On Sunday, July 19, the organizers of the 2020 Rent Board Convention finished tabulating the Convention ballots; following five rounds of voting, Dominique Walker, Mari Mendonca, Xavier Johnson, Leah Simon-Weisberg, and Andy Kelley were declared the winners for the pro-tenant slate. 708 votes were cast, substantially smashing all previous records in the Convention’s decades-long history. 

“This year’s convention celebrated 40 years of rent control in Berkeley and brought together 15 community sponsoring organizations who screened 13 candidates vying for five spots on the pro-tenant slate,” said Convention Chair Paola Laverde. “The quality and diversity of the candidates and the large voter turn reflects the importance of these issues to Berkeley residents.” 

“In order to quickly and accurately tabulate the 708 ballots using ranked-choice-voted, we used the ASUC’s election tabulator,” said Convention Planning Committeemember and Election Manager Matthew Lewis. “We are very grateful that ASUC makes the source code of the tabulator publicly available.” 

The 2020 Convention, which was originally scheduled to take place in-person in late-April, was postponed and moved online due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The Convention itself took place on Sunday, July 5. Voting opened on Monday July 6 and concluded on Saturday, July 18 (requests for ballots were due by Friday, July 17). Voting was primarily conducted online using OpaVote to anonymously collect ballots; paper ballots were also made available to Berkeley residents without internet access or who had difficulty casting an electronic ballot. Voting was open to all Berkeley residents – including students, undocumented residents and other non-citizens, residents under 18, and unhoused residents – who fully support rent control. Berkeley residents who had temporarily left due to COVID and/or summer break but intend to return to Berkeley as soon s it is safe and/or feasible to do so were also allowed to cast a ballot. 

Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 Berkeley Rent Board Convention will take place on Sunday, July 5 from 4:00PM-6:00PM online instead of in-person. Voting will then take place online (with paper ballots available for those without internet access) through July 12. Confirmed sponsors of this year’s conventioninclude the Berkeley TenantsUnion, Berkeley Citizens Action, Friends of Adeline, the Grey Panthers, the East Bay Democratic Socialists of America, Our Revolution East Bay, Young Democrats for Justice in Palestine – East Bay, and UAW 2865 (the UC student-workers union).

This year, there will be FIVE seats up for election. Any Berkeley resident (including students, undocumented residents, and other non-citizens) may vote at the Convention. Additional information about the Convention, including how to vote and the link to watch the Convention, will be released in the coming weeks.

Persons interested in running must be complete the candidate questionnaire – located at bit.ly/2020CandidatePacket – and send it to berkeleytenantsconvention@gmail.com by Monday, June 15 at NOON. Screening by representatives of the organizations sponsoring the Convention will occur in late June (likely the week of June 22), so candidates should keep their schedule clear during this window and also get in touch as soon as possible! Anyone registered to vote in Berkeley (including students) is eligible to run for so long as they are pro-tenant.

Anyone who has questions about the convention – including prospective candidates, voters, or the press – should email berkeleytenantsconvention@gmail.com. We also encourage folks to mark themselves as “going” on the official Facebook event – as well as to share the event and invite their pro-tenant friends who live in Berkeley – which can be found at bit.ly/2020RentBoardConvention.

The 2020 Berkeley Tenants Convention Planning Committee requests that all organizations cosponsoring the convention, individuals helping organize the convention, and other interested parties provide please any feedback, suggestions, etc. they may have for the convention candidate questionnaire by Sunday, March 15.  We will be using the 2018 candidate questionnaire as a baseline and make modifications from there, so please feel free to reference that document when sending us your suggestions (e.g. “We think question number X should be stricken” or “We would like to rewrite “A B C” in question number Y as “D E F””).

Please send your feedback, etc. to berkeleytenantsconvention@gmail.com. If you have any questions about the questionnaire or the convention (and pre-convention process) in general, please send an email to that same address.

On Sunday afternoon, April 22, Berkeley progressives
turned out to select a Rent Board Slate for the 2018
election. The event was held at the Sport Basement on
Milvia Street. A coalition of members of progressive
groups organized the convention, where attendees
heard from seven qualified candidates, all folks with a
solid history of tenant advocacy.
Soli Alpert, a UCB junior, and four incumbents, James
Chang, Maria Poblet, Paola Laverde and John Selawsky,
were the top vote getters. They will run together for the
open seats on Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board for the
November 2018 ballot.
Look for more information about how to support the
Rent Board campaign in coming weeks.

The line to get in stretched down the street.
The line to get in stretched down the street.

Igor Tregub (with Judy Shelton)
Igor Tregub (with Judy Shelton)

Leah SImon-Weisberg (with daughter)
Leah Simon-Weisberg (with daughter)

Christina Murphy
Christina Murphy

Alejandro Soto-Vigil
Alejandro Soto-Vigil

 

All Photos by Christine Schwartz

 

 

 

Councilman Anderson at the Convention
Councilman Anderson at the Convention

2016 T Con Ballot

Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

…the People of Berkeley!

Photo by Christine Schwartz
Photo by Christine Schwartz

With too many good candidates to choose from, the 2016 Convention had a record turnout of 267 voters plus a number of nonBerkeley residents (who could not vote) who came to watch the fireworks. And oh! what fireworks there were to see! But none of them came from the candidates, who all conducted themselves with decorum quite lacking in some of their supporters.

It is with great joy that we announce an unbeatable protenant slate for the 2016 election: Christina Murphy, Alejandro Soto-Vigil, Igor Tregub, and Leah Simon-Weisberg. Poki Namkung came in fifth, just six votes behind Leah, so we chose to do a re-count just to make sure. But we were right the first time, indeed.

Hurray for all!

Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

Screener-Chart-2016Click on the picture for a larger chart, or use this PDF:

Screener Chart 2016

Screener Comments are here (PDF):

FINALcomments 2016 screeners

Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Volunteers Count the Votes
Volunteers Count the Votes

Tenants and other Berkeley residents who support Rent Control are seeking candidates for the November 2016 Rent Board election.

There are four seats on the November ballot. There are three incumbents who may be running: Judy Hunt, who ran on the landlord-supported slate in 2012, plus Asa Dodsworth and Alejandro Soto-Vigil, who were both elected on the Convention Slate.

All who support rent control and strong tenant protections are welcome to seek selection as a convention candidate!

All 2016 candidates will be vetted and chosen by the Tenants Convention taking place on Sunday April 24th at the South Berkeley Senior Center, at 2939 Ellis Street in South Berkeley. The time hasn’t been set, but it will probably be from 1:30 to 5 pm. Knowledge of and experience with rent control, eviction protections, and other tenants issues is not mandatory, but is certainly a plus for candidates.

Screener-Chart-2014
Screener Chart 2014

Screening by representatives from community groups takes place in early April, so candidates should get in touch as soon as possible!

Questionnaires will be sent to candidates and posted on this website in late March; ratings will be based on the questionnaire as well as follow-up interviews. Ratings and comments from community leaders are provided to convention voters to help guide their choices.

Anyone interested in seeking election should contact berkeleytenantconvention [at] g mail dot com

Candidates, please visit this page.

spring-flowers

Save the date: Sunday, April 24 will be the 2016 Tenant Convention.

Candidates interested in running for Rent Board should contact us now.

Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,