With the November elections rapidly approaching, the four candidates running for two remaining open seats on the Sunnyvale City Council say they want to address issues like traffic congestion, a lack of affordable housing, climate change, and public safety while maintaining the city’s strengths and preserving its community-oriented vibe.
The candidates agree that Sunnyvale has notable strengths, including an operating budget of $308.4 million for the next fiscal year, a collegial and culturally diverse population, a history of good governance and an overall sense of safety in the community. But they have varied approaches on how to help the city evolve without losing its essence and are informed by a wide variety of experiences.
District 3
Two longtime Sunnyvale residents, Murali Srinivasan and Justin Wang, are competing for District 3.
Srinivasan, an engineer who’s lived in Sunnyvale for 25 years, says his history of community involvement and his experience in business and finance has prepared him for tasks like improving public safety, solving traffic issues, curbing climate change and maintaining and improving residents’ quality of life.
Srinivasan has served as the president of the Ortega Park Neighborhood Association and as a board member of two local nonprofits, Leadership Sunnyvale and Sunnyvale Community Services. He also was on the Sunnyvale Sustainability Commission, founded the South Asian Cultural Association of Sunnyvale, and served as the membership director of the Sunnyvale Democratic Club.
If elected, he wants to reduce traffic problems by developing a “reliable, timely, safe working shuttle service where people of all income levels and age groups can avail that service.” He also wants to push for electric vehicle use and make biking and walking routes safer, including routes children can take to school.
Justin Wang, Srinivasan’s opponent, was born and raised in Sunnyvale and has spent his career working in public policy, advocacy and sustainability. He said he’s spent that time “knee-deep in the technical stuff” while also being “really engaged with the community.”
Previously, Wang worked as the vice chair of Livable Sunnyvale, an advocacy group that says it works toward a “more vibrant, inclusive, and people-friendly Sunnyvale” by pushing for affordable housing, environmentally-friendly transit options, and walkable, transit-friendly communities.
His priorities are investing in public safety, maintaining good governance, pushing for sensible growth, and creating a more climate-smart city.
In particular, Wang says he wants Sunnyvale to be a forward-thinking city where children can walk and bike to school safely, where young adults and seniors can afford housing instead of being priced out of their lifelong homes, where plans to conserve and recycle water effectively are written into building codes as new developments are constructed, and where the city continues to remain in sound fiscal shape as it evolves.
“My top priority is really finding ways to create affordability, to address these housing issues, to address these sustainability issues, and to do so in a way that doesn’t negatively impact the long term residents and that doesn’t lose the essence of Sunnyvale,” Wang said.
District 5
In District 5, the contest is between Richard Mehlinger and Satyam Davé.
Mehlinger, a software engineer, has lived in Sunnyvale since 2011 and said he’s been involved in “the life of the city” for five years. He has served on the city’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission, the 2018 Charter Review Commission, the Democratic Club and Livable Sunnyvale.
Mehlinger points to four main issues that he hopes to address — traffic safety, housing, environmental resilience and maintaining good governance — and said it’s important to recognize how those issues are connected to one another.
He also said that there aren’t “silver bullet” solutions to those problems, but that the city can address them incrementally — for example, the city could look for creative ways to include affordable housing units in new development projects, or could include measures to conserve and recycle water in building codes.
“Sunnyvale is an amazing city, it’s a fantastically well-run city,” Mehlinger said. “We really need to be taking action on traffic safety, on housing, on affordability, and on climate change. But you look at the fundamentals of our city government — the fundamentals are strong, and I believe that we can tackle these issues.”
Davé, Mehlinger’s opponent, has lived in Sunnyvale for over 20 years and said he knows the city “pretty much inside and out.” He said he has experience working with federal agencies like NASA and NOAA through his work developing satellites that detect greenhouse gases, and wants to use those skills to make sure future generations can enjoy the city the way he has.
His priorities are addressing the lack of affordable housing in Sunnyvale, reducing traffic congestion, making the city more bike and walking friendly, promoting environmental stewardship and improving residents’ quality of life.
He would like to make it easier for homeowners to build additional housing on existing properties, create more types of housing and make it available across the income spectrum, and create greater density of housing near residents’ workplaces, he said.
“I’m fortunate enough to live and work in Sunnyvale, and I know that just having that close of a workplace brings balance to my life,” Davé said, adding that helping residents live closer to their workplaces in Sunnyvale could also reduce the area’s traffic congestion.
He also wants the city to take a more proactive approach to addressing homelessness, both by preventing residents from losing housing and providing a safety net for people who are already unhoused.
“Change is part of Silicon Valley,” Davé said. “We can’t get away from it. But it’s what kind of change we make that’s the important part — whether we turn into a metropolis or whether we continue to have this small city feel that I’ve known and that my kids have known. I want that to continue.”
District 1 will be welcoming councilmember Linda Sell, who was appointed in August after no challengers qualified to run against her. Sell co-founded Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action, a youth-led nonprofit that helps high schoolers and young adults work to fight climate change.
Sell and the two new councilmembers will take office under Sunnyvale’s new district-based electoral system, which was approved by voters in 2020 to replace the previous at-large system.
Source: www.mercurynews.com