Dan Faustina seeks election to City Council Dan Faustina seeks election to City Council (February 11, 2005)

'97 Foothill grad long active in local affairs
by Jeb Bing

Dan Faustina, a health care insurance account executive and lifelong resident of Pleasanton, has announced that he will file as a candidate for the empty seat on the City Council to be filled June 7 in a special election.

At age 26, Faustina, who is a 1997 graduate of Foothill High School, would be one of the youngest to serve on the council, if he is elected. He joins the only other announced candidate for post, Jerry Thorne, who is 60.

The council vacancy was created when Councilwoman Jennifer Hosterman was elected mayor last November, with another two years remaining in her four-year council term. The candidate elected on June 7 would complete that term, which will end in December 2006.

Faustina's list of accomplishments includes varsity football at Foothill, where he and his twin brother David founded the Foothill KEY Club, which stands for "Kiwanis Educating Youth." From Foothill, the brothers went on to Pepperdine University, where Dan Faustina was president of the Psi Upsilon Foundation and captain of the men's rowing team. After receiving a bachelor's degree in Political Science, he returned to Pleasanton to start a career in the health and benefits insurance field. For three years, he was the volunteer head coach of the St. Mary's College men's rowing team.

Faustina first became involved in politics as a student volunteer on the Measure B school bond campaign. While at Pepperdine, he was deputy campaign director for a Los Angeles educator's run for the State Assembly, and later served on the campaign staff for Claude Hutchison's unsuccessful bid for 10th Congressional District in 2000. Now vice president of the Pleasanton Kiwanis Club and a volunteer coach in the Pleasanton Junior Football League, he is also a youth leader for the high school youth ministry at Trinity Lutheran Church, where his brother David is a full-time youth director.

"Pleasanton is a fantastic community and I want to be able to give back to this city all that I can and to work to keep it a great place to live," Faustina said. "I have put together a strong campaign committee of teachers, business people and longtime residents of Pleasanton, and we will be running a grassroots campaign that will be very visible in the upcoming election."

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