“The task force is supposed to keep established neighborhood boundaries intact, and there’s no real reason for a massive rewrite. But no matter how you look at it, with the population changes, D6 is going to shrink (lots of new housing in Soma), and the lines around D9, D3, D5 and D8 are going to change. And the lines are going to matter.
San Francisco Rising is actively engaged in the issue right now, and has put forward three candidates for the board slots.
That group has put forward Jeremy Lee, who works for Chinatown Community Development Center, Jose Maria Hernandez Gil, an organizer with SEIU Local 1021, and Michelle Pierce, executive director of Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates.
“It’s critical to have people on this task force who have a long history of working with communities of color and marginalized people,” Jill Shenker, interim co-director of SF Rising Action Fund, told me.
From the group’s recent email to supporters:
Jose Maria (Chema) Hernandez used to work for SF Rising, lives in SOMA, and has been doing civic engagement work in San Francisco for many years (and spent several years working with SF Rising), with a particular emphasis on Districts 9, 10, and 11. As a bilingual (Spanish/English) indigenous immigrant from Mexico and union organizer, he will ensure working class, immigrant, and Spanish speaking communities are engaged and taken into consideration in the redistricting process. Chema has led many non-partisan civic engagement programs to encourage voter participation and turnout in the Latinx community, conducting doorknocking and phonebanking programs in Spanish to encourage monolingual immigrants to exercise their democratic rights in civic engagement.
Jeremy Lee is a native San Franciscan, gay, Chinese American with deep familiarity and relationships in District 3. He will bring an important perspective about the impacts of redistricting on the 1/3 of San Franciscans who identify as Asian. His work on affordable housing and the needs of low-income Chinese immigrant tenants at the Chinatown Development Community Center demonstrates his commitment and experience working with these communities.
Michelle Pierce would bring critical perspective from her deep connections in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, where she is the Executive Director of Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates, whose work focuses on issues of environmental, social and economic justice. Pierce has over 20 years of experience working in sustainability and social justice, including work with the San Francisco Department of the Environment. She is an African American, native San Franciscan, who has lived in the Southeast Corridor of the city all her life.”
Read the full article on the 48 Hills website.
