The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority,more commonly known simply as the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA),is a special district responsible for public transit services,congestion management,specific highway improvement projects,and countywide transportation planning for Santa Clara County,California. It serves San Jose,California,and the surrounding Silicon Valley. It is one of the governing parties for the Caltrain commuter rail line that serves the county. In 2023,the VTA's public transportation services had a combined ridership of 26,610,000,or about 87,100 per weekday as of the first quarter of 2024.
Saren Joseph Simitian is an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party,he was the State Senator representing California's 11th State Senate district,which encompasses all or part of 13 cities in San Mateo,Santa Clara,and Santa Cruz counties,from 2004 to 2012. Approaching his term limit at the end of 2012,he ran for and was elected to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. He was re-elected to the same seat in 2016 and again in 2020.
Jose "Joe" Santos Esteves was the mayor of Milpitas,California. A Republican,Esteves was born in the Philippines and graduated from the University of the Philippines Diliman before immigrating to the United States in 1980. He was elected to Milpitas City Council in 1998 and went on to serve as mayor between 2002 and 2008,and again from 2010 to 2016.
Ronald R. Gonzales is an American politician and member of the Democratic Party,who served as the 63rd Mayor of San Jose,California. Gonzales was the first Hispanic to serve as Mayor of San Jose since 1845.
Madison Nguyen is an American politician from California. She served on the San Jose City Council from 2005 to 2014,representing District 7,and she additionally served as Vice-Mayor from 2011 to 2014. She was the first Vietnamese-American elected to the city council.
Cindy Chavez is an American politician who serves as the Santa Clara County supervisor representing district two,which is home to nearly 400,000 residents in Downtown,East,and South San Jose. Her public service career began in the 1990s as a policy analyst for health care,public health,human services and transportation for the Board of Supervisors. She served two terms on the San Jose City Council,where she was also Vice Mayor,and also served on the board leadership of public agencies such as the San Jose Redevelopment Agency,and executive director of Working Partnerships USA and the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council. She has unsuccessfully run for Mayor of San Jose twice. She is a graduate of San Jose State University,is married and has a son in college.
David Dominic Cortese is an elected official from San Jose,California. He is currently serving in the California State Senate,representing District 15,which encompasses a majority of Santa Clara County. Before being elected to the California State Senate,Cortese served on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors for 12 years,as a Councilmember and Vice Mayor for the City of San Jose for eight years,and for eight years as a trustee for the East Side Union High School District in San Jose. Cortese ran for mayor of San Jose and won the primary,losing the general election to District 3 councilmember Sam Liccardo.
Sally J. Lieber is an American politician from the state of California who has served as a member of the California State Board of Equalization since 2023. She was previously a member of the Mountain View City Council and the California State Assembly. She represented the 22nd Assembly District that includes the cities of Mountain View,Sunnyvale,Cupertino and portions of Santa Clara and San Jose which are all located in Santa Clara County. In February 2022,Assemblywoman Lieber was endorsed by the California State Democratic Party for Board Member of the California State Board of Equalization,District 2. She won the seat in the California general election held on November 8,2022.
James Thomas Beall Jr. is an American politician who served in the California State Senate from 2012 to 2020. A Democrat,he represented the 15th Senate District,which encompasses the South Bay and Silicon Valley.
Otto Oswald Lee is a Hong Kong-born American politician,attorney,and military veteran who was a Sunnyvale,California city council member from 2003 to 2011,before which he was on the Planning Commission,which he chaired from 2000 to 2001. From 2005 to 2006 he was vice mayor,and from 2006 to 2007 he was the 57th mayor of Sunnyvale. He is a patent attorney,and a co-founder and partner of the Intellectual Property Law Group LLP.
Laurie Smith was the 28th Sheriff of Santa Clara County,California,serving from 1998 until her early retirement in 2022 when under indictment for corruption. She was the first female County Sheriff in the history of the state.
Santa Clara County,officially the County of Santa Clara,is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California,with a population of 1,936,259 as of the 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring San Benito County form the San Jose–Sunnyvale–Santa Clara metropolitan statistical area,which is part of the larger San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland combined statistical area. Santa Clara is the most populous county in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Northern California.
Evan Low is an American politician currently serving in the California State Assembly. He is a Democrat representing the 26th Assembly District,which encompasses parts of Silicon Valley,including Cupertino,Sunnyvale,Santa Clara and portions of northern and western San Jose. He is a member of the California Legislative LGBT Caucus,and currently serves as Chair of the California Asian American &Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus.
The South Bay Labor Council,AFL–CIO (SBLC),is the labor council of Santa Clara and San Benito counties in California's Bay Area. The SBLC is affiliated with the AFL–CIO,one of the national labor confederations of the United States. The SBLC represents over 100,000 men and women of 101 unions in Silicon Valley.
Samuel Theodore Liccardo is an American politician from California who served as the 65th mayor of San Jose from 2015 to 2023. A member of the Democratic Party,Liccardo was elected mayor in November 2014. He was reelected in 2018 with 75.8% of the vote. As the leader of the California Big City Mayors Coalition,Liccardo advocated on statewide issues including homelessness and COVID-19 response.
The 2014 San Jose mayoral election was held on June 3,2014 to elect the Mayor of San Jose,California. Councilmember Sam Liccardo defeated Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese in a runoff on November 4,2014.
San Jose Bike Party is a monthly social bicycle ride event in and around San Jose,California held on the third Friday of every month. Attendance varies with weather and time of year,usually ranging from hundreds in the winter months to low thousands in the summer. Established in 2007,it is the original 'bike party' now replicated in other cities around the world. Its motto is "Building community through cycling".
The 2022 San Jose mayoral election was held on November 8,2022,to elect the next mayor of San Jose for a two-year term. A top-two primary was held on June 7,2022,and no candidate received more than 50% in this primary election. Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez and San Jose City Councilmember Matt Mahan advanced to a November 8 runoff election. On November 16,Cindy Chavez conceded the race to Matt Mahan.
The 2022 Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors election was held on November 8,2022,to elect two of the five seats on the Board of Supervisors of Santa Clara County,California. District 1 was an open seat due to the terming out of Supervisor Mike Wasserman. The race was highly competitive and the first since the 2020 United States redistricting cycle which changed the boundaries of the district. Since District 4 was uncontested,incumbent Supervisor Susan Ellenberg did not appear on the November 8th ballot.
The 2024 California's 16th congressional district election will be held on November 5,2024,to elect the United States representative for California's 16th congressional district,concurrently with elections for the other U.S. House districts in California and the rest of the country,as well as the 2024 U.S. Senate race in California,other elections to the United States Senate,and various state and local elections. The primary election was held on March 5,2024,concurrently with the Super Tuesday presidential primaries.
