San Mateo deputy mayor seeking an Assembly seat

“I am a homegrown daughter of this district,” she said during an interview this week. “I have worked the last 20 years with compassion because these are my family, my friends, they’re my neighbors, and I’ve worked very hard to address the struggles that exist here.”

Papan is running against South San Francisco Councilmember James Coleman; Redwood City Mayor Giselle Hale; Maurice Goodman, San Mateo County Community College District Board trustee; Tania Solé, a former candidate for Redwood City Council; and Republican Mark Gilham. The Daily Journal will be profiling the major candidates and running a series of stories on the various issues of the race.

Papan serves as the executive directors of John’s Closet, an organization that provides clothing to disadvantaged children, and chairs the John Papan Memorial Fund, which funds scholarships for special education students as well as those who had initial academic struggles. The organizations are named for her brother, who died at 21 years old of a rare vascular illness, and were founded by her mother, who died in 2000 after battling lupus and cancer.

“Having grown up with a lot of adversity, it certainly taught me three things: life is fragile, you only get one shot and you can make a difference, and I’ve applied that to my life,” she said.

Papan said she was drawn into politics after years of being involved in neighborhood issues and local schools. Papan has a teenage daughter and lives with her husband in San Mateo. She recalls her initial focus on the City Council was to improve the city’s aging infrastructure needs, among them the sewer system.

Since then she has been involved in the city’s efforts to provide below-market rate housing options, including moving forward two large apartment developments with subsidized rents. She said her first legislative effort in the Assembly would be to use budget surplus money to fund affordable housing.

“We can do affordable housing, we just have to apply the resources towards it,” she said. “We need housing yesterday, let’s just do it, bite the bullet.”

Environmental issues, she said, are also at the forefront of her focus. She helped launch OneShoreline in 2020, the county’s flood and sea level rise resilience district tasked with coordinating efforts to build sea walls and other infrastructure to address sea level rise.

She is a past-president of the San Mateo County Council Cities, and currently serves as the chair of the joint powers authority governing the county’s Highway 101 express lanes. She said a key effort there has been implementing a program to extend lane use to low-income drivers.

Papan attended Capuchino High School in San Bruno. She earned a degree in political theory from the University of California, Los Angeles, and later earned her law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She began her legal career litigating public works projects, and established her own practice 20 years ago with a focus on representing small businesses in commercial disputes.

“I know what it’s like to run my own business, I know what it’s like for family businesses to operate also, and that has served me well,” she said. “I bring a fiscal lens to the job, I work hard to make every dollar go as far as we can possibly make it go.”

Papan’s father served in the Assembly for more than 20 years. Her older sister, Gina Papan, serves on the Millbrae City Council. Papan said both her father’s public service and mother’s nonprofit work have served as a “North Star.”

“They set a great example for us about the importance of contributing to your community,” she said. “This is tremendously challenging work but I really feel I am making a difference, I feel I was meant to do this work.”

Papan is endorsed by Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, Malia Cohen, state Board of Equalization member; former state Sen. Jerry Hill; and three members of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors in addition to numerous local councilmembers and other elected leaders. As of Dec. 31, the most recent filing deadline, she had raised $127,071.

corey@smdailyjournal.com

(650) 344-5200, ext. 105