By Ritu Jha-
Entrepreneur Chirag Kathrani may be a political newcomer, but he has his sights set on changing the San Ramon city council. Among his many priorities, Kathrani does not want the city council to increase the tax burden on residents, and for that, he wants to cut back on the city manager’s expenses.
Kathrani is a latecomer to the San Ramon mayoral race and he’s trying to catch up fast with his opponent, District 2 City Councilmember Mark Armstrong. Earlier this year the city’s mayoral race seemed destined to be a one-sided affair. The mayor and longtime councilmember Dave Hudson chose not to seek re-election and Armstrong announced his candidacy earlier this year. Kathrani emerged as a candidate at the last minute during a deadline extension for candidacy filing that was in place with no incumbent seeking the seat.
Kathrani and Armstrong went head-to-head in an election forum at Bishop Ranch earlier this month. The candidates clashed on several issues, including the redevelopment of a large piece of land in the heart of the city. They debated redevelopment of Bishop Ranch, housing, budgeting, civic engagement, and the proposed 1% sales tax increase.
“I’m a candidate for mayor right now – while everybody says it’s an opportunity, I would say getting this opportunity itself is wrong in the first place,” Kathrani said in his opening statement. “If the mayor race is running unopposed, then our city council has some fundamental problem.”
His story
Kathrani spoke to indica about coming to the U.S., obtaining his citizenship, and his mayoral dreams.
He emigrated in 2000 and moved to San Ramon in 2011 for better schools for his three children, as well as business opportunities.
“When I started looking at what is happening, I realized that our votes have the maximum power locally, more than national and state level where our votes count for very less,” Kathrani said. “I watched the mayoral race in 2020, looked at every debate to see if I found somebody, and started sharing the info with others. A lot of people don’t know what is happening, especially people of Indian origin,”
Kathrani said he sees very few Indian Americans in this race and the ones he does see often don’t know much about how the city functions. He says many people seem to think city government functions automatically.
In 2022 he campaigned for a mayoral candidate and this year he volunteered for several candidates.
“What I learned is we Indians have a lot of knowledge, but when anybody sees us, they think that Indians are techies, engineers, or doctors but not leaders.”
Kathrani says he started his first business right out of college, driven by his passion for technology and leadership. He runs three initiatives: Enterprise Mobility Inc.: A Software and Technology Consulting Business, Mangalm LLC: An Ethnic Grocery Line Distribution Business and Lead for Earth, a nonprofit where he mentors youth. At Lead for Earth (lead4earth.org), he says he connect young people with leaders, researches climate report cards, and links them with local school volunteer bases.
“I strongly believe that any community needs an ecosystem where local entrepreneurship needs to be cultivated and encouraged to build a thriving society,” Kathrani said. “While going from door to door to meet people, I found there are many solutions the community has to offer but most of them were pushed back because the leadership would not encourage them. I felt this when it took us four years to set up a sustainability advisory committee. We had to collect signatures from community members. Affordability was another top issue in the community and there are solutions where we need to take stronger actions.”
Shaking things up
Kathrani said he has a habit of questioning everything because his experience launching startups has taught him to think differently and challenge possibilities.
“So that’s why my logo is a dog,” he said. “I am a very approachable, friendly dog. My yard sign is ‘Let’s talk.’”.
When asked what changes he wants to bring within the council meeting system to bring more people to the meetings, he spoke about Measure N, the proposed 1% sales tax increase that the City Council voted unanimously to place on November’s ballot following months of budget discussions. His other priorities are significant cuts across the city’s departments.
“My number one priority is to improve community engagement. If we bring diverse voices, we will get a lot of solutions to our problems. Some people can research and make sure that the budget is balanced. We also need the youth to volunteer. I am also collaborating with high schoolers. After the election, we will encourage youngsters to challenge the leadership. From leadership, they may move to entrepreneurship.”
Kathrani opposes Measure N. He said that should the move fail in November the city would “probably need to tighten its belts” and take other measures such as increasing developer fees and reducing spending to address the deficit.
“There are other expenses which I saw are extremely high in the City Council,” Kathrani said. “If you can fix those expenses, we can still have a balanced budget. If you see from 2020 to 2023, the inflation is 17%. But the city expenses have gone up by 31%. So there is an area where we could have improvement.”
Balancing the budget
If Measure N is not passed, the next question is how does Kathrani plan to get the extra revenue.
“In 2020, we were no profit, no loss. The current council has been there for the last four years. Between 2020 and 2024 our revenue has definitely gone up but, our expenses have also gone up. Something is mismatching, and we’ll figure out the source of extra expenditure. We can probably cut those extra costs. To advertise and promote Measure N the city council spent $312,000. I went to 200 shops in San Ramon, to check the efficacy of this ad campaign. Not even 1% of shop owners knew about Measure N. So where did this fund go? In comparison, I put a voluntary limit for myself of $75,000 so that such exorbitant expenses are not made. Nobody knows what happened to the $312,000. Another $100,000 was given to the same company for the same job. This is how the deficit increases.”
The mayoral candidate says that his first task will be to fix the financial deficit.
“I will put some freeze on the expenses because every use, every meeting you see there is a good amount of funds being allocated for different activities which you can rethink on. I also want to bring small businesses to the city through development projects like building shopping complexes. There are a lot of small businesses which will move in. If you see small businesses nearby, people get encouraged to do more leadership. I want to bring more leadership, and entrepreneurship to the city.”
Kathrani said high housing costs is a fundamental problem for San Ramon.
“Businesses are moving out because of this and soon we won’t have any business left here. To put this big business, we need to have people able to live affordably in the city. The affordability is linked to small businesses moving in,” he said.
Taking this stand has made him unpopular in several quarters.
“I’m not asking for endorsement from anyone because nobody seems to be ready to endorse me. Since I’m going against the city’s spending, the city staff is not going to endorse me at all. They don’t even want to be seen with me. I am focusing on keeping my pitch and campaign different.”