Meet Dinesh Govindarao, Candidate For San Ramon Mayor

SAN RAMON, CA — Learn more about Dinesh Govindarao, who's running for mayor of San Ramon. Some questions have been removed to avoid redundancy.

1. Why are you running for mayor?

I have a passion to serve and to give back to the city that gave so much to me and my family. I am currently a physician and went into medicine to dedicate my life to serving others. I feel serving as mayor is an extension of serving others but on a larger scale. I have called San Ramon my home for 43 years. Since we moved here in 1979, I have seen the population triple to quadruple and have also seen a huge demographic shift in our city. We need a leader who can connect with all the residents and represent all our communities in San Ramon. I grew up here, raised my kids here, and now seeing my parents age in place in San Ramon. I have seen the full spectrum and feel I have the widest net to be able to connect with all our residents. I feel I am the best candidate to be able to do this.

I bring a fresh perspective and am not a career politician. I am not trying to climb the political ladder. I simply want to serve our community. We need someone who will be the People’s Mayor and that’s who I am.

2. What do you feel is the biggest issue facing the city?

When I speak to the residents, two recurring themes keep coming up – housing/growth and loss of retail.

3. How do you intend to address it?

Housing/growth:

When I speak to the residents, they feel San Ramon is overcrowded, but they also state that we need to provide affordable housing for our essential workers and for our children to be able to move back to San Ramon. In addition, we have pressures from the state to plan for 5111 units in the next RHNA cycle. We need to focus on providing optimal solutions to plan properly and provide the infrastructure so there isn’t this feeling of overcrowding. We need to take a balanced approach. It is important to build in our core and focus on transit-oriented development which can help alleviate the traffic concerns. We need to make sure we complete the housing element and make sure we get it right when it comes to planning for the future, I am not talking about 2 to 5 years, I mean 20 to 30 years from now. It is important we properly allocate sites for mixed use village centers to be interconnected with our walking district.

Loss of retail:
We also need to make sure we preserve our retail in our city. Many people are going to other cities for dining and shopping. We need to do everything we can to focus on economic vitality. I would like to work more closely with the Chamber of Commerce and have a strong marketing team to attract retail to our city as well as focus on keeping our existing retail here. We also need to do a better job marketing to our San Ramon residents all the wonderful restaurants and stores we have in this city. When I knock on doors, many residents have not heard of the small “mom and pop” restaurants. Local businesses provide us with the sale tax base which is our 2nd largest revenue driver for the city and we need to make sure we support them.

4. What should be done to solve the affordable housing crisis?

We need to focus on building more affordable housing units in our city and have a set percentage for all new developments. We need to hold builders accountable to build these units and not allow for in lieu fees unless our city will significantly benefit from this. It is important that we build these units in the core of our city and focus on transit- oriented development.

5. What do you think the city can do to conserve water?

I would encourage us to find more innovative ways for us to conserve water. In the past the water districts would send a rebate if a homeowner bought a washing machine that used less water. We may want to see if there are some programs like this as we start looking at re-doing our yards to make it more drought resistant. Also, a marketing campaign to use low flush toilets and low flow fixtures (shower heads) would help as well, especially in the older homes. I think we need to figure out ways to promote the use of reclaimed water when possible instead of potable or drinking water for appropriate uses (agriculture, landscape, urban).

We have a state mandate to plan for another 5111 units in the next RHNA cycle. A focus on building high density housing vs the same amount of single family homes will help with conserving water as well. I would also like to bring in a few experts to help us address this issue.

6. What other issues are important to you?

I am committed to strengthening public safety and health, developing sustainable plans for smart and sensible growth, cultivating an inclusive and welcoming community, furthering economic development and fiscal responsibility, and preserving our parks and open space.

7. What differentiates you from the other candidates?

There are 5 areas that differentiates me from the other candidates.

a) Being deep rooted in San Ramon:
My family moved to San Ramon back in 1979 to the Twin Creeks area. I graduated from Cal High, stayed local for college by attending UC Berkeley, went to medical school, and then came back to San Ramon to raise my family. We have 4 kids, 3 finished high school in San Ramon and our youngest is a sophomore. I have seen our city grow from approx. 20K in 1979 to around 85K today and truly understand residents when we discuss growth and traffic being concerns of theirs. Just to reiterate, I grew up here as child, raised my kids here, and now seeing my parents age in place in San Ramon: no other candidate can say this.

b) Being able to connect with all our communities in San Ramon:
I have seen our demographics shift tremendously over the last 43 years. When we moved here in 1979, I would venture to guess the minority population was under 10%. Today it’s over 50%. Someone who was raised in this city as a child and being a minority, I am able to truly connect with all our residents in San Ramon. I have walked many neighborhoods in San Ramon and knocked on 1000s of doors, no matter which precinct I’m in, I am able to genuinely relate with any resident. People have told me from various parts of San Ramon that it feels at times we are a tale of two cities – the old and the new part of San Ramon, I have lived in both. I am the most relatable candidate with the widest net, the People’s Mayor who could be the bridge between our various communities and create a culture of “One San Ramon”.

c) Having both public and private executive leadership experience:
I have both public and private executive leadership experience over the last 21 years in personnel management, operations, and budgets. I am currently the Chief Medical Officer for a large state agency for the last nine years. These roles have provided me a wealth of transferable skills to be able to serve our city as mayor.

d) Bringing a fresh perspective and willingness to consider various ideas to find innovative solutions as well as being connected with our residents.

I bring a fresh perspective and willingness to consider various ideas to find innovative solutions. I strongly believe in transparency in government and insuring our residents’ voices are heard. One of the recurring questions that have come up as I have knocked on 1000s of doors is “Who is our current Mayor?” It’s time for change at this position. If elected I will be present and connected with our residents.

e) Not a career politician.
I am not a career politician. I am not trying to climb the political ladder or build a resume. One of my opponents has shared with me that she wants to only serve as mayor for 1 term. I am in this for the long haul. If the residents would have me, I would love to serve in this position for the next 8 years since each term is 2 years, with 4 terms maximum.

8. If applicable, what is your political party?

This is a non-partisan position. I have Democrats, Republicans, and Independents
supporting my campaign.

9. What is your day job, and how will that prepare you to serve on the
council?

I am currently the Chief Medical Officer for a large state agency. I have over 21 years of executive leadership experience in both the public and private sectors in operations, budgets, and people management. I have a proven track record of being a Natural born leader. I have the transferrable skills and the leadership acumen to serve as mayor.

10. What experience do you have serving the community?

As a physician over the past 25 years, I have dedicated my life to serving others. The innate passion to serve is also exemplified through my volunteer roles. I was a PTA board member and Reflection Arts chair for many years and I’ve also volunteered with youth theater. As a strong supporter of our local youth sports programs, I have volunteered and coached multiple sports in San Ramon for 12 years including baseball, basketball, soccer, and softball. I currently serve as a Board Member of the San Ramon Valley Education Foundation and on the San Ramon Library Advisory Committee. I have also taken a deeper dive learning about our city by taking Government 101, Citizen’s Planning Academy, and currently taking Citizen’s Police Academy. I also was part of the 2022 graduating class for Leadership SRV. Over the past 15 to 20 years, I have served in multiple ways and would like to bring that
experience and passion to a city-wide level as mayor.

11. Of which accomplishments are you most proud?

Over the many years, there are many accomplishments that make me proud. I would say from a personal level, I am proud of raising our four beautiful children with my wife here in San Ramon.

On a professional level I am proud of the following accomplishments:

When I became the Medical Director at Boeing Satellite Systems, I had only one year experience for a job that required at least 10-15 years of experience. Within 6 months, corporate was wanting to promote me to the regional level.

Next I joined Concentra after I was at Boeing Satellite Systems. I was the youngest physician to climb up the ranks and have a position on the executive medical team as the VP and National Medical Director of Worksites. I was one of 12 to 15 physicians out of over 1000 physicians in the organization to have achieved this.

For the last 9 years I have been the Chief Medical Officer for a state agency called State Fund – the largest worker’s comp insurance carrier in CA. Despite not having any insurance experience, I have been instrumental to help lead our medical initiatives where we have been recognized as the industry leader in various medical programs. I am very proud of these professional accomplishments over the last 21 years. If these companies did not give me an opportunity, they would have lost out and not reaped the benefits and accolades from my leadership.

12. What is your education?

I graduated from Cal High in 1988. I went to UC Berkeley – B.S. in Genetics and Minor in Business. I then went to medical school in Philadelphia, I have a M.D. degree. I also have a Masters in Public Health from UCLA.

13. Tell us about your family.

My wife and I have four kids. 3 of my kids are in college and went to high school in San Ramon. My youngest is a sophomore in high school in San Ramon.

14. What is the best advice you ever received?

Over the years, I have received a lot of great advice from many people as well as from items I have read. I feel the best advice I have ever received is from a quote that I saw and now I have this in my office on a small poster board “What is popular is not always right, what is right is not always popular” – Albert Einstein.

15. Is there anything else you would like voters to know about yourself and
your positions?

When you look at all the candidates, I am the only candidate that represents the past, the present, and the future of San Ramon. I best understand the context of what San Ramon was, how it has evolved into our present day, and where it’s headed.

16. Please provide links to websites and social media.

www.drdineshforsanramon.com

Linktree – https://linktr.ee/DrDineshG

Facebook – Dinesh Govindarao
Instagram – drdineshforsanramon
Twitter - @drdgforsanramon
LinkedIn – Dinesh Govindarao