Monte Sereno was incorporated as a general law city 69 years ago and my wife Mary and I have been privileged to make it our home for 47 of these 69 years. Our family grew up here and our daughter is a graduate of Los Gatos High School. As you know, we are the smallest of the 15 cities in the County, with only 3500 residents living on 1.6 square miles—just 1000 acres!
In recent years our Youth Commission has been very active. Several weeks ago, we had a meeting with Congressman Sam Liccardo at his District Office and in the near future we will get together with our State Assembly member Gail Pellerin. And the Youth Commission just did a podcast of yours truly which will soon be available on our City’s website.
A good way for residents to get involved in our community is to volunteer for our Better Streets Commission and/or our Site & Architectural Commission (which is our “fancy” term for our Planning Commission). Currently there is an opening on both of these Commissions. Please contact our excellent City Clerk, Gloisy Gonzalez-Langarica, for application information (Gloisy Go****************@***************no.org).
What issues am I dealing with as Mayor now in 2026 that I didn’t have to deal with when I was Mayor 10 years ago in 2016?
The most important is planning for when we have (and realistically it is “when” and not “if”) a major wildfire. Given the tragic LA wildfires, all areas of California must now accept that a major wildfire can engulf us. Truthfully this was probably the case when I was mayor back in 2016, but it just wasn’t front of mind back then.
Monte Sereno is part of a working group with Los Gatos and Saratoga to jointly take steps to “harden” our communities from wildfire and to optimize evacuation when necessary. We only have two major arteries in our city: Winchester Boulevard and Highway 9. Both must be freely accessible to evacuate our approximately 1200+ households (which translates to 1200+ cars). But State Hwy 9 has eucalyptus trees in the median, which trees literally become torches in a wildfire.
The only entity that has the authority to remove these trees is Caltrans. Discussions with Caltrans are ongoing, but more slowly than we would wish. We are fortunate that our State Assembly member Gail Pellerin is adding her voice to ours. Realistically these eucalyptus trees will not be removed during my term as Mayor, but I am hopeful they will be removed next year when I pass the mayor’s baton to current Vice Mayor Lisa Shannon.
The second issue that we did not have 10 years ago was the financial fact that the annual increases in the cost of police services exceeds our annual increases in property tax revenues, our primary source of income. (Unlike most municipalities, we don’t have any sales tax revenues, as we are exclusively residential.) Our current parcel tax of $150 per parcel was adopted back in 1983, when that amount was sufficient to cover the cost of police services. No surprise that after 43 years of inflation that this now only covers about 13% the cost of polices services.
Bottom line: the cost of police services today is about $1.5 million, or about $1,000 per parcel, not the $150 that was adequate 43 years ago. Given the number of tax measures already on the ballot this November, the City has a better chance of adopting this necessary new parcel tax if it is on the ballot sometime next year.
I invite all residents to volunteer to become involved in City government. And we are all truly volunteers—all Council members and commissioners are unpaid. With continued community support, I am confident that we will address these issues as we have successfully addressed all others in our almost 70 years as an independent idyllic residential community.
