Desis On The Ballot: Ibrahim Bashir, Los Altos City Council

Who is Ibrahim Bashir?

Ibrahim Bashir is running for Los Altos City Council because, according to his website, it’s the only place he’s ever truly felt at home. He’s raising his three kids here and sending them to local public schools.

Born in Saudi Arabia to Pakistani immigrants, Ibrahim’s father brought the family to the US in pursuit of a better life and education. Despite moving around the country and never quite feeling at home, Bashir says, he learned the value of hard work, perseverance, and community from a young age.

Why he is running for office

After encountering city bureaucracy while undertaking a home renovation, Bashir sought ways to get involved and make the city better. That led to an appointment on the city’s library commission where Bashir discovered that progress was often slowed down by resistance to change. While the city has made some progress in recent years, with plans for downtown, housing, and climate action, significant work remains to fully realize the community’s vision. That’s why he is stepping up to run for City Council. On his website, Bashir states, “When something in your home is broken, you don’t play the blame game. You fix it.” That’s exactly what he intends to do on the city council.

Bashir has received endorsements from Los Altos Town Crier, local firefighters, the Democratic Party, and Planned Parenthood, among others.

If elected his priorities will be

Housing

On his website, Bashir states: Building more housing isn’t about the people who already live here or own homes. It’s about the people in our community who can’t. People like our first responders and municipal workers, who we need to be close in case of a disaster, commute tens of miles a day to serve us. Our teachers, who make our public schools some of the best in the country, can’t afford to live here either. The working people who make our downtown a destination — the baristas, the cooks, the cleaners — commute hours a day to serve us.

It’s easy to get complacent. But we need to build more housing for the people who need it, because we need first responders, teachers, and working people in our community. And we can do it while still preserving the character of our city, by focusing development where it makes sense: next to public transit and major roads, retail areas like downtown, and promoting mixed-use developments where we already have retail.

We need to equip our communities and police with the resources they need to solve crimes. We need to take advantage of grants to build safe streets for all. And we need to put more effort into emergency preparedness, to make sure our residents are prepared and our first responders are close by. This doesn’t have to be expensive, it just takes a different approach.

Public Safety

Our streets should be safe, for everyone, states Bashir on his website. Our students should be able to bike to school without worrying about distracted drivers. We should have safe routes to school, work, and retail for everyone, even if they’re not getting there in a car.

Solving Crime: He will hire more detectives who can investigate the hundreds of thefts and burglaries that happen in Los Altos every year. “We have to work with our police and communities to get smarter about crime. Criminals are stealing without consequence, and our police lack the resources and detectives to solve these crimes. By encouraging residents to get involved and increasing the number of security cameras across our city, we can get smarter about solving and reducing crime. At the same time, we need to train our officers to get better at community engagement and dealing with mental health crises.

Safe Streets: When deciding whether to let their oldest son bike to school, Bashir knew it routes from their house to Los Altos High School weren’t practical or safe. “We have a complete streets master plan, but need to get focused on getting it done so no child in our community gets injured or killed just trying to get to school. By talking with residents and finding funding in state and federal grants, we can have better bike lanes and streets for all.

Emergency Preparedness: “None of our firefighters or police officers live here. In the case of a natural disaster, they won’t be here to help, because they’ll be at home tens of miles away. There are great organizations like Block Action Teams and Resilient Los Altos preparing for emergencies in our city, but we need to do more to engage more members of our community and equip our first responders with the tools to be successful. We need to make sure our first responders live closer to us, encourage students to get engaged in community service, and help our residents get prepared.”

Cultural Vibrancy and Downtown

“We have a great community but lack the cultural institutions and facilities to take advantage of it. Our downtown shuts down earlier than most of our neighbors, forcing our residents — especially students and young professionals — to go home or leave town. We should work with the business community to create opportunities for us to gather in person, and keep our dollars local.”

Climate: We have a lot of work to do, to get our emissions down. We have admirable goals: reducing car travel and traffic, electrifying our city, and increasing green energy production. But we’re not taking the big steps we need to, to achieve those goals.

If we want to use cars less, we have to build safer bike lanes and more reliable public transit. If we want to electrify, we need to build a grid resilient to storms. And if we want to increase green energy production, we have to streamline permitting so that homeowners can easily install solar.”

Education and Mental Health

Los Altos is home to some of the best public schools in the nation. But our children are facing a serious mental health problem.

Los Altos has made great progress in partnering with nonprofits and our school districts to bring services to our students, but we can do more. Our city should do more to build community. We should learn from cities like Palo Alto and work with small businesses so our young people can be in community with each other in-person, instead of online.

What sets him apart from other candidates

As a tech leader in Silicon Valley’s biggest companies, Bashir says he learned how to solve big problems. “You solve big problems by setting ambitious goals. You spend smart. You execute with discipline.” It’s an approach he’s eager to bring to Los Altos city government.

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