A letter to my neighbours

Dear neighbour,

My family moved here in 2020. We had spent twenty-five years in the Bay Area, and we arrived in Mountain House just before the pandemic closed everything. It was not yet a city. It was a plan with people living inside it.

What I noticed first was that there were parks everywhere and almost nowhere to gather. Twenty-five thousand people, eight villages, a park in each one, and no reliable way for a family in Questa to end up standing next to a family in Hansen on a Saturday morning. So in 2020 a group of us started the Mountain House Sports and Recreation Club. Volleyball. Throwball. Then a tournament, then an annual tournament, then festivals, then a business expo in a high school parking lot because the city did not have a main street to hold one on.

I want to be precise about what that is and is not. It is not a policy achievement. It is a nonprofit that a lot of volunteers built, and my name is on it because someone had to sign the paperwork. What it taught me is more useful than anything I could put in a manifesto: this city works when somebody does the unglamorous organising, and most of the time nobody does.

In March 2024 I ran for the council that made Mountain House a city. Eight candidates, four seats. I received 1,295 votes and finished sixth. I did not win.

I am telling you that in the fourth paragraph rather than burying it, because you can look it up in ninety seconds and because the two years since are the actual argument. I did not stop. The tournaments kept running. The expo happened. I kept going to meetings. If the only reason a person shows up is that there is an election, you can tell, and you should vote accordingly.

On November 3, 2026 there are two council seats on the ballot and six of us running. I am asking for one of your two votes.

I am an engineer by trade, which is why this website is built the way it is: every claim on it opens into its source. If I cannot show you where something came from, it is not on here. That is not a gimmick. It is the same standard I would want from anyone asking to spend public money on my behalf.

Thank you for reading this far. Come find me at a tournament.

Suresh Vuyyuru Mountain House, California