Councilmember Hon Lien will be running for Milpitas mayor in this year’s upcoming election on Nov. 3. Lien is currently one of three candidates in this year’s race—the other two being Milpitas’ current mayor Carmen Montano and Voltaire Montemayor, who has already run for mayor five times, according to a report issued by the Milpitas city clerk on July 23.
Every year, a survey is sent out to Milpitas residents where they can rank their top priorities. Current top concerns, Lien says, are public safety, recreational spaces, housing, and the economy. Lien plans to focus on strengthening the economy as well as making law enforcement more efficient.
“To address that, if you look at 1990 until now, our population doubled, but our police officers and the public safety personnel remain the same number,” Lien said. “I will find a way to make sure that we use our current resources to make sure that it is efficient.”
To improve the economy, Lien wants to attract businesses to Milpitas.
“I will focus on reaching out to business owners, plenty in San Jose that I know, to see if they have the interest in coming to Milpitas,” Lien said. “When you have the connection, when your door is open, when you streamline the permit process, you can attract them to come here.”
Lien wants to run for mayor to not only serve the people, but also to remedy the dysfunction she feels exists among the current City Council. The instability of city managers, as well as the turnover of several department heads, has brought challenges to the City.
“For the past five or six years, we had 10 executive directors leaving our city to go to other cities, or simply saying that they are not happy working here with us,” Lien said.
One of the consequences of city managers leaving has been a delayed permitting process. Lien has had businesses call her office and ask for help in submitting applications for permits.
“Before, whoever wants to come here to open up businesses calls me and says: ‘Would you please help? Because I submitted my application for a permit. It’s been six months,’” Lien said.
Lien feels that Milpitas needs a leader who has no personal agenda and has the integrity to serve the people and not themselves.
“I want to change the way business works in the city of Milpitas,” Lien said. “I want to make sure that our staff is happy working with the city. I want to make sure that the city manager would do his job well with the support of the council, and not to overlook and micromanage what he does and do his job for him. I want each and every department to do the job well and deliver results. I understand how business works, and this is one big organization that I want to jump in and lead.”
This is not Lien’s first time running for mayor. Lien ran in the last election in 2024 but lost to current mayor Montano. Lien has served on the city council since 2022. Prior to that, she was on the Planning Commission from 2012 to 2016, and on the school board from 2016 to 2022.
From those experiences, Lien has learned that “we are servants, and when we agree to step out to run is to serve, not to be served.”
“I would ask that Milpitians would consider voting for me, so that I can serve, so that we can bring Milpitas to the next level, because every single one of us deserves to have a city that’s safe, that’s prosperous, that we are proud to live in,” Lien said.
It’s clear to me that Hon Lien is “the adult in the room” when talking about the City Council. She does her homework, asks incisive questions, and has the life experiences and wisdom to represent us well.
Her primary competition for Mayor, Carmen Montano, is central to the dysfunction of the current City Council. Whether the instability of city managers, the heavy turnover of department directors, declining moral among staffers, silence regarding ICE thugs, or threatening the Food Pantry, Mayor Montano has helped create – rather than solve – challenges facing the City.
I want to thank Ms. Lien for publicly stating what I heard from a reputable source; the number of police officers today equals what we had in 1986, when the population was 45K, not the current 85K. While our Milpitas Police Department officers do the best they can with the resources available, it’s clear we need to increase staffing in many departments.
Although I applaud Hon’s efforts at efficiency, they won’t generate enough savings to pay for restoring appropriate levels of staffing. I have yet to hear candidates talking about increasing revenue by taxing the wealthy and their corporations. When that conversation does start, I would much prefer someone of Ms. Lien’s integrity and strength of character to represent We the People.