Scott Sakakihara: Made in Union City
Scott is running for City Council to ensure that Union City continues to be a place where working and middle class families can make it in the Bay Area.
Scott grew up here. Now, he’s raising his family here, and he has a deep commitment to Union City’s future.
Scott grew up benefiting from an incredible Union City community that offers so much to kids and families of all backgrounds and incomes. He and his brother spent their childhoods playing in Union City public parks, taking swim lessons at Logan, and spending hours in classes and camps at Holly Center and Kennedy Center. He met his wife, Melinda, at Pioneer Elementary School when they were just six years old, and went on to become an attorney and a Navy Reservist, thanks to the opportunities created in Union City and with the help of a great public school education.
Now, Scott works in Silicon Valley and serves on the Union City Planning Commission, and Melinda is a public elementary school teacher at Searles Elementary School. Union City has always been their home, not just because Union City is a great place to live, but because this is a place that cares about the next generation and invests in its community.
Scott is an attorney who believes in public service and giving back to the community that made him.
Scott knows that his parents and community have helped him every step of the way, starting with his K-12 and undergraduate public education. His Union City education put him on the path to graduate early from UC San Diego and then from Harvard Law School with honors. After graduating from Harvard and passing the California bar, he took an internship with Congressman Pete Stark (former Congressman representing Union City), and then earned the JACL Masaoka Fellowship to serve in the office of Congresswoman Mazie Hirono (one of a handful of Japanese American women ever elected to Congress) and later in the Obama White House.
Scott knows that his life has been shaped by what’s great about Union City. But he believes that we must make progress on our toughest challenges in a way that lifts everyone up and provides opportunities for future generations—and everyone in our community—to thrive.
Scott is a Navy Reservist and fourth-generation Japanese American.
After his time in Washington, D.C., Scott moved home to start his family and career. In 2017, he turned back to public service and joined the Navy Reserves as an Intelligence Officer, and recently returned from an eight-month deployment in the Middle East.
Scott is a fourth-generation Japanese American and all four of his grandparents were in internment camps during World War II. Even though his grandparents had to start back at the bottom after the war, they were able to create a better future for their families because of our diversity, opportunity, and resilience. Scott is proud to serve our country because he knows that while we have many imperfections and there’s much progress left to be made, we must continue to strive to live up to our ideals.
Union City is a great place to live and this is a critical time to make progress on our toughest challenges.
We’re in the epicenter of a housing crisis, small businesses were struggling even before the pandemic, low wage workers have needed help for too long, and we must continue providing excellent public services. We have to focus on the problems we can solve locally, but we have an opportunity to improve our city for the next generation.
Scott is committed to taking on our toughest challenges and preserving what’s great about Union City, including addressing our housing and transportation crisis, supporting local jobs and small businesses, taking climate action now, investing in public services, maintaining our great parks and community programs, and making fiscally accountable community investments. You can learn more here.
There are some folks who just look to score political points or make promises they can’t keep. Not Scott.
Scott is grounded by the fact that his grandparents worked hard, his parents worked hard, and now he believes that it’s his turn to work hard for his kids—and all kids—and for Union City. For Scott, that means acting with integrity, listening, trusting the facts, and engaging in good faith.
Whether it’s a stop sign or a climate action plan — you can count on Scott to do his homework and build consensus to do what is right for the future of Union City.
