Milpitas Planning Commissioner and small business owner Dipak Awasthi has announced his candidacy for Milpitas City Council.
A Milpitas resident for 25 years, Awasthi is married with two adult children and three grandchildren. In a statement, he wrote, “The City and Schools here had a great impact and are part of the reason our children are successful in their careers and life. As immigrants, our family has strong family and community roots in Milpitas.”
Since 2016, Awasthi has been involved in the City government, serving on the Sister Cities Commission, the Economic Development and Trade Commission, and presently the Planning Commission. He has also been a part of the Beautify Milpitas movement, which works to clean up trash along city roads.
In his announcement, Awasthi outlined the following main priorities:
- Public Safety: By continuing to fully invest in Police and Fire personnel and equipment.
- Responsible Housing Development: I believe in smart, balanced and controlled growth in harmony with our neighborhoods, exploring ways and means to support affordable housing while maintaining and providing parks, and amenities for residents to enjoy and children to play and also protect the natural environment.
- Economic Development: Primarily by attracting and welcoming more businesses to the City, working closely with them (and the existing ones) to generate more revenue and job growth.
- Transportation and Traffic Mitigation: Work closely on the City Council transportation subcommittee and explore innovative ways to meet the challenge facing our transportation infrastructure. We always have room to address road safety in our family neighborhoods.
- Addressing Homelessness: work closely on the recommendations made by the homelessness task force and work with residents for best possible solutions for our unhoused community.
With a pledge to focus on wise decision-making rooted in facts while working with others to arrive at sound improvements and measures, Awasthi stated, “It would be an honor to be your voice and represent you in the City Council.”
I suspect that every candidate for City Council will agree with Mr. Awasthi’s main priorities. What makes a candidate stand out are policy proposals. For example, what would be his policies regarding Transportation and Traffic Mitigation? Does “explore innovative ways to meet the challenge facing our transportation infrastructure” mean an honest evaluation of the Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) project proposed for the Metro Area? (See MilpitasPRT.com) I agree that “We always have room to address road safety in our family neighborhoods.” While PRT will do that, I don’t hear support for it as a policy — or any other policies that will accomplish the goal.
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Perhaps most concerning is the total lack of comment on our Climate Crisis. Mayor Tran, who is also running for Council, has done close to nothing to reverse our carbon emissions. All of Mr. Awasthi’s main priorities will be worthless if our society collapses due to irreversible Climate disruption that the IPCC is predicting as inevitable if we don’t institute big, bold changes promptly. Where are the big, bold policies that will make a difference in Mr. Awasthi’s – or any other candidate’s – main priorities?