When you read or hear “every vote counts,” you better believe it: District 9 supervisorial hopeful Jackie Fielder came just one vote short of securing the endorsement of the Bernal Heights Democratic Club on Thursday night, leaving no candidate with the club’s official backing.
Fielder received the majority of votes with 82 out of 138, followed by Trevor Chandler with 33. The remaining 23 votes were split between three other candidates. The club requires that a candidate receive 60 percent of the vote to receive its endorsement.
One more vote would have put Fielder at 60.14 percent. As it was, she received 59.4 percent — close, but no endorsement.
According to the club’s bylaws, endorsements can only be rescinded by a two-thirds vote of members at a future meeting, or under “extraordinary circumstances” by a three-fourths majority of the executive committee.
When asked whether the vote was final, the club’s president, Amy Beinart, did not answer directly, but said the club would follow its bylaws.
The Bernal Heights Democratic Club is a progressive bastion and was expected to swing for Fielder — it had endorsed her for State Senate in 2020, after all, and has endorsed progressive ballot measures and candidates for decades. The club also endorsed incumbent District 9 supervisor Hillary Ronen in 2016 with 80 percent of the vote.
The lack of endorsement means no candidate will be featured on any campaign mailers or digital ads that the club takes out this year.
“This is a ranked-choice election and there’s a lot of great candidates in the race, and in November you need 50 plus one to win. So I’m honored to get a supermajority of votes at the club today,” said Fielder after learning of the results.
Chandler, too, was happy with the outcome. “I’m extremely proud of the show of support for our campaign in one of the most progressive parts of District 9,” he wrote via text after the meeting. “The fact that the Bernal Heights Democratic Club won’t be endorsing a City Hall picked candidate like Jackie Fielder shows that District 9 is truly ready for change and is sick of the broken status quo.”
When asked about Chandler’s words, Fielder said the majority of the votes spoke for itself.
“This is definitely a contested race, but having 59 percent of the vote, I’m really honored to have that,” she said.
The evening started with members lining up outside of the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center at 515 Cortland Ave. and, while they waited, attendees took the opportunity to speak to and greet the candidates who arrived on the early side. About 150 people attended the event.
The club organized a voting session with a panel discussion that included candidates Julian Bermudez, Chandler, Stephen Torres, Roberto Hernandez and Fielder. Bermudez ended up receiving two votes, Torress received nine, and Hernandez 12; one member marked two candidates and spoiled their ballot.
The candidates addressed about half a dozen questions from the club’s president, Beinart, speaking on housing, citywide versus district elections and their support from political advocacy groups such as TogetherSF and GrowSF.
All of the candidates but one said they were not looking for endorsements from these groups. That one candidate, Chandler, said he had participated in many house parties organized by TogetherSF because he was open to talking to anyone who wanted to hear his plans.
At the stroke of 9 p.m., all of the attendees were asked to leave; Chandler and this reporter stayed until all the votes were counted. When Beinart finished calculating the votes and called out 59.4 percent for Fielder, Chandler immediately asked, “No endorsement then?” to which one of the members affirmed. “No endorsement.”
Chandler then left, and the rest of the club members started packing away the ballots.
Thumbs up if Jackie will be your last choice on your ranked choice ballot
Jackie Fielder would be a disaster for the Mission. If you think that Hillary Ronen is doing a great job, vote for her endorsed candidate, Jackie Fielder. She is a nice woman but she never has held a real job and believes in fairy tales.
I don’t know. The fact that the Bernal Heights Democratic Democratic Club strongly supported and still supports Hilary Ronen is a turn-off. My husband and I are in our 50s and we also supported Ronen, until we figured out that she doesn’t support us as Bernal Heights residents in her district. For example, the RV issue on BH Blvd got way out of control with the RV dwellers monopolizing the hill for four years and dumping their sewage in spaces next to the adjacent neighbors (we are one of them), letting their aggressive dogs intimidate pp walking by, and also cat-calling our 13 year old daughter and her friends. Ronen, and members of the BH Democratic club, took the side of the RV dwellers. When we emailed Ronan’s office about our daughter being harassed and the stench of the raw sewage, they straight up told us that they get more emails supporting the RVs than not. Gee. I wonder who was writing them – perhaps all these BH Democratic Club members? Because all my neighbors were over it just like us. Let’s be real. The Democratic Club is made up of mostly older far-left residents who do not represent the current younger, and majority of BH residents, who are also mostly liberal but not as far-left. Although we do care about homelessness, the fentanyl epidemic, and mental illness, we don’t want to live amongst other people’s raw sewage or worry about being attacked by aggressive dogs or our kids being sexually harassed. I voted for Ronan twice, and I regretted it. I think I will be voting for Trevor Chandler instead. Time for some new ideas.
I would bet the executive committee will find a way to invoke the “extraordinary circumstances” clause and put Fielder on their slate card anyway.
After all, the committee already endorsed her and bolded her name on the endorsement ballot, unfairly distinguishing her from all the other candidates. (Not a lot of subtlety in who they support.)
These endorsement forums are really set up to be a rubber stamp of the candidates that the usual suspects at BHDC want to win, almost always progressive machine candidates. Though I agree with many of their endorsements, they don’t represent most Democrats in Bernal. And the club is just not set up to embrace the wide array of positions within the Democratic party. It’s more of an insiders club that ultimately acts as a campaign arm of their favored candidates.
This is a shocking result – Jackie Fielder was basically the presumptive endorsee and the Executive Committee of the Bernal Heights Democratic Club (one of the most progressive in the city) had endorsed her to the rest of the membership. The fact that she didn’t clear the threshold and that Trevor Chandler got as many votes as he did bodes very poorly for progressive camp in November.
It does not take much these days to out-organize the Bernal Progressive Mafia that’s ruled D9 and the Mission like a colony for 25 yr.
In this case, pressures on the monarchy from both the Mission and alt right deprived them of their preferred endorsement.
When I got there, I was surprised to see Fielder’s pre-endorsement… kinda lame to bold her name and encourage people to vote before the candidates even speak. IMO she was the least impressive candidate at the forum… she mumbled lists of supposed positions and then encouraged people to “go read the website”. Chandler distinguished himself by having the courage to support policies that might actually shake things up in SF: some amount of at-large representation on the BOS! Cutting the red tape that makes it take a year to fill an empty storefront on Mission! Shoot he even gave Dean Preston a thumbs up for working on removing administrative barriers to filling affordable units with people who need housing. I like Chander because he’s interested in going to work for SF, for D9, and for Bernal, and he’ll work with anyone from Preston to Breed to get things done.
Traditionally, D9 supervisors need the BHDC endorsement to move ahead, and most of them live/have lived in the Bernal Heights part of their district. That’s where the voting power is at in D9 anyway, not the Mission flats. Mark my words, Trevor or Jackie has this in the bag. Roberto, for all his exceptional work with Latino Task Force and Carnaval, is out of his depth and will not be successful in his campaign. His heart is in his community, not in City Hall, but I give him many props for throwing his hat in the ring.
Agreed on his slim chances to win and agreed that he was impressive at the endorsement meeting. We are a better city because of people like Roberto, and that’s something to be proud of, even if you’re not a supervisor.
What are the Club’s demographics, Oscar ?
The District is 48% Latino.
I like Fielder fine but she’s my Fair Weather candidate.
Peskin wins and Chan and Preston and we maintain a Board Majority, she’ll be great.
We lose and get another Mayor who won’t do basic things like fill the potholes in the bus stops or put a Porta Potty at both ends of Clarion Alley for the Tourists …
Then, we need a guy like Roberto Hernandez who thinks at that level.
My level.
About the most basic of things like taking Personal Responsibility for making certain old people can get through the Bart stations and home safely.
He’s not counting on the cops and neither should any of us.
Back to your coverage.
Does that Club meet in a Public Space ?
If so, the meeting was illegal cause they didn’t invite me.
lol
Really.
If you get any kind of public subsidy for the space where you’re holding the event than legally you must invite ALL of the candidates.
In D-5 in 2003 we had 22 candidates and every candidate agreed to refuse to appear at an event where we weren’t all invited.
Chaos ?
No, quite the opposite.
Exciting as hell to watch candidates squeeze all of their hopes or hates into 60 seconds.
Talk about ‘Lightning Rounds’.
You know, like I told Manny who so far has invited only the top money candidates, the least any Club or organization can do is to notify ALL candidates about their events even if they don’t want them to speak to their membership.
At least Zoom the candidate presentations.
Speaking of shutting down legitimate candidates at a Venue …
How about Manny canceling the Breed vs Peskin with Eskenazi as Referee next Monday ?
Who made Yeuketiel an Offer he couldn’t Refuse ?
lol
Go Niners !!
h.