With a full slate of candidates, The Weekly wanted to give voters insight into each candidate’s position on a slew of issues we believe matter most to Santa Clarans. 

Consequently, we asked them seven questions, giving them the flexibility to answer as many as they wanted. We limited their responses to 1,000 words (allowing a bit of flexibility for how disparate word processors count words). Their responses appear verbatim. 

The Silicon Valley Voice will roll out each candidate’s answers in the days leading up to the election.

How do you think the city handled the Super Bowl and the FIFA World Cup this year? If you were on the city council, what would you have done differently? How would you balance the desire to have more events like these at Levi’s Stadium with neighborhood impacts?

Santa Clara handled public safety for the Super Bowl and World Cup very well, and our police officers and city staff deserve credit. My concern is planning.

We knew in May 2023 that Super Bowl LX was coming, and we had already hosted Super Bowl 50. Yet on December 16, less than two months before the game, I sat in the Council chambers while the Council was still working through the NFL’s use of the Youth Soccer Park, relocation of youth teams and how field damage would be determined. Council ultimately required independent inspections before and after the NFL’s use, which I agreed with.

By our second Super Bowl, those should have been checklist items settled much earlier.

I support major events at Levi’s Stadium. Every event should make us better at hosting the next one: document what worked, what did not and what needs to change.

Over the past ten years, the city has added lots of housing but has floundered with respect to public amenities and infrastructure (the swim center is in disrepair, the convention center is falling apart and the BMX Park is slated to move, just to name a few). What more should the city be doing to prevent the loss of — or add more — public amenities and find a better balance between housing and public amenities, without asking residents to approve another $400 million bond measure?

Santa Clara has not done a good enough job planning for the full life of the things we build.

Voters approved a $400 million bond because the city had more than $600 million in unfunded infrastructure needs. We needed to catch up, but another bond cannot become our maintenance plan.

I want an inventory of major public assets showing condition, expected life, replacement cost and when money will be needed. Then start setting money aside before failure. If a roof has a 30-year life, replacing it should not become a surprise in year 29.

Growth should pay its fair and legally allowable share. We need to stop funding infrastructure by crisis: plan for it, maintain it and save for replacement.

According to Silicon Valley At Home, while Santa Clara does well to meet its Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) numbers for Low Income and Above Moderate Income households, it struggles to create housing for low-income households. What should the city do to create PERMANENT spaces for the poorest Santa Clara residents?

The hardest housing to create is for extremely-low-income households earning 30% or less of area median income. The private market will not solve that problem by itself.

Santa Clara should focus limited housing resources where the market is not working and leverage outside funds.

At Agrihood, Santa Clara contributed about $15 million toward 165 affordable senior apartments, including 54 permanent supportive housing units, while leveraging County Measure A funding, tax credits and other sources. Monroe Commons includes housing reserved for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities.

Housing should match the need. Some households need deeply subsidized housing; someone leaving chronic homelessness may need permanent supportive housing with ongoing services. If public money helps create affordable housing, that affordability should last.

Silicon Valley Power has increased rates six times since January 2022 as the utility continues to expand. Would you like to see this expansion continue? With more data centers than ever, do you think SVP’s trajectory is in the best interest of residents?

Silicon Valley Power is one of Santa Clara’s greatest assets, and data centers are important to our economy. The Silicon Valley Voice reported data centers contributed about $45 million to the General Fund in 2024-25. That is a real benefit, but there are costs too.

Santa Clara now has 58 operating or planned data centers using more than half of SVP’s electricity. SVP increased rates six times from January 2022 through January 2026 while data-center demand has driven much of the system’s growth.

In December 2025, before I was a candidate, I went before the Council during the 4% rate increase and asked to see the cost-of-service analysis showing how costs were divided among customer classes. I still want that answer.

I support the Council pausing additional data-center approvals while the city studies cumulative impacts on electricity, infrastructure, water, backup-generator emissions, land use and city finances. The grid already limits additional large loads while transmission improvements are being built toward 2029. Use that window to get the numbers before new capacity arrives.

The question is whether the 59th and 60th data centers still provide a net benefit after all costs are included.

Regardless of my policy position on future growth, any individual application before me must be judged on its own facts, the public record and applicable law.

Name some issues on which you would have voted differently from your predecessor and some that you would have voted the same. Explain why.

Karen Hardy and I will agree on some issues and disagree on others. I do not think the job is to vote differently just for the sake of being different.

I would have voted against the December 2025 SVP rate increase based on the information presented that night. I asked the Council to delay the vote until the supporting cost-of-service analysis was public.

I would have voted with Karen to put Measure I before the voters, and I agreed with requiring independent inspections of the Youth Soccer Park before and after the NFL’s Super Bowl use.

I will judge issues on the facts, not on who proposes them.

How do you plan to balance neighborhood-specific advocacy with citywide budget and policy tradeoffs? 

District 3 residents should expect me to know our neighborhoods and make sure they get a fair hearing at City Hall, including concerns around Cabrillo, Pruneridge, Central Park and Lawrence/El Camino.

But every Council vote affects the entire city. If I advocate for a District 3 project, I should explain why it is a priority, what it costs and what may have to be deferred elsewhere.

I will be an advocate for District 3, but I will govern for Santa Clara.

What would you do to ensure that the Related project does not see another several years of delay?

Not every delay at Related Santa Clara is the fault of the city or the developer. The project has faced the pandemic, changing markets, landfill regulation and litigation. A 2022 state prevailing-wage determination was affirmed on appeal in January 2026, and Related challenged that decision in court in March.

We cannot control Sacramento, the courts or interest rates. We can control our side.

The agreements contain schedules, deadlines and remedies. I want a public milestone schedule showing what Related and the city must do, the due dates and what is holding anything up.

If the delay is ours, fix it. If Related misses a contractual deadline that is not legitimately excused, enforce the agreement.

Any future application before me deserves a fair review based on its facts and the law.

After ten years, we should know the next milestone, who owns it and what is preventing completion.