Councilman David Lim is an important member of both the San Mateo community and the Aragon community. Lim served as the mayor of San Mateo until December 2013. Previously, Lim coached the Aragon Mock Trial team for four years, using his training as a lawyer to help the team prepare.
Lim’s interest in San Mateo began when he and his wife were looking for a neighborhood where their children could attend safe schools and receive good public educations. “When my wife and I got married, we were looking for the best city with the best schools and the best neighborhoods. We fell in love with San Mateo,” says Lim. “We liked San Mateo and we really liked the schools. Schools are very important for any young couple looking to have children. We knew we wanted to have kids, and we wanted the best public schools and so San Mateo was the clear choice. We liked everything about the community.”
For Lim, safety is the number one issue that should be addressed in the community. “The big thing for me when I ran in 2009 was, and still is, that public safety is the number one thing. For the city council, about 60 percent of our budget has to do with police and fire services. Public safety is very important for all residents to make sure that our streets are safe, our children are safe.
“At the time, I was the only member of the City Council with young children in elementary school. I thought that was a really important voice that didn’t really have any representation on the council. All of our council members were older, retired or with adult children. They didn’t have younger folks to speak up for students in schools and for programs like art, [for] safe crosswalks, and [for] sports,” says Lim.
Another goal that Lim works towards is improving the impact of the San Mateo community on the environment. “I really feel very strongly about leaving our community and our city better for our kids than we found it. We want to do everything we can do for the city to be environmentally responsible. That is something I am very proud of doing for my last four years.” A prominent example of such efforts was the formation of the Sustainability Commission, the first of its kind in the city of San Mateo. The commission has since helped create the ban on plastic bags and styrofoam containers.
While Lim has been successful in his career in public service in San Mateo, it was not Lim’s original intention to participate in local politics. “I got involved in politics by accident,” says Lim, who joined the neighborhood watch commission in 2003. “In 2009 when a council member was going to retire, I thought that I would do a good job and that I had something to contribute, so that was when I ran for council. I didn’t plan to do all this, it just sort of happened.” In order to fund his mayoral campaign, Lim raised $23,000 from friends and other members of the community. There were no donations over $250 from any one individual.
One of the issues that inspired Lim to take a more active role in local government involved a Chinese restaurant on El Camino. “The owner wanted to put in Karaoke booths … The police at the time didn’t want to give them a permit. They were worried about there being drug activity and prostitution activity. In the Asian community, you just go to karaoke booths to sing. It isn’t seen as a place to do bad things. They are a place where you go with friends and family to sing, just for fun,” says Lim.
Lim soon attended meetings discussing the issue and made some important observations. “I noticed that nobody was bringing up the Asian cultural aspects and the fact that it wasn’t necessarily drug use or prostitution in the karaoke studios. I talked to the owners who were a mother and son, and they didn’t have anyone who could express their viewpoint. I looked at the city council and I looked at the commissions and I noticed that there was not a lot of diversity.”
“If we want to have a robust community, we need to have diversity and we need to have people from different walks of life: people from all ages and races and all genders who are willing to communicate and add to the conversation,” says Lim. “Teenagers and young people are definitely part of that diversity. You have perspectives that aren’t yet tainted by cynicism. Sometimes the best ideas come from young people and people with fresh perspectives.”
