Form Name:
Unique ID:
Boards and Commissions Application
1451609433
Applicant Information
Name
Are you a Sunnyvale resident?
How long have you lived in
Sunnyvale?
Sarah J Huq
Yes
28 years, since 1998
Sarah Huq
Description Area Residence Not ice:Un less otherwise noted , your princ ipal place of residence must be in Sunnyvale . You must live in Sunnyvale at the time of appo intment and at all times during serv ice on a board or commission.
Current Main Residence
Email
Phone
Description Area Employment NoticeCity of Sunnyvale employees may not serve on a board or commission.
I am a current City of Sunnyvale No
employee.
Have you ever served on a City of No
Sunnyvale board or commission?
Have you attended a meeting of Yes
the City Council, or a board or
commission?
Briefly describe what you learned
by watching or attending a
meeting of the City Council,
board or commission. What
improvements would you
suggest?
I have attended in person all (exception of one, I think) of the Board of Library Trustees meetings for the last one year. I have enjoyed greatly all of the library department and overall updates to the board. It was wonderful to see all that the library team has accomplished and what the plans are for the future. I was surprised to see that the board meetings always seem to include a presentation/s and then the board members comment on the topics and ask questions. What I did not see was an opportunity for the board and the library leadership to work together on brainstorming or otherwise developing ideas and plans to help manage challenges that the library may be experiencing. The board is an outside body that could potentially bring fresh new ideas to bear. Having worked in a corporate setting for >30 years including as a program management leader, I often relied on members of various teams to come together to consider issues, generate ideas and then discuss and consider outcomes and resolutions that could be useful to meet the challenges.
Have you attended meetings of
the board(s) or commission(s) for
which you are applying?
Yes
How many meetings have you
attended?
In the last year, I attended 7 meetings; 4 were cancelled by email (City of Sunnyvale Board of Library Trustees Meeting
Cancellation); I missed one scheduled meeting on January 5th due to a conflict.
Board or Commission Selection
First Choice Board of Library Trustees (R)
Applicant Qualifications
Sarah Huq
What motivated you to apply for
this board or commission?
I have always loved the library and believe that this public institution is truly the heart of the community. Since my childhood, I have continuously been an avid reader and visited my local libraries in whatever town, city, country I have lived in. I also enjoy participating in all the library offers beyond just the books - performances, trainings, activity circles, etc. In recent years I have witnessed the attack on libraries/librarians, book bans and more, and feel sure that we must stand up and protect the diversity of the books and the community attending the library, and the role that the library plays.
I have recently retired from a 34 year corporate career and would like to commit my time to worthwhile resources and
organizations; the Sunnyvale library is very important to me and as such I would love the chance to invest my time, however useful I can be, to this cause. I bring a number of academic, professional and community volunteer experiences in order to support this role. Please see details below. My family is made up of a diverse set of identities and one of the truly beautiful things about Sunnyvale and our library programs and offerings is that we reach out to all people in our city and make the Sunnyvale library a home for everyone. I for one want to support and uphold that effort and the board role would allow me to offer my perspective and advice on current and future directions for the library as we continue to serve our community.
Sarah Huq
What skills or attributes can you
bring to this board or
commission?
My academic background includes a liberal arts undergraduate degree - including a Government major. I followed that with a Master's in Public and International Affairs - where I could apply the public policy learning to an understanding of the library within the city government structure. I also completed an MBA in Marketing, which gives me insights into events, communications, PR, online marketing, plus other marketing activities that could be of use to the library leadership. After grad school, I spent a couple of years working in Japan and then for a Japanese company in the US, where I gained a rich perspective on differences and successes that could be applied to our diverse library objectives. In high tech for more than 3 decades, my role was not in a technical capacity but rather I worked in alliances, marketing, product marketing and for the last 15 years in a program management role. These skills again, could hopefully be useful to the library leadership team.
Finally, while I admit to having been pretty busy with my career and juggling that with care of my family (two grown children), I did make the effort to continue participating in volunteer work through the years. Of course, volunteering with the local schools was always first and foremost on the schedule. Both of our kids started at Stocklmeir Elementary and went all of the way thru to graduation at Fremont Highschool. I also volunteer as an active member of the Junior League of Palo Alto * Menlo Park. I took positions as a bookkeeper for the fundraising resales store The Shop, a web designer when we first developed our website, participated in several community service projects such as Edgewood Kinship, Friends for Youth, and a Done in a Day placement. The organized nature of the JL MP*PA allowed me to still contribute and also incorporate volunteering into my work / life balance.
Now that I have more time (after retiring), I would like to be able to roll up my sleeves and contribute to our city / community Library Board as a Board of Library Trustees.
Sarah Huq
The primary role of a board or
commission member is to provide
advice to City Council on policy
issues that are within the scope
of the board or commission. What
steps would you take to
effectively exercise this specific
board or commission role?
As a year long attendee to the Board of Library Trustees Meetings, I have taken careful notice of the agenda topics and types of input that are regularly offered by the current board members - the helpful/supportive comments as well as leading questions and suggestions for additional consideration. I am well prepared to provide that kind of input. I have familiarized myself the with the Library - Goals and Policies from the Council Policy Manual. I am prepared to uphold and support those goals and objectives.
As well, per above, I do think that I can bring my experience and expertise to the library leadership. I am very used to collaborative partnership on cross functional teams and would welcome any requests for additional input or assistance. I truly love working in groups and doing the heavy lifting to solve problems. Finally, my functional expertise (marketing, comms, etc.) could well apply to library needs and I would be happy to be able to offer those ideas as well.
Education – List college degrees,
majors and any relevant training
or experience that demonstrates
your ability to effectively serve
on this board or commission.
University of Pittsburgh - Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business (MBA, Marketing)
University of Pittsburgh - Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (MPIA, International Affairs)
Franklin & Marshall College (BA - Government and German) Describe your involvement in
community activities, volunteer
and civic organizations.
Junior League of Palo Alto-Mid Peninsula -
https://www.thejuniorleague.org/about/
Active and Sustainer member 1999 - current
Description Area The City has a Code of Ethics and Conduct for Elected and Appointed Officials and an Attendance Policy (7.2.19), 2 G (II) that appointed members are required to follow.
Do you have any concerns related
to the above code and policy?
No
Are you willing to accept a
temporary appointment for the
remainder of an unexpired term?
Yes
Board or Commission-Specific Questions
Board of Library Trustees
Sarah Huq
Community demographics and
technology are constantly
changing. What do you think are
the principal issues the
Sunnyvale Public Library may be
addressing over the next few
years?
There are a number of important issues facing our public libraries - from funding shortfalls, the rush to keep up with changing technology (AI, automation, etc.), pressures to balance a divided country with quite divergent expectations about library materials and library objectives and values, as well as how the library continues to meet the needs and purposes of all community members who use the library. Sunnyvale Library is not immune to all of these pressures either.
Focusing on community demographics and technology, there are surely some specific challenges for the library leadership to consider. First, Sunnyvale is a unique, growing, thriving, melting pot community where our Library needs to consider all flavors of diversity and demographics to make our library accessible to all. Our library's materials and services must be inclusive, factual, accessible, equitable and fairly representing of the community we reach and hope to reach. When people don't trust others or the media or the news, and don't know where to go for truth, then I think the library can play an important role in providing unbiased access to the broad range of information and resources. The librarians, ordering materials and creating programs for the overall audience, must continue to make sure that they consider our multi-faceted demography. And the library can offer education on online literacy, teach people how to choose and use proper and safe resources to learn, know how to make media decisions about sorting and protecting knowledge. I know that my children had some training on this themselves when they were in school here in Sunnyvale. We need to promote the library as a steward of this unbiased information where everyone is welcome and everyone can find the trusted
information they seek.
Secondly, advanced technology improvement - like with, for example, AI and online social media - will also challenge our community as they attempt to understand the pros and cons of use. The technology is developing so quickly that it is difficult for the average person to keep up. The library can also play a part in offering information, training and services to both introduce all of the great new features and uses for the technology, while also offering advice on how best to protect and secure ourselves from its possible negative impacts. Again, I think the library is a trusted community institution that must remain unbiased and then can play an important role in preparing our community for the technological changes being faced today and certainly in the future to come.
Pressures from various forces make this work difficult right now, and I expect it will remain so in the years to come. But I believe that the current library leadership is making the right decisions to continue to move in the proper direction. I have been nothing but impressed with the work that has been reported during the last year's Library Board of Trustee meetings and expect that the Sarah Huq
success and accomplishment will continue as the library rises to the challenges that the future holds.
Sarah Huq
Our main library's infrastructure
is aging, with ongoing
maintenance issues. The 2024
library bond measure, intended
to solve those issues, failed.
What solutions do you suggest?
This is a very difficult situation for sure. I did vote for the bond measure, but honestly in discussing with many neighbors and friends, there was a lot of reluctance and many voted against the measure. Everyone almost without exception said the cost was simply too high and that the library plan was too ambitious and maybe too 'state of the art'.
I am certainly not an expert on this subject, but my feeling is that the maintenance issues need to be chunked down into smaller bite sized pieces and then potentially brought to the city for budget considerations. The maintenance issues are
non-negotiable, priorities, and must be managed through annual funding.
My question would be, can we reach out for public/private partnerships to offer help with that funding.
As for the overall library project, perhaps it also needs to be redesigned and simplified into a couple of interconnected phases that could then be brought to the citizens for a vote/votes. If people do not have an appetite for the whole project at once, and if cost was truly the reason for that, then adjustments need to be made to make the project more palatable. I don't think we should give up on the plan for a new library, but maybe we start smaller (do a section of the project first?) and create an achievable first goal and then build on that success. Then we move forward further when the federal support is improved or a major donor/s become available or the economic climate is better, and people are willing to vote for the bond measure. Certainly, the timing was not right in 2024, since the measure failed; in retrospect, there are probably a lot of known reasons for that. So going forward, we need to ensure buy-in from some level of the constituents before proceeding to the vote. We need to pick ourselves up and proceed to the next attempt, using all of the lessons learned from last time. I would be happy and interested to get involved in the investigation and development of a plan for our next proposal for the new library.
Voter Registration Requirement
Description Area If you are a applying for the Board of Library Trustee, Heritage Preservation Commission, Parks and Recreation Commission, Personnel Board or the Planning Commission, you must be a registered voter in Sunnyvale.
Are you currently a registered
voter in Sunnyvale?
Yes
Sarah Huq
When was the last time you
voted? Month/Year
November 4, 2025 (and the December 30, 2025 Special Runoff) Your Agreement
Description Area IMPORTANT NOTICE – READ BEFORE SIGNING:By selecting both “Yes” and “Submit Form” below I am adding my digital signature to this application. I am also agreeing with the following statements:All statements I have made on this application are true and correct.I authorize the City of Sunnyvale (City) to investigate the accuracy of this information.I release the City from all claims and liabilities arising from such investigation.I acknowledge that any false statement on this application will be grounds for the City to deny my appointment. A false statement discovered later, will be grounds to dismiss me from my appointment at any time.I acknowledge that any false statement on this application could lead to criminal charges. Charges could fall under California Penal Code, Section 115 or other applicable law.
I agree Yes
Your full name Sarah J. Huq
Date Apr 13, 2026
Sarah Huq