With Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian terming out and eyeing a seat in Congress, five candidates have jumped into the race to replace him.
District 5 covers parts of the West Valley and the northern part of the county, encompassing Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Saratoga, Stanford and parts of Sunnyvale and San Jose.
In the coming years, supervisors will face an increasing budget deficit, projected to be $250 million in the coming fiscal year, a growing homeless population and the loss of its dedicated funding source for affordable housing as the 2016 Measure A bond is close to being depleted.
Here’s who’s running
Margaret Abe-Koga
Abe-Koga, 53, is wrapping up her 16th year on the Mountain View City Council. She served two stints as mayor — one in 2009, where she was the first Asian American woman to do so in the city, and again in 2020.
Abe-Koga was born and raised on the Peninsula. After graduating from Harvard, she got her start in politics working as a congressional aide to U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo from 1993 to 1999. She also worked as Assemblymember Evan Low’s district director and served on the Santa Clara County Board of Education from 2002 to 2004. Her political experience, she said, makes her “battle-tested.”
One of Abe-Koga’s top priorities is solving the county’s looming budget deficits in the coming years.
“That’s an area I feel like I have some expertise in,” she said. “As mayor in 2009 during the Great Recession we faced a structural deficit in the city and I led the effort to close that, which we did, and we’ve had surpluses ever since.”
She also wants to continue taking a multi-pronged approach to housing and homelessness and ensure the county “offers a full spectrum of housing options.” Public safety, tackling climate change and expanding access to mental health services are also among her top priorities.
Abe-Koga is the top fundraiser in the race, having pulled in roughly $299,000, including $27,000 from a personal loan. She’s spent about $106,000 and had $171,146 in campaign cash as of Jan. 20.
Sally Lieber
In 2022, Lieber, 62, was elected to the District 2 seat on the California State Board of Equalization, where she represents 10 million residents from Del Norte County in the north to Ventura County in the south. Over the years, Lieber has held several local and state offices. In 1998, she was elected to the Mountain View City Council and in 2002, she was elected to the California State Assembly and was eventually appointed Speaker Pro Tempore.
Lieber said she wasn’t expecting to make a bid for supervisor at this point in her career but decided to jump into the race at the urging of community members.
“With Joe Simitian leaving the Board of Supervisors, there is not someone else on the board who has experience at all levels of government — local, regional and state — and a big part of what the county does is implementation of state legislation,” she said. “I have really deep experience and knowledge of that area.”
Some of her top priorities include tackling the homeless crisis and investing in physical and mental healthcare. Lieber wants the county to add more interim housing options — especially for families with children — and diversify the service providers the county contracts with. As the county’s healthcare sector faces budgetary issues with high costs of labor and lower than expected revenues, Lieber wants to “dial back executive pay within the systems” and make sure frontline staff, like nurses, are being paid fair wages.
Lieber is slightly behind Abe-Koga in fundraising, raking in about $297,000. She’s spent about $37,000 and had $125,263 in campaign as of Jan. 20.
Dr. Peter Fung
Retired neurologist Fung, 76, has spent the last decade serving on the El Camino Health District Board of Directors, where he helps oversee a $1.3 billion budget. He’s the co-founder of El Camino Hospital’s Chinese Health Initiative, and from 2005 to 2015 he served as the medical director of the hospital’s stroke program.
Fung said he jumped into the race because of his healthcare knowledge, leadership experience and ability to “challenge the status quo” as an outsider.
The longtime physician wants to work on fixing what he calls a “broken healthcare system” at the county. Santa Clara County has the second largest county-owned healthcare and hospital system in the state, which is made up of Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, O’Connor Hospital, St. Louise Regional Hospital and a network of clinics. Last year, state regulators found a number of patient care violations at Valley Medical Center.
“I can turn that around,” Fung said of the county healthcare system. “Reduce what is excessive, what is not needed, use the money wisely and operate the system effectively. That would reduce the budget significantly.”
Fung also wants to expand mental healthcare access for families and institute reforms that would move homeless residents with mental health and substance use issues off the streets to a place where they could receive services.
Fung has raised nearly $250,000 and has spent close to $60,000. He had $109,283 in campaign cash as of Jan. 20.
Barry Chang
Chang, who did not respond to a request for an interview, was elected to the Cupertino City Council in 2009. He was re-elected in 2014, and in 2016 he was appointed mayor.
Chang’s website said that he “worked tirelessly for more than 20 years to bring the Lehigh Southwest Cement Plant into compliance for clean air and clean water.” Last year, the county signed an agreement with Lehigh to close the plant for good.
During his time on the council, Chang was a vocal critic of Apple, criticizing the tech company for not paying what he thought was a fair share in taxes.
In 2011, former Santa Clara County Executive Jeff Smith rebuked Chang for what he perceived as threats against county employees at two separate meetings — a characterization that Chang disagreed with.
On his website, Chang lists four priorities: alleviate traffic congestion, protect public safety and health, provide more services for seniors and work on homeless and mental health issues.
As of Wednesday, Chang’s campaign filings were incomplete online.
Sandy Sans
Sans, 66, is an engineer turned house-flipper who now owns his own real estate business, Los Altos Holdings. For the last year, he’s volunteered with the Forward Party — a new third-party founded by former presidential candidate Andrew Yang — in its effort to achieve ballot access in California.
“I wanted to get my ideas, my thoughts on how we need to improve things, how we need to do things better and I wanted to get my message out to the public,” Sans said of why he jumped into the race.
His priorities include streamlining the housing approval process, allocating tax dollars for public transit around high density housing and expanding Silicon Valley Clean Energy.
Sans’ campaign is self-funded, and as of Jan. 20 he had $19 in cash.