Okay I realize this is a little late, but the press release did go out well before the event which was high on neighbors from the District 11 community. Check out Luke Thomas photos. Other photos to follow.
News
For Immediate Release Contact: John Avalos
June 20, 2008 john@avalos08.com
Accomplished Excelsior Community Member Launches Campaign for San Francisco District 11 Supervisor Seat
At 11am on Saturday, June 21, 2008 at the Excelsior Playground (corner of Russia and Madrid), John Avalos will be kicking off his grassroots campaign for the open District 11 Supervisor seat to be vacated by Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval.
As a ten year District 11 resident, Avalos has worked for and collaborated with numerous community organizations on civil rights issues and to improve San Francisco and District 11 for working families. Between 1996 and 2002, while earning his Masters in Social Work at San Francisco State, he worked for Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth where he focused on neighborhood parks, environmental justice, child care services, youth employment, neighborhood beautification projects, government accountability and school reform.
Mr. Avalos has also been an organizer with SEIU Justice for Janitors Campaign where he served in San Jose and San Francisco and lead efforts to ensure workers contracts with better salaries and affordable health care.
As a legislative aide in City Hall, John Avalos has demonstrated a great understanding of the city budget and how the budget can be an instrumental tool to promote sound public policy. Through his work collaborating with City Hall insiders and labor and community groups alike, he has been able to expand funds for senior citizens, youth, affordable housing, homeless people, immigrants, mental health and substance abuse clients. He has worked on capital improvements to parks, health care centers and city streets.
Mr. Avalos has also drafted legislation ranging from tenant protections and minimum wage policies to setting ethical standards for local campaign law.
Heretofore, John Avalos is endorsed by the San Francisco Labor Council; UNITE HERE Local 2; SEIU Locals 1021, UHW, 1877 and 24/7; the California Nurses Association; the United Educators of San Francisco; AFSCME 3299; the TWU as well as Sheriff Michael Hennessey, Public Defender Jeff Adachi, President of the Board of Supervisors Aaron Peskin, Supervisor Chris Daly, Supervisor and soon to be Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, School Board Commissioners Eric Mar, Kim-Shree Maufus, Jane Kim, and Norman Yee.
John Avalos has qualified to receive financial support from San Francisco's public financing program. He has also vowed not to take money from corporate interests, real estate developers and registered lobbyists. "Public financing makes it possible for me to run for office and not have to kowtow to the big downtown political players," said John Avalos. "I'm running as a community member. My wife Karen Zapata is a teacher and my kids are students in the San Francisco Unified School District. I'm running to strengthen the voices of District 11's vibrant communities so that District 11 can get the attention from City Hall that it deserves."
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Working it
Here are some images from last week's Community Clean Team event. After tanking up on Mama Art Cafe a la Cruzita, I got to work with other Excelsior residents, dpw workers and Project 20 volunteers on weeding and spreading out soil in the planter boxes next to the Excelsior Boys and Girls Club.
I ran into an old friend, Nino Parker, and made a few new ones before running off to the Civic Center Plaza for an SEIU UHW event. Much thanks to the DPW workers and community volunteers who pitched in at the event.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Coming Up
Last Saturday dawned gloriously for the opening of the Minnie and Lovie Ward Recreation Center.
Congratulations to the Ward family for their hard work and dreams and to the many OMI residents who struggled against extra long delays and incompetent oversight.
The center is a symbol of a community coming up. It has a great child care room, kitchen, community space bedecked with the names of community leaders, and a brand new gym. The center will certainly make the summer safer for OMI youth and provide ample space that the community has sorely lacked.
It was a great honor to witness the many happy and proud faces at the opening.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Why I'm Taking Public Financing
Joshua Sabatini of the SF Examiner reported the other day in his article, "Potential Supes Tap Public Funds," how 8 supervisors are taking public funds. I agree with the premise that public financing helps level the playing field, helps grassroots candidates compete with candidates with access to deep-pocketed donors and can eliminate the appearance of money having a corrupting influence on our elections. I have chosen to take public financing for all of these reasons.
Moreover, I will not be taking campaign contributions from registered lobbyists, corporate interests and real estate developers. I will meet with them when elected, but do not want any appearance of having to owe them anything after I am elected. Public financing makes it possible to run without going after the big money.
Of course, I realize that I have to work extra hard to raise campaign funds, but fundraising is all part of what I have set out to do on my campaign. So far I've been supported by social workers, lawyers, teachers, community leaders, labor activists, small businesses owners, a few government workers and six politicians, including two supervisors Tom Ammiano and Chris Daly and four school board commissioners, Eric Mar, Mark Sanchez, Jane Kim and Kim-Shree Maufus. By the end of the summer I will achieve my fundraising goals in relationship to the public financing program and the spending cap of $140,000.
Moreover, I will not be taking campaign contributions from registered lobbyists, corporate interests and real estate developers. I will meet with them when elected, but do not want any appearance of having to owe them anything after I am elected. Public financing makes it possible to run without going after the big money.
Of course, I realize that I have to work extra hard to raise campaign funds, but fundraising is all part of what I have set out to do on my campaign. So far I've been supported by social workers, lawyers, teachers, community leaders, labor activists, small businesses owners, a few government workers and six politicians, including two supervisors Tom Ammiano and Chris Daly and four school board commissioners, Eric Mar, Mark Sanchez, Jane Kim and Kim-Shree Maufus. By the end of the summer I will achieve my fundraising goals in relationship to the public financing program and the spending cap of $140,000.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
John Avalos for Supervisor
I have been attending different area of District 11 to check out the candidates and John Avalos in particular. This is to see how he presents himself and how he plan to represent District 11. One thing I did find out and I am approving is that he would like to mobilize the entire District 11 and make us ONE. It does not matter which neighborhood we come from if we are District 11 we are one.
I am glad I made the decision to support John Avalos because he is humble, has a heart for the job, and he is professional and has a passion for what he is doing. He has the interest of the community in his hand and he plan to assist us any way that he can. I have also noticed that he is out and about meeting with people getting to know more of the 70,000 people he plan to serve. I am working along side of him because I believe in what he is doing.
Deloris McGee
I am glad I made the decision to support John Avalos because he is humble, has a heart for the job, and he is professional and has a passion for what he is doing. He has the interest of the community in his hand and he plan to assist us any way that he can. I have also noticed that he is out and about meeting with people getting to know more of the 70,000 people he plan to serve. I am working along side of him because I believe in what he is doing.
Deloris McGee
Friday, May 30, 2008
Downtown's Polling in District 11
It looks like the downtown interests can’t wait any longer and have initiated their campaigning in District 11. I've heard from two unrelated sources, a neighbor and the wife of another D11 candidate who have been polled about the District 11 race.
While many people have asked me whether I will do or have done a poll, polling is simply way out of the price range of a grassroots campaign for it even to be considered, even with the public financing. Why should I bother when when my campaign is really going to be won on people power, neighbors talking to neighbors and people getting involved in their communities, not by the meddling of big businesses who want to shape public opinion to back a candidate who will work for them.
In a text message, my neighbor Emiliano wrote he was asked about three of the leading candidates, what he thought about Newsom, Daly and Peskin, potholes, parks, graffiti, clean streets, parking, and chain stores. He was then asked about whether he would support the creation of a code of conduct for the Board of Supervisors. A similar code of conduct had been proposed by Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier and other Newsom allies on the Board of Supervisors.
The type of downtown interests who typically employ polling to help them shape public opinion include the Chamber of Commerce, the California Urban Issues Project which represents some small and but mostly big businesses, the Committee on Jobs, the lobbying and political firm Barnes Mosher Whitehurst Lauter and Partners whose clients include some of the Bay Area’s wealthiest businesses, the Building Owners and Managers Association who represent the high rise office commercial office buildings and the Golden Gate Restaurant Association who represents many of San Francisco’s big name restaurants.
All of these entities and their allies would like City Hall to represent their interests and the interests of their big paying partners. One of their methods is to narrow down the political discussion in the City to address “quality of life issues,” getting people to focus more on the annoyances of garbage and graffiti and potholes. They want to us to back candidates who will talk their talk. They want us to be angrier about garbage rather than the fact that the San Francisco developers are building thousands of luxury condos instead of the kind of housing that working people can afford. That’s because the big business political firms are aligned with and bought and paid for by interests who are making a killing on the luxury real estate market.
And while I do believe litter, graffiti and potholes are problems that a Supervisor should be concerned about and work on, they are only a symptom of more pressing needs in the city and District 11. Our main issues are economic ones. Many residents lack access to better paying jobs and affordable housing. For instance, lack of street parking is only a symptom of the high cost of living and the unavailability of local jobs, not to mention the lack of efficient and comprehensive public transit. As housing gets more unaffordable people have little choice but to double up with other folks to cover the rent or the mortgage. As jobs are found more regionally and regional transportation remains mired in the 1940s freeway mentality, households need more than one car to get around to their various places of work. I’ve lived in District 11 since 1999. Even after the dot com boom and bust housing costs have continued to soar and street parking has gotten more scarce and harder to find.
All the District 11 candidates will talk about District 11 not getting its fair share, but as long as we’re focused on the little things, we’re never going to get it. If we don’t think big we’re never going to get the kind of change that’s going to make our communities safer, cleaner and more affordable to working families. My vision for change is based on people getting involved in the democratic process. If everyday people participate in the political process then downtown would have less of an ability to influence our elections. We'd be more able to care for neighborhoods, shape public policy and hold city hall accountable to our needs. Only through neighbors reaching out to neighbors, through communities planning together are we’re going to be able to create the kind of change that District 11 residents are really yearning for.
Let's not let downtown nickel and dime us on the issues in our district!
While many people have asked me whether I will do or have done a poll, polling is simply way out of the price range of a grassroots campaign for it even to be considered, even with the public financing. Why should I bother when when my campaign is really going to be won on people power, neighbors talking to neighbors and people getting involved in their communities, not by the meddling of big businesses who want to shape public opinion to back a candidate who will work for them.
In a text message, my neighbor Emiliano wrote he was asked about three of the leading candidates, what he thought about Newsom, Daly and Peskin, potholes, parks, graffiti, clean streets, parking, and chain stores. He was then asked about whether he would support the creation of a code of conduct for the Board of Supervisors. A similar code of conduct had been proposed by Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier and other Newsom allies on the Board of Supervisors.
The type of downtown interests who typically employ polling to help them shape public opinion include the Chamber of Commerce, the California Urban Issues Project which represents some small and but mostly big businesses, the Committee on Jobs, the lobbying and political firm Barnes Mosher Whitehurst Lauter and Partners whose clients include some of the Bay Area’s wealthiest businesses, the Building Owners and Managers Association who represent the high rise office commercial office buildings and the Golden Gate Restaurant Association who represents many of San Francisco’s big name restaurants.
All of these entities and their allies would like City Hall to represent their interests and the interests of their big paying partners. One of their methods is to narrow down the political discussion in the City to address “quality of life issues,” getting people to focus more on the annoyances of garbage and graffiti and potholes. They want to us to back candidates who will talk their talk. They want us to be angrier about garbage rather than the fact that the San Francisco developers are building thousands of luxury condos instead of the kind of housing that working people can afford. That’s because the big business political firms are aligned with and bought and paid for by interests who are making a killing on the luxury real estate market.
And while I do believe litter, graffiti and potholes are problems that a Supervisor should be concerned about and work on, they are only a symptom of more pressing needs in the city and District 11. Our main issues are economic ones. Many residents lack access to better paying jobs and affordable housing. For instance, lack of street parking is only a symptom of the high cost of living and the unavailability of local jobs, not to mention the lack of efficient and comprehensive public transit. As housing gets more unaffordable people have little choice but to double up with other folks to cover the rent or the mortgage. As jobs are found more regionally and regional transportation remains mired in the 1940s freeway mentality, households need more than one car to get around to their various places of work. I’ve lived in District 11 since 1999. Even after the dot com boom and bust housing costs have continued to soar and street parking has gotten more scarce and harder to find.
All the District 11 candidates will talk about District 11 not getting its fair share, but as long as we’re focused on the little things, we’re never going to get it. If we don’t think big we’re never going to get the kind of change that’s going to make our communities safer, cleaner and more affordable to working families. My vision for change is based on people getting involved in the democratic process. If everyday people participate in the political process then downtown would have less of an ability to influence our elections. We'd be more able to care for neighborhoods, shape public policy and hold city hall accountable to our needs. Only through neighbors reaching out to neighbors, through communities planning together are we’re going to be able to create the kind of change that District 11 residents are really yearning for.
Let's not let downtown nickel and dime us on the issues in our district!
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Under I.C.E.?
The May 1 march and rally was another triumph of one of the most important civil rights movements in the country. Along with the anti-war movement, the same sex marriage movement, the movements for universal health care, environmental justice and women's rights I count the movement for immigrant rights as vitally important.
Last week, my family, children and I marched with thousands of immigrants, both documented and undocumented and their allies in the faith and labor communities. It was one of the more exuberant marches that I have ever participated in.
The next day, President Bush's Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided the taquerias of multiple communities across the Bay Area. I.C.E. locked up and detained 73 people, including children andpregnant and lactating women, and has initiated deportation proceedings on many of them, dividing family members and breaking up homes. These well coordinated retaliatory actions have instilled great fear among the immigrant community whose main aspiration is to live a life of dignity and independence, free from political intimidation, military rule, economic and environmental deprivation. Compared to other countries, the United States offers some hope for these aspirations.
Think about it: our nation's armies are able to move freely across the globe. The Bush Administration has sent them to Iraq and Afghanistan, and in Iraq in particular, the military has created hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of refugees. Similar estimates count numbers of deaths. Global economic policies allow multi-national corporations and manufacturers to move freely across the globe to find cheaper labor and less stringent worker and environmental standards. This race to the bottom destabilizes communities, forcing workers to compete for insufficient numbers of low wage jobs and concentrate into ghettos that all too often lack basic infrastructure such as safe housing, sanitation, schools, access to clean water and transportation. Many immigrants come from such communities.
Despite not benefiting from the same global economic policies, workers are on the move. Deprived of mobility under the law, immigrants are members of a de facto borderless planet. Despite the daily struggle for dignity in the work place, for safer communities and better housing immigrants are in our midst. Throughout U.S. history immigrant workers have made great contributions to our economy. Immigrants are such an integral part of our everyday existence, that anti-immigrant enforcers have as much ability to stop immigration as they have the ability to live without the roofs over their heads that immigrants install, without the food or clothes that immigrants grow and manufacture, the offices that immigrants clean, the restaurants that immigrants run and child care that immigrants provide.
Clearly we need immigration policies that account for the reality of immigrant labor and the immigrant community. We need new policies that provide respite from intimidation and amnesty for the mix of documented and undocumented people who live here. Perhaps with a new administration in Washington we can have these types of policies.
On Monday, I joined again with the labor, faith and immigrant community to denounce these raids and pray for this better day. As a candidate I not only stand behind San Francisco's sanctuary city ordinance, I seek to strengthen it.
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