I am honored to run for re-election for the City Council.  I served as Mayor in 2019.  I immigrated from the Philippines over thirty years ago.  After working for high technology companies for 20 years, I got a Master’s in Education and taught incarcerated youth Math and Computer Science at the County prison school.

Most residents agree that finding a way to maintain the unique character of our community is a critical issue.  The most important issue coming at us is the housing mandates from Sacramento.  As part of the council, I am committed to finding ways to meet the State requirements, while preserving the environment that attracted us all to this beautiful city.  This will continue to be a major focus of mine.

I will also continue to provide oversight and accountability as a good steward of the City’s finances.  I will drive sound fiscal policy decisions especially with the unknown economic conditions brought about by COVID, the wildfires, the layoffs, and the 15% California unemployment rate.  I will monitor spending, work to address the City’s unfunded pension liability, and control the rising cost of City administration.

I want the city to be “easy to do business with”.  I want our residents to feel that the City is working on their behalf.  I want to continue to improve our infrastructure and our services.  We transitioned many of our financial, budgeting, and project proposal/building permit systems from a manual process to online systems.  Recently, the City completely revamped our budgeting process.  I want people to know that our goal is to provide better service through automation, implementing “best practices” and, thereby, improving accountability and transparency. 

I am a strong advocate of the CERT and Neighborhood Watch Programs.  I am a CERT trained volunteer, and I will continue to encourage our citizens to become involved and be prepared for emergencies.  It is now more critical than ever before.

I will continue to demand honesty and transparency in government for our citizens. I want you, our residents, to know that I am looking forward to another fruitful 4 years on the Council.  

Re-elect Rowena Turner to the City Council.

I am a retired international management consultant and CPA, and I have lived in Monte Sereno since 1997. I started my career with Ernst & Young in Edmonton, Canada and then worked in Toronto before immigrating to California in 1995.  My management consulting clients included Hewlett-Packard, Applied Materials, Electronic Arts, American Express, British Telecom, First Traders, LAM Research, Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, Acer America, Nova Scotia Power, and CSX Conrail.  I have worked across the U.S. and in Canada, U.K., Australia, Netherlands, Germany, Bermuda, Italy, Mexico, Costa Rica, India and Brazil.  Although retired, I remain a fully licensed CPA in Canada.

When my wife Jo-Anne Sinclair and I moved to Monte Sereno in 1997, we knew it was the perfect place to raise a family. Our son, Nik, was born in 1999 and our daughter, Kate, was born in 2003. Since we are practically “empty nesters” now and I’m retired, this is the ideal time for me to give back to the community we love as a member of City Council.

We’ve tried to instill a sense of giving back in our two children, so both Nik and Kate volunteered to serve on the Monte Sereno Youth Commission. Nik graduated from Bellarmine College Prep in 2017 and is a Senior at Santa Clara University. Kate is a Senior at Presentation High School.

After taking Leadership Los Gatos, I was appointed as Monte Sereno’s representative on Silicon Valley Clean Energy’s Customer Program Advisory Group in 2017-18. I enjoyed working with representatives from other municipalities in developing and adopting Reach Codes in 2019.

Jo-Anne and I became U.S. citizens in October 2019, and I was appointed to Monte Sereno’s Site and Architectural Commission two weeks later.  Importantly, citizenship also allows me to run for City Council.

As a Commissioner, I’ve sharpened my ability to see both sides of the coin – from the applicant’s desire for a new or updated home with the neighborhood’s desire for the status quo. I have always gone into each hearing with an open mind. To avoid unnecessary litigation, I believe strongly that the basis of each decision to approve, or deny, applications must be documented explicitly against established objective standards and criteria.  I believe that Monte Sereno’s Design Guidelines must be made more objective. I will ensure my deliberations and reasons for approval/denial are documented in the minutes.

Monte Sereno should take a prominent leadership role in Silicon Valley, including addressing environmental sustainability and climate change. This can be achieved by electing strong city council members who will fight to maintain our rural community, while partnering with neighboring communities for police services, and becoming more resilient to wildfires and working with PG&E to improve its electric distribution system between Los Gatos and Saratoga.

I believe strongly in environmental and financial sustainability and will endeavor to use my abilities to maintain Monte Sereno’s rural character while improving our reputation and stature in the Silicon Valley.

I previously served as a Monte Sereno city council member for eight years. In my time on the city council, we had a strong financial policy where our budget was balanced, and spending was controlled. We worked hard with our residents who were building their dream homes or improving their existing properties. We worked with other cities in the West Valley to restore our rightful share of property taxes. We started a plan to improve the streets of Monte Sereno that continues today. It brought me great joy to start the city’s Better Streets and Roads commission and reinvigorate our Youth Commission.

One of my proudest achievements was improving the way the city communicates with its residents.  I spearheaded efforts to redesign the city’s website, improve email notifications, and initiated our official presence on NextDoor. I will continue to make communication with our residents a top priority. I do not want any resident to ever say they do not know what is going on in our city.

Satisfying California’s housing mandates will be one of my top priorities if elected. Our state legislature continues to limit the ability of cities to set their own policies for housing types, zoning, and density. I worked on this issue during my previous terms in office and it will continue to be a priority for me. We must do everything possible to maintain Monte Sereno’s semi-rural atmosphere.

Meeting members of our community has been one of the highlights during my time on the council. In my previous term, I helped numerous residents address issues with the city. I brought the resident’s questions, concerns, and suggestions about how to improve our city to the city staff. Helping our residents will always be an area of focus for me. I believe customer service has to be a priority for City Hall. That’s one of the benefits of living in a small city.  

Community service is a passion of mine. Engaging in community service provides the opportunity to have a lasting, positive impact on society at large. As a member of my community, I have volunteered as a Boy Scout leader, an adult leader for Treasures 4 Teens helping underserved teens during the holiday season and am currently serving on the Board of Directors at KCAT – our local community TV station.

On previous councils, we gave respect to each other, had respect to each other, had civil discussions, and even if we disagreed, we were always considerate to our colleagues. In my time on the council, my job, and in my volunteer work, I have engaged with many people and on numerous boards and commissions. This has allowed me to develop my ability to communicate clearly with others and mediate conflicts.  I learned early on that listening is as important as talking. I continue to live by these values.

If elected to the council I will bring my passion, energy, and enthusiasm to work for you as I did during my last time as one of your councilpersons.

Daniel LaBouve was appointed to the Monte Sereno City Council on May 7, 2019. He has been a resident of Monte Sereno since 1998 (22 years), is married, and has raised two children through Dave’s Avenue Elementary School, Fisher Middle School, and Los Gatos High School. Currently retired, he was previously an executive in the semiconductor industry and holds a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from University of California at Santa Barbara.

In the past 16 months as a Councilmember, Daniel LaBouve has proactively focused on three core objectives: 1) Preserve and enhance Monte Sereno’s unique residential character, 2) Implement sustainable and transparent financial policy, and 3) Adopt best in class governance to enable high-quality services to residents.

As a resident, LaBouve challenged the City when it attempted to bypass the Site & Architectural (S&A) Commission for a four-lot subdivision development proposal and later, as a Councilmember, he championed an ordinance to require a Site & Architectural Commission recommendation for all land-use issues. LaBouve championed the “Good Neighbor Site & Architecture Development Transparency” resolution to direct implementation of common sense policy to increase resident notification, access, and evaluation of development proposals. He drafted municipal code changes to close loopholes that are actively exploited, such as requiring story poles for subdivisions and requiring S&A re-evaluation and additional processing fees for modified applications. LaBouve offered constructive solutions during a joint study session to restate Monte Sereno subjective design guidelines as objective standards to prevent legal challenge, such as strengthening the tree removal policy, defining visual and privacy impact in terms of screen opacity, and limiting grading and structure height to preserve rural character and ensure conformity to the contours of the land, especially on sloping lots.

LaBouve directly contributed to strengthen the financial policy document to ensure a rigorous budget process, recurring expenses are fully funded by recurring revenue, any new or expanded programs are required to identify new funding sources or offsetting reduction of expenditures, and pension liability is paid annually in proportion to the accrual rate. He created an independent budget analysis and convinced the Council to pay-off ~$700,000 of unfunded pension liability accruing 6% interest. He scrutinized the budget content and coached the Finance Officer to reformat the budget document similar to the private sector so that the operating budget, capital budget, and reserve funds can be clearly and separately tracked with surplus/deficit totals. LaBouve advocated adopting an employee handbook to formalize employee relations and to conduct salary and benefit surveys to align Monte Sereno with the common practice of other cities.

LaBouve established the “Customer Orientation and Operational Excellence” ad-hoc committee to guide and improve core governance processes, such as solicitation of resident feedback, efficient processing and tracking of resident reported issues, strategic, budget, and  work planning, metrics-based evaluation, operations review and status reporting, and a root-cause corrective action process. As part of the City Manager recruitment ad-hoc committee, he drafted a detailed City Manager Annual Review process and a City Manager Performance Metrics and Objectives process. LaBouve drafted the 2020-21 Monte Sereno Mission Statement to align with Monte Sereno Guiding Principles from the General Plan and coached the City Manager to structure the annual goal setting process using the same template.

Daniel LaBouve strives to bring about positive improvements with a results-driven approach and appreciates the opportunity to serve the Monte Sereno community.