Alicia Aguirre Candidate Profile and How to run for Redwood City City Council

Calling all potential City Council candidates the registration window for City Council election candidates is now half way through. The City of Redwood City needs you. Individuals interested in running for City Council should know that technically there is no pre-requisite other than to be a registered Redwood City voter for thirty days and not have any felonies. However although anyone that meets those requirements can run, not everyone can win unless they run unopposed which as you will read below has happened but is not the case this time. If you are interesting in running for City Council you need to fill out a form 501 (http://www.fppc.ca.gov/forms/1-05forms/501.pdf) then you will need to:

1) make an appointment with the City Clerk to pull papers and then prepare all the documentation, followed by

2) return and submit all documents for the City Clerk’s review and processing.

All this must occur, per elections law, between July 13 and August 7, 2015. Just to be clear according to the City Clerk two appointments are required –one to take out papers and one to submit papers – A candidate can submit a 501 anytime before meeting with the City Clerk and well in advance of the nomination period opening. But when you first meet with the City Clerk that will be one of the forms being requested. In addition, the City Clerk will go over what additional forms will be needed such as: Form 700 Statement of Economic Interests, campaign reporting obligations and deadlines, ballot designation, nomination paper, statement of candidacy, candidate statement, permission to post, election cycle deadlines, etc.

Council Members are paid a monthly stipend of $750; more if you are the Mayor. While trying to win may be an all consuming process, once elected the time commitment can be as little as ten to fifteen hours per month although some Council Members choose to and are able to financially make it a full time job.

Alicia Aguirre

Alicia Aguirre was born in Detroit, Michigan. The oldest of five children, she attended Catholic schools including Saint Gabriel’s a K-8 school and Holy Redeemer High School. For college she attended both Marygrove and University of Detroit, a Jesuit school, so as to be able to double Major in Languages and Education and double Minor in Computer Science and Psychology and still graduate in four years. Right after college she continued her education by going to Eastern Michigan University to get her masters. In addition, she started working as an elementary History teacher in an inner city Detroit school. Within three years she had become a high school principal at a different school.

Alicia first left Detroit to pursue her PhD in Mexico City where she lived for four years, got married and had a son. After four years she moved to Seattle and started teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) and child development at Seattle Central Community College. She had a second son. Two years later Stanford called and the family moved to the area. Her husband started his residency at Stanford Medical Center and Alicia started working at the Office of the President of Stanford.

Then she spent several years teaching at various community colleges in the Bay Area including Skyline, DeAnza and Canada. Until she finally got a full-time tenured position at Canada at which point she moved to Redwood City. Her two sons attended Mt. Carmel K-8 but went their separate ways for high school as one attended Woodside High and the other attended Serra. Although the boys, one year apart in ages, reunited for college when they both attended UC Santa Cruz. Divorced from the father of her children, Alicia remarried Pete Livengood who at the time was a KRON TV anchor and is now a book author.

In addition to her paid work at Canada College and her City Council stipend, Alicia sits on nine community boards including the Service League of San Mateo, an organization that works helping women in jails. She told me she has a “passion for helping women.” She also is the president of Kids Vision.

I asked her how she got into politics and she explained that given her background and work in education in 1999 she ran and got elected to be a Trustee of the Redwood City School Board. She served as a Trustee on the board for five years. After which she was appointed to the Redwood City City Council to the opening left by Ira Rushkin. A competitive appointment process, she was selected from a large pool of fourteen or fifteen applicants for the appointment. The following year as an appointed applicant she had to run again but she feels because of the fact that whoever would win the election would only get to serve the balance two years instead of a full four years she ran largely unopposed and won.

When I asked her what she had accomplished in her time on Council, Alicia explained that “everything we (the council) do is a team effort.” She is particularly interested in her work with the regional transportation authorities and is closely following the issues involved with the 101 Woodside Interchange and the Dumbarton Rail Transportation projects as they will clearly heavily impact Redwood City. Going forward she would like to continue to focus on infrastructure, streets and bridges, more partnerships with community groups, parks and multi-age projects that benefit youth and seniors.

Alicia mentioned that even though the Council tended to vote unanimously they actually all examined the issues from their different backgrounds be it among others architectural, educational and business. I told her that I was very concerned that as I had articulated in public comments at a SF Bay Conservation Development Commission (SF BCDC) meeting in a country where even a ban on plastic bags has organizations that are opposed to the ban, this council votes so unanimously. Alicia felt that if people were dissatisfied they should run.

See information above about how to run.

( In the department of bothersome niggling questions: regardless of what Alicia speculates why would fourteen or fifteen people apply for an appointment and yet a year later not run for the same position?)

To learn more about Alicia Aguirre go to www. aliciaaguirre.com

Coming next: Shelly Masur