Avalos Wins Harvey Milk Club Sole Endorsement

Written by Luke Thomas. Posted in News, Politics

Published on August 24, 2011 with 7 Comments

Supervisor John Avalos. File photo by Luke Thomas.

By Luke Thomas

August 24, 2011

Supervisor and mayoral candidate John Avalos won the coveted Harvey Milk Democratic Club’s (HMDC) sole endorsement last eve in the ranked-choice race for mayor, though a second vote in September is likely to result in City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Senator Leland Yee garnering the club’s second-place dual endorsement.

With 196 members voting, Avalos received 90.8 percent of the vote, said former HMDC President David Waggoner. Twelve members abstained.

The HMDC’s political action committee in July voted to sole endorse Avalos, but a subsequent complaint lodged by Debra Walker forced last eve’s membership vote.

A motion proffered by Rafael Mandelman to hold a second club membership vote in September if Avalos garnered more than 60 percent of last eve’s vote, passed.

In the ranked-choice race for District Attorney, former Police Commissioner David Onek and Alameda County Prosecutor Sharmin Bock won the HMDC’s first and second-place endorsements, respectively.

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi won the club’s sole endorsement in the ranked-choice race for Sheriff.

The HMDC has a colorful history of contentious votes over endorsements and the club’s membership often swells in the weeks and months leading up to an endorsement vote.

“It was a rather tame and relaxed affair,” Waggoner commented.  “Overall it went very well.”

Avalos could not be reached for comment.

Editor’s Note: This article has been modified since its initial publication.  FCJ incorrectly reported that Onek and Bock were dual-endorsed in the race for District Attorney.

Luke Thomas

Luke Thomas

Luke Thomas is a former software developer and computer consultant who proudly hails from London, England. In 2001, Thomas took a yearlong sabbatical to travel and develop a photographic portfolio. Upon his return to the US, Thomas studied photojournalism to pursue a career in journalism. In 2004, Thomas worked for several neighborhood newspapers in San Francisco before accepting a partnership agreement with the SanFranciscoSentinel.com, a news website formerly covering local, state and national politics. In September 2006, Thomas launched FogCityJournal.com. The BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, New York Times, Der Spiegel, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Bay Guardian and the San Francisco Weekly, among other publications and news outlets, have published his work. Thomas is a member of the Freelance Unit of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, TNG-CWA Local 39521 and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

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  • tami

    Can you elaborate as to what happened? What was the complaint that resulted in the vote last night? That it wasn’t by the membership?
    Congratulations to Avalos, Onek and Mirkarimi… They deserve the endorsement.

  • http://www.fogcityjournal.com/wordpress/author/luke/ Luke Thomas

    @Tami, as I understand it, the HMDC pac voted at the end of July to have a membership vote with John Avalos as the only name on the ballot. Mandelman’s motion, I believe, was in response to Walker’s complaint, hence there will be a second vote for the second and third-place endorsement on September 6.

    Hope this helps.

  • http://www.fogcityjournal.com/wordpress/author/hbrown/ Harold Brown

    Herrera has restacked the deck,

    Word is that Dennis has pressured his sizable staff to join both gay clubs and vote for him. Pretty common practice but not to the extent Mark Mosher has Herrera pushing the tactic.

    Giants have 32 games left and we’re 2 back.

    Better than last year.

    Adachi for Mayor!

    Avalos for Mayor!

    Baum for Mayor!

    h.

  • http://www.linkedin.com/myprofile?trk=hb_tab_pro Ann Garrison

    I’d like to know how the Milk Club voted on the ballot measures, if they did. If not, when are they doing so?

    Yesterday I read Adachi’s Measure D, the Pension Reform Act, which is only 12 pages long and, I thought, more than reasonable. It doesn’t ask anyone making less than $50,000 to give up anything, caps pensions at 75% or a mere $140,000/yr., and prohibits “piping” a longtime City employee into a way higher paying position for the last few years of their City employment and thus enabling them to collect at a much higher rate than they paid in.

    Then I took a look at Measure C, the Pension and Health Care Reform Act, which is an insult to the voters, for starters, because it’s 250 pages long.

    I’d rather see tax-the-rich or Reform Prop 13 measures than either of these proposals but there’s no such thing on the ballot. Only a regressive sales tax and a proposal to rack up more debt to fund schools.

  • Eric Brooks

    Ann, it is not ‘reasonable’ to tax the working class any further at all.

    We meed to follow the model of Wisconsin, and rise up to shut this city down, until our local representatives and mayor FIND a way to tax the rich, instead of sticking it to the workers, the poor, and the disabled, yet again.

  • http://www.linkedin.com/myprofile?trk=hb_tab_pro Ann Garrison

    @Eric: Where do you see the “we” significant enough to “shut this city down”? Are unionized city workers going to lead that charge for the sake of schools, infrastructure, and indigent services once they’ve secured their pensions?

  • http://www.linkedin.com/myprofile?trk=hb_tab_pro Ann Garrison

    P.S. I wonder how much of the Milk Club’s membership revenues come from people joining to try to game their endorsement process.