Two incumbents are up for reelection this year, Scott Perkins and Phil O'Loane. Mayor Bill Clarkson is also up for reelection, but is unopposed, so there's no doubt he will be reelected.
Clarkson recently sent me an email with an endorsement of O'Loane and Perkins by the San Ramon Valley Times, but there are two challengers running for those City Council seats. So I wanted to take a look at the newcomers before endorsing either of the incumbents.
I don't know much about the challengers, but both of them are women. San Ramon hasn't had a woman on the City Council since Carol Rowley retired from public office five years ago. I believe San Ramon should have at least one female Councilmember. In fact one candidate, Susmina Nayak, even said that in her Voter's Edge profile, "I will also add a woman’s perspective with diversity to the important work of the Council."
Both women are highly educated professionals. Nayak is an engineer in the telecom industry. Sabina Zafar is a "Technology Business Director." You can read their profiles on Voter's Edge.org.
They also have campaign websites: Sabina for San Ramon and Susmita Nayak 2016. Both are residents of Dougherty Valley, which has not had any representation on the City Council as yet.
Actually that's not quite correct. Councilmember Phil O'Loane lives in the original part of Dougherty Valley off of Crow Canyon Road, but that's not the part most of us think of as Dougherty Valley. O'Loane is up for reelection along with Scott Perkins.
I'm very impressed with the two women running but I would like to see Scott Perkins kept on the Council. I've had some issues with Phil, which he knows and we have discussed. His opposition to Measure W, which was to move our boundaries into Tassajara Valley to protect our interests from any development proposed by Contra Costa County, was distorted by O'Loane to claim the Council was planning to develop Tassajara Valley. O'Loane also used this as a stepping stone to being elected to the City Council.
By keeping us out of Tassajara Valley, the City now has no say over what the County can approve out there. As far as I'm concerned this makes high density development more likely in Tassajara Valley than if Measure W had passed.