BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
The race for three seats on Mountain View City Council will be crowded this year, as seven candidates have filed papers to run.
They’re hoping to replace council members Alison Hicks, Lucas Ramirez and Ellen Kamei, who have all reached their two-term limits.
This year’s candidates are Silja Paymer, Robert Cox, Erik Poicon, Paul Donahue, Alex Amoroso, IdaRose Sylvester and James Kuszmaul.
Silja Paymer, 43, is a physics teacher at Los Altos High School.
Her priorities are safe streets for children and environmental sustainability, her website says.
Paymer made the news in April 2015 when she burned herself during a demonstration with liquid methane at Palo Alto High School. She lives in the Blossom Valley neighborhood off Miramonte Avenue.
Robert Cox, 68, is a retired Intel engineer. He chairs the city’s Rental Housing Committee and was on the Environmental Planning Commission. His priorities are downtown – protecting its historic buildings and filling retail vacancies — and making sure that new housing comes with parks and infrastructure, his website says. Cox lives in the Old Mountain View neighborhood south of Castro Street.
Erik Poicon, 34, is a community outreach specialist for the Santa Clara County Library District and member of the city’s Human Relations Commission. He ran for council in 2024 to advocate for immigrants and the homeless and finished in seventh out of nine candidates. Poicon lives on West El Camino Real near Eagle Park.
Paul Donahue, 54, is a software engineer. He’s been on the Santa Clara County Airport Land Use Commission and the city’s Environmental Planning Commission, Downtown Committee and Parks and Recreation Commission.
Donahue’s priorities are following through on the city’s housing plan, helping small businesses and protecting against sea level rise and droughts, his website says.
Donahue lives in the Cuesta Park neighborhood by Graham Middle School.
Alex Amoroso, 34, is a U.S. Army reserve officer and has been deployed overseas. He wants to partner with businesses to connect residents to good-paying job and to explore a universal basic income, his website says. Amoroso lives at Shenandoah Square, a townhouse complex for the military between Moffett Boulevard and West Middlefield Road.
IdaRose Sylvester, 56, owns a business that helps startups go to market. She’s been on the Parks and Recreation Commission, the Human Relations Commission and finished in fifth in 2024’s council race.
Sylvester’s priorities include converting buildings from natural gas to electric appliances and reducing the use of single-use plastics and solo car trips, her website says.
Sylvester lives in the Blossom Valley neighborhood next to Varsity Park.
James Kuszmaul, 29, is a robotics engineer, chair of the city’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee and volunteer lead for Mountain View YIMBY. Kuszmaul wants more protected bike lanes and housing near jobs and public transit, his website says.
Kuszmaul doesn’t own a car and rents an apartment in the Willowgate neighborhood by downtown.
“community outreach specialist” sounds like a BS job.
Somebody who wants more “protected bike lanes” is in favor of fewer lanes for cars.
One candidate says she favors “safe streets for children” — well, who could be against that? But what are children doing in the streets anyway?
One candidate wants to “explore” “universal basic income — i.e. giving money to people who are too lazy to work. What needs to be “explored”? Studies have shown that it doesn’t increase productivity in society; much of the free money goes to illegal drugs.
A candidate who wants to “convert buildings from natural gas to electric appliances” is really talking about houses. She wants government to remove your gas stove and replace it with an electric one.
I’d like to know how many of these candidates are “Democratic Socialists”? How many think NY Mayor Mamdami is on the right track?