Meet The San Ramon Candidate: Marisol Rubio

SAN RAMON, CA — Patch reached out to all candidates for San Ramon mayor and for Council Districts 2 and 4 with questions we feel San Ramon voters want to know.

We reprinted their answers verbatim.

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Below, read the responses of Marisol Rubio, who's running for re-election in City Council District 4.

What is your educational background?

B.A., University of California, Berkeley – Molecular and Cell Biology, Neurobiology Emphasis; Recipient of the Philanthropic Educational Organization (PEO) Women's Leadership Award, Biology Scholars' Program

A.A., Diablo Valley College – German, French, Italian; Graduated with Honors (4.0 GPA)

Oakton Community College - Honors Program, President's Scholar Award, AMATYC National Mathematics Competition Top 10%, Honors Biology - Forest Restoration Project, Phi Theta Kappa Honors Society

What is your professional background?

Currently, In-Home Care Provider and translator. Former K-12 Bilingual Science Teacher, Original Research Mentor, Special Education Learning Coach, and Patient- and Family- Centered Care Lecturer.

Have you ever held public office, whether appointive or elective?

Elected Councilmember and current Vice Mayor - City of San Ramon, District 4 (2022-2026)

Elected Director and Vice President - Dublin San Ramon Services (water) District, Division 1 (2020-2022).

What are the top three issues facing San Ramon right now?

1. Safety: Since assuming office in 2022, we went from ranking 11th to ranking 9th safest city in CA (Safewise 2025-26). I've ensured that our Police Department has the resources necessary to keep our community safe and regularly hosted community events to keep my constituents informed about best practices to stay safe. I'm also working on a citywide program to improve e-bike road safety.

2. Quality of Life: Our quality of life has flourished since 2022. In 2025-26, we placed 1st in the nation for quality of life (U.S. Social Progress Map 2025-26), 1st in the county to live and raise a family (Niche 2025-26), and 7th best place to live in CA (U.S. News & World Report 2026-27). Maintaining our QOL while meeting state-mandated housing, protecting our open spaces, balancing business and job creation to increase city revenues, mitigating traffic, and managing city resources is a priority.

3. Geological Hazards: Wildfires and mudslides are an ongoing concern. That's why I established the Sustainability Advisory Committee. As Vice Chair of the Dougherty Valley and Northwest San Ramon Geological Hazard Abatement Districts, I'm working closely with our Fire Department to develop green firebreaks and other preventative measures to reduce risk.

What is one specific action you would prioritize during your first year in office?

Address our long-term financial health and stability: Shortly after joining the City Council in December 2022, I learned that we had inherited a substantial structural budget deficit as a result of COVID and rising operational costs outpacing revenues. Fortunately, voters approved Measure N in 2024, which provided the city with 100% of the revenue from a 1% sales tax unlike our 8.75% base sales tax. Despite the new 1% sales tax, San Ramon remains 0.50% below the city taxes of other comparable Tri-Valley cities including Dublin, Pleasanton, and Livermore. We also made a commitment to not spend anymore without a tradeoff and to ensure we recovered our costs for city services. Within one year of Measure N, strategic budget cuts, and implementing our new spending policies, the City not only closed the budget deficit but had a substantial General Reserve Fund surplus.

Going forward, we need to attract more competitive corporate and retail businesses, continue to establish a strong regional economic profile in health care, energy, science, and technology, and re-evaluate our financial investment portfolio to optimize our return on investment.

Thousands of homes are planned at Bishop Ranch as former office properties are redeveloped. What should the city require or prioritize regarding affordability, transportation, schools, parks and infrastructure?

Due to the CA Housing Crisis, the state passed a series of laws to legally obligate all California cities to streamline building more housing to drive down costs and homelessness. Every city was assigned a Regional Housing Numbers Allocation. San Ramon was assigned 5,111 units in this 6th cycle (2023 – 2031) and 61% must be affordable. Fortunately, Bishop Ranch (BR) helped the city meet those requirements by zoning for affordable housing in the city core thereby protecting our open spaces, reducing long stretches of traffic along Bollinger and Crow Canyon Roads, establishing housing near the Iron Horse Trail and the bus hub to encourage walking/biking and the use of public transportation, respectively.

To reduce traffic and improve safety, the Iron Horse Trail Bollinger Canyon Overcrossing was constructed with more than 82% funded by external grants saving three hours of red-light stop traffic onsite and permitting safer crossing for pedestrians and bicyclists. Recently, the council also approved an on-ramp metering at no cost to the city, which will reduce I-680 commute times by about 10%. Moreover, as a Director on County Connection (CCCTA), I am working to improve our paratransit services, increase the frequency of our stops, and to address first and last mile issues by expanding our microtransit network, especially for our seniors and people with disabilities. We also started a summer Youth Ride Free Bus Program in 2025, which I am working to expand to year-round and establishing a shuttle service between the Diablo Valley College campuses in Pleasant Hill and San Ramon to ensure students can take the classes they need to graduate in a timely, affordable manner. Lastly, we recently secured $2M to implement a fiber-optic network throughout the city, which will help with traffic management and economic development.

Our school district is experiencing underenrollment due to low birth rates and parents staying in San Ramon. Therefore, under the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), more young families means more students and more funding.

San Ramon has 62 parks (2 are privately owned and maintained in the city core but open to the public). This translates into 1 park per 1,370 residents. We will continue to maintain those ratios.

I established the Sustainability Advisory Committee to help update and implement our Climate Action Plan and to help the city stay ahead of any foreseeable infrastructure needs.

As office vacancies reshape San Ramon's economy, how should the city attract jobs and maintain its tax base without relying excessively on either office development or housing?

Since COVID, more people are working remotely despite San Ramon's Bishop Ranch leading the Bay Area with a 60% return-to office recovery rate for its physical workforce. In response to this change, Bishop Ranch repurposed vacant office spaces and parking lots to housing with some units remaining available for business rental. By building in Bishop Ranch, residents are living closer to work and shopping thereby reducing their daily vehicle miles traveled. Resident proximity to commerce will, in return, attract more competitive retail businesses and jobs, while continuing to establish a strong regional economic profile in health care, energy, science, and technology. A strong city core will also create a more attractive city and drive tourism to the city thereby increasing sales and transient occupancy taxes. Currently, approximately 30% of our sales tax comes from non-residents and visitors to San Ramon.

San Ramon and many other Tri-Valley communities have recently seen a rash of commercial burglaries. How can we better prevent this from happening?

Most commercial burglaries in San Ramon were solved through the use of advanced technology, which was bolstered by a $5.6M retail theft state grant that was secured in September 2023 and allowed us to hire additional police personnel and to buy the technology necessary to more effectively and efficiently carry out investigations. This also allowed the City of San Ramon to work more collaboratively with other Tri-Valley and Bay Area cities to capture the perpetrators. The people committing these crimes are not residents of San Ramon. And, while we cannot prevent people from attempting to commit commercial burglaries in the Tri-Valley, we can certainly discourage them by making it difficult to commit a crime without being seen or caught.

Moreover, when home burglaries occurred in my district, I held public gatheringsalongside our San Ramon Police Department to address our residents' questions and concerns and provide information about how they can reduce the likelihood of becoming a victim of a break-in.

Why do you feel you're a better candidate than your opponents?

I am the only candidate who has consistently lived and raised a family in San Ramon for the past nearly 13 years and who has any elected office experience or public service to the City of San Ramon. Therefore, my breadth of knowledge as it pertains to our district, city, and policymaking are far more extensive, detailed, and current, which allows me to make more informed decisions and to identify more effective solutions for our city. Moreover, over the past six years as an elected official, I fostered professional, collaborative relationships with other local, regional, county, and statewide elected officials that enables me to deliver resources to San Ramon that someone new will struggle to secure. That's why 79 trusted local, state, and federal elected officials and organizations, such as the San Ramon Valley Firefighters Association Local 3546, have endorsed me to continue to serve our great city. They have personally observed the caliber of my professional work, how I think and reason issues, and the efficacy of my policies.

I delivered on every promise made four years ago to my constituents and am ready to deliver again over the next four years. Please vote for me Marisol Rubio for San Ramon City Council, District 4. To learn more, go to www.marisolforsanramon.com.