A New Mayor in Saratoga, CA

David Martin: This is the good government show.

Belal Aftab: It’s not about being mayor. It’s about doing things. As mayor. Growing up in Saratoga, there were firefighters and police officers that lived on my street. Now we have firefighters and police officers that fly in from Idaho for their shift. These people will run into your home on the worst and scariest day of your life and week. They can’t afford to live here anymore.

That, to me, is a community that’s increasingly disconnected. My my calling card, my friends will tell me, has always been like, if all of you who are doctors, lawyers, engineers got involved in local government, our local government could operate so much better. We’re all absolutely, really busy. But tonight the service can be something as simple as checking in on a friend.

And I think there is something like that that we can do, whether it’s once a month, once a quarter or more often than that, that I think can be really meaningful.

David Martin: I’m when I met the mayor of Saratoga, California, he’d only been mayor for 30 days, a very short time as mayor. But he has a good idea of what he wants to do and how he wants to do it. Welcome to the Good Government show. I’m Dave Martin first. Help us share the message of good government by liking us and sharing us where we are.

On Facebook x YouTube, Instagram and Blue Sky. Please share our show with your friends and reviews where you’re listening and join our good Government Show community. Check out our website for the link. But little after I became mayor of Saratoga in December of 2024. We sat down and talked earlier in the year at this year’s Conference of Mayors Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C..

You can hear some fuzes, some for a city and for his new role. Saratoga is part of the San Francisco Bay area, the heart of Silicon Valley. It’s a residential community made up in large part of people who work in some of the biggest tech companies in America. One of the issues that the new mayor is dealing with is housing.

A problem across the nation, and certainly in his area. While he knows he doesn’t have a solution, he’ll tell you what’s important is knowing that the challenge exists and knowing that’s an issue that needs focus. And as you’ll hear, mayor, I have to say, it isn’t speed. And he’s keeping an eye out for anyone who’s on their phone while behind the wheel of his car.

You’re going to hear about that. I always like talking to a new mayor, Andy Young mayor. You could hear his excitement about the job and about public service. His approach to governing is make a plan. He says it doesn’t have to be a perfect plan, but having a plan and the flexibility to improve the plan means you’re ready to lead.

So coming up, you’re going to hear from new mayor Belal Aftab of Saratoga, California. What if World War One never happened? What if these three royal cousins King George of England, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and Czar Nicholas of Russia chose peace over pride? Good government show executive producer Jim Ludlow has just released a new book. The Royal Cousins is a gripping alternative history that imagines how diplomacy and courage could have stopped a war that took 22 million lives, if only they used the principles of good government.

Download The Royal Cousins now on Kindle. It’s powerful, timely and just $0.99, and all the proceeds support our work here on the Good Government Show. Just search the Royal Cousins on Amazon today. Welcome to the Good Government show. We’re talking with the newest mayor of Saratoga, California, Belal Aftab. Welcome to the show.

Belal Aftab: Thanks for having me.

David Martin: 30 days, 30 days. You’ve been mayor 30 days.

Belal Aftab: To the day I counted in the middle of that meeting a couple about a couple of hours ago.

David Martin: 30 days? Yeah. What have you learned in 30 days?

Belal Aftab: Oh, wow. What have I not learned?

David Martin: Were you prepared?

Belal Aftab: I think so. Going into it, you know, you never know that it’s actually going to come together until it finally does. I’m a big believer in not getting too far ahead of yourself. Okay? I got a lot of coffees and had a lot of good conversations with people. Before I came into this seat to get a sense of what it would be like, but also sort of how to be most effective coming into it.

And so I do feel like I’m ready and have a plan that I want to get to work on.

David Martin: When was the moment you said, oh my goodness, what have I gotten myself into? Was it during the campaign I got elected?

Belal Aftab: It was a couple of months ago where I felt, okay. It’s looking pretty likely that I’ll get to be mayor come December. Our city has a rotational policy for mayor, based off election results. And so I would say in September I started looking like, okay, this this might happen. So I think I have a mini freak out for a second.

There. Okay. Like I’m, I’m going to be I mean, mayor of the city, I grew up here. Like I can’t believe that. So that was, pretty overwhelming feeling for for about a day or so, but but then I also started getting really excited. I, I’m a big believer, though in like, it’s not about being mayor, it’s about doing things as mayor.

And so I think what I, what I keep telling people is like, don’t congratulate me. Now let me see. Whoa. What? Not just I get done as a mayor, but we get done as a council and then congratulate us and not me.

David Martin: Did you, when you said you were going to run for mayor, what did your friend say to you?

Belal Aftab: Well, I ran for city council. Okay. And, and I got elected in 2020. I actually ran in 20 loss and then ran in 22 and won.

David Martin: Okay.

Belal Aftab: I don’t think many of my friends expected it. And they’re like, I really this is what I also think I’m the kind of person that, when I get involved in things like I was on our city’s traffic safety commission for a number of years. I don’t think I really shared too much publicly that I was doing that kind of work.

And so I think my friends were genuinely surprised by it. Did poke a little fun at it. But that’s the fun in life, right? Yeah.

David Martin: So you mentioned this before, and I wanted to come back to this. Your first foray into government was, as you said, the Traffic Safety Commission just avoided traffic.

Belal Aftab: Yeah, well, it’s actually really fun. It’s a funny story.

David Martin: Funny story? Could be like that. Yeah.

Belal Aftab: All right, so I, I just moved back to Saratoga and to the Bay area, and really wanted to get involved in my community. I, had lived in a few other places, and I was like, you know what? I grew up in Saratoga. I wanted to be back. And I just went to a city council meeting.

And I saw that there’s all these commissions that they were recruiting for. And so the first one I checked out was a library commission. And that’s because I, as a kid, spent a lot of time there. Sure.

David Martin: As I go to the library getting a book.

Belal Aftab: Exactly. And, you know, on the nerdy side. And I’m proud of that. I love reading.

But basically, I reached out to and they’re like, actually, that commission is pretty full. And we’re just going to be reappointing the same people. Why don’t you take a look around? And that’s actually how I came across the Traffic Safety Commission. And when I started asking when we got.

David Martin: Booted off the library board.

Belal Aftab: Well, I never got on it in the first place to begin with. Okay. But actually, it’s a funny thing. There’s this.

David Martin: You go back. It’s at heart. Now I’m the bear. I can check out any books I want any time.

Belal Aftab: When my sister Jo, she’s like, you probably just ran for the city so you can get your library fines waived. But, when.

David Martin: Those $0.10 a day. Well, that’s.

Belal Aftab: That’s up, right? I mean, I booked I bought those books when I was like 7 or 8. I don’t, I don’t know if I ever put them back. Right. But no, I think.

David Martin: The Hardy Boys.

Belal Aftab: Hardy Boys and goosebumps, those are my two go to those are your book. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and actually the Box Castle as well. I love those as well. Okay. Yeah. So I’m.

David Martin: Very sorry. We got we got.

Belal Aftab: A well.

David Martin: Let’s go to traffic.

Belal Aftab: Go traffic. The funny part about traffic safety is it affects all of us, right? Like when you walk outside of your home, it’s the first place where you might meet your city is when you get into the road. We had a public center, that used to be a church that the city ended up buying a number of years ago.

And this public rec center, is used by a lot of community groups, including, the mosque that I grew up going to. And so they actually, had we’re going to do some construction, which meant that they were going to move some of the parking way down the street. Which meant that a lot of the members of my community, including my mom and my extended family and friends, would have to walk a lot further.

And one of the things our city is known for is our beauty. One of the ways in which we preserve our beauty is but not having a lot of street lights, so that very much became a safety, and safety issue.

David Martin: Sure. Especially, you know, at the end of the day.

Belal Aftab: Exactly. Yeah. Right. Right. At night. Because a lot of these events into being at night. Sure. And so it sort of hit really close to home to say, hey, like, these are really, important problems that need solving. So I know there’s a very long winded way of saying it, but, our traffic Safety Commission is an awesome thing that we as a.

David Martin: Podcast, we can talk with you on.

Belal Aftab: It’s an awesome thing that our city has that not many cities do, where we basically appoint residents to work with our city staff and serve as a forum for any resident if they want to come, you know, if they have a complaint about excessive speeding or people not stopping when they’re supposed to, they have a commission where they can submit that complaint to, and we can see if we can do something about it and put city resources towards it.

David Martin: Do you drive differently now?

Belal Aftab: I think I do, no, absolutely. I well, when you see the data, right. Like people are our cars are quieter than ever. Yeah. Especially electric vehicles. I think because they’re also just more developed people drive faster than they used to. And so as a result of that, I think I’m just more aware of the fact that, oh, I might be going faster than I think I am.

David Martin: To ride a bike. I the city is a bike friendly city.

Belal Aftab: Not yet. We’re getting better. We’re getting better. We put in a lot of bike lanes in the last couple of years. We actually have. We are sort of a great access point to the Santa Cruz Mountains, where folks do go for a lot of biking. And so we’re doing a lot and we have done a lot the last couple of years, to add more bike lanes and to make it, you know, as, as biker friendly as possible.

David Martin: So, maybe not everyone is familiar with Saratoga, California. You’re in South San Francisco Bay. Where where are you exactly?

Belal Aftab: What’s going on there we are, in the heart of Silicon Valley. And so the beauty of Saratoga is that we were created as a city with the intent of being a residential community, in a really fast growing region. So all the cities around us are cities you’ve heard of because they have really famous technology companies. You’ve probably heard of Apple or Cisco or or.

David Martin: That’s the.

Belal Aftab: Company. Yeah. Yeah. Or Google or Netflix, all of the head.

David Martin: Google I’ve heard.

Belal Aftab: Of. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Google it. Right. Yeah, yeah. The headquarters of all those companies are a 10 to 20 minute drive, from Saratoga. And so we have a lot of residents, who work at these companies, including, the older, you know, tech companies of yore, the Intel’s, the AMD’s, the Fairchild’s Raytheon. So, including and Nvidia too.

So a lot of the, a lot of folks who work at these companies live in Saratoga because they want to be in a city that’s beautiful by the mountains and has great schools.

David Martin: When you ran for office, what were the problems that you said you were going to tackle?

Belal Aftab: The three biggest ones, traffic safety, housing, and crime, on traffic safety, my background’s coming from the Traffic Safety Commission. And I think they.

David Martin: Drive better.

Belal Aftab: Now. I do, and to try to try, try and encourage more of that.

David Martin: Example to.

Belal Aftab: Try and set an example.

David Martin: Because that was the mayor speeding. Yeah. See that.

Belal Aftab: Guy. It is something I’ve thought of at times where I’m like.

David Martin: Please tell me you don’t have a push.

Belal Aftab: I do not know, I definitely don’t, but there are times where I’m like, reluctant to maybe honk at someone, because I’m like, wow, maybe someone might look at me and see who I am, but I also no one really knows who their city council member, let alone mayor or member of Congress. Yeah. But one thing I do observe all the time where I’m very tempted to honk my horn, is at stoplights now.

People will look down and look at their phones. And so it happens probably like once or twice a week, or I’ll be behind someone and they won’t realize the light’s gone green because you can tell they’re looking down. So that’s a really funny one. On the housing front, we have a lot of state housing laws, that are pushing a lot of cities, to build more and more housing.

To be clear, I think we need more housing. We are in the midst of a housing affordability crisis. But there’s a question of that, especially.

David Martin: In California.

Belal Aftab: Especially in California. I mean, this.

David Martin: Is a problem nationwide, but California’s been especially hard hit. Prices are especially in your part of the world.

Belal Aftab: Absolutely. Yeah. Look, we’re saying we are. The median cost of a home in Saratoga is $4 million. And so we it’s harder and harder for young families to move to Saratoga. We have some, you know, some level of declining enrollment in our schools. And so when we’re.

David Martin: Talking $1 million now, that’s a fair piece of change for a.

Belal Aftab: House. That is a and it means that, you know, because that’s also increased. So much on a relative basis relative to incomes. Over the last couple of decades, when my family moved to Sister Toga, which was in the 80s, you had a lot more young families that could move. There were kids at a young age. Right now, when we do have families that are moving in, they, you know, might be of at a higher income level with older kids, that are going to middle school and high school.

You know, the canonical example I used are Soccer League, if that had about 1500 kids when I was growing up. Now we’re struggling to get to about 400.

David Martin: Wow.

Belal Aftab: Yeah.

David Martin: I believe I’ve read that San Francisco has the highest housing prices in America. That’s kind of filtered down in Saratoga. Is that correct?

Belal Aftab: Absolutely. I think the entirety of the Bay area is like that. The one thing I notice is, look, we have an incredible city. It’s beautiful with really great people. But the cost has gotten so expensive that even a lot of my, you know, friends who grew up in the area who are doing just fine, they, you know, $4 million is a pretty expensive that’s a that’s a lot of change.

I live in.

David Martin: Brooklyn. And what they tell you, I mean, that’s expensive for Brooklyn.

Belal Aftab: Yeah. And so they’re moving to other parts of the Bay area, where things feel a bit more affordable. Look, the, you know, someone called a Dutch disease, right? Where, like, the blessing and a curse we have is we have a lot of success, especially when it comes to the tech companies. I think a lot of other regions and cities would kill for the kind of economic growth that we have in the business creation.

But I would say the rest of our like, policies across the board have not kept up with how fast our region has grown.

David Martin: As a mayor, a new mayor, and I’m sure you’ll find out things at you. You know the old expression, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Yeah, you’ll find out the things you didn’t know. What do you think you’re going to be able to do to have any effect on housing prices?

Belal Aftab: I don’t know, that’s a really good question.

David Martin: Get actually, for years.

Belal Aftab: Get back to me before. Yeah. But I also I still think about it.

David Martin: This there’s only so much you can do as mayor. I mean, you’re not a real estate agent. You’re not controlling the market. I think you can do.

Belal Aftab: I think one of the best things we can do is be more understanding about the problem at hand. I think that and help people understand what problem we’re trying to solve. I’ll give you a really simple example. Growing up in Saratoga, there were firefighters and police officers that lived on my street. Now we have firefighters and police officers that fly in from Idaho for their shift.

These people will run into your home on the worst and scariest day of your life and week. They can’t afford to live here anymore. That, to me, is a community that’s increasingly disconnected. Right? And I think that when sometimes when you hear about the construction of housing, there’s kind of a narrative of fear that, you know, call it low income housing, call a project, whatever you want to call it.

The reality is that there are a lot of people that need a place to live that are great and contributing members of society. And we have to provide for them as well. And I think if we don’t, we’re going to feel the consequences of that.

David Martin: Is the city open to ideas like multi-family units? You know, attached housing to, you know, two family condos kind of thing, more density in smaller and smaller areas. Not, you know, the single family house, you know, kind of like McMansion on an acre and a house on land, these things that you’re attacking and working on and discussing.

Belal Aftab: It’s a community conversation on all those fronts. Right. Saratoga is largely single family homes. We have a very small commercial district. There are quite a few commercial districts to be clear, we have been mostly single family with a handful of multifamily areas over the years. The rest of it is that some of this is out of our control.

Yeah. And that’s because the state is mandating a lot of multifamily housing goes in. And so my approach on this is I would rather us control that and make decisions about how and where and what that multifamily housing looks and feels like. As opposed to if we continue saying no to that, we’re going to lose complete and total control, which is what’s happened.

Basically there is, you’re talking.

David Martin: About a little bit more local rule.

Belal Aftab: Yeah. Because basically the states passed bunch of laws in California over the last couple of years that have taken away a lot of that local control. And that’s because a lot of cities have consistently said no to new housing to multi-family units. They’ve made it harder for ADUs and things like that to be built. And so I think we have to sort of see that writing on the wall.

And basically what’s happened at multiple points in time in the last couple of years, including for Saratoga, by the way, is we’ve lost complete and total control where any developer, provided they meet some objective standards, can build whatever they want. And they we only enter into those periods if the state of California considers us to be out of compliance.

And we will be out of compliance at a future date if we don’t start saying yes and building more.

David Martin: What did you know about housing before 30 days ago?

Belal Aftab: I think when you’re on a council, in any part of the country or the world, the most common issue is housing. Where is it going to go? What is our state going to look and feel like? And I think it’s an important look. I think it’s a really important question. Right. You move to a place because you like that place, or you want to be there and you want to build a home and a life and a career there.

David Martin: You said you came from the tech industry. Are you still working in tech full time?

Belal Aftab: I do, I, I do think tech is sort of the industry, of the Bay area. Yeah. You know, and so I don’t know if I came from the tech industry, I kind of grew it. I started my career in finance and then eventually moved into tech. Okay. I do think it is a really cool place to be, and I feel lucky to work in it.

David Martin: How has that prepared you to be mayor?

Belal Aftab: I think my career, my private sector career is absolutely prepared me for being a local government. And I think the beauty of our council is we have five people with five different backgrounds. In terms of my.

David Martin: Background, you all get along.

Belal Aftab: I think we do. Okay. Yeah. And I think some disagreement is good. Yeah. Because if we were all voting 500 on everything, then we’re probably not pushing ourselves enough to think about what’s best for the city. And I think.

David Martin: We’re seeing alternative points of view. Yeah.

Belal Aftab: We’re single. I think the diversity of opinions, is quite important. Yeah. And just to Azure at that point, look, technology’s changed the world, right? Sure. Whether it’s the way we communicate with one another, the way in which things get done, even all the upcoming AI stuff, and I think having an understanding of that technology, especially what’s on the cutting edge and then understanding how that’s impacting society, and then both from two perspectives like how can that make our government better?

But then also how does that help us understand what our residents are going through? Right. For example, I think technology in some ways is really improve things, but also made things worse. We are more willing to communicate via phone as opposed to or a text, as opposed to saying hi to the person next door. And so I do think there is a good and bad with things like that that we have to understand as a local government, and make sure that we’re working to meet our residents where they are and improve their quality of life.

David Martin: In terms of, the world of mayors, you are a younger mayor. Would you encourage other people to get involved?

Belal Aftab: Absolutely. I would say my my calling card, my friends will tell me, is always been like, if all of you who are doctors, lawyers, engineers, got involved in local government, our local government could operate so much better. And so yes, I mayor, but I feel like I have so many friends and colleagues and folks that I know that will be ten times better than the mayor I would ever be.

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Belal Aftab: I think we have to think about who we are as a city. Right. The funny thing about cities, states, countries, it’s like, what is the story you tell yourself? Because that’s kind of what they are to me. The story I want to tell about Saratoga, about what we as a government do, is that we have a city that is welcoming, safe, kind and vibrant, that is accessible and feels like home for everyone and that we as a government, as a city council, as a city staff, are doing everything we can to make that reality possible.

David Martin: All right, so I’m not trying to put you on the spot, but I asked you that question. You pulled out your phone because you wrote this down. What made you write it down?

Belal Aftab: There’s a some sort of businessman forgetting his name who put who had this a great quote where it’s like, you know, I’m getting this wrong. It was a quote from T Boone Pickens, by the way. Okay. Yeah. Which is basically like, you know, showing up to life. Like if you show up to life without a plan, it’s pretty dumb approach, right?

Okay. Sometimes it doesn’t have to be the best plan, but you need a plan. It just makes life a lot better. I think if I’m going to be thoughtful and try and do what’s best for our residents, and I don’t, and I’m not. Yeah, I’m not saying as well, but.

David Martin: I think you do it. Okay, so basically what you’re saying is, is you want it to have something written down, you want to have a plan you wanted to have, like a touchstone that you can move forward. Trump.

Belal Aftab: Yeah, I.

David Martin: Did I summarize correctly.

Belal Aftab: Absolutely. Yeah. I think it’s just about here to.

David Martin: Help you out, Mr..

Belal Aftab: Barry.

David Martin: Thank you. You’re welcome.

Belal Aftab: But I need all the help I can get. But I, I just think writing, planning, goes a long way for me personally. Okay. Just to make sure that I’m holding myself accountable and then also able to get the things done that I want to get done.

David Martin: Well, that leads me to my next question. How are you going to judge your success? How are you going to know if you’re doing a good job? I mean, you know, your election’s three years away, so how are you going to know?

Belal Aftab: Well, my election is in a little less than two years.

David Martin: Okay. So I won two year.

Belal Aftab: Term for my running for council again. Did we do good for the city and our community? It’s that.

David Martin: Simple. How will you know? How will you know if you did? Good.

Belal Aftab: Well, there’s a metrics based approach and then there’s how do we feel? Okay. On a metrics approach we want to see how do we do on traffic safety, the number of accidents, number of, road deaths, things like that. Being really mindful of that. In terms of our neighborhoods, did we plan enough to actually, plan for the change that’s coming our way on crime?

How do we do there? Sometimes, rises or dips in crime or a bit out of our control. But what did we do as a city to make sure we got that? We were, you know, engaging our residents and giving them the resources and our law enforcement to do what they need to do. So I think there’s a lot, that we can make a list of.

And writing it down is an important way of doing that, to look back and say, how much of this list did we get done?

David Martin: So moving forward, how do you want people to hold you accountable? How do you want them to give you feedback?

Belal Aftab: I think the beauty of being on a city council, of being mayors, you’re always getting feedback, whether it’s an email, whether it’s in the grocery store, whether it’s, people calling your phone, your phone sort of ringing nonstop. I as part of this is keep the feedback coming. Right. We’re not going to get everything right. We’re going to try to get more things right and wrong.

And we’ll go from there. But the I think the best way is what? Well, two ways is really the feedback in elections.

David Martin: If people don’t like what’s going on, what would you like them to do?

Belal Aftab: Let me know. But also get involved. I really believe in listening and I may not agree with you. Yeah, but I’m definitely persuadable and I’m willing to listen even if I hold different position.

David Martin: But getting involved is hard. People have families, people have lives. They have work, they work long hours. They have, you know, kids, youth, football games on the weekend. How do they get involved?

Belal Aftab: Small steps. I think that we we this morning, we heard Vivek Murthy speak. Who’s the outgoing surgeon general. Yep. Right. And he said we’re keys to a life of fulfillment, relationships, purpose and service. And service doesn’t mean you have to do 20 hours of community service a week. It can mean an active service once a month or every three months.

We’re all absolutely, really busy, but an active service can be something as simple as checking in on a friend. And I think there is something like that that we can do, whether it’s once a month, once a quarter, or more often than that, that I think can be really meaningful.

David Martin: Or serving on the city library committee or the traffic safety. Absolutely.

Belal Aftab: There’s you can do all that, but also just showing up to a meeting, right? Reaching out to a commissioner, reaching out to a council member and sharing your opinion. I read every email that I get. I may not respond to all of them, but I read everyone. It’s a way for me to stay connected and hear from the community.

David Martin: You were on the city council. Now you’re 30 days in as mayor. What would you like people to know about government? And, in your town in Saratoga?

Belal Aftab: I think the beauty of democracy and the beauty of our government is that it’s a democracy. Right. And what that means is that the people can shape it. And if you want to get involved and again, getting involved can be as simple as sending a note to a council member to all of the council that you really have the ability to influence what happens in your city.

David Martin: Even on an individual level.

Belal Aftab: Absolutely.

David Martin: Okay. You’re a newsmaker now. Where do you get your news?

Belal Aftab: From where I get my news from. Oh, I read a variety of sources. I would say, primarily the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Mercury News, but also BBC. I try and get a variety of, of world perspectives on things. Just because I do think I don’t watch cable news or anything like that.

David Martin: Do you read about yourself.

Belal Aftab: On myself? There isn’t too much out there. Yeah, I don’t know. Yeah. I mean, we have pretty limited newspaper coverage. Yeah. We have, we’re really lucky to have, one reporter who covers, out of the Bay area News group, out of Saratoga News. And so I do read the articles that, that Saratoga News publishes.

Absolutely. Because it’s important to know what people are reading and what they think.

David Martin: Who inspires you? Do you have a political hero?

Belal Aftab: I was I was actually going to say Stephen Colbert.

David Martin: Okay.

Belal Aftab: I just think he’s a really funny guy, who has had a remarkable life story, but also just knows how to make hard things easy to digest.

David Martin: Stephen Colbert is your hero.

Belal Aftab: Yeah. I just really appreciate him. And in so many ways.

David Martin: Other people. Oh, other people, said Jon Stewart. So you’re you’re right it.

Belal Aftab: Like that or, I mean, I have to I have to say Steph Curry, right? I’m a huge basketball fan. Okay. Huge Warriors fan. That would be a dream to meet him. And but I just think the way he carries himself, and, and the warriors and just you. Such an incredible role model for his team.

David Martin: You’re the first politician who’s ever answered that with a sports hero.

Belal Aftab: Yeah.

David Martin: This is is is running for office something you always thought about or getting involved in politics and government? Is this. Did you were you the class president?

Belal Aftab: I was not the class president. Absolutely not.

David Martin: Though.

Belal Aftab: No, I, I really didn’t think I would do this. My friends might have said otherwise. But I, I just really like talking to people. Hearing about what’s going on and seeing how we can solve those problems.

David Martin: All right. I’m coming to, I’m coming to Saratoga. We’re going out for for dinner. What’s the what’s the dish of Saratoga? What’s the what’s the favorite of the Bay area?

Belal Aftab: Oh, wow. We have so many incredible restaurants that it’s really hard to choose from. All right. Like, what is your favorite cuisine?

David Martin: I know, I want to know, I want, I want you to take me to the best of your town.

Belal Aftab: Okay? If you come to our our our downtown, which we, we call the village, there’s no shortage of great restaurants. We have here ranch kitchen, which is kind of like American Asian fusion. Okay. Which is phenomenal. Do we have some very high end, really famous Bay area restaurants like Le Fondue and The Plumed Horse?

You’re thinking like $4 wine category, but also, like, for very special occasions, you’ll see a lot of problem kids, but also a lot of, really fancy stuff there. We have, anchors fish and chips, which is a great sort of more accessible fish and chip spot. We have an incredible set of cafes, like sous gallery or, Big Basin Cafe, or tell everybody what, what.

David Martin: Spots, what’s the dish? Where? Anywhere this place is. Well, what’s the dish? We’re having? What’s the dish that says you’re you’re in the South Bay.

Belal Aftab: Oh, so you think about the South Bay and Saratoga’s. We’re very diverse, right? We’re either 53, bro, 55% Asian, I believe. And so I feel like it’s hard to say there’s like one dish that defines it. Okay. If there’s one thing, it’s like Dutch crunch and sourdough bread, like, those are two different kinds of breads. But to me, crunch is a what is like a Bay area bread.

What is right. It’s like a bread that’s kind of like, prickly and crispy on top.

David Martin: Okay.

Belal Aftab: Yeah. That that is pretty unique to the Bay area. That, that that is one of my favorites. Dutch crunch. Yeah, I would say Dutch Crunch sandwich anywhere is a relatively common Bay area thing. For all the restaurants I mentioned, like even there’s we have great Italian restaurants, as well, Florentines, Bella Saratoga. So just depending on what you’re looking for, I can give you a recommendation.

David Martin: Gotcha. Yeah. All right. This is called the Good Government Show. We always bring it back to good government before we go, give me an example of good government project. Either you you, I mean, I only in 30 days said as mayor that you’re sinking your teeth into now or you were able to get through as a city council person.

Belal Aftab: I think one of the things we’ve done well in Saratoga is to make our government more accessible and transparent. And I’ll give a funny example, because we’re using technology and AI to do that. Okay. So in Saratoga in the last two years, our city has started using a tool called Hamlett, which basically records and then provides a one page summary of what just happened at a city council meeting.

Or city council meetings can be anywhere from 45 minutes to 7 hours. And so you as a resident can go and you can say, hey, what was decided at this meeting? And so that, to me, is a way of making our city government much more accessible. Sure. So that people can understand what’s actually going on.

David Martin: And it doesn’t tax them. Doesn’t. Oh, I can I can read one page. Yeah.

Belal Aftab: Yeah, absolutely.

David Martin: All right. Belal Aftab, the new mayor, the brand new mayor, 30 days in or this is January 2025. You been at the office? In office for 30 days. Good luck.

Belal Aftab: Thank you.

David Martin: Have fun.

Belal Aftab: I appreciate it. It was great meeting you.

David Martin: Great to meet you. Thanks for coming. I should be out of the show. After you get done with this episode, hear more good government stories with our friends at How to Really Run a City for mayors. Kareem Reid of Atlanta and Michael Nutter, a Philadelphia, and their co-host, journalist and author Larry Platt talk with guests and other mayors about how to really get stuff done in cities around the nation.

Check them out where you’re listening now or through their nonprofit news site, The Philadelphia Citizen. Dot org slash podcasts. When you live in Silicon Valley, knowing the tech industry could only help, as he explained, it’s important to see how tech is changing both how people are using it and how technology can improve government. He also said the diversity of opinions are important.

That to me says he’s listening or at least trying to listen to everyone. And that’s how you get good government and some really good advice from Mayor Aftab of Saratoga, California. He says, put down your phone and say hi to your neighbors. Good advice. That’s our show. Thanks for listening. Please like and share this with your friends and all of us right here where you’re listening, and check out our website.

Good government show.com for extras. Help us keep telling stories of good government and action everywhere. Join us again for another episode right here. I’m Dave Martin and this is the Good Government show.

The Good Government show is a Valley Park production. Jim Ludlow, Dave Martin, that’s me and David Snyder are the executive producers. Our show is edited and produced by Jason Stershic. Please subscribe then share and like us and reviews. That’s the best way to make sure we’re able to keep telling these stories of our government working for all of us.

Then listen to the next episode of The Good Government Show.

**This transcription was created using digital tools and has not been edited by a live person. We apologize for any discrepancies or errors.