. Kniss listed their accomplishments and background, and commended Perry for his courage and his acumen in financial discussions and Kasperzak for his willingness to compromise.
“What I care most about are the other meetings during the year,” Perry said. “There is not a lot I have to say other than thank you for allowing me to be here.”
Perry noted the packed room, which had crowds standing along the walls.
“Come back in April to see how we spend your money — I can guarantee you will get a seat,” he said to a laughing crowd.
It was then Kasperzak’s turn. He joked that he was waiting for Mayor Galiotto to put out his torch and tell him “the tribe has spoken.”
He thanked all the people who he said are helping with his transition to “something else,” which could be a term in the state Assembly if he is elected this fall.
“You can never please all of the people all of the time,” but hopefully you can please a majority, he said. “That’s just the nature of decision-making.”
Galiotto then took over the ceremony.
“At this point, gentlemen, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Galiotto said as everyone laughed.
Kasperzak and Perry walked off the council dais and three new faces took the empty seats. Abe-Koga was the first to speak.
“I’ve been quite humbled all day to think about how great of an opportunity this is,” she said. “I’m proud to make a little bit of history in being the first Asian-American woman on the council.”
Bryant said she had come a long way since she first arrived in California with only a suitcase and a few hundred dollars. She thanked her family and her husband for being her campaign manager, and encouraged citizens to seek her out for help on issues before there is a “crisis.”
“This has been the cleanest and best election in years,” Siegel said. The experience was so important to him that before it was over, he said, he realized “I was already a winner.”
He talked about prioritizing open space and athletic fields, economic development, a history museum and a nature center at Shoreline Park.
Once the new council members were seated, it was time to select a new mayor and vice mayor.
“I’m trying to hold this off as long as possible,” Galiotto said to more laughs.
Bryant made the motion: “It gives me a lot of pleasure to nominate council member Laura Macias,” she said, and her motion was supported unanimously. Later, another unanimous vote put council member Tom Means in the vice mayor’s seat.
Macias, the second Mexican-American woman to be mayor of Mountain View, said this city “is truly my home” and an “amazing place.”
She talked briefly about revising the city’s General Plan, and then quoted American revolutionary Thomas Paine.
“We have it in our power to begin the world again,” she said.
E-mail Daniel DeBolt at ddebolt@mv-voice.com
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