By Khalida Sarwari
The Saratoga City Council appointed Mary-Lynne Bernald as the city’s next mayor at its meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 6.
Prior to being elected to the council in 2014, Bernald served as chairwoman of the Planning Commission, of which she was a member since 1996. This is her first stint as mayor, though she has served as vice mayor since this time last year. She replaces outgoing mayor Emily Lo. Mayors are appointed for one-year terms by a majority vote of the five-member council. Manny Cappello was selected as the new vice mayor.
“I’m looking forward to the year,” Bernald said. “I know it’s going to be filled with joys and challenges, and some of the challenges will be managing to keep a balance between what the state Legislature has just passed in the way of housing bills and retaining Saratoga’s remarkable identity.”
The newly minted mayor said another challenge will be keeping the city’s crime rates down, a task that she feels will require the help of Neighborhood Watch groups and the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office.
“There are a lot of other joys,” she said. “(One of those) will be building our community through activities such as improving our park systems and our public art programs. We’re going to work toward completing a design from downtown up to Hakone—a walking path. That way we can marry the economic base of our downtown with the natural beauty that surrounds us as you go up to the mountains.”
Cappello, too, shared his thoughts about the coming year. This will be his second time as vice mayor, his first being in 2015 followed by a mayoral stint in 2016.
Manny Cappello was sworn in as Saratoga’s new vice mayor on Wednesday, Dec. 6.
(Courtesy Manny Cappello)
“There’s a lot of stuff that I started in my time as vice mayor and mayor,” he said. “A lot of these projects are multi-year projects, so I’m going to continue each of them now and just kick them back into high gear during this year.”
Said Cappello of his new role, “part of my objective is to make sure I understand Mary-Lynne’s objectives—what her priorities are—and support her, but then it’s the continuation of things I launched last year or the year before last, and I want to further them along or wrap up some of them.”
Among his priorities, Cappello said, are the various programs that benefit seniors in the community, such as the age-friendly program, the inter-generational program at Saratoga High School and general safety, nutrition, fitness and socialization programs.
He also highlighted his plan to plant 2,020 new trees by the year 2020, the Village visioning plan and community building programs.
Lo said she looks forward to handing over the reins to Bernald.
“I feel that she really has a heart for the community,” she said. “Outside of Saratoga she has served on various agencies, including on the legislative committee of the Cities Association of Santa Clara County, and also more important is the Select Committee on South Bay Arrivals. I think she has represented Saratoga very well, so I think she is well prepared to serve as a mayor.”
As for herself, Lo said she’s hanging up her hat with pride, having accomplished a number of goals she set out to complete by the end of the year. The two she is most proud of, she said, are enhancing public safety through avenues such as forming a public safety task force, which contributed to a drop in the number of residential burglaries over the summer, and expanding the Saratoga Library’s hours without additional funding.
“I think we’ve built a lot of inroads into next year to uphold the quality of life in our city,” she said.
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Bernald appointed new Saratoga mayor; Cappello as vice mayor
