elections

City Gossip: Mack-Rose may challenge Reed.

 City Gossip: Mack-Rose may challenge Reed.  Gossip, Politics  5 Responses »
Jun 092011
 

There is talk around town that San Leandro School Board President, Morgan Mack-Rose, may challenge District 2 Council Member Ursula Reed in the November 2012 elections.   Mack-Rose will neither confirm or deny the rumor.

Both women ran very good campaigns back in 2008 (full disclosure, I actively helped Mack-Rose with her campaign for School Board) – Reed defeated former Council Member and then-current School Board Member Linda Perry, while Mack-Rose easily won over incumbent School Board president Ray Davis.   Both women were new to politics and ran mostly grass roots campaigns, though Reed also benefited from backing by Police, Firefighters, labor and businesses.

Ursula Reed

In recent years, though, Reed has been losing some of her support.   She has developed an inconsistent voting record and has not seemed fully prepared at some City Council meetings.  More importantly, she has shown little leadership despite her recent role as Vice Mayor; I can’t think of a single initiative she has spearheaded.   Personally, I’ve been disappointed with her votes in favor of red-light cameras, action minutes and going forward with the Faith Fellowship case, though I’ve applauded her vote against a permanent ban on medical marijuana dispensaries in San Leandro.

Morgan Mack-Rose

Mack-Rose, meanwhile, has strong progressive credentials and a reputation for dedication and hard work.  While her interests so far have been in schools, her recent appearance at an Education Rally shows her to be an inspiring speaker and practical thinker, which gives her great political potential.   Winning against Reed would be difficult, incumbents tend to win by large margins in San Leandro, but Cassidy showed that it could be done last November and Mack-Rose like challenges.

Still, only time will tell if the rumors are true and if Reed has anything to worry about.

Is San Leandro to be Divided?

 Is San Leandro to be Divided?  Politics  2 Responses »
Jun 022011
 

The California Citizens Redistricting Commission is hard at work drawing new lines for California Assembly and Senate districts as well as federal congressional districts, and things are not looking good for San Leandro.  While the only maps published so far are just preliminary projections, they split San Leandro pretty much down the middle.  Much of the northern part of town will join Oakland in the Assembly and congressional districts (good for Barbara Lee fans!) and the other part will stay with Hayward and Union City (that, if I’m reading the maps right, you can see the proposed Assembly map and proposed Congressional map for yourself). Stark and McNerney will end up in the same district, which may not be a bad thing as Stark is pushing 80 and probably ready to retire.  Alas, it would do away with Corbett’s and Hayashi’s congressional ambitions.

In practical terms, this means that San Leandro will pretty much lose any of the political weight it has had as a city.  The divided city will offer too few votes for any of its representatives in the Legislature or Congress to be concerned about any particular San Leandro issues.  Local politicians will also have a very hard time rising to the state or national stage as they won’t be able to count with the backing of all their local constituents.  Historically, San Leandro politicians have done well outside the city.  Both the current California Senate Majority leader, Ellen Corbett,  and the State Treasurer (and former Attorney General) Bill Lockyer are from San Leandro (though Lockyer currently lives in Hayward, he started his political career in the San Leandro School Board).   I suspect that this has been in part because San Leandro is, all in all, pretty cohesive as a community.  It enjoys a local newspaper read by everyone in town and has a relatively active civic life.  I suspect that San Leandro voters vote for San Leandro politicians much more often than voters outside our borders.  In the last elections for the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee, 18th district, 13 candidates run for 6 seats.  Five of the candidates elected to those 6 seats were from San Leandro, only one San Leandro candidate did not get chosen (but she was close).  I suspect that this will no longer be the case after the split.

The map is still preliminary, and the Commission will accept public input until it issues its final maps in August.  I’ve heard that they are very interested in hearing from the public, and they do want to keep cities and communities of interest together.  If you feel, like I, that San Leandro is not just a city but a community and that it should be kept whole, please contact the commission and let them know.  Every voice will count.  You can e-mail them using this form.

Want to fix San Leandro? Run!

 Want to fix San Leandro? Run!  Featured, Politics  7 Responses »
Apr 282011
 

Are you, like me, unhappy about the idiotic decision the San Leandro City Council made in renewing the contract with Redflex, the red-light camera company, for eight years?  Do you wonder how we got into that whole pensions mess that risks bankrupting the city?  Are you angry that the City pays its law firm over $1 .2Million a year but cut down on swimming pool and library hours and did away with the Cherry Festival and the Christmas Tree lighting?  Well, you have no one but yourself to blame.  YOU are the one who voted for this Council.  It’s YOUR fault.

Ok, that’s sort of unfair.  I voted for them too.  Truth we told, we didn’t have a choice.  Most of members of the City Council ran unopposed or faced opponents with even fewer qualifications than themselves.  We voted, in many instances,  for the lesser of two evils – but a lesser evil is still an evil.

Ask anyone who follows San Leandro city politics closely and they’ll tell you the biggest problem is finding competent candidates.  Running for office (if you get a serious, even if incompetent, opponent) can be expensive and time consuming, there are few perks to being a Council Member and, if you take your role seriously, it’s a lot of work.   Unless you need an extra $1200 a month or have political aspirations, the only reason to do it is to help your community – and lets be honest, most of us are not that civic minded.  But without that civic mindedness we end up where we are.  So really, take on the challenge – run for office!

The next City Council elections will be in November 2012.   The seat for District 4, which mostly includes Washington Manor, will be up for grabs as Starosciak will be termed out.  Prola (District 6, the Marina) and Reed (District 2, southeast San Leandro) will face re-election.   To run for a city council seat you must live within the borders of the district you are running for (look at the map) – so if you don’t live in those areas you’ll have to wait until 2014 (when Gregory from District 1 and Souza from District 3 will be termed out, Cutter from District 5 will probably run for re-election).

I’ll be honest with you: running for City Council is not going to be easy.  In District 6, Jim Prola is virtually indestructible.  Not only does he come with all the strength of organized labor behind him, but he’s a tireless campaigner.  He’ll walk every street of San Leandro during the campaign – twice – and will have fun doing it.   Ursula Reed, on the other hand, is more vulnerable.  While defeating an incumbent in San Leandro is very hard (Michael Gregory, for example, easily got 65% of the votes in the last election), it’s not impossible as Cassidy’s defeat over incumbent Mayor Santos showed.  Reed ran a very good campaign in 2008, but it was against an opponent who relied on her name recognition alone and did not campaign.   Reed received a lot of support from part of the progressive community in 2008 that may no longer be there in 2012.  I think that a progressive candidate that could create a good grassroot campaign would be able to defeat her.

The District 4 Washington Manor seat, however, is wide open.  There have been whispers about a couple of people running for that seat but nobody has announced as of yet and none of the potential candidates are well know.  If you live in the Manor, you are smart, competent, willing to do a lot of work and make sound decisions – and preferably (for me) progressive, you should seriously consider running.

The Alameda County Democratic Party will be holding a “running for office” workshop on May 14, 2011, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m at  UFCW Local 5 in Hayward.  This would be a great place for you to start if you are intrigued by the notion of a 2012 City Council run.  For more information e-mail  info@acdems.org or call 510.537.6390.

 Newer Entries