Editorial: After fast growth, San Ramon leaders must confront finances
To meet the moment, elect Govindarao for mayor, Armstrong for City Council in District 2, Kenniston-Lee in District 4.
San Ramon city officials are struggling to fund services for a city of 84,000 residents that has nearly doubled in population since 2000.
In the Nov. 8 election, the candidates best equipped to meet the challenging financial moment are Dinesh Govindarao for mayor, Mark Armstrong for City Council in District 2, and Heidi Kenniston-Lee in District 4.
San Ramon has maintained city services during the pandemic without laying off regular workers; only temporary employees who are now back at work were affected by job reductions. But to do that, the city made its annual pension installment payment with $3.2 million of savings that was supposed to be used to pay down the debt.
The road ahead looks even bumpier. Federal pandemic aid will run out, and revenues are forecast to not keep up with expenses over the next five years. City Manager Joe Gorton told the City Council that the shortfall would total $44 million in the current and next four fiscal years. Separately, buried in the budget for the current fiscal year, he wrote, “If left unchecked, this trend would result in overspending General Reserves and is unsustainable.”
After six years on the job, Gorton will retire in January. The current council has wisely left selection of his replacement until after the election. Clearly, San Ramon needs leaders with solid financial grounding who can work cooperatively to keep spending in check and will make a wise selection of a new city manager.
Mayor – Dinesh Govindarao
Govindarao, a doctor, 43-year San Ramon resident and graduate of the city’s California High School, is the chief medical officer of the State Compensation Insurance Fund, California’s leading provider of workers’ compensation insurance.
He ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2020 but is now much better prepared. Most important, he has mastered the details of the city’s finances, indeed better than his two opponents who currently sit on the council, Mayor Dave Hudson, who has served on the council for 25 years, and Councilwoman Sabina Zafar, who is finishing her first term on the council.
Govindarao’s executive-management experience has shaped his thoughtful approach to how the city should recruit for a city manager in a balanced and even-handed way that allows for some community input but recognizes the council is ultimately responsible for the choice.
District 2 – Mark Armstrong
Armstrong is a West Point graduate who served in the Army for 30 years and then coordinated disaster relief for the Federal Emergency Management Agency for seven years. He has served on the City Council since January 2021 when he was appointed to fill a vacancy created by Hudson’s election as mayor. He has thought carefully about, and well-understands, the city’s financial challenges.
His opponent, Sara Lashanio, a mechanical engineer for a medical device startup company, understands only the rudimentary details about San Ramon’s government operations.
District 4 — Heidi Kenniston-Lee
Kenniston-Lee, a city parks commissioner for most of the past decade and 26-year city resident, brings a strong ethos of containing city spending to available resources and not taking on new obligations that the city cannot afford.
Her opponent, Marisol Rubio, seems to be having a hard time figuring out where she wants to land politically. She failed to make the runoff when she tried to unseat state Sen. Steve Glazer in the March 2020 primary, then ran successfully in November 2020 for the board of the Dublin San Ramon Services District. She would benefit from staying put there and learning more about governing.