Mayor Clarkson To Step Down After 22 Years As A Public Official

SAN RAMON, CA — After nine years as San Ramon's mayor, Bill Clarkson is proud of how the city has grown and evolved over the past decade, into a multicultural city with an innovative downtown mixed-use development. He also plays up how it hasn't grown -- at least outward.

"There hasn't been any new development approved since 2011 in the hills west of town, or those to the east," San Ramon's outgoing mayor said this week. "And there have been no new developments in the Tassajara Valley since 2011. We're working hard to keep that area agricultural, and we've succeeded at that."

Clarkson, 68, had previously spent 12 years as a San Ramon Valley Unified School District trustee. And with a nearly 22-year career behind him, he said he looks forward to being a "little more selfish with my time."

Clarkson has served four terms as mayor. While mayors in San Ramon are elected to two-year terms, one of Clarkson's terms was three years, brought about when the city shifted from odd-year to even-year elections, extending each then-current official's term by one year.

Those terms came as San Ramon has been undergoing major changes. He's proud of the city's status as one of the safest in California, and of the work of the city's police force. The city has operated its own police department only since 2007; before that, the city had contracted with the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office. Clarkson also praised the city's joint dispatch center from which both the local police and the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District are dispatched. It opened in 2016.

The city's demographics have been changing, too. Whereas almost 77 percent of the city's population in 1990 was white, that number by 2017 was about 50 percent. The city's Asian population, meanwhile, has gone up from 15 percent in 1990 to almost 36 percent in 2017. That trend, Clarkson said, continues.

"It's made the city a more interesting place to live, a stronger community," Clarkson said. "Twenty percent of our residents were born outside the United States. We have 28 cricket teams; we're the cricket capital of the East Bay."

In response, the city formed the San Ramon Valley Diversity Coalition about three years ago to promote inclusion for all residents, he said.

Clarkson said he wishes his city had a traditional downtown, with ground-level storefronts and apartments or other uses above. But by the time San Ramon was incorporated in 1983, the heyday of such shopping areas had passed. So without that focal point, San Ramon created its own, the City Center project east of Interstate Highway 680, which first opened in 2018 as a shopping center. Accompanying residential development will follow, and Clarkson said that housing will help keep pressure off of developing on the city's outskirts.

San Ramon City Councilman Dave Hudson has known Clarkson for 40 years, he said, since both were young real estate agents. Clarkson has succeeded as a mayor, he said, in part to what he called "campaignability," an ability to get along with everyone, to express sometimes complicated government-speak in simple, direct terms and his dedication to the "process," to carry out public functions by the book, in a fair way.

"He treats everyone equally, through doing everything through the right processes," Hudson said. "He is hard to dislike, and his preparedness and knowledge are well-known."

Before he was first elected mayor in 2011, Clarkson had served three four-year terms on the San Ramon Valley Unified School District board. San Ramon Valley schools (and students) have remained top performers, he said, even during the city's explosive growth in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He also counts some of the district's bigger projects, including brand new Dougherty Valley High School (built 2007) and the rebuild of Pine Valley Middle School (2008).

This isn't to say he's retiring -- he's been a Realtor for four decades, and plans to keep that going. "I kind of look forward to working only a 40-to 50-hour week," said Clarkson, who especially looks forward to spending more time with his family, especially his grandchildren.

A history buff, Clarkson will also continue leading his local history tours of San Ramon. He also was heavily involved in the city's 150th anniversary celebration in 2017 and its historical element.

Hudson said Clarkson's teaching of history may be his greatest last contribution to his city. "His legacy, to me, is that he gave us a foundation of where San Ramon came from."

Clarkson, who has been involved with several community leadership development programs, said there are plenty of young people who have been preparing for a life of public service that will keep San Ramon in good hands. And for him, that service is best carried out locally.

"There isn't a better job in the world, in my opinion, than being the mayor of your town," he said.

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