Council

The seven

Elected citywide. No districts, no district offices.

Week of October 5–11, 2026 · Updated Saturday, October 10, 2026 · Source: Mountain View Legistar (live)

Seven members, all elected citywide. There are no districts, so every one of them is your councilmember — and none of them is only yours.

Member	Role	Next on the ballot
Emily Ann Ramos	Mayor	November 2028
Chris Clark	Vice Mayor	November 2028
Alison Hicks	Councilmember	November 2026 open seat
Ellen Kamei	Councilmember	November 2026 open seat
John McAlister	Councilmember	November 2028
Lucas Ramirez	Councilmember	November 2026 open seat
Pat Showalter	Councilmember	November 2028

What “at large” changes

In a district city you lobby one member and they carry your item. Here there is no such shortcut: a majority is four of seven, and all seven face the same electorate. That makes broad, visible support matter more than a personal relationship with a district office — and it makes turning up at the meeting, in numbers, the main lever residents actually have.

The trade runs both ways. Nobody can be written off as “not my councilmember”, so an email to all seven is a legitimate move rather than a nuisance. But no one member owes your street anything in particular, which is why a small, concentrated problem can go years without a champion. If you want a district representative, the one you have is your county supervisor, not anyone in this room.

Terms, limits and the ballot

Four-year terms, staggered so that three or four seats are filled at the general municipal election in November of every even-numbered year.
Two consecutive full terms is the limit. A member who has served two in a row cannot run again for the seat in the next cycle, which is why open seats appear on a clock rather than only on retirement.
Nonpartisan and citywide. No party labels, no district ballots.
Terms are written the way the city writes them — a term runs to the January after the election — while the ballot column above gives the election year, which is what a voter actually needs. See Vote.

Mayor and Vice Mayor

Neither post is elected by voters. Each January the Council picks one of its own as Mayor and another as Vice Mayor. The Mayor sets the meeting order, signs documents and represents the city ceremonially — and votes as one of seven, like everyone else.

What the Council actually decides

Mountain View is a council–manager city. The Council sets policy, adopts the budget, passes ordinances, decides land use, and hires two employees: the City Manager and the City Attorney. The City Manager runs the departments and the workforce. Day-to-day service delivery is not a Council decision, and bringing an operational complaint here is the most common wasted trip to City Hall.

Three limits are worth knowing before you ask this body for something:

Schools are not theirs. Two separately elected school boards run education in Mountain View. The Council has no vote over either.
Rent stabilization is not theirs to amend. The CSFRA is in the city charter; only the voters can change it. The Council appoints the Rental Housing Committee and nothing more.
A growing share of land use is not theirs either. State housing law increasingly removes discretion, so a Council can be legally obliged to approve something it dislikes.

The same seven people, wearing another hat

All seven also sit as the board of the Shoreline Regional Park Community, a legally separate entity created by the state legislature in 1969 that covers roughly 1,550 acres of North Bayshore and runs on its own property tax increment. Joint Council / Shoreline meetings are routine. When you see one on the calendar, the money under discussion is not general-fund money — see the guide.

Subcommittees

Much of the shaping work happens in three-member Council subcommittees that meet as needed: Finance and Investment Review, Transportation, Neighborhoods, Environmental Sustainability, Youth Services, Policy and Procedures, Appointments Review, NOFA Review, and an ad-hoc subcommittee on Race, Equity and Inclusion. Membership is reassigned at the January reorganization; each member page below lists the seats they hold as of the most recent one.

Act now — comment deadlines

To weigh in: hand a blue speaker card to the City Clerk, raise your hand on Zoom or press *9 by phone, or email city.council@mountainview.gov by 4:30 p.m. on the day of the meeting.

Comment by Friday, October 9 for City Council, Saturday, October 10, 8:00 AM.

Comment by Sunday, October 11 for Youth Advisory Committee, Monday, October 12, 4:30 PM.

Comment by Monday, October 12 for City Council, Tuesday, October 13, 6:30 PM.

Comment by Tuesday, October 13 for Administrative Zoning Hearing, Wednesday, October 14, 4:00 PM.

mountainview.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx →

Contacting them

Email the whole body at city.council@mountainview.gov — that address is on the public record and reaches all seven. Individual addresses follow First.Last@mountainview.gov. The shared phone line is (650) 903-6300, and the City Clerk is on (650) 903-6304.

Mail sent to the Council becomes a public record, and correspondence received on an agenda item is normally attached to that item in the packet. Written comment received before 4:30 p.m. on the day of a meeting is distributed to members for that meeting.