Election 2024: Mountain View official runs for D5 county seat

Margaret Abe-Koga grew up in San Mateo watching her parents live in a bubble.

As Japanese immigrants seeking a better life in the U.S., Abe-Koga’s parents became enmeshed in the Japanese American community — but struggled outside of it and relied on her to translate English. As the family’s only link to the English-speaking world, she wasn’t aware of government support programs or how to connect her family to them as a child. Now she wants to ensure other families don’t miss similar safety nets as the next Santa Clara County supervisor.

Abe-Koga, a Mountain View councilmember and former mayor, is running against longtime politico and California State Board of Equalization Chair Sally Lieber for the District 5 seat on the Board of Supervisors, with Supervisor Joe Simitian terming out this year. Both candidates netted the most votes in the March primaries, advancing them to the November election. District 5 includes Mountain View, Cupertino, Los Gatos, Saratoga, Palo Alto and a small section of San Jose.

If elected, Abe-Koga would be the first Japanese American woman to sit on the board of supervisors, making history alongside District 2 as either Madison Nguyen or Betty Duong become the first Vietnamese American supervisor. Abe-Koga said she’d use her experience as a child of immigrants if elected.

“We struggled, but a lot of folks helped us along the way and paying it forward (is) really important to me,” Abe-Koga told San José Spotlight.

Abe-Koga began her career working under Congresswoman Anna Eshoo from 1993 to 1999 after graduating from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in American government and politics. She was content working behind the scenes, but her second daughter’s birth spurred her to run for Mountain View City Council in 2003. She lost, but won a seat in 2006 and became the first Asian American woman elected to the council after serving two years on the Santa Clara County Board of Education.

Since then, she’s served on council for about 15 years, including two stints as mayor during the Great Recession and at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, where she helped further a rental assistance program that distributed millions to families citywide. She sat on the council from 2007 to 2014 before taking two years to work as district director for Assemblymember Evan Low, who’s running for Congress. Voters reelected her in 2016 where she serves today. She helped introduce the city’s first guaranteed basic income program about two years ago, helping 166 families.

“Why do (I) do this? It’s because I do think that you can make change and make a difference,” she said. “Sometimes you just have to toil away and be patient and work a long time on it. But when it happens, that’s the joy of this job.”

Abe-Koga’s priorities if elected District 5 county supervisor include strong fiscal leadership, public safety and small business support, all through an environmentally conscious lens as an early supporter of nonprofit Silicon Valley Clean Energy.

She plans to analyze the county budget line by line, especially after its $250-million deficit, while looking for revenue-generating opportunities such as leasing county land. She said she’s consistently worked with public safety agencies, including attending police ride-alongs to witness their work firsthand.

As a former exercise instructor at the YMCA and City Sports Club, Abe-Koga wants the county to be a resource for small businesses. She also wants to explore housing bond options using her experience on the oversight committee of the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority to address affordable housing and homelessness.

Abe-Koga’s experience has earned the trust of residents and officials, including Mountain View resident Fiona Walter, her volunteer campaign treasurer.

Walter has known Abe-Koga for about 20 years as a former member of multiple school boards and said Abe-Koga isn’t deterred by much. She remembers Abe-Koga teaching newbies how to walk precincts with her newborn daughter in a car seat on Walter’s dining room table. She said Abe-Koga stuck to her obligations even while undergoing breast cancer treatment.

“She not only knows the players, but she has relationships with them and she can work with anybody who sits at a table with her,” Walter told San José Spotlight. “I’m just so impressed at how well she knows the needs of the community and how well she represents us.”

Eshoo, Low and California Attorney General Rob Bonta have endorsed Abe-Koga, as well as Susan Ellenberg, president of the county board of supervisors. Ellenberg said she met Abe-Koga when she was working for Low and that she’s always been impressed by her.

“I always see her as being well-prepared, and truthfully that’s what I want in a colleague,” Ellenberg told San José Spotlight. “I want someone who does the homework, who asks thoughtful questions and who is focused on impact and outcomes.”

Abe-Koga said she’s ready to take on the position using her unique perspective.

“This valley is built on risk-taking and I think we need to do a little bit more of that in government,” she told San José Spotlight. “I’m done with the status quo.”

Contact Annalise Freimarck at [email protected] or follow @annalise_ellen on X, formerly known as Twitter.