Longtime Portola Valley council members will not seek reelection | News

Immediately after serving a merged 30 a long time on the Portola Valley City Council, Maryann Derwin and John Richards will not run for place of work this fall. The pair told The Almanac they’d like to give some others a shot to sit on the council.

The city faces major troubles ahead as they move aside, particularly the continued endeavours to harden residences towards likely wildfires. The town is also functioning through the system of finding the point out to approve its point out-mandated housing component.

Derwin joined the council in 2005, while Richards in 2009.

Mayor Craig Hughes has pulled papers to run for reelection. 3 other individuals have expressed interest in operating: Mary Hufty, Planning Commissioner Judith Hasko and Dale Pfau.

Derwin, a resident of Portola Valley due to the fact the early ’90s, thanked the community in a July 19 letter for acquiring faith in her management even when her stands were controversial.

“As a seasoned elected official after instructed me, ‘If you usually are not producing individuals disappointed, you usually are not performing your career, and … in some cases you ought to guide men and women where they never want to go,'” she mentioned. “Ever knowledgeable of the bigger photograph and the better superior, I attempted to live by these words and phrases, wrenching at situations as it could be.”

During her tenure on the council, Portola Valley done the City Middle, established the Spring Down vernal pond and convened the town’s Race & Fairness Committee. She also oversaw the generation of an inclusive community process for the 2023-31 housing aspect and the passage of the strictest house hardening ordinance in San Mateo County.

As a member of San Mateo County boards and committees, she served create the to start with-at any time drinking water company in San Mateo County, One particular Shoreline, and the initially Highway 101 Express Lanes challenge. On the San Mateo Library Joint Powers Authority (JPA), she labored to restructure the distribution of funding to make it additional equitable, and authorised cash for new libraries in 50 percent Moon Bay, Brisbane, and Atherton.

She also served on the San Mateo Metropolis/County Affiliation of Governments, the place she worked on endeavours like growing bicycle/pedestrian accessibility, environmentally friendly infrastructure, climate action and housing.

Previous councilwoman Ann Wengert mentioned Derwin represents the most effective in town federal government. Wengert described Derwin as “eloquent, fiery and impassioned.”

“Section cheerleader and element pusher, Maryann doggedly encouraged us, her colleagues, to get concerned with our county and regional counterparts by taking part on committees and in regional functions,” Wengert said in a statement. “Maryann truly warrants credit for Portola Valley’s emergence from its past isolation.”

Derwin strategies to endorse Hughes for reelection.

Richards, a retired architect, said it was simply time for him to go on.

“I mostly made the decision 13 years is prolonged plenty of on the council,” he said. “I will overlook the companionship of the other individuals on the council and having folks in the group reach out with inquiries and opinions.”

Richards moved to Portola Valley when he was 4 decades aged and attended elementary faculty in the Old Schoolhouse just before graduating from Woodside High College.

“Hopefully we can essentially bring some of the reduced-earnings sections of society back again into the neighborhood a broader blend than these days,” he reported of attempts to create far more housing in town. “When my people moved in this article it was the lowest priced position close to to are living again in the ’50s. It’s a more healthy community to have that type of blend.”

As mayor, Richards spearheaded a gasoline-run leaf blower ban, “which looks to have made a change,” he explained.

About a decade back, he served begin the City Centre farmers current market.

Right before signing up for the council, Richards served as a Setting up Commissioner in the 1990s.

Richards ideas to endorse Hughes, together with Arranging Commissioners Craig Taylor and Judith Hasko for the council this drop. He claimed the council’s best worries will continue to be hearth basic safety and housing.