Joe Simitian reflects on his 41 years in office as he terms out of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors
After 12 years on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors and more than four decades in public office, Joe Simitian’s plan for what comes next is that he has no plan.
Jan. 1 will be the first day in 41 years that Simitian, 71, said he will wake up without any constituents to be responsible to — what he expects to be an “interesting feeling.” The longtime public servant, who kicked off his political career in 1983 when he was elected to the Palo Alto School Board, was lauded at his final Board of Supervisors’ meeting on Dec. 10 with several vivacious rounds of applause, standing ovations and words of praise.
“I’ve always looked up to him and regarded him as the elder statesman, the wise sage of the group, kind of like Yoda but much taller,” Supervisor Otto Lee said. “He really is a true true trail blazer in our county.”
In an interview with The Mercury News, Simitian said he never expected to be in elected office as long as he has when he first ran for the Palo Alto School Board all those years ago. He described himself as “unusual school board member” — at the time he was 30, unmarried and had no kids.
But he was a product of Palo Alto schools, having attended Palo Alto High School, and both of his parents were teachers.
“As a candidate, I was often asked ‘Why are you running for school board if you’re a non-parent and don’t have kids in the district?'” Simitian said. “It gave me a lot of opportunities to talk to people about how public education is the foundation of equal opportunity.”
During his time in the California legislature — where he served four years as a state assemblymember and eight years as a state senator from 2000 to 2012 — Simitian had more than 110 pieces of legislation signed into law by three different governors. He jokes, though, that he will “forever be known as the guy who authored the hands-free cell phone” law.
The law, which went into effect in 2008, prohibited drivers from picking up the phone unless they had technology — like Bluetooth — that allowed them to talk while keeping both hands on the wheel.
At the time, the Public Policy Institute of California put out a study that predicted the law could save roughly 300 lives each year in the state as distracted driving increases the risk of fatal crashes. The law, though, received pushback — including from one Pleasanton resident who had a $10,000 billboard erected on Highway 101 in East Palo Alto that delivered one message: “Senator Joe Simitian: Your cell phone law sucks.”
But the most satisfying moment in his career he said was in 2003 when he stood on the assembly floor at 3:30 in the morning, making a last-minute “plea for justice” to his colleagues to vote on a bill that would give more than $400,000 to Rick Walker — an East Palo Alto man who was wrongly imprisoned for 12 years for a murder he did not commit.
Simitian needed a two-thirds vote for the state to authorize the compensation — $100 for every day Walker spent in prison. But at the end of the legislative session, a number of Republicans on the other side of the aisle were the hold outs. The then-assemblymember was eventually able to flip the remaining votes he needed in the early hours of the morning for Walker.
“What I’ve often said is if you’re not improving the lives of the people you represent why are you getting out of bed every day?” Simitian said. “That’s the job: improving the lives of the people you represent. Sometimes that happens in the millions, sometimes in the tens of thousands and sometimes it’s one person’s life in Rick Walker’s case.”
During his final board meeting on Dec. 10, Simitian’s colleagues at the county described him as mentor, a “highly and deeply principled public servant,” a “fierce advocate for housing solutions” and a friend.
County Executive James Williams, who has worked at the county for 14 years and in his current role the last year-and-a-half, said one thing he will miss the most is Simitian’s “extraordinary kindness.” Williams recalled a letter the outgoing supervisor wrote to his wife during the early days of the pandemic, acknowledging her support for the work the then-county counsel was doing in the Emergency Operations Center.
“There are so many moments like that, phone calls, letters, conversations over the last 12 years — not just for me, but I have seen for others in our organization and outside our organization,” Williams said. “That I think is maybe less seen or recognized than your absolutely incredible strategic thinking and ability to move policy and get things done that will have a lasting impact on all of us as public servants in ways that go beyond just the incredible policy accomplishments that you’ve made.”
While Simitian won’t be sitting in his usual chair at the next board meeting on Jan. 13, some of the work he’s done over the last 12 years will continue. In 2025, the county is expected to open a new behavioral health services center that includes an inpatient psychiatric hospital for youth — a first for Santa Clara County.
The new facility — which will be located on the Valley Medical Center campus and have 35 beds for children and teens and 42 beds for adults — is a decade in the making and stemmed from a conversation Simitian had in December 2014 at a holiday party where he learned there was nowhere for kids having a mental health crisis to go.
Simitian hopes to be at the ribbon-cutting next year and views the work he did to bring it to fruition as one of the highlights of his time on the board. Over the last 12 years, he’s been a member of the board’s health and hospital committee, carving out a policy niche for himself by working to expand healthcare access to uninsured residents and advocating for the first clinic in the northern part of the county, which opened up last month. The first county health clinic in the West Valley is also under works.
As Simitian thinks about turning off the lights and walking out the door of his West Hedding Street office, he said what he will miss the most is “the opportunity to wake up every day and make the lives of the folks I represent a little bit better.”
He said he’s going to give himself a “brief sabbatical” before he sorts out what comes next. The adage “if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem” comes to mind. For the last 41 years, he said public office has been the venue he’s used to try to have an impact on his community.
“There are lots of different ways to be part of the solution, Simitian said. “I will miss that opportunity certainly, but there may yet be another way or another venue to be part of the solution.”