Mayor Kate Colin

Kate Colin is the first female to hold the office of Mayor since the city was incorporated in 1847.  She was elected to the San Rafael City Council in January 2013 after serving as a Planning Commissioner for eight years.  She has lived in the Sun Valley neighborhood since 1996 with her husband where they raised their two children.    

Mayor Kate’s priority for the City is to continue to strengthen San Rafael after the pandemic years through focusing on four key policy areas for 2024 – economic growth, homelessness/housing, sustainability (focusing on wildfire prevention and sea level rise) and social justice. She strongly believes in working with the community to find solutions that reflect our community values as well as partnerships with local residents, businesses and neighborhoods to make San Rafael the best it can be.   

Mayor Kate is one of only six Mayors in the United States to be selected into the prestigious 2024 Mayoral Fellowship for the Mayor Institute on City Design conducted through the U.S. Conference of Mayors, taught through the Harvard Graduate School of Design and funded by the National Endowment of Arts. The focus of the Mayoral Fellowship is to incorporate equity into land use policy decisions which ultimately benefits all city residents. 

In addition to Mayor Kate’s role as Mayor of San Rafael, she is the Chair of the San Rafael Sanitation District. She also represents San Rafael on several regional boards including TAM (Transportation Authority of Marin), SMART (Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit), BayWAVE (Bay Waterfront Adaptation Vulnerability Evaluation) and the BCDC Elected Official Task Force (Bay Conservation and Development Commission). She is a strong advocate for gun safety and is the only elected city official consistently participating in the Marin County District Attorney’s Gun Safety Collaborative. Mayor Kate also engages with Mayors across the United States and is a member of the Climate Mayors, Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Mayors for Guaranteed Income.  

Kate has an MBA from Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a BA from Dartmouth College. She is a life-long athlete who is often seen running the trails or cycling through our city streets.