About 300-400 Monte Sereno residents headed down to Vasona Lake County Park on Sunday around noon for the annual city picnic—a record turnout.
Ismael Candelas was there representing the Santa Clara County Consumer and Environmental Protection Agency’s Weed Abatement Program.
“We’re just educating the community on minimum fire safety standards,” he said. “It’s been good. It’s been a nice flow of people going through.”
Matt McKenna, senior deputy fire marshal with Santa Clara County Fire Department, fielded a question about how PG&E goes about undergrounding power lines.
“We’re pretty safe,” he told the middle-aged Asian man with a tucked in shirt and glasses, informing him that, while it’s generally a good thing to be in a low-fire-risk area, it probably means the city will be last in line for undergrounding of wires.
Rimple Paul, a deputy fire marshal said the event offered a perfect opportunity to promote the concept of home hardening.
“We are just educating the people on the wildland-urban-interface,” she said.
And they’re trying to educate the public about “Zone 0” rules that are going into effect next year, which add stricter regulations about flammable materials around buildings.
Weslie McConkey, an outreach manager for West Valley Recycles, was pushing their battery collection program.
They switched from special orange to fluorescent yellow bags in 2024 to help drivers identify the used electric energy items.
And now, they’re experimenting with a new sticker for 400 Monte Sereno trash bins, to see if that will help increase adoption of the service—which is already available across the Silicon Valley communities they cover.
Drivers who are otherwise able empty bins without getting out of their truck, are meant to spot the transparent yellow bags, dismount, and put the used batteries into a separate area. Then, they’re taken to West Valley Recycles’ San Jose yard.
From there, a third-party vendor (though McConkey was unsure who that is at the moment) takes them off their hands and brings them—somewhere (it was unclear how the batteries are brought back to life).
Linda King, a Monte Sereno resident herself, was there on behalf of the League of Women Voters, which was founded in 1920. She’s the local chapter’s membership chair.
“Monte Sereno is a very small city of just over 3,000 people, and there are not a lot of opportunities where they gather together,” she said, when asked about the significance of turning out. “It’s just a great pleasure.”
The League of Women Voters is known, more than anything else, for holding candidate forms so voters know who they want to support.
That won’t be needed in Monte Sereno this year, as, days earlier, City Council voted to cancel the election, as none of the seats were contested.
King noted that every single eligible Monte Sereno resident had a legitimate opportunity to throw their hat in the ring, but opted not to for one reason or another.
“So, the Council has done a very logical thing,” she said. “I don’t see any opposition to the appointments.”
Juliette Pascual and Cheyenne Lippe were at the Silicon Valley Clean Energy booth. The agency is the electricity company that uses PG&E power lines but markets the power to users themselves.
Both are tasked with community engagement, with Lippe learning the ropes as an intern.
“I’ve always wanted to be in the environmental space,” she said. “It’s been really cool to talk to the community.”
City Manager Diana Perkins enjoyed the City’s picnic for the second time since taking on her new role with the municipality.
She said she spoke with no fewer than three families who had just moved to Monte Sereno.
Councilmember Ken Toren said he was pleased with how the gathering went.
“It’s great to have such representation out,” he said. “It shows good community spirit.”
He said while it’s not unusual to have to cancel an election, he says he’d like to see more people seek public office next time.
“One of my goals is to get more engagement,” he said.
Former mayor Javed Ellahie, who recently stepped back from public life to focus on his health, was named Citizen of the Year at the event.
“It’s a great honor,” he told the newspaper. “This is probably one of the best cities out there.
“You should move here.”
