About

As a third-generation resident, some of my first memories are of playing at Saint Mark’s Nursery School on Moraga Way and shopping for candy and stickers at the Sandpiper toy store that used to be next door to Orinda Books. The fact that the nursery school chimes on, Orinda Books has bucked the trend and expanded, and our community now counts a farmer’s market and food trucks where families can celebrate shopping and dining together is part of what makes Orinda the place we call home. 

Journalism  

I was not always a lawyer.  In my first year at University of California Santa Cruz, I joined the campus newspaper where I found a calling.  I quickly proceeded on to working summers at the Santa Cruz County Sentinel and after graduating, worked as a newspaper reporter for nine years, first for the Fairfield Daily Republic, then moved on to what is now the East Bay Times and finally, The Modesto Bee.  It is a wonderful training for life and gives me great gratitude to our local journalism community. Reporters help provide transparency in government which is something I work hard to do as a council member, too.

As a journalist, I sat through countless numbers of City Council meetings in communities including Dixon, Danville, San Ramon and Modesto and Boards of Supervisors meetings mostly in Contra Costa and San Joaquin Counties. I combed through campaign finance reports and city spending reports and followed innumerable general plan processes.  Eventually, as my own journalist grandfather Wayne Miller had urged me, it would not be enough and I would want to do more – at some point in life I would want to shed my journalistic objectivity and participate as an active force in our community. Transitioning my skills to the law in 2010 allowed me to join the Orinda Parks Commission in early 2011 and start serving our community.

On the Council

Serving Orinda as a City Council member during the past four years including as Mayor in 2019 has led me to meet so many Orindans with diverse perspectives which combine to make the place of excellence we call home. Soon after joining the council, I was appointed to serve as one of two council members on our Downtown Subcommittee. Working with people with different points of view on our downtown toward choices that allow us to retain our charm while also modernizing our aging downtown has led to a rich planning process. I look forward to continuing facilitate this uniquely Orinda process to completion of our Downtown Precise Plan. This plan will guide standards for the future of our downtown — how it looks, how it feels, and how we commune with its spaces.

I have also for the past four years served as one of two council members appointed as Orinda’s representatives to the Central Contra Costa Solid Waste Authority known as Recyle Smart. In that role, we identified the opportunity to acquire the Big Belly trash and recycling containers around Orinda with dollars Orindan’s earned for the community by putting recyclables in their blue bins. Since then, the price we receive for recyclables has reduced considerably and finding ways to continue programs like Big Belly in the years to come is a challenge I hope to have the opportunity to work to solve.

As a small city with an even smaller budget, finding ways to do more with less is an ongoing challenge and one that I embrace.