Liz Kniss
District 5
 President, Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors
 
Biography

In November 2000, Liz Kniss was elected to represent Santa Clara County's Fifth District on the Board of Supervisors. Reelected in 2004 and in 2008, she is President of the Board of Supervisors, a post she held in 2005 as well. Kniss is Chair of the Health and Hospital and Legislative Committees, and is Vice Chair of the Housing, Land Use, Environment and Transportation Committee. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the County Library Joint Powers Authority and the County’s Disaster Council, among others. Kniss sits on regional governing boards such as the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the Santa Clara Family Health Plan,  Joint Venture Silicon Valley the California State Association of Counties, and the Valley Transportation Agency.
 
Liz brings extensive experience in fiscal management and public policy to the Board of Supervisors. Elected to Palo Alto Unified School Board in 1985 and then to Palo Alto City Council in 1989, where Liz was re-elected twice and served as Mayor in 1994 and 2000. While on the council, she served on numerous committees and commissions, including the Santa Clara County Transportation Commission, the League of California Cities Committee on Housing, Community and Economic Development and the National League of Cities Women in Municipal Government Board.
 
As Mayor in 1994, Kniss made Palo Alto the first city in the U.S. with a presence on the Internet and initiated Family Resources, a public-private partnership that provides on-line and on-site social services, job training information and other resources for families in Palo Alto. On the Council, she led efforts to make government more accountable to taxpayers, created new affordable housing and developed a citywide shuttle service to reduce traffic.
 
As a Registered Nurse, Liz has worked in hospital care, as a public health nurse for San Mateo County, and a school nurse for Cupertino Union School District. Kniss then applied her skills as a Marketing and Communications Manager at Sun Microsystems, Inc. until 1999. Her many years of community service include being a member of Rotary, service on the League of Women Voters Board of Directors, the United Way Board of Directors, and numerous advisory councils and foundations dedicated to community betterment.
 
Liz received a BS degree in Nursing from Simmons College in Boston and a MPA in Public and Health Care Policy from California State University. She has also completed graduate work in Health Policy and Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Raised in Cape Cod, Massachusetts with her 4 siblings, Liz and her husband Rick have now lived in California for more than 40 years. They have two daughters, Liza and Johanna, and four granddaughters.
 
The Fifth District includes the cities of Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Monte Sereno, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Saratoga, Stanford, Sunnyvale, West San Jose and unincorporated areas of Santa Clara County.