Major California election successes in 2006
Bay Area victories of McLaughlin and Kim are highlights
By Mike Feinstein
Green Party of California

After the November 2006 general elections, 50 Greens now hold office in California. A total of 62 Green candidates from nineteen counties ran for every kind of office from governor and U.S. senate, down to local offices like fire, water and planning districts.

Twenty-three Greens ran in partisan state and federal races and thirty-nine in municipal, county and special districts. Led by Gayle McLaughlin in Richmond and Jane Kim in San Francisco, nineteen of these thirty-nine were elected (48.7 percent), including twelve of the fifteen incumbents that sought re-election. Eight other incumbents did not run, including one that was prevented from doing so by local term limits.

Among elected Green officials, 17 are members of city councils, three to college board of trustees, nine are to local school boards; five of rent boards; one of a transit board, five are on water boards; seven are on planning groups/community/neigh­borhood councils; and there is one fire board, one hospital board, and one community services district member.

San Francisco

Pictured: John Rizzo "San Francisco voters, regardless of party, district, or background, truly want to support candidates who will fight for education, the environment, social justice, and financial accountability. Voters clearly recognized that City College needed a new progressive voice for our citizens, students, faculty and staff. That new voice is newly elected College Board Trustee John Rizzo."  -- Aimee Harcos, Campaign Manager for John Rizzo

In San Francisco, 29 year-old Jane Kim shocked the city's political establishment as she swept to first place among 15 candidates, in a citywide election for three seats for the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) Board of Education. 

A youth program director with the China­town Community Development Center, Kim's grassroots campaign had a strong base of volunteers often under 22 years of age. Bringing together youth with progressive activists, parent advocates and immigrant communities (in particular the Chinese-American and Korean-American communities) enabled Kim to win without key endorsements usually associated with a school board win, including that of the Democratic Party. 

One endorsement she did receive was the San Francisco Bay Guardian, which said "Kim, who runs a nonprofit after-school youth leadership program, is on the top of almost every progressive's list for the board and for good reason: she's bright and articulate, has a vision for public education. … [She] not only understands the problems facing the district but has some real solutions." 

Kim's main campaign issues were: increasing general funding for SFUSD through increased advocacy work with the city and the state, improving resources and staffing for middle schools, and building stronger relationships between the SFUSD and community-based organizations serving students and families. 

A first year law student at the University of California at Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, Kim is also former fellow at the Greenlining Institute, a multi-ethnic public policy, research, and advocacy institute based in San Francisco.

Kim was endorsed by current Board of Education members Eric Mar, Norman Yee and two Greens Sarah Lipson and Mark Sanchez, the latter in his second term on the Board. Kim replaces retiring Lipson on the Board, who was elected in 2002 but chose not to run a second time.

San Francisco Greens also experienced success in the city's other education district race. For Community College Board, John Rizzo, Sierra Club activist defeated incumbent Johnnie Carter by 352 votes for third seat out of six candidates - the first Green to be elected to the College Board and the first College Board candidate since 1994 to defeat an incumbent.

Both Rizzo and Kim ran on a platform of fiscal transparency, a big issue in both education districts. 

Rizzo, who was well known among Sierra Club members, added these issues: job-training programs to meet local job needs; special-needs programs for disadvantaged students; clean energy technology and training for green jobs; targeting under-served parts of the City; collaborating with neighbor­hoods before making decisions that affect them, low-cost housing for students and socially responsible investing of college funds.

Helping Kim, Rizzo and other local Green candidates, the SFGP mailed and distributed over 20,000 slate cards before the election. All but one Green Party candidates in San Francisco also benefited from the endorsement of the Bay Guardian. Two Progressive Democrats - Chris Daly for Supervisor and Kim-Shree Maufa for School Board, also benefited greatly from Greens support.

Sebastopol

The re-election of Larry Robinson to a third term means Greens in Sebastopol will now retain a majority on the City Council until at least 2008, rejoining fellow Greens Craig Litwin and Sam Pierce on the five-member Council, and making it eight straight years with a Green majority (Sam Spooner preceded Pierce from 2000-2004). 

	First elected in 1992, Dona Spring has a proven record of commitment in essentially every area of importance to Greens and progressives, including peace, fair elections, social justice, campaign-funding, and open government.

Thinking globally while running locally, Robinson's campaign web site began "In the coming years, auto use will be increasingly expensive, as will other forms of energy. We can begin preparing now for that future by encouraging city-centered development which is less resource intensive and provides the opportunity for people to work, shop and play close to where they live. I believe that together we can imagine and create a sustainable future." Apparently voters agreed. 

Over the six years of Green majority on the Council, Robinson already lists the following achievements:
o adoption of a mandatory green building program
o a living wage ordinance
o two city-driven affordable co-housing projects (one rental and one ownership)
o an affordable housing impact fee on all new developments
o a draft ordinance requiring photovoltaic installations on all new construction
o the most fiscally responsible (sustainable) budget of all the cities in Sonoma County
o a commitment to reduce municipal greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2008, reaching a 42 percent reduction and saving $25,000 a year in the process.

With the state of California debating how it will meet its own more modest greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, how will Sebastopol reach its lofty goals? Robinson explains, "We will meet this goal through a combination of photovoltaic installations on as many city buildings as possible, conversion of our diesel fleet to bio-diesel and of our gas fleet to natural gas, an employee ride-sharing program and new energy efficient HVAC systems.

Berkeley

In Berkeley, Dona Spring was re-elected for the fifth time since first being elected in 1992. At the completion of this new term, she will have served for 18 years on the Berkeley City Council - the longest for a Green city council member in the U.S. and second most for any Green officeholder (behind David Conley, Board of Supervisors, Douglas County, Wisconsin 1986-2008).

In its endorsement of Spring, the Alameda County Green Party had this to say, "Dona has chalked up a solid environ­mental record, opposing hotel development on the waterfront and preserving it as protected wildlife habitat space. She has been a leader in Berkeley's actions to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions to be in accordance with the standards of the Kyoto accords. She worked to win accountability from UC Berkeley and the city in the use and reduction of toxins, and to decrease the flow of heavy metals into the storm drains. Ambient air emissions studies and tests in West Berkeley were initiated by Spring. When the City Council voted to clear cut nearly 250 downtown trees, Spring opposed the plan, insisting on a tree by tree survey that saved over a hundred trees."

This year, unlike others, Spring's challenger was well-funded by business interests who hoped to defeat her. Despite this concentrated effort, she was re-elected with 71.2 percent of the vote. 

When Spring was first elected in November 1992, it was to be the first of three two-years terms. Then, in 1998, the city of Berkeley switched from two-year to four-year City Council terms, and voters then re-elected Spring in 1998 and 2002.

Also in Berkeley, Green incumbents Howard Chong and Cris Kavanagh were joined by Lisa Stephens and Pam Webster on the nine-member Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board - the largest number of Green elected officials ever on a legislative body in the state.

The four Greens form a diverse slate - Chong is the board's incumbent chairperson and a UC Berkeley graduate student; Kavanagh a middle school teacher, and long time Berkeley affordable housing/rent control activist. Stephens is a well-known urban forest and garden specialist, community activist and president of her worksite's trade union local; while Webster serves on the East Bay Ecology Center's board of directors. Webster is also married to John Selawsky, who is serving his second term at the Berkeley Unified School District's Board of Directors. They are the only married Green couple to both hold elective office in the United States. 

Nearly 19,000 renter households are regulated under Berkeley's Rent Stabili­zation Ordinance (rent control) and Board. Several times over the past 25 years since its inception, Berkeley's rent control program has shielded tens of thousands of city renters from dramatic, unexpected rent increases, including, most recently, during the dotcom economic surge between 1998 and 2001, when rent levels across the Bay Area skyrocketed. Green Rent Board members intend to continue that protection.

Oakland

Just south of Berkeley, Aimee Allison came tantalizingly close to winning an Oak­land City Council seat, receiving 46.6 percent of the vote in a spirited effort to topple incumbent council member Pat Kernighan, an establishment politician backed by the Oakland Chamber of Commerce and corporate real estate developer interests.

Allison combined a focus on affordable housing together with a community-based economic development approach that included better integrating Oakland's $30 billion/year port into the local tax base. She also campaigned in favor of Measure O, which was passed by voters, that enacts Instant Run-Off Voting for Oakland municipal elections. 

Hurt by a low turnout owing to a lackluster Democratic gubernatorial campaign and to the fact that Oakland's mayor-elect Ron Dellums was already elected in June and therefore not on the ballot, Allison's strong progressive campaign nevertheless helped to transform Oakland's political landscape, injecting new progressive political energy.

Oakland resident Rebecca Kaplan was overwhelmingly re-elected to the Alameda County Transit Board, with 82.8 percent and 198,099 votes - the most votes of any U.S. Green in 2006 winning their race.

Kaplan serves as part-time counsel for an East Bay civil rights law firm, in order to have time and flexible hours to devote to her work on the Transit Board, and for the last two years she has not driven a car. In her first term, Kaplan obtained Board approval to contract for solar power for AC Transit buildings, a "green purchasing policy" and adding bio-diesel to the agenda for the upcoming Short Range Transportation plan.

In the field, she worked with numerous government agencies in adjoining jurisdictions to reduce the Rapid Bus route time by 1/3, over the 14 miles from Contra Costa College to Oakland, by coordinating signaling, signage and bus shelter plans. As AC Transit representative to the Contra Costa transportation sales tax re-authorization (Measure J) drafting committee, she successfully negotiated a significant improvement in funding for local transit, particularly in low-income and under-served communities.

In her second term Kaplan hopes to increase use of bio-diesel fuels, venues of sale of bulk AC Transit passes, (the Eco-Pass program), and expansion of "NextBus" energy-efficient LED displays at bus stops. 

Go to: www.cagreens.org 

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