Desis On The Ballot: Suds Jain, Santa Clara City Council, District 5

Suds Jain’s passions: Climate change and education

Born Sudhanshu in Delhi in 1961 and raised in California, Jain picked up the moniker “Suds” at a fraternity at MIT, where he earned his MS in electrical engineering. Since his retirement from a tech career in 2008, Jain has steeped himself in civic life in Santa Clara. He is passionate about climate change and education. He was on the city Planning Commission before being elected to the city council in its first district-wise elections in 2020. This is his second run for city council. In an email interview, he told India Currents that some of Santa Clara’s biggest challenges are its crumbling infrastructure, housing deficit, and the city’s carbon footprint.

Jain has lived in Santa Clara with his wife and son since 1999.

On his second run for the Santa Clara City Council

I’m running for re-election essentially because I have lots of unfinished business. As a council member, I now sit on the Silicon Valley BART Extension oversight committee which is responsible for making sure that the $12.7 billion BART to Santa Clara extension is on time and on budget. This is a big responsibility and I have spent a lot of time learning about the technical aspects

I have proposed many initiatives within the City of Santa Clara that I want to see through. I initiated a homeless task force and want Santa Clara to implement interim supportive housing and safe parking for RVs. I want to build lots of housing in a 244-acre area near the train where BART will come. For this reason, I initiated the Station Area Plan Task Force.  Many people have been working for years to rebuild Santa Clara’s downtown which is in my district. I attended many of the 44 meetings of the Downtown Community Task Force and pushed for Form Based Code that will create a better downtown.

Finally, I have spent the last four years building relationships with elected officials in neighboring cities as well as with Supervisors. This is evidenced by my extensive list of endorsements.

My first order of business on Day 1 as a second-term councilmember

My first order of business would be to meet with any new council members to understand their priorities and to get to know them.

Top 3 priorities as a council member

1. Homelessness and Affordable Housing
2. Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change
3. Fiscal Responsibility and restoring budget reserves

Challenges Santa Clara City faces

The biggest challenge is deteriorating infrastructure. The International Swim Center is shut down and many of our fire stations are overdue to be rebuilt. We haven’t passed an infrastructure bond since 1959.

Another challenge is meeting our goal to reduce the City’s carbon footprint by 80% by 2030.

Santa Clara has a jobs-to-housing ratio of 2.9 to 1. We need to build lots more housing to prevent terrible traffic congestion from people commuting into Santa Clara. I worked on the Affordable Housing Nexus Committee in 2017 to get 15% inclusionary low-income housing built. I’ve been working on getting deeper levels of affordability in multifamily housing projects.

On the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury report that criticized the city council for being dysfunctional . What would you like to see change on the council?

While there is a split on the council and some council members don’t like to work with others,  I don’t think the City Council is dysfunctional. There is a 5:2 split on the council on many votes but we have been very successful in passing budgets that have reduced our deficits and we have even passed many budget amendments that require 5 votes. I don’t think that any major decision was prevented by council dynamics. We unanimously agreed to put an infrastructure bond on the November ballot.  We have made major decisions on the Downtown and Specific Area Plans and expansion plans for our electric utility.  The council relies heavily on the recommendations of our professional staff.

I think the 3 Grand Jury reports were motivated by politics, were very biased, and full of errors. I disagreed with many of the findings and recommendations.

I would like to see accusations of bad behavior by the public as well as accusations by council members stopped or at least toned down.

I am uniquely qualified for this role because…

My opponent has never served on a government board or commission while I served 5 years on the Planning Commission and then 4 years on the City Council. I have experience working in the private sector as well as the public sector. I understand land use issues and many of the housing laws that the State has imposed on cities to build more housing. This role is at least a half-time job and I’m retired and have time to read all the packets and attend meetings in the middle of the day.

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