Candidate for District 9 Supervisor, Eric Quezada, announced Friday
he has won the endorsement of the Bernal Heights Democratic Club.
File photo by Luke Thomas
From the campaign to elect Eric Quezada
September 27, 2008
Gaining 75 percent of all first-place votes, Eric Quezada won the support of the Bernal Heights Democratic Club Thursday night – an influential endorsement in a tight three-way race for District 9 Supervisor.
“I’m really honored and proud to have this endorsement,” Quezada said. “We may not have the Democratic machine, but we have the grassroots Democrats. This is the most critical Bernal Heights endorsement, and I think it proves we have a winning coalition.”
The endorsement adds to Quezada’s growing base of support, which includes endorsements from the Tenants Union, several major labor unions (including the California Nurses Association, UNITE HERE Local 2, and AFSCME Local 3299), Supervisor Chris Daly, former School Board President Eric Mar, and dozens of leaders from business, public health, education, environmental and arts communities.
“It’s really an astonishing endorsement,” said Bernal Heights Democratic Club executive board member Steve Shapiro. “The board was completely convinced that Eric’s experience and background and values make him the best candidate to lead district 9. Tom Ammiano set a very high bar, and the 75 percent margin by which the neighborhood endorsed Eric to carry on the mantle is very significant.”
Quezada has strong roots in the Bernal community. In addition to his decades of successful organizing for affordable housing and crime prevention in the Mission District, Quezada has resided in the same Bernal Heights rental house on Peralta Avenue since 1990, and he serves on the board of the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center.
The Bernal Democratic Club, founded in 1992, has a history of courageous endorsements – having almost lost its Democratic Party certification after supporting Green Party member Matt Gonzalez for Mayor in 2003. The endorsement of Quezada Thursday by the group’s 101 members represents a significant development and adds to the Quezada campaign’s momentum as this November’s election enters the homestretch. The Bernal endorsement carries added meaning as it is the last Democratic club in San Francisco that still walks its slate cards to every house in Bernal Heights.
The Hunger Site
October 2, 2008 at 7:06 am
Marc Salomon is really smart, but sometimes he doesn’t get community organizing.
When community organizers are successful in getting government to implement reforms, they don’t run for office. It’s precisely when government and elected officials are not responsive to community concerns, that community organizers may choose to run for office themselves. This was the case in 2000 and is the case with Eric in 2008.
As for the accusation of sectarianism, “ultraleftism”, and Stalinism – can’t we leave the red-baiting to our political opponents? I expect this type of stuff from the Chronicle and Examiner, but not the San Francisco Green Party! If you support Mark Sanchez, that’s fine, but please don’t further dishonor his campaign with this stuff.
Now, if you would like to point out specific tactical, strategic, or policy disagreements with Eric, go ahead. He’s got such a long record in District 9, you must have areas of difference. But let’s make this campaign about those issues, the candidates’ records, and our visions for the future of San Francisco.
September 30, 2008 at 7:49 am
I think its great that Quezada won an endorsement right in David Campos’ back yard.
But down the hill in the Mission, Eric has taken ownership of the “community response” to the Eastern Neighborhoods planning process, and so far, not so good.
Since Eastern Neighborhoods and planning in the Mission is Eric’s policy claim to fame, and since the clock is ticking on the future of development in our neighborhood, voters should evaluate Eric on his claims as measured against his record of accomplishment and achievement.
Fortunately the economy is entering into a depression so that funding to take advantage of the upzoning and entitlements that Eric was unable to stop will dry up and these projects will probably not see the light of day for some time, so the urgency is somewhat less, but EN is an informative exercise in Quesada’s political capacity.
Eric’s problem in planning is that he focuses so much on differences rather than commonality, differences that are based on the most base of prejudice. White people, artists, homeowners, landlords, LGBT are all to blame in Eric’s political cosmology for something or another, but to call into question Eric’s own record is dismissed as racist or classist.
Recall that Gonzalez won the Mission by 75% with a coalition that included white people, artists, homeowners, landlords, LGBT not to mention Latinos.
In a neighborhood as diverse as the Mission, such a sectarian approach devalues progressivism and magnetizes potential allies to become certain opponents. Stalinism and ultraleftism were discredited long ago but not in Eric’s world and for that, progressive land use policies in the Mission suffer.
One thing I learned during the Gonzalez campaign is that one goes further politically employing the mathematics of addition and multiplication rather than subtraction and division.
-marc
September 27, 2008 at 9:45 pm
When I interviewed Carlos Quezada to write Eric’s Quezada’s campaign biography, he said he worked at American Can, where Project Artaud is now – and that’s what he had always told his family. He, of course, was there. I don’t know where Judy West was – nor, for that matter, who she is. When you Google Judy West, she does not seem to be an artist – and I certainly hope she is the not the Judy L. West, San Francisco 94110 who donated $ 600 to the Republican National Committee.
Maybe Carlos was mistaken about the exact location. That was 37 years ago. On the other hand, he was there.
For the record, Eric has never been opposed to artist live/work units in the Mission – he just thinks that artists ought to live and work in artist live/work units. Apparently some people find that strange.
September 27, 2008 at 11:56 am
Eric Quezada has lied about his family history in the Mission, so beware of whatever else he says. His website claims that “his father worked for American Can Company in 1971 at the site where Project Artaud is now located”. However, in 1971 Project Artaud purchased the vacant site from Pacific Pipe Co which had occupied the site for years after American Can left the area.
I know this, because I am a past president, treasurer and board member of Project Artaud, San Francisco’s premier artist colony and live/work cooperative.
Eric has been a critic of artist live/work units in the Mission, and probably made up this claim that artists have displaced industrial uses, but these old factory uses abandoned San Francisco on their own years ago. Beware of liars.