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Published on 11/24/1997 All articles from this issue

Kris Casto - a long swim to become Los Altos mayor

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue / Town Crier Staff Writer

Kris Casto is a doer. During a September weekend, this Los Altos Master Swimmer swam from Alcatraz to San Francisco one day, and from San Francisco to Sausalito, under the Golden Gate Bridge, the next.

In October, with the women in her book group, she climbed Half Dome in Yosemite.

In November, at last night's city council organizational meeting, people expected that Casto, mayor pro tem for the past year, would be elected mayor of Los Altos.

"I want to be upbeat and positive," she said last week during an interview in her home. "I don't see problems, just hurdles. We can go over hurdles."

After months of tension among the planning commissioners, planning staff and council members, she said, "I'm upbeat that we can work together."

An outside facilitator will lead a day of team building on Dec. 15.

Looking ahead she said hiring a new city manager is the most important issue in her one-year term. Looking back she smiles as she remembers her first venture working with the city of Los Altos.

When Casto, 51, and her husband Harold moved into their house 24 years ago, the mailing address was in Los Altos, but they were on county land.

"I felt removed from the neighborhood I thought I'd be belonging to," Casto said.

So she went out, organized the 280 homeowners nearby, circulated petitions, and was successful in having the city annex her area.

"It was a great beginning," Casto said. "We got to know our neighborhood by walking up to the door and talking to people. It broke down barriers."

After spearheading the annexation drive, she wanted to give back to the city to which she now belonged.

She joined the solid waste committee, a group that advised the council about the city garbage contract. The city started recycling and began embracing environmental goals.

Next Casto applied to the planning commission. She came on in 1985, served two years of an unfinished term and then two four-year terms of her own.

In 1995, against five opponents for three city council seats, she came in second.

Running for city council was never a part of a political plan, she said, but came as a natural extension of her sense of giving back to the community she loves.

And she's a first, the first to be on the Los Altos Council from the Cupertino School District.

Casto's top goal for the year ahead is to begin the process of funding 401 Rosita, the 5.7 acres the city bought for recreational use, "and bringing the community together in the process," she said.

She wants to "put energy into serving our youth, to let them know we're concerned about what they're concerned about."

City council on Nov. 18 approved a charter to form a youth commission that will be working next year.

With her husband, she owns and runs Casto Roofing, a business they started together before they were married. Today the business employs 22, including Lindsey Casto, Kris' stepson.

Outside the picture windows of her sun porch, three chickens peek in.

Their hutch, out of sight around the corner of the house, has been thoroughly "raccoon-proofed," Casto said, against the masked critters that creep out of nearby Stevens Creek.

Watching her chickens brings back childhood memories of growing up in a small Ohio town. Here, in an urban area of busy and bustle, "I missed the solitude. How good it makes me feel to see the them (the chickens).

"There's a sweetness you can have," Casto said of her chickens, "in the middle of Silicon Valley. There's a calm and tranquillity from seeing your chickens walking across the yard."

There is no question that this down-to-earth, friendly, hard-working woman, who is always upbeat herself, loves Los Altos.

"I want to say something sweet and precious because that's what this city is," Casto said. "It's neighbors, it's volunteers; it's a community that comes together when it sees a need. It's a wonderful city. I feel honored to be able to serve."

Casto will hold office hours at city hall in the mayor's office from 3-5 p.m. on Mondays. For an appointment, call 948-1491.