Good evening, Mountain View.

Good evening, Mountain View, and welcome to the 2026 state of the city.

I'm your MC for this evening, Anthony Tordillos, and it is wonderful to be back in Mountain View this evening.

While I currently live in and work in San Jose, I spent many years living and working right here in Mountain View, and it's good to be back tonight.

And yeah.

And like your mayor, I am also the first Filipino American elected in my city of San Jose, following in the footsteps of Emily here.

And now it is my pleasure to uh move the program forward.

We're going to call this special meeting of the Mountain View City Council on to order on this Tuesday, May 19th.

So if Mayor Emily Ann Ramos could come forward to open the meeting.

Good evening.

I'm Mayor Ramos, and I'm going to call the special meeting to order.

Welcome to the 2026 State of the City.

And now we have all council members and a quorum present.

We will now begin with opening up public comment.

Now this is for members of the public who would like to address the only item on tonight's agenda, which is the state of the city.

While we are streaming the meeting on Zoom and YouTube, public comments are only available in person right there.

Comments will be at one minute maximum.

If you want to give additional comments, please attend our regular upcoming city council meeting, which is scheduled for next Tuesday, May 26th at 6 30 p.m.

So if you would like to give a public comment, please come up to the microphone.

It's not mandatory.

Thank you, Mayor Ramos.

We have a wonderful program in store for you all this evening.

As you heard, we have the Mountain View City Council here.

And of course, it's great to be joined by so many community members and residents as well this evening.

And on the City of Mountain View website, Mountainview.gov, as well as via Zoom.

So everyone be on your best behavior this evening.

The theme for tonight's event is Building the Mountain View of Tomorrow Together.

You'll be hearing all about that and much more in the remarks from Mayor Ramos.

But first, it is time to bring in the City of Mountain View Fire Department Honor Guard to present the colors.

Literally and justice for all.

Thank you.

You may be seated.

And thank you also to the Honor Guard for presenting the colors and also to the representatives of the city's youth advisory committee for leading us in the pledge.

That was Shreya Snayak and Maytal Zayats.

Thank you.

And now I would like to say a few words about this very special city and about my friend who also happens to be your mayor, Emily Ann Ramos.

Mountain View will always have a special place in my heart.

And was actually the first city that I lived in after moving to the Bay Area after college.

I actually live just down the road from here near the San Antonio shopping center.

And I spent spent about half a decade commuting in and uh working at the Google Plex uh every day.

Uh and before relocating to San Jose, this really was my home here in the Bay Area.

Uh and to this day, some of my closest friends still live in Mountain View, so I spend a lot of time here.

And it really has been a pleasure over the past 12 years getting the opportunity to watch the city grow and evolve and improve.

Uh and I am being honest when I say that I really think that one of the city's greatest strengths is your elected leadership here.

I have the pleasure of calling multiple members of the Mountain View City Council uh friends of mine, including the star of tonight's uh program, uh Mayor Ramos.

I first met Mayor Ramos back in 2023 when we were both early uh into new roles in civic leadership.

Uh Mayor Ramos had recently been appointed to fill a vacancy on the Mountain View City Council, and I had just been uh appointed to fill a vacancy on the San Jose Planning Commission.

Uh and our paths originally crossed because we were both passionate advocates for housing affordability.

Um we were working together to lobby the city of San Jose to improve our housing element, which is our plan to address our needs in terms of housing affordability in the years ahead.

Uh and while our advocacy definitely, you know, didn't necessarily win us favor with certain members of city staff or even members of city council at the time.

Uh ultimately our merry band of advocates prevailed, and we got some really important changes secured in the uh San Jose's housing element.

And working with Emily on that process was really the first time that I had the chance to see Mayor Ramos's tenacity, her integrity, and her dedication firsthand.

And while we now live in and serve different cities, uh we know that many of the toughest challenges facing our cities are really regional problems, things like affordable housing, uh addressing homelessness, investing in public infrastructure and public transit.

Uh and as all of us in elected office in the Bay Area work together to tackle these regional problems, I really could not ask for a better partner here in Mountain View than Mayor Ramos.

And so without further ado, it is my pleasure to welcome back to the stage your mayor, Emily Ann Ramos, to provide tonight's remarks.

Thank you again, Anthony.

So welcome everyone.

Once again, it is the 2026 state of the city.

And in case you have forgotten already, I'm Mayor Emily Ann Ramos.

And let me just say it's wonderful to be here tonight with all of you in the best city.