Council Member Rishi Kumar strives to make Saratoga neighborhoods safe

Rishi Kumar, Council Member of Saratoga is well- known in the bay area for his tireless efforts to improve the safety of neighborhoods. In an interview with The Times of India, Rishi talks about his initiatives as a Council Member, his vision to improve the quality of life of Saratoga and the Silicon Valley residents.

Can you please tell us a little about your background? How long have you been a resident of Saratoga?
Delighted to talk to you. My wife Seema and I have lived in Saratoga since 2001 and have found home in this fabulous community with our two boys. Both of us are from Bombay. Seema came to the United States for her Bachelors Degree in Electrical Engineering and I for my Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering. Today, I work for Solix Technologies and Seema works at a networking company.

I have definitely found my calling with community service, which was further emboldened with my run for office in 2014 and winning at the very first run for Saratoga City Council.

You have started many community events in Saratoga. What are those events and what motivated you to get involved in those?

Seema and I host many community efforts/ community events, many of which are free and always inclusive usually addressing a need or a cause like the Unity in Community Day, Entrepreneurship bootcamp for the youth, Bike Safety workshop for 5th graders, Saratoga Creek cleanup, raising money for Saratoga Senior center and many more. Our objective has been to create youth empowerment opportunities, while providing every member of our community an opportunity to intermingle by celebrating community events and cultural festivals such as Dandia, Diwali, Saratoga has Talent, along with fun monthly events such as the Bollywood Open Mic that we have been hosting in Saratoga since 2010. We love building a close-knit community that works hard and also plays hard and we know how to have fun. Why live in a silo’ed world when we can have the enjoyable experience of a connected community around us?

True, life is much more fun we are a part of connected community. Regarding your campaign for reelection, what do you think differentiates city council candidates? What makes you unique?

My city council efforts have been about “getting things done.” I have teamed up with community members to reduce crime and to push back against the super high water rates of San Jose Water Company. I have teamed up with neighbors to solve real world problems, like repairing potholes and enhancing safety with a protected left turn at Cox/Saratoga-Sunnyvale. I launched an app to make it easier to protest water rates and made citizen services like the Tree/Noise Exception Permit available online. My monthly “Council Update” newsletters keep Saratoga informed while providing a forum for citizens’ feedback.

I now notice that Saratoga’s community spirit has been rekindled. Neighbors are connecting with each other, communicating and collaborating to solve their neighborhood’s challenges.

Please let us know about your key achievements as a Council Member. What were the main issues? How have you addressed those so far?

During my first term as Saratoga's councilmember, I reminded myself everyday that I serve Saratoga’s interest. I purposefully focused my efforts with a citizen-centric vision, responsiveness and results-driven behavior to impact Saratoga’s toughest challenges.

I took on the issue of Saratoga’s residential burglaries the summer of 2016. Teaming up with neighborhood leaders, I started organizing neighborhoods to discuss safety best practices, bring neighbors together, and launch Neighborhood Safety Watch (NSW) programs. Heightened crime awareness, safety best practices, connected neighbors, and alert neighbors reporting suspicious activities to our sheriff has resulted in residential burglaries dropping a whopping 47% from 2016 to 2017.

I also pushed back against the frequent water rate increases. I established a repeatable protest campaign that was simple for Saratogans to follow and email their protest to CPUC (California Public Utilities Commission). I attended CPUC hearings speaking emphatically for Saratoga. The effort of our citizens and other community groups has resulted in successful protest campaigns, and CPUC has rejected several rate proposals by our water company.

You were elected to City Council in 2014; since then, you've been pretty vocal in pushing for neighborhood watch programs and urging residents to install home security systems. Did you see a compelling need for these measures?

Absolutely! The data says it all. We had a huge 47% drop in residential burglaries by re-igniting our Neighborhood Safety Watch NSW program as validated by Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Captain Urena…over 70 of them are certified and active. Neighborhood Safety Watch is a phenomenal community-building event that has empowered neighborhoods and our neighbors. we have an actively engaged leadership in almost every part of Saratoga, block parties are happening on a regular basis and the city has formalized the structure for this program to ensure active Neighborhood Watch programs that will always be alive and kicking. Saratoga today has over 70+ Neighborhood Safety Watch programs certified with the city, new leadership taking charge, new leaders running block parties, some neighborhoods putting up neighborhood surveillance cameras, neighbors getting CERT certified – it is a wonderful story playing out.

This is indeed a phenomenal achievement. Where did you draw inspiration for these safety measures?
The framework that we rolled out for Saratoga was the one that worked out very well for my own neighborhood. When there was a break-in that occurred back in 2004, I started reading up and researching, talking to folks to figure out what would make my neighborhood safer. I came up with a simple plan: safety deterrents coupled with a Neighborhood Safety Watch program. I launched a neighborhood website and started putting together safety tips, that is now the foundation for today’s Top 25 Safety tips www.tinyurl.com/Top25Tips that a huge portion of Saratoga has had access to via print and online.

We initiated a Neighborhood Watch Program that felt painfully slow, and with many gating factors. We sometimes thought we would never get through with our certification But we did! We used the same framework, enhanced it, but removed the gating factors to make it easier and broke down the process into 10 simple steps. Neighborhoods found it easier to get certified and many Neighborhood Safety Watch programs started in all over Saratoga.

Coming from a hi-tech background, how do you plan to use technology for the benefit of the city?

My professional experience is a nexus of high-tech, public, private, non-profit, policy-making and the world of politics. On the council I seek to apply the hi-tech framework to city government and offer services that are cheaper, faster and better for my community.

My council efforts have been about getting things done and solving real problems - just like the world of hi-tech and being results driven, whether repairing a pothole, or enhancing safety via a protected left turn at Cox/Saratoga-Sunnyvale, or meeting neighborhood groups exploring solution options, or launching a water app to make protest easier or taking citizen services online such as a Tree Permit or a Noise Exception Permit or keeping Saratoga informed through a monthly newsletter.

I did not believe in playing soft ball, but being focused on the toughest challenges that impact our citizens. Very similar to how we work with our customers in the world of hi-tech, providing the best customer service we possibly can and making sure we address their top challenges. The very objective of a public servant is to serve and help, and I kept that passion and zeal of helping everyone as best a possible to the best of my abilities.


You have also undertaken several initiatives to foster entrepreneurship. Could you please tell us how are you strategizing and approaching it?

Living in the heart of Silicon Valley, I always felt that our curriculum could do better for our Silicon Valley students in planting seeds of entrepreneurship. The DNA pool of kids here is obviously special and the natural innovation economy around us is very conductive for kids to do well. But innovation and entrepreneurship is not part of the curriculum in our schools.

So. we wanted to create an entrepreneurship opportunity for every child - to empower them to take charge and be part of the innovation economy. We launched the Silicon Valley Coders Club. Our mission was to create an opportunity for every Silicon Valley youth to launch start-up ventures, by enabling hands-on collaborative learning, while providing them an exposure to tech innovation and industry insight. We are geared to teach entrepreneurship skills to middle and high school students via classroom learning and collaborative hands-on learning. ?The semester-long entrepreneurship boot camp helps students take a creative idea, turn it into a business plan, and ultimately a finished prototype. This is a free program that we ran in 14 locations of California along with a location in Charlotte NC with more than 2000 trained so far, and over a hundred startup projects launched.

There are several initiatives in the bay area to introduce cricket in the schools. Lof of effort is being put into developing cricket at the national level. Do you have any plans to introduce cricket in Saratoga schools?

Cricket is definitely expanding in Silicon Valley. We have had a Cricket practice cage in Redwood Middle for almost ten years now. Last year, we “dusted it off” and now have a local cricket academy using it effectively to train kids. I dream of a Saratoga student playing for the US National Team With the huge support for cricket and the enthusiasm of the parents, I do believe this dream will be a reality someday in the near future. We are also actively exploring opportunities to play at least a few league matches here in Saratoga. Can we coexist with Baseball and Soccer? Of course, we can. This is what makes Silicon Valley such an exciting place.

What is your message to our readers?

I truly believe that solving the toughest challenges, means taking the first step and moving forward. Not analysis paralysis, but just taking firm action based upon a strategic vision and plan. Just like startups, we gotta launch and adjust the game plan based on what is working or not working. It has been a good story that has played out for Saratoga so far.