Full Biography for Delos M. "'Mac Mace

Candidate for
Council Member; City of Pleasant Hill

I have lived in Pleasant Hill for 26 years. My first foray into the political world was when my daughter's school was suddenly closed (Pleasant Hill High School). I served on the first committee to form a seperate Pleasant Hill School District, from 1979 to 1981. I appeared before the county and state school boards, but state policy at that time favored larger districts.

In 1983, the P.H. City Council then rezoned the P.H. High School/Oak Park Elementary sites to accept all of Contra Costa's Municipal Courts, high-rise office buildings and high density housing, (1.4 million sq. ft. of development). I was part of a group of P.H. residents which initiated a referendum which overturned the rezoning of the school site. The end result is that the site now serves students as a middle school.

In that same year, the city council was considering rezoning the current downtown to become a high-rise office center, which would have wiped out plans for local serving retail which had been initiated in 1973. At that time, Pleasant Hill was a no-property tax city and would have gained very little taxes from offices and would have lost a great deal of taxes from having no retail. With a group of neighbors, we founded Pleasant Hill Citizens For Responsible Growth and began an initiative called Measure "B". It had three major effects on the city;. The first was to hold down the upward rezoning of neighborhoods for high density development; it stopped the upward rezoning of vacant school properties; and it brought back the current downtown which is now being built. Measure "B" passed by over 60% of the vote in 1986.

I was appointed to the Planning Commission in 1990 and served till Nov. 1995. I was elected to City Council in Nov. 1995, signed the Downtown Development Agreement as Chairman of the Redevelopment Agency, and I currently serve as Mayor of Pleasant Hill.