Candidate for
Member of the State Assembly; District 20; Democratic Party

Henry Manayan was born in the Bronx of New York and moved to Hawaii as a teenager. Through high school and when he returned from Syracuse University in New York during the summers, Henry worked in Hawaii's bustling hotel industry as a union employee.

Law school led Manayan to Santa Clara University, and he has stayed in this area since then. He has been active in local politics for more than fourteen years, beginning as a commissioner in Milpitas. He served as an appointed commissioner on the Community Advisory Commission and the Mobile Home Rent Review Board and then on both the Milpitas Planning Commission and the county Transportation Commission.

Henry served Milpitas as a City Councilmember from 1994-1996 and as Mayor from 1996-2002, when term limits prevented him from running again.

During his years as Mayor, Milpitas saw unprecedented job creation, became the first city in the Bay Area to receive the Helen Putnam Award for Excellency in public projects and transportation and devoted more city funds per capita to affordable housing and transportation solutions than any other city in the county.

Henry's involvement with community organizations has shaped his leadership style. He has been a member of the Santa Clara County Office of Education's Blue Ribbon Task Force for the past four years, where together with fellow community leaders, instructors and others, Henry advocated for children, schools and the community and looked for local solutions to the crises in our schools.

None of his opponents can match Henry's track record of fighting to make transportation improvements happen in this district. Henry served as both a Board Alternate and as Chair of the Policy Advisory Committee for the Valley Transportation Authority and as a member of the BART Policy Sub-Committee. As Mayor of Milpitas, he used this experience to extend the light rail system to Milpitas, BART to San Jose and continued the fight for alternative transportation solutions.

In a district as diverse as the 20th AD, where more than 100 languages are spoken every day, it is important to have a candidate that is in touch with and advocating for every constituent. Henry's experience as a member of the Afghan Public Library Foundation, the Board Director and Chair of the Finance Committee for the Asian Americans for Community Involvement, the Advisory Board for the Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley and the County Chair for the National Federation of Filipino American Associations have shown him the varied and equally important needs of our entire community, and has proven that he is an accessible and informed leader.