Nearly two months after missing the Bernal Heights Democratic Club’s endorsement by one vote, District 9 supervisorial candidate Jackie Fielder successfully secured it Thursday Night after the club conducted a second round of voting — and a contentious one.
At the members-only meeting held at the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center at 515 Cortland Ave., Fielder received 91 votes, 62 percent of the 147 votes, followed by Trevor Chandler with 35 votes, Roberto Hernandez with 13, Stephen Torres with six and both Julian Bermudez and Jaime Gutierrez with one vote each. The club’s bylaws require any endorsement to earn 60 percent support from its members.
Fielder gained nine votes from the previous round in May, while Chandler gained two. The endorsement will also unlock the club’s modest bank account, which has a little over $4,000 cash on hand.
“I’m honored to have the support of the club,” Fielder said just after the vote. “My campaign volunteers and I have knocked on thousands of doors in Bernal and I’m excited to continue knocking from here to November.”
The endorsement, however, was not without controversy. The San Francisco Chronicle published an opinion piece on Thursday morning in which David Sepulveda, a Bernal Heights resident and club member, criticized the executive committee’s decision to hold the second round of voting. He said the group’s leadership was putting its thumb on the scale for its preferred candidate, Fielder.
The Bernal Heights Democratic Club responded to the opinion piece that same morning, rejecting Sepulveda’s allegations, saying he mischaracterized the bylaws.
Still, the club’s response did not assuage concerns from a handful of members on Thursday night, who questioned the club’s president about the legality of the second vote. They wondered why the club had been content to refrain from making past endorsements when candidates failed to cross the 60 percent threshold. Amy Beinart, the president, said those races were not for District 9 supervisor. For the club, she said, it would be unthinkable to stay out of the supervisor’s race.
One member who said he is a scientist compared the second vote to an experiment: “In science, you wouldn’t have another experiment to get the result that you want.”
“It certainly looks like this is intended to favor a certain candidate, and that just looks bad,” added another member.
The group of about 60 attendees who chose to stay for the endorsement meeting was divided between new members and old: Those like Sepulveda, who said he only became interested in local politics this year and questioned Beinart about the re-vote, and longtime members who tried to convince the newcomers that the club was in compliance with its bylaws.
Chandler said Thursday morning in a statement that he was disappointed with the club’s decision to hold a second vote, because the move was only creating disunity among Democrats. He said the executive committee should “not choose toxicity over reasonableness.”
Beinart, for her part, moderated and listened to the half-dozen questions coming from the audience. She responded to most, and reiterated her stance that the leadership had gone by the book.
“What our bylaws say is that multiple ballots are allowed for an endorsement vote, and so, as quickly as we could, and following the bylaws, we announced at the next meeting that we were going to hold the second ballot,” said Beinart. “It’s not sneaky. It’s completely above board.”
There is nothing I can say about Jackie Fielder that isn’t better summed up by this amazing picture.
https://twitter.com/jackiefielder_/status/1297972089404588033
Yes. That is a bike lane underneath her bus.
I was in attendance and the critical distinction made was that a ‘re-vote’ and a ‘second ballot’ are not the same thing. I can appreciate a potential technical difference, but casting another vote for the same candidates on another date would be called a re-vote anywhere else.
I feel the Club has sustained a stain on its integrity which shall be measured by attendance and member participation. I don’t see many Millennial members and Bernal Heights is one third Millennial. Furthermore, I would be strongly discouraged to participate after this decision by the Club’s leadership if I heard the story from my neighbor or read this article in the Mission Local.
What is interesting is the Club has a tradition of endorsing a supervisor candidate. The Club also champions Democracy in so far that a candidate must have 60% of the votes cast. All of this is wonderful until one principle is subjugated by the other. The leadership decided that an endorsement of a Supervisor must happen even though no candidate received the 60% threshold. This decision errantly trampled the spirit of Democracy as the votes that led to no-endorsement were nullified. Yes, the Club’s by-laws assert multiple ballots may be taken, but nullifying member votes to preserve tradition comes across as dubious. This will not be the first time Democracy has been sullied.
The Club now needs to really show that a member’s vote counts even if the preferred candidate is not endorsed. How this is done, whether this is done, whether there is ever an opportunity to be sincere has yet to occur. Until then, the Club will need to suffer potential criticism from Bernal Heights residents and harsh memories have a habit of lasting longer than desired.
Nobody’s vote was nullified, please read the article. The May membership vote did not vote for “No Endorsement”. Most people voted to endorse a candidate in May. No candidate met the 60% threshold for early endorsement in May. But after two months of further campaigning, in the July round of ballots, Chandler got two more votes, and Fielder got 9 more votes.
It’s frankly shocking hearing the Karl Rove tactics coming from former Republicans like Chandler (google “Trevor Chandler McCain Palin”) advising that the club “should cancel the vote”. Ignorance is strength! Democracy is cancelling a vote! Luckily cooler heads prevailed and the bylaws were scrupulously followed. If you don’t like the outcome of a vote, that doesn’t mean it’s stacked and undemocratic.
I don’t really see it that way at all. The first ballot was a single round of voting which led to no candidate being chosen. This second round they decided to avoid that mistake and add the ranked choice voting system that SF uses (for good reason). Then, Jackie was just able to win on one round if voting. Doesn’t seem sneaky. To be clear I am a millennial and I did not have the ability to stay for the whole meeting because I have a two year old. So I showed up, cast my vote and left. My guess is that this MO is more common among millennials so you not seeing millennials at the meeting doesn’t necessarily imply that none voted. Additionally, I implore you to look at the stats for voting rates asking millennials versus other generational groups. It’s abysmal.
Did the club address the lack of clarity on the rules for do-over votes? The bylaws state: “B. Multiple ballots shall be permitted, but the Executive Committee shall determine the number of ballots allowable and establish rules for a “no recommendation” alternative.”
The Executive Committee has never addressed why the number of ballots allowable and “no recommendation” alternative rules weren’t established before the original vote.
I believe that many members considered the first vote to have resulted in the “no recommendation” alternative based on the lack of rule disclosure before the original vote and the quote in the original Mission Local article about this when a club member confirmed that the result was “no endorsement.”
The BHDC has served Bernal Heights since 1988. We have over 200 members. We’ve provided our neighbors with an election voting recommendations slate card, handed out by our Bernal resident members on the door step of every home in Bernal, every election since 1988. We’re one of a kind. Community based, volunteer run, with scores of active members.
BTW, I hope all of you commenters are Mission Local members. I sure am.
The only reason this was an issue was because some folks tried to take over the club by getting folks to sign up at the last minute to secure this endorsement for their candidate (guess who?). But this club is one of the farther left in all of SF and has been forever, so that plan was never going to work. Moreover, the club’s politics mirror the communities’ politics; Bernal votes very left, very consistently (this is proven every year in every election). So getting 30 people to try to pack this club was nowhere near enough.
Folks who think otherwise and think there’s been some sort of sea change don’t understand that for all of the turnover in residents on the hill, there are a lot more hardcore folks still here, hanging out in their funky houses that aren’t gut-and-remodeled and painted black. They blend in a lot, so may be kind of hidden, but they’re still the biggest block of voters. And they very consistently turn out to vote.
As a Bernal resident, thanks for this post. The idea that tech and and right candidates will get support here is a fever dream. Which is one of the reasons I love my community.
The executive committee of the BHDC should have been clear up front that they intended for the club to make an endorsement for this race, and they could have avoided the entire fiasco by using ranked-choice voting for the initial ballot.
The historical leanings of the club are ultimately irrelevant. It represents Democrats in Bernal Heights, and the political center of gravity of the club depends on who shows up. The tendency of some our neighbors to disparage those whose opinions differ from theirs as “Republicans” is disappointing. We are all Democrats—flaming liberal Democrats by the standards of the rest of the country—and we should celebrate our common desire to tackle the issues facing the neighborhood and beyond while respecting that our conclusions about which are the most effective policies may differ.
I love our neighborhood and the people who live in it, and I look forward to working with all of you to make Bernal even better.
Hi Brandon,
You should read the bylaws of the club which contradict your baseless assertion that the club just “represents Democrats in Bernal Heights”. The explicit goals of the club include preserving the mixed ethnic, mixed income nature of the neighborhood, as well as working for “economic and social justice and civil and human rights for all persons, and for a world at peace” .
Not all Democrats agree with those statements, and in fact several new Chandler supporting members were heard arguing for slavery as a punishment for crime (and encouraging a No vote on State Proposition 6 which removes slavery from the CA constitution).
Perhaps the Bernal Heights Democratic Club might not the best political home for neighbors who are pro-slavery?
If a 60% majority is required for an endorsement, there is no guarantee a RCV ballot would have avoided the issue.
SF moderates are not “flaming liberal” by the standards of liberal and progressive voters across the rest of the country. This is an elitist SF talking point amongst SF moderates that has no basis in reality.
It doesn’t really matter because we should know by now not to listen to groups like the Bernal Heights Democratic Club.
The only endorsements that matter are from groups that acknowledge the city’s problems and have suggestions to fix them. This club is not one of those.
Notwithstanding what the bylaws purportedly allow, the July 11th re-do/second bite at the political apple for the BHDC’s Exec. Cte’s preferred candidate is what a stacked and undemocratic process looks like. SMH.
They changed it to a ranked choice. It was a fair redo to try to get the intended result, which is actually having an endorsement. Ranked choice is the preferred method by our city, so it should be for the club as well. They should have done it the first go around but they didn’t, so I’m glad they held a second vote.
I was there. I am disgusted by the handful (and it was a handful) of the people who claim that following the bylaws is sneaky, or dishonest, or toxic or any of the ridiculous accusations they came up with to try to discredit a rule based process that had integrity.
If they don’t like the Bernal Heights Democratic Club they can go start their own. We have other examples of Democratic Clubs representing different politics. Look at the Harvey Milk Club vs the Alice B. Toklas Club-the difference is they don’t tell lies or sling slurs against each other. This level of deceit is what the new folks are bringing to our politics.
The Bernal Heights Demo Club has a long standing tradition of participating in local politics in an honorable way and many people will continue to respect it and it’s endorsements.
It is time to recognize that the Democratic Party itself is polarized-not just in SF but nationwide. You have two sides- traditional progressives who care about workers, eliminating racism and poverty, and stopping war. Then you have the neoliberals who differ very little from Republicans and just want to make more money and get rid of the things that remind them there is poverty so they can enjoy their luxuries and privileges. Isn’t it ironic that Republicans are funding that wing of the Democratic Party even here in SF? I hope the people see through their lies and their very blatant attempt to destroy progressive San Francisco politics.
“disgusted” – Ah, reminds me when Old Devil Moon was still around. Friday’s you knew to settle the tab in time as the Bernal crowds were rolling down Cortland 7-ish.
The real problem here is that the Mission has been governed as a colony of predominantly upscale well educated and white people Bernal since district elections were restored. So interesting that there are no similar endorsement battles for D9 supe amongst groups comprised of Mission residents.
I am kinda hoping that Bernal will get upzoned in the YIMBY hoopla so that Bernal might get a small taste of the luxe condo proliferation that they’ve forced on the Mission in hopes of keeping their the sacred precincts of their hill pristine.
Grinding teeth, white knuckles, butth’s squeezed. Eeeewww….
Just keep sampling until you get the desired result, the best know practice of the truly successful. /s
They specifically changed the style of voting because the first round erroneously used a single vote. They should have been using ranked choice from the beginning to avoid a “no endorsement” possibility. They decided to have a revote and this time fix the issue and then luckily for everyone, they didn’t end up needing the ranked choice after all. Chill.
Wow ! At one time a when a candidate’s was seeking Bernal Heights Democratic Club endorsement the question was: “do I have to pass an acid test? “ The answer “yes, if the test strip turns pink then you pass!!”
In the past the club has endorsed Green Party candidates, and has not been affiliated with the San Francisco Democratic (and by extension, the State Democratic Party) As a long time observer of grassroots Democratic Party politics, this really newsworthy in that most campaigns and Issues oriented groups ( so called Moderates) haven’t spent the time and organizational energy trying stop (so called progressives) from endorsing their candidates.
Campers,
I still don’t understand why I wasn’t even invited.
Hey, I collected my signatures and raised my right hand and paid my money.
Anyway, I run to get out other people’s messages and ideas anyway and there seems to be a decent crowd gathering around this thread, so here’s what I would have said.
I’m pitching 3 Domains:
Trash and Crime and the Economy
Trash … Million Dollar Yearly Lottery
Pick up trash for an hour and get a Lottery Ticket with backside decorated with either Morse Code or the Phonetic Alphabet or Boy Scout Survival Tips.
Crime … K-12 SFUSD Student Safety Curriculum
Assistant Crossing Guard to Hall Monitor to Student Court to SFPD Wilderness Program K-8.
Camp-out Survival Guides to Sniper Classes K-12
Economy – Fall back on our Strengths of Drugs, Sex and Rock and Roll
Embrace our Reputation and Compete with Amsterdam and Las Vegas and Woodstock
Legalize the 4,000 Year-old Sex trade with Red Light Districts in Mission and North Beach and put an Ohlone Indian Casino in the Armory in partnership thru a C.A.P. finance arrangement with the City and another in the Cow Palace and an entire Indian Gambling Complex with hotels covering Alcatraz while Licensing combined Weed and Psychedelic Parlors modeled after Classic SF Opium Dens of the Gold Rush Era.
Construct Permanent 24/7/365 Combination Entertainment stages at BART stops with Attached Police Kiosks where there is ALWAYS a cop and as home base for Foot Patrols.
There, now you heard me w/out having to look at me and I wonder if ML will Publish this Profile of my candidacy ?
Go Niners !!
h.
My guess would be your old ties to Chris Daly and this https://sfbgarchive.48hills.org/sfbgarchive/2014/01/23/h-brown-goodbye-all-we-hope/
Jackie Fielder, Trevor Chandler, and Roberto Hernandez would all be shitty supervisors. The Bernal Executive Committee follows the orders of Mafia Dons Tom Ammiano and the horrible Giuliana Milanese. Two abusive and retaliatory old white “progressives.” Their email to their membership was really dumb. Next meeting hold a vote to put the word “progressive” in your bylaws if you want to keepout “moderates.” I’ve still not made a decision on my final 3 for the shitty rank choice we’re forced to do, but…. Jackie would be a continuation of the Ammiano to Campos to Ronen (who seems to have stopped caringg about the district starting with the lazy street vendor ban) pipeline. It needs to be cut off. Plus if you follow her, she didn’t focus on D9 UNTIL Mission Local asked questions. Everyone knows she doesn’t want to be Supervisor, she wants to be in the State legislature. She thinks herself west coast AOC because she’s DSA but she’s just so unlikable, rude and condescending like a Clinton. Not voting for her fake ass. (A friend at Bernal meeting told me she didn’t even stay through the meeting like some of the other candidates. She definitely shows up for photo ops but not the work as she doesn’t like mixing with non-DSA “commoners”) Chandler is the opposite in terms of policy. Like Jackie he is really unlikable, but unlike her, he’s way conservative if not downright shifty. But no surprise there given his AIPAC background and helping get money to GOP candidates. Think Rafael Mandelman on steroids. UGH! Roberto has continued to support r@p1st Jon Jacobo, even congratulating him on becoming a father. Plus have you heard him speak? Definitely not Supervisor material. The crazy thing here is people who outwardly support him have said he is not a fit and they’ll put him 2 or 3 but not 1.
Haha I love this comment and agree re: Trevor, but I have to take issue with your belief that Hillary wants to end up in the state legislature. She’s made it very clear lately (most recently down at Charlie’s at an Aaron Peskin event) that she’s done with politics and happy to be getting out. No way is she running for state office. Also I don’t see her being as ideological as folks like to think she is; she did the right thing with fighting to get schools back open and took tons of heat from the teacher’s union for it, and she’s done admirable work with the street vendor problem despite angering the hard-core commie/anti-cop left on that one. Her best work has been almost non-ideological, like Mental Health SF and creating/funding the street crisis response team. Folks want a devil and sometimes she says strong, seemingly-outrageous things about corporations and the powerful, but she’s been great at the nuts-and-bolts. Hopefully whoever follows her will similarly put their head down and work hard to get things done.
I think he meant Fielder really wants to be in the state legislature, which she previously ran for.
I meant Jackie using D9 to get to Sacramento. Re-reading that is sloppy. Next time coffee first.
Guiliana Milenese is an unreconstructed Stalinist who was part of the CPUSA “turn to the Democrat Party” in the 1970s, a bitter, revolting individual.
Amy Beinart was Hillary Ronen’s chief of staff and could not possibly have any conflicts of interests between that political relationship, Ronen’s endorsement and president of the BHDC.
D9 is wholly fucked with the choices on the table. Do we continue with the Ammiano-Campos-Ronen pipeline of nonprofit service technicians who refuse to legislate to advance resident interests, or do we go full bore AIPAC/HRC, neither of which centers the interests of D9 residents? There is no choice like no choice.
Given the number of paid community organizers in the Mission, our neighborhood is maintained in a state of perpetual disarray by city funded nonprofits so that residents can’t exercise political autonomy and our neighborhood is kept as an opportunity site so that the “nice” neighborhoods can keep their property values up.
Someone needs to give lily white Bernal a taste of the medicine they’ve forced on the Mission, throwing a lower income community of color to the condo wolves in the hope of preserving the property values of their aeries, running on TOD 8 story luxury condo upzonings along the 24 line on Cortland.
Trevor Chandler’s comment about “toxicity over reasonableness” is just sour grapes, and shows a lack of understanding of how clubs work. Every Democratic Club in San Francisco keeps voting until an endorsement is made. This vote was advertised 30 days ahead of time as required and expected by BHDC bylaws. I am a little disappointed that Mission Local repeated the accusations from the Chronicle hit piece without including the detail about the bylaws and procedures that were put out by the BHDC Executive Committee by email prior to the vote. The Chronicle used false allegations of impropriety to be able to include attacks on Jackie Fielder in the op-ed. I personally think Robert Hernandez or Jackie Fielder would be great progressive representatives for District 9, but Trevor will surely have a future carrying water for the tech billionaires and corporate Democrats who basically are running on anti-crime, anti-homeless and anti-urine platforms, all simplistic Republican tropes. BTW, Amy Beinart, BHDC President, has done an amazing and fair job of handling the endorsement process and running the meetings, as a volunteer. I would welcome Chandler supporters to come out and participate in BHDC, not to saunter over from their TogetherSF house meetings to try to take over BHDC.
The carpet bagger candidate (who is primarily funded by Tech billionaires, venture capitalists and real estate speculators) Trevor Chandler states that a neighborhood club should “not choose toxicity over reasonableness.” Well then: lead by example Trevor and step down from your bogus and manufactured spot on new leader of DCCC Nancy Tung’s kangaroo “sexual assault” investigative body. Terrible optics here. No credible or honest candidate currently running for elected office should be allowed a seat……especially not a lily white male candidate.