To the residents of Mountain View,
Mountain View YIMBY has pre-endorsed James Kuszmaul for Mountain View City Council in the November 2026 election.
We call it a pre-endorsement because it comes ahead of our usual process. For the other candidates, we are reading the record the same way we did in past cycles: our candidate questionnaire, the Chamber of Commerce forum of August 27, campaign websites and ballot statements, and, above all, what each candidate has actually said at council and commission meetings. James did not need that process. He has been a member and leader of Mountain View YIMBY for years, and his record on housing is already the most complete of any candidate in the field. We are saying so now rather than asking him to fill out our own questionnaire.
Why James
He shows up. For years, James has spoken at the council and commission podium on housing again and again: the Moffett transit-center plan, the streamlined gatekeeper process, the R3 zoning update, the rezoning near El Camino Hospital, the citywide TDM ordinance, parking minimums, and the historic preservation ordinance. In every one of the seventeen positions he has taken at the podium on a housing-supply question, he took the side of more homes. He has also chaired the city’s Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Committee, and has pushed for safer streets so that more kids can walk and bike to school.
He says the same thing to every audience. At the Chamber forum, when the other candidates were asked about SB 79, most of them talked about a local alternative plan. James was the only candidate to say he was wary of spending staff time on one. That is the same position he has taken at council, in front of a council that did not always want to hear it.
He knows how the city works. James grew up here, went to Mountain View public schools, and has spent years in the committee rooms and council chambers where housing policy is actually made. He understands that the housing shortage is a choice cities make, meeting by meeting, and that changing it takes someone willing to sit through those meetings.
A note on our process
James is one of us, and we want to be plain about that. Because he helps lead this organization, we did not ask him to complete our questionnaire, and this endorsement should be read as what it is: an organization endorsing one of its own leaders, on a public record anyone can check. Every position we cite is in a transcript on this site, linked to its moment in the video.
Three council seats are open this November. We will announce our remaining endorsements after we finish reviewing the other candidates’ records.
Learn more about James at james4mv.com.
Regards,
David Watson
on behalf of MV YIMBY