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It has been an eventful first year on the job for Santa Clara County Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga. Since joining the board last January, Abe-Koga has had to tackle a massive budget deficit, exacerbated by $1 billion in lost revenue that the county expects to incur from federal spending cuts under the Trump administration.
The proposed cuts have targeted state and county programs that rely on federal dollars for services including health care, affordable housing, food assistance and child care.
The past year has been challenging but not insurmountable, Abe-Koga told this publication in a recent interview reflecting on her first year on the county board. If anything, it has reinforced her top priority – getting the county’s $13.5 billion budget in a good place.
“I know it’s not the most exciting topic, but it’s the foundation for everything else that the county can do,” said Abe-Koga, who represents nine cities in the north county, including Mountain View and Palo Alto.
Abe-Koga, a former Mountain View City Council member, clinched the seat representing District 5 on the Board of Supervisors in the November 2024 election. She defeated Sally Lieber, who also previously served on the Mountain View City Council and currently sits on the California State Board of Equalization.
The two contenders, while aligning on some policy areas, diverged on issues including homelessness, policing and rent control. On the campaign trail, Abe-Koga also stressed ways to trim costs as well as to generate revenue to help close the county’s budget deficit.
Funding issues ended up taking center stage in 2025, as the county grappled with federal cuts.
In November, Santa Clara County voters approved a sales tax increase to help offset some of the federal cuts, which are expected to have a big impact on Medi-Cal, a state program that provides health care to low-income residents. The 5/8-cent general sales tax is projected to generate $330 million in annual revenue for five years.
“We have some good foundations that we’re laying down right now,” Abe-Koga said, adding that the board also was working towards ensuring more budget transparency and accountability.
Even so, Abe-Koga noted that the sales tax will not cover the entire budget deficit but rather buys the county more time to minimize impacts to services, especially for programs that rely heavily on county funding.
“We’re not going to just eliminate things,” Abe-Koga said, giving the example of allcove Palo Alto, a youth mental health center that local students have rallied to protect. Instead, Abe-Koga says she supports keeping critical services intact while looking for more streamlined and cost-efficient solutions.
Abe-Koga also stressed the importance of self-sufficiency, especially with respect to the county’s budgetary needs.
“We can’t really depend or lean on the federal government – or even the state government at times – because of what could happen politically,” she said. “We have to be more independent frankly and come up with our own resources to be able to continue to provide services.”
Reacting to Stanford’s development plans
While Abe-Koga emphasized the need for more self-sufficiency, she also highlighted the importance of collaboration and working towards shared goals with regional partners, like Stanford University.
Several years ago, Stanford abandoned an ambitious campus growth plan after failing to reach a development agreement with the county that would set the parameters for the growth. Stanford is now teeing up a new plan that would add a lot more academic spaces and housing on campus. As before, the plan would require the county to approve a general use permit for the university.
Abe-Koga envisions that an agreement with Stanford will involve extended discussions about community benefits, not dissimilar to how Mountain View has negotiated concessions from large corporations like Google.
“We required community benefits from Google and other entities that want to expand in the city, and I would expect the same from Stanford,” Abe-Koga said.
Abe-Koga also noted that growth was likely inevitable but that it was important to work with the surrounding community and mitigate impacts, like traffic and other environmental concerns.
“There’s always going to be externalities that come out of growth,” Abe-Koga said, adding that there are still a lot of benefits to working with Stanford. “It can be a win-win situation.”
Trying to expand beyond safe parking lots
Abe-Koga noted that the county still has a big role to play in promoting affordable housing, especially in the north county, which has some of the highest housing costs in the state.
Abe-Koga expressed particular concerns about meeting the needs of the county’s unhoused population. She said she was disappointed with the results of the county’s most recent “point in time count,” a report that captures the number of sheltered and unsheltered individuals on a single night in January.
Mountain View’s homeless population spiked 56% over the last two years, with the vast majority of unhoused people residing in vehicles, according to the report. Countywide, the homeless population also increased but less steeply.
Abe-Koga described the trend as a setback, especially since Mountain View has invested a lot of resources in its homeless response strategy and has one of the largest safe parking lot programs in the Bay Area.
“It’s just not sustainable,” Abe-Koga said. “Number one, to continue to put resources in and see numbers go up and not go down. And two, it doesn’t incentivize other communities to want to do the same.”
Abe-Koga, who is a proponent of safe parking lots, says she would like to see a “full spectrum of strategies” to meet the needs of the unhoused population, which she described as extremely diverse.
“We have to try to tailor and to meet people where they are,” Abe-Koga said. “We have to offer different options, and safe parking is one of them.”
Looking to boost public transit funding
Another top priority for Abe-Koga is accessible and reliable public transit. Abe-Koga has sat on several transportation agency boards, including Santa Clara County Valley Transit Authority, Caltrain and Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
“I call it the trifecta of transportation agencies,” Abe-Koga laughed, adding that she wants to make sure mass transit continues.
Abe-Koga is strongly in favor of a sales tax increase to support Bay Area transit agencies that is slated to go on the November ballot.
“If we don’t pass the measure, some agencies will be at a point where they will have to reduce service so much that it’ll be a downward spiral and just close shop,” she said. “And Caltrain could be one of them.”
Ultimately, Abe-Koga says her goal is to get transit agencies to higher service levels so that more people would be more likely to ride trains, light rail and buses. To make it convenient, it also has to be reliable and safe, she added.
“Here for the community”
While she’s one of the newest supervisors on the board, Abe-Koga noted that she has held elected positions for a long time, something she did not necessarily expect when she started off as a Mountain View City Council member back in the early 2000s.
A lot of the work of a supervisor is similar to what she experienced on the City Council, Abe-Koga said, adding that it is just on a much larger scale with a much bigger workload.
“I’ll continue to do my best to be out in all the communities and be as accessible as possible,” Abe-Koga said. “We always remind ourselves that we’re here for the community.”
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