Public Comment

Neighbors have been asking which candidate(s) Susan Hunter and I are supporting in the District 8 election. As some of you know, despite a referendum and with little time remaining before ballots were to be printed, a judge ordered our Nov. 4 election to be held based on the mayor’s majority redistricting plan. That gerrymandered plan was designed to get rid of progressive Councilmember Kriss Worthington, our longtime District 7 representative, under the guise of creating a “student-majority district,” where a UC student would presumably run. This would rid the mayor’s majority of an inconvenient progressive with integrity (Kriss, who’s willing to say when the emperor has no clothes — i.e., when the Council is assuming the guise of being progressive while acting otherwise — watering down a much stronger new minimum wage ordinance, as just one recent example). 

You can be sure that Susan and I will be voting No on S (the gerrymander redistricting plan from the Council majority). We also continue to support Kriss’s reelection, although sadly we can’t vote for him this time. He combines devoted advocacy for neighborhood and constituent services with staunch leadership on the progressive issues we care about (the environment, women’s issues, lgbt issues, ending social inequality, transit-friendly policies, etc., etc.) 

All of this is necessary context to say that it’s difficult to find ourselves suddenly in one of the more conservative of Berkeley’s eight council districts (District 8) after being in one the more progressive districts (7) for decades. 

Yet here we find ourselves, at least for this election, voting in District 8, choosing among four candidates, all of whom seem to be decent people but running in a much more conservative district and taking more conservative stances. The two we’ve endorsed and who will get our first- and second-place votes, though we don’t agree with them on all issues, are Lori Droste and Jacquelyn McCormick. Lori would be the first out-lesbian elected to the City Council if she wins, and she’s earned the support of most of the progressive organizations that endorse (John George Democratic Club, National Women’s Political Caucus-Alameda North, East Bay Stonewall Democratic Club, Black Women Organized for Political Action, the National Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, Equality California). Jacquelyn’s activism on city issues has won the support of longtime Berkeley progressives in Berkeley Citizens Action (BCA) and Berkeley Tenants Union (BTU), and she has turned out time and again to advocate on behalf of South Berkeley neighbors and neighborhoods citywide. Both Lori and Jacqui are intelligent, articulate, and compassionate women who are good at working with others. 

Though we’d never endorse anyone solely because of sexual orientation or gender unless they were also more progressive than the alternatives, we’re pleased to be endorsing the two women in this race. Not everyone realizes that the current City Council has only two women out of nine positions, and one of those women (in District 1) faces stiff competition in this election. The only chance of redressing the balance is in District 8 (District 7’s two candidates are male, and the male in District 4 is running unopposed). Given ranked-choice voting, which allows us three choices, we have one more vote to cast. We’re not going to endorse either of the two men running in District 8; the positions they’ve taken over the years are simply too conservative for us. But ranked-choice voting amounts to an instant runoff, and we’d turn out to vote if there were such an election, so we’ll be sure to mark our third vote. Although we aren’t formally making an endorsement, we’ll just say that the candidate who received the endorsement of the Sierra Club (an endorsement he has plenty of room to grow into!), and who has been a leader in efforts to restore Willard Pool, is more likely to get our third-choice vote than the anointed heir to the retiring District 8 councilmember, who’s consistently been one of the most conservative voices on City Council. 

Thank you for taking our comments into consideration!