Gee Serves as 2024 Orinda Mayor

    New Mayor Darlene Gee isn’t one to shy away from a challenge. She was one of only six women out of 600 students in the engineering department at University of Illinois, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. She also served a term as mayor of Orinda in 2020 – the year COVID-19 emerged, necessitating lockdowns, budget cuts and drastically transforming the way meetings and city gatherings were conducted.
    Luckily, as Gee takes the reins of the city in 2024, things are looking up. The pandemic is mostly in the rear view mirror. City meetings are held in person again and Orinda’s finances are strong. Gee is no longer one of a handful of women in places of significance and influence. Today, she is a senior VP at a major engineering consulting firm and, notably, leading Orinda’s first all-female city council.
If the past is any indicator, Gee is fully prepared to tackle any challenges that may come her way in 2024.
    Read on to learn more about Gee, her accomplishments and her priorities for Orinda.

You were first appointed to the city council in 2015 to take Steve Glazer’s place when he was elected as a state senator. What inspired you to serve then, and to run again for the seat in 2016 and 2020?
    Before joining the city council, I spent many years serving on the Citizens’ Infrastructure Oversight Commission and volunteering to help with our roads and drains program. I had two key reasons why I wanted to be on the city council. The first was to continue the work I was doing and to ensure we completed the important program regarding our roads. The second was that I really wanted to give back to the community.

What are the city council’s biggest accomplishments over the last eight-plus years you have served?
    The thing that I’m most proud of is how well run the city is, particularly by our staff, who do incredible things given our size and resources. The caliber of the staff is amazing.
    The council, along with the staff, has steered Orinda into being very well managed fiscally. We have a strong reserve fund. We don’t have any pension liabilities. We have no unfunded liabilities.
    We weathered the pandemic very well. All of our Parks and Rec programs are back in place and our staffing is back to the level it was before the pandemic.

As your second time as mayor, what did you learn and what would you do differently?
    When I served as mayor in 2020, it was a difficult year. Because of the pandemic I was restricted in my ability to engage with the community. I really missed the opportunity to be out and about and connect with groups and meet with residents. I would have done it the first time if I could. This time I’m really planning to be much more engaged.

What are Orinda’s biggest challenges in 2024 and what are your priorities?
    My priorities are recruiting and retaining good staff, spending our tax dollars effectively and growing and changing our city in a positive way, including a continued focus on fire prevention.
    Specifically in terms of staffing, I want to prioritize finding ways to maintain high-caliber staffing, because our residents have high expectations – and deservedly so. It’s just always challenging to find talented people in today’s world and in a small city.
    Through Plan Orinda, we’re making provisions for changes in the community. Some people are really excited about that and others less so. But the reality is one way or the other, change is going to occur over time. We have to both fulfill obligations that are put on us by the state and navigate the process so we’re responding to what Orindans want.

As a Measure R proponent, what’s your stance on how Orinda has spent those funds so far and how they should be spent in the future?
    Measure R dollars are a combination of fire prevention and infrastructure. We’ve done a good job of improving our roads and drains and our infrastructure. Now that we’ve done that, we have to look very hard at fire prevention.
    There are differing viewpoints and it’s a very evolving area. We know there are some key things that can be done. For example, reducing vegetation growth is important. But how a city can spend money versus how you and I, as private people, can spend money, is different.
    Some of our residents want us to swoop in and start cutting down everything in sight. That’s a little hard on private property. Some of our residents think we should do studies that other people haven’t thought were important. There is definitely a lot we still have to navigate.
    I do support and hope that we will find continued ways to spend more money on fire prevention. We are constantly evaluating and looking for more ways to spend the Measure R funds effectively.

What are your thoughts on serving on Orinda’s first all-female city council?
    It’s been wonderful. I think it’s a very thoughtful, talented group. I have thought the world of all my male colleagues over time, and I’m sure we will have more male colleagues at some point, but this is a great group.

Is there anything about you that might surprise Orindans?
    Many people know how much my husband and I love to travel, and we are lucky to have seen many places in the world. But not everyone knows that I collect decorative roosters from all the countries and key places I travel to. I have strict criteria that they need to be made by local artists and they represent art from a particular locale. In many cases I’ve had the pleasure of meeting the artists themselves. My family is always surprised, annoyed, intrigued or perplexed at the length I will go to bring roosters back. They are amazed that I can remember exactly where each one comes from.