Kevin Park serves as Santa Clara City Council Member for District 4, with a term running from December 2020 to December 2024. He, along with Council Member Raj Chahal (District 2) and Council Member Sudhanshu “Suds” Jain (District 5), is one of the first three Asian-American candidates to win a seat on Santa Clara’s council since it was formed.
His issues are those of growth and democracy, stressing the need for planning over simple development, promoting residential voice above authoritarian rule, and demanding integrity in addition to mere intelligence. While acknowledging the need for more housing, his belief that communities are more than just housing units fuels his desire for better-integrated projects that provide benefits to the city as a whole, not just the neighborhoods in which they are built. He is an independent thinker looking for consensus, and hopes to contribute to a team effort that produces results better than any one person could imagine.
As the only council member from the working-class with a child in grade school, Kevin understands the difficulties modern families face in their day-to-day lives, even before politics is brought up.
Santa Clara City Council page: https://www.santaclaraca.gov/our-city/government/mayor-and-council/councilmembers/kevin-park
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All politics is local politics, and every local politician starts with a neighborhood issue. While those may not be exact truths, they are certainly true for me. I got involved with the City when my neighbors informed me of a development across from where we lived. What I thought would be a six-month project turned into years of city council and planning commission meetings, throughout the Bay Area, not just in Santa Clara. Years of going to City Council meeting opened my eyes to other neighborhood issues, Sister Cities relationships, a Stadium, and almost any other city issue you can imagine. And some that people cannot.
I have lived in Santa Clara for almost 30 years now, ever since I started working in the high tech industry. I have helped several companies achieve their IPOs and get acquired, working for such companies as Unisys, Brocade, Google, Wavefront, and DoorDash. Several of my recent companies have been in the AI space, but I still believe that humans should be the center of business.
I have been active in the community as a prominent voice at city meetings of all sorts while volunteering at the Santa Clara Office of Education (SCCOE) projects. I taught for a few years at Cogswell Polytechnical College (now the University of Silicon Valley) and still find time to teach and give guidance to grade school and high school students.
I ran for council twice before finally getting elected in 2020. Since that time I have helped stabilize financial foundations, eliminating the debt incurred during the pandemic and finding new sources of revenue to help the City grow.
City-wise, I have served as a member of the Santa Clara General Plan Steering Committee, on the board of Santa Clara Sister Cities Association (SCSCA), on the board of the Santa Clara Citizens’ Advisory Committee (CAC), and have attended more City Council and Planning Commission meetings on my own time than anyone else I know. I have been a community activist since the day that my neighbor and friend explained the projects happening in our community, over a decade ago.