Mayor Elizabeth Patterson

Mayor Elizabeth Patterson has served on the Benicia City Council since 2003. She was elected Mayor in 2007 and is serving her third term as mayor. She served on the Plan-ning Commission and was Chair of the 1999 General Plan Oversight Committee (GPOC) for three years from beginning to end. Ms. Patterson currently serves on several other regional boards, including the Solano Transportation Authority Board, SolTrans Joint Powers Authority Board and the Solano Water Agency Board.

Ms. Patterson was born in Los Angeles and grew up in the San Gabriel Valley. She moved to Northern California in 1968, lived on a ranch in San Luis Obispo and then moved to Ithaca, New York for five years before returning to the Bay Area. Elizabeth has lived in Benicia since 1983, where she raised her two girls and one large dog.

Ms. Patterson is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and has been a Planning Director for two Bay Area towns. Elizabeth has been involved in several region-al and local issues using conflict resolution to reach a consensus for planning and man-aging urban and natural resource assets. She was Executive Director of the Partnership for Regional Livability a project for the White House Task Force on Livable Communities during the Clinton/Gore administration.

Elizabeth is proud of her work on the Delta Protection Commission while she was at the California State Lands Commission and the establishment of the Benicia Arts and Cultural Commission, Sustainability Commission and a Cool California champion. Ms. Patterson has worked before and within the State Senate on watershed legislation. She works as a “retired employee” for the California State Department of Water Resources on land use and integrated water management.

Elizabeth has worked for the environment and the existential threat of global warming in all capacities as a professional, mother, and mayor.