Why I’m Running
Every weekday, tens of thousands of people drive into District 1 to work — at Meta, at Snowflake, along the Bayfront. Every evening, they drive back out. There’s nowhere to have dinner, nowhere to shop, nowhere to linger once the workday ends. That isn’t for lack of people. It’s for lack of a place.
We are better positioned than most people realize. District 1 sits where Highway 101 meets the Dumbarton Bridge — the doorstep between Silicon Valley and the East Bay. That traffic already passes our front door every day. It could just as easily stop here.
Belle Haven has been asking for a grocery store, a sit-down restaurant, and somewhere to take the kids on a Saturday for longer than those companies have had campuses here. Willow Village was meant to deliver it. The project is on hold, and the neighborhood is still waiting.
Imagine how much better life here would be with a commercial district within walking distance. It would pay for itself, too: every dollar spent here instead of in Redwood City returns sales tax to Menlo Park, and new development broadens the property tax base — revenue for parks, street repair, public safety, and programs for our kids. Today, the money those workers spend on lunch funds someone else’s city.
I’m running because District 1 should be more than a place people drive through. We have the location and we have the demand — what it needs is a council that treats this neighborhood as a destination, not a corridor. Every decision I make will come back to one core principle: does this improve the quality of life for the people who live in District 1 today?
My Story
My path here wasn’t a straight line. Before Menlo Park, I worked in Washington, on staff for two United States Senators. I learned how legislation gets written and how budgets get fought over. I also learned how wide the gap can be between what a government promises and what a neighborhood receives — and that when no one closes it, real people pay.
When I came to Menlo Park, I did what you do when a place becomes home: I started showing up. I joined the Parks and Recreation Commission and eventually chaired it. I sat through the long meetings, learned how the city actually works, and helped shape the planning for the Belle Haven Community Center.
My family is not passing through, we are putting down roots in Belle Haven. Our children attend daycare here, and our son will start at Belle Haven Elementary. Every argument I make about parks, about streets, about what this district could become, is an argument about the place my kids are growing up in. Whatever this council builds — or fails to build — my family lives with the result.
By day, I’m a software engineer. It’s a job that teaches you to think in systems — find the root cause, build the simplest thing that works, and design it around the people who have to use it. Cities are systems too, and ours has plenty of habits worth a fresh look.
I’m not asking to represent District 1 from a distance. My whole career — in Washington, on the commission, in the systems I build for a living — has come down to closing that gap between what gets promised and what actually gets built. I want to close it here, for the neighborhood my family calls home.