About Me

Elected to the East Palo Alto City Council in 2008, Carlos  is presently a city council member in East Palo Alto where he served as Mayor in 2011 and 2021. Active regionally, he serves chair of the San Mateo County Transportation Authority Board. He is a member of the Association of Bay Area Governments’ Executive Committee, chair of ABAG’s Housing Committee and acting chair of its Regional Planning Committee. He also serves as the finance committee chair of Peninsula Clean Energy. Carlos also serves as a board member of the Peninsula Traffic Congestion Relief Alliance and on the board of Rethink Waste/Recology San Mateo County.

Prior to being elected mayor, he was chair and vice chair of the East Palo Alto Redevelopment Agency, served on and chaired the city’s Planning Commission for six years and was a member and chair of the East Palo Alto Rent Stabilization Board for four years.

Regionally, Carlos has also served as vice chair of City/County Association of Governments (C/CAG) of San Mateo County, and vice chair of the multi-county Dumbarton Rail Policy Advisory committee comprised of Alameda and San Mateo counties. Carlos was an alternate board member on the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority. He also served on the nine county Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s advisory committees.
Professionally, Carlos is a housing development and land use consultant for non-profit and community based organizations. Prior to consulting, he headed Mission Housing Development Corporation, a San Francisco community-based, affordable housing organization with an annual operating budget of $6.5 million. 

In addition to his affordable housing development skills, Carlos has extensive experience as a community organizer in low-income neighborhoods. He has worked on a multitude of grassroots organ­izing projects ranging from the incorpo­ra­tion of East Palo Alto, to citizenship and civic participation trainings for immigrants, to environmental justice campaigns. In 1988, he helped co-found EPA CAN DO, a community-based housing and economic development organization that has developed over 330 affordable housing units in East Palo Alto.  
​Carlos has also served on several boards of directors of non-profit organizations in East Palo Alto and throughout the Bay Area.  Of particular note, he was the board chair of The East Palo Alto Community Law Project, a legal services organization in EPA that also served as Stanford Law School’s clinical law program in public interest law. He is currently the Treasurer of Urban Habitat a regional non-profit working on issues of equity in transportation, planning and housing matters.
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​Carlos did his undergraduate studies in international relations and economics at Stanford University, was a Fannie Mae Housing Fellow at the Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 2001, and in 2004/2005 was a Harvard Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design during which he researched land use and transportation issues, national housing policy, and advanced real estate finance and capital markets.

2016 - 2024 Council Accomplishments

  1. Helped write, and secure passage of a commercial office properties parcel tax generating $1.7 million annually for affordable housing and STEM/Building Trades job training. Measure passed by 79.6% .
  2. Helped develop and implement an affordable housing impact fee.
  3. Revamped and reintroduced, arguably, the most deeply targeted affordable housing inclusionary ordinance on the Peninsula.
  4. Sought approval and gained passage of a jobs/housing commercial linkage fee ordinance.
  5. Brought to staff’s attention and helped secure a $350,000 grant to study and develop a Community Land Trust and Tenant Opportunity to Purchase legislation as well as secure permanent funding for those efforts.
  6. Lobbied for and got the Council to place Measure V on the Nov. 2020 ballot to fund aforementioned Land Trust and acquisition efforts
  7. Wrote and led the City Council to approve a gross rental receipts tax ballot measure, funds from which are used for anti-displacement programs, tenant support/education and affordable housing efforts.
  8. Led the City Council’s effort to revise and update the City’s strong Rent Stabilization Ordinance and ran the ballot measure campaign to approve changes to City’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance.
  9. Lobbied for the City Council to approve a $5,000,000 appropriation to secure $20,000,000 in state funds for sea level rise levees that will protect vulnerable, low-income EPA residents. I brought the SaferBay project to the Council’s attention originally in 2012.  We were awarded the construction dollars in 2019.
  10. Advocated for the establishment and allocation of funds for the first Safe Parking program for EPA RV dwellers in SMCo.
  11. Completed and implementing a Citywide Mobility Plan that will make streets more walkable and reduce traffic.
  12. Championed and leading effort to adopt a Transportation Demand Management Ordinance that requires developers and owners of offices to reduce single occupant vehicle trips by 40%.
  13. Funded two affordable housing developments with a total of 330 units with average rents at 50% and below average median income. Light Tree (185 units) commences construction in October, 2020.
  14. Funded and completed construction of one of two pedestrian/bicycle bridges of Hwy 101.
  15. Funded and completed the final two phases of Cooley Landing Park and Interpretive Center.
  16. Funded and completed the first reach of the San Francisquito Creek Flood Control Project.
  17. Advocated for and got CC agreement to enter into a land option agreement for a new library site.
  18. Secured a 1.5 million gallon per day allocation of water rights from Mountain View and Palo Alto.
  19. Adopted a Local Minimum Wage Ordinance with a floor of $15/hr.
  20. Develop and approved 2nd unit/ gar­age conversion code en­for­cement policy that avoids displacement & provides homeowner assistance. 

​Re-Elect Carlos Romero for EPA City Council
​​Paid for by Candidate Carlos Romero
CarlosRomero4EPA.weebly.com