San Ramon’s Deeply Disturbing State of Democracy, a Year-in-Review.

(SAN RAMON) A Year-in-Review can be positive or negative, a little of both.

But not San Ramon.

The last 365 days in local government reveal a deep decline in public trust, transparency, and illegal activity, all of which can be read below.

Since its a very long article here is the brief synopsis of topics.

1. 1. A law was removed from the San Ramon Municipal Code with no discussion. It must be noted that the Council, even after being repeatedly informed, passed the Text Amendment killing the spirit of the law protecting our open space on the consent calendar. (25 members asked to bring it for discussion to be silenced)

• 2. A refusal to respect election results when appointing a council member.

• 3. A Development Agreement in which the Council’s and Planning Commission’s roles were effectively nullified, specifically in the interest of Sunset.

• 4. Criminalization of the appeal process: San Ramon has no upper limit on appeal fees.

• 5. A General Plan Amendment (City's vision) was altered while hiding 99% beneficiaries in the DMU-N, while the applicant only owned 2.2 acres of 205 Acres in question (benefiting larger companies in the tune of $200M like KB Homes, Truemark Builders and many others without naming them).

• 6. Remote participation is still not available, even though it has been requested several times(20+ times).

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Here are the high-level stats.

Jan 6, 2025 Dark Day for Democracy:

City Council held a meeting to appoint a council member to the seat vacated by the recent election, where the Mayor (running from a safe seat and backed by both city council members). City Council showed a shameful disregard for democracy and refused to interview the candidate who received 31% of the vote. Here is a short clip explaining why it is considered as a "Dark Day for Democracy in San Ramon".

One of the main parts was that the candidate chosen for interview did not choose to run when the election of the Mayor was going unopposed, as well as the District 3 Council member ran unopposed, while District 1 also went into extension as no one showed in time to run initially to take on the role of retiring Council Member Scott Perkins.

Jan 10, 2025, Interview of Candidates or Dist 2 Council role:

Interview of Candidates for City Council. Here, the city council chose to ignore 95 community members who had raised concerns about the appointment process and appointed Richard Adler as a council member.

Jan 14, 2025 Petition and Appointment Process:

During this city council meeting, the petition signed by 256 community members requested transparency in the selection process for the Council member appointment. Numerous public commenters, both in person and via written submissions, accused the council of failing to adequately address or ignoring hundreds of emails and concerns related to the District 2 appointment, thereby undermining public trust.

Feb 11, 2025 Joint Planning and City Council Meeting (Introduction of DMU-N FAR Reduction).

A Joint Meeting of the Planning Commission and City Council was held, where the General Plan Amendment request initiated by Sunset Development Company was discussed. The amendment went into effect in January 2024. The main ask is to reduce the FAR ratio from 1.25 to 0.5, so they do not need to ask for a State Density Bonus Waiver. Essentially enabling them to create the Modern Day Ghetto community, as later remarked by Ex-Mayor Greg Carr.

Commissioner Wallace's questioning of the proposed blanket FAR reduction would remove this incentive and lessen developers' contributions to affordable housing.

Regular City Council Meeting:

Brian Swanson criticized the sale of the San Ramon Transit Center, calling it a 'politically motivated rush job' by sneaking this through closed session and treating a public asset as a 'selfish and discrete money grab.

March 4, 2025, March 18, 2025, FAR Reduction discussion in Planning Commission

Planning Commission second and third meeting on the General Plan Amendment Commissioner Wallace questioned the very root of the application as seen below. "Sunset itself does not own the 12 Parcels," which was later found to be that Sunset only owns 2.2 acres (~1%) of the proposed 205 acres, with a FAR ratio reduction being proposed.

Additionally, former Mayor Greg Carr requested that commissioner questions precede public comments for better audience understanding. He voiced strong concern over the proposed FAR reduction, viewing it as a troubling alteration to the city's character.

Planning commission passed the General Plan Amendment with 4-1, with Wallace questioning the validity of the application, as 99% land owners are not identified, or no proof was submitted that the land owners were contacted, even though they had been asked to do so, the evidence of which he had attached here for public records.

Public Comment Received about Ownership

Map of DMU-N, highlighting the ownership of Sunset as mentioned in the application.

March 25, 2025: Appeal Fees brought up for the first time.

Jim Blickenstaff (Former Council member) expressed shock that the city of San Ramon charges $4,500 to appeal any decision, compared with Danville's $311. and argue the fee is prohibitive and punitive, effectively discouraging citizen engagement. It was recently revealed that $4,500 is just the deposit: it could end up appellant to bankruptcy as the city has no upper limit set.

April 8, 2025 DMU N FAR ratio reduction

The General Plan Amendment came before the city council. Here, when questioned about the potential $200M benefit given to an undisclosed recipient. City Manager incorrectly claimed that the entire land is owned or managed by Sunset. The key part of the discussion is in this 10 mins video. The General Plan Amendment is discussed in length here.

April 8, 2025 Darker Day for Democracy (Remote Participation for community members):

While many neighboring cities like Dublin and Manteca allow the residents to provide their inputs via Zoom, San Ramon has stopped taking them without bringing them to the agenda. While it was brought up after concerns were raised.

The entire discussion was focused on fear of antisemitic comments, with not a single instance during the 3.5 years it was allowed. City council expressed extreme fear about opening public participation via Zoom.

April 22, 2025. Manipulation of the Agenda Item to remove reference to DMU-N and FAR reduction.

Interestingly when you see the edits on the agenda this is far more obvious where the orders are coming from.

Here, the concerns were raised again about the ownership and the ~$200M benefit given to the developer's. Vice Mayor addressed the concerns by claiming Misinformation without addressing why the 99% Owners' names were not listed in the application.

Additionally, many community members raised concerns about the punitive appeal fees.

May 13, 2025: FAR Reduction Approved.

In spite of significant concerns shown by community members, the council did not address the concerns raised by the residents and approved the FAR reduction Application, triggering a corruption complaint filed at the District Attorney's office.

May 27, 2025:

Due to High Appeal fees, our parent non-profit, Lead For Earth, initiated a Referendum with a huge target of collecting 5,100 voter signatures in 30 days' time when the decision was filed. Effectively, 20 days remaining. We announced the referendum in the city council meeting and highlighted the punitive appeal fees, which were the key driver of our referendum.

Folllowed by multiple calls in english and hindi for native speakers.

During this call, we were able to collect 1326 signatures, falling far short of the target. My main goal was to educate the community about the low level of responsiveness expected of elected members. Here is where we also announced the Open Governance Initiative (OpGov.ai) and were able to recruit many volunteers.

Here was a quick update of the Referendum.

Quick snapshot of city council meetings where the General Plan update passed showcasing the residents efforts.

June 10, 2025: The Climate Action Plan was approved.

The San Ramon Climate Action task force and its members came together to approve the climate action plan and set up a sustainability committee, while the city adopted the climate action plan.

On June 17, 2025, the Eden Housing and Avalon Bay projects were presented to the Planning Commission.

There was serious pushback from community members, including Yohannes Tilahun(Linked to exact time) and Pamela Wallace.

June 26 2025 Planning Commission Iinterviews.

After all interviews, Santosh Kanjula was selected as the new planning commissioner to fill the vacant seat left by two retiring planning commissioners.

On July 8, 2025, the Open Governance Initiative was introduced in the San Ramon City Council.

July 15, 2025: Controversial Developer Agreement (asking for complete oversight removal for Sunset Projects)

The Planning Commission here was asked to give a blanket approval of projects in Citywalk. In short was asked to delinque their authority when it comes to sunset projects. Even though many community members opposed it.

After significant concerns shown by the planning commissioners approved with 3-1 (Newly appointed commissioner Santosh Kanjula abstained due to his concerns and community pushback)

This is why we also reached community members

July 22, 2025: Second presentation of Open Governance by Mihika Ramanan, introducing our Ask Noha Feature.

Additionally, we reminded the council that remote participation has been a basic need 20 times and should be considered a basic right, especially given the busy schedules of community members.

August 5, 2025. City Staff requested Text Amendments where voter-approved law Measure G was considered for the removal at the Planning Commission.

Former Planning Commissioner Eric Wallace who also was one of the initial team member who had rallied the community in campaigning for Measure G to protect our Hillside and Open space and limit Urban Crawl. Here is the summary of his comments.

Critiques the proposed 'partial evisceration' of Measure G, which was passed by voters in 1999 to establish a supermajority (4/5ths) vote requirement and three public hearings for General Plan Amendments by both the Planning Commission and City Council. Argues that City Staff has failed to comply with Housing Element Program 14's prerequisites, including annual evaluations of Measure G's impact on housing approvals and public education programs, before recommending its removal. Challenges Staff's interpretation that Measure G only applied to General Plan 2020, asserting that the intent and unbroken practice since 2002 was for it to apply to all subsequent General Plans. He views this 'revisionist theory' as disregarding the citizens' will. Suggests that if the supermajority requirement is truly unconstitutional or unenforceable, the City Council should put its repeal to a public vote. Proposes specific revisions to Zoning Ordinance Sections D7-19 and D7-20, emphasizing retaining public hearings and streamlining processes while ensuring citizen-created laws take precedence or are formally challenged.

August 12, 2025 Eden Housing and Controversial Sunset Agreement asking the city council to give up their authority as well as planning commission authority when it comes to Sunset.

After a long presentation, many residents opposed to the Developer Agreement had left, but five people remained who opposed the city giving up all oversight of community members, essentially depriving them of any voice.

And the best comment came from council member Marisol Rubio, who claimed that residents can appeal once they disagree with the zoning administrator's decision, without mentioning that the City of San Ramon will destroy the community member who appeals by charging them infinitely until they withdraw their appeal.

This is when we also posted on the community site that King is looking for more power!

where we also added the point.

During this meeting, Council member Robert Jweinat abstained, and the council discussed the Exact Place where I had reminded the council that this is a suicidal agreement. City Council is not only giving up its authority, but also the Planning Commission's authority, when it comes to Sunset.

Here is the link to the exact location where its being consider.

The actions of our council members is worth watching. and Council Member Jweinat abstained, here is him in His own quote "I just it I know legally and procedurally this is sound. I just have a problem with removing the oversight from planning commission. I it the optics of it just there's something instinctively not right about this and it's I just believe it doesn't change the process. It it we're also changing policy as well. And that's that's what I'm trying to that's what I'm trying to that's I'm trying I'm struggling with is that we're we're removing um we're removing a very important oversight and if the residents see that then we're going to we're going to slowly erode that trust. So just for discussion I don't see any removal of oversight of the planning commission. It it's right here. It doesn't say remove oversight of the planning commission. But you're giving it to the but you're giving your ZA already has it right now."

Aug 19, 2025 : Planning commission approves Controversial Text Amendment, which removes a voter-approved Law Measure G because the King of San Ramon does not like it.

Noteworthy in this meeting was the recently appointed (a week ago) Planning commissioner, Max Zang, who made the decision to obtain a supermajority that was the basis of this law. Measure G intends to protect our hillside and open space, as Council Member Jweinet stated below.

September 9, 2025. 65 community member unpresedented in the records of san ramon urged council to reject the Sunset demand to remove the council and planning commission role specifically in the interest of Sunset. Here is the link

During this meeting, the city had requested the approval of the sunset agreement without discussion (technically Consent Calendar). Former council member, as well as community members like Brian Swanson, asked them to bring this item 5.12 and 5.13 at least to discussion. Additionally Open Space Advisory Committee chair Bob Peoples came and said their last 4 meetings have been cancelled in a row (interestingly this also coincides with Measure G removal a law protecting Open Space not having any inputs from Open Space advisory committee).

During this meeting Council Member Jweinat who in the last meeting abstained due to his concern about public trust flipped and read a script given to him clearly visible in the video here.

Additionally the city council was reminded about in this same meeting about the Measure G removal will be discussed where (3 mandated meetings at Planning and City Council requirement is being lowered to just 1, and clause of Super Majority requirement will be removed as a part of text amendments.)

Reminded that there was no requirement from the State of California to give special treatment to a specific developer, whereas there is not a single instance in the past 15 years where the planning commission has ever not passed something Sunset has not asked for, so why is it necessary now? The only reason seen is that there is a fear of a Referendum. No discussion is an excellent safeguard in a city where appeal is criminalized.

Sept 16, 2025, Toll Brothers Project saw a massive protest.

• Sienna HOA's attorney, Ariel Strauss, raised legal issues regarding Toll Brothers' purported use of HOA-owned land (Parcel L and portions of Bollinger Canyon Lane) for access without securing necessary quitclaims or easements, which could pose a fundamental impediment.

Sept 23, 2025: First Meeting where Measure G a Law protecting our Hillside and Open Space was being considered dismantling.

Before the meeting, the council was reminded of how, during the previous flip of position, Council Member Jweinat did and how he will stand on his own argument in the last public hearing of giving up council and Planning commission oversight for Sunset. The entire council sadly did not even dare to question the city staff about the dismantling of a Voter Approved Law protecting our hillside and Open Space. Clearly narrated in this short video below.

We have covered this in the article here. "San Ramon Officials Betray Public Trust."

Oct 14, 2025 Elected Council betrayed the Oath by approving the removal of the Law in Consent Calendar with no discussion.

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During this council meeting, we saw many furious residents, as well as former elected officials, saddened by the state of Democracy in San Ramon, where the council lost every sense of accountability.

Here is the article "San Ramon Officials Consider Illegal Activity, District Supervisor and Local media Ignore."

Following up on this meeting, there were two additional articles posted showing people speaking out at the council meeting, including Citizens to File Violation of the Ralph M. Brown Act

Additionally, we renewed the call to recall council members for failing their basic duty to explain their actions.

On October 21, 2025, the Planning Commission meeting, Sunset application to move Affordable housing to one rental apartment complex was met with strong opposition, including from the former Mayor, calling this a lack of common sense and termed what is being considered as a modern-day potential ghetto.

Nov 12, 2025: Sustainability Advisory Committee creation was being considered.

During this meeting, City Staff shocked everyone by recommending the removal of the Open Space Advisory Committee (OSAC) and the Transportation Advisory Committee due to the lack of meetings the committees were holding. This was countered by the OSAC chief that the past 7 meetings' cancellations in a row were due to cancellations from city staff directly conflicting with the narrative given by staff.

Additionally, many of the community members came up and spoke about how the Open Space Advisory committee had helped save open space. This council meeting was historical in nature as it was the first time a Council member (Marisol Rubio) unilaterally broke the lines and fought aggressively to create the Sustainability Committee with no preconditions, and moved to get it approved by 3-2, with Mayor Armstrong and Council Member Jweinat opposing it.

Here is the article we wrote, "San Ramon History Made Last Night."

Based on our experience, no council member has ever questioned the city staff.

Nov 25, 2025: City Staff clarified that San Ramon criminalizes Appeal

After repeated pushes by many residents and former elected Mayor and council members, Appeal fees were finally discussed on the agenda. During this, one thing was striking: San Ramon's appeal fees of $4,500 (Compared to nearby cities of ~$300) were just a deposit. City of San Ramon will continue billing you $330 an hour until the appellant is bankrupt or withdraws the appeal. Since the introduction of this Draconian appeal fees City staff proudly confirmed no one had dared to appeal.

Here is the article about it. "San Ramon revists Nations Highest Appeal Fee Structure (Infinite)" and prior to the meeting here was our article "San Ramon Developer Appeal Fees Highest in Nation" to ensure community members are educated about the topic.

Lastly, I want to thank all these community members who have consistently raised concerns for example Brian Swanson, Jim Blickenstaff, Greg Carr, Susie Ferris Inderkum, Bob Peoples and over 700 community members who have spoken and yet to get a response from the council, not saw media coverage except by OpGov.ai.

This is why we have called out the unopposed representatives like Candace Andersen Office as well Assembly Member Rebecca Bauer-Kahan. And thankful to Contr Costa Election commission office that Voter Approved Measure G, if has concerns should be amended by voters only" Here its not only deleting from the text but also removing the key items that dictated that minimum 3 meetings amended to just 1, and Super Majority clause is replaced by Simple majority without discussion just approved in consent calendar.