Giving Voice to Progressive Democrats for Over 60 Years
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Kip Crosby
VP-Publications
Because this is such an important meeting, we hold it on a Saturday (this year on SATURDAY, AUGUST 27), and in a bigger venue: The cafeteria of El Cerrito High School.
Here are the particulars:
TIME: 10 AM – 3 PM
DATE: SATURDAY, AUGUST 27
LOCATION: El Cerrito High School Cafeteria (fully accessible, great location, lots of free, on-street parking)
FORMAT: Each candidate will have 2 minutes for an opening statement; we will provide cards and pencils for the audience members to pose questions which our moderator will read. Candidates will have 30 seconds to a minute to respond to questions.
We will group the presentations so all candidates for any given seat will present as a group.
VOTING: We have voting cards for all members eligible to vote. (Anyone who was a member by July 13 (joined by mail) or July 15 (joined on line) will be eligible to vote.) Members will sign in and pick up a ballot. The voting card for each member who signs in will be moved from the pending group to the registered group. In this way, we will insure that no one receives more than one ballot.
Ballots will be pre-numbered to make sure that each voter receives only one ballot; in order to preserve the confidentiality of the vote, we will NOT KEEP RECORDS of which number a member receives. We will use the numbered ballots to cross reference the total number of ballots released to the total number of voting cards retained.
Members may complete and submit their ballots at any time during the meeting. In order to be counted, ballots must be submitted within 5 minutes of the close of all the presentations. We anticipate that the close of presentations will be about 3:30 pm.
Craig Cheslog, the Regional Director for Region 2 (Assembly district 4, 11, 14 and 16) has graciously agreed to serve as our Elections Judge. In that capacity he will monitor the registration and ballot distribution and oversee the ballot counting. Per our newly amended standing rules, once the results are announced, any member may challenge the results at that time. If there is a challenge, our election judge will recount the votes in the challenged race. Only challenges submitted immediately after the results announcement will be accepted.
THE RACES:
We will vote on several propositions and measures, including Propositions 57 and 58 as well as a bond measure for California Parks (AB 2444) if it is finalized in time to be included in our ballots, and measures for AC Transit, West County Transportation Authority, West Contra Costa School District, and the El Cerrito Library.
Here is a list of the positions and candidates who had filed by August 12, and the times of each panel. This schedule is tentative:
| AC Transit At-Large, 11:00 – 11:20 |
| Chris Peeples |
| Dollene Jones |
| BART Districts 3 and 7, 11:20 – 12:20 |
| Ken Chew |
| Rebecca Saltzman |
| Lateefah Simon |
| Roland Emerson ** |
| Will Roscoe |
| Zachary Mallett |
| Board of Education District 1 12:20 – 1:05 |
| Elaine Merriweather * |
| Fatima Sierre Alleyne |
| Pam Mirabella |
| Talya Huntley * |
| West Contra Costa School Board, 1:05 – 2:05 |
| Antonio Medrano |
| Ayana Young |
| Carlos Taboada |
| Don Gosney |
| Miriam S Sequeira * |
| Mister Phillips |
| Tom Panas |
| Kensington Police Protection & Community Services, 2:05 – 2:50 |
| Chuck Toombs |
| David Spath |
| Eileen Nottoli * |
| Simon Brafman |
| Sylvia Hacaj |
| El Cerrito City Council, 2:50 – 3:30 |
| Greg Lyman |
| James Shirazi *** |
| Nicholas Arzio |
| Paul Fadelli |
| Rochelle Okimoto |
Candidate statements follow this article except as noted below:
* – We were unable to connect with these candidates in time for them to submit articles by our newsletter deadline
** The candidate chose not to submit a statement
*** The candidate is not a registered Democrat
As we have in the past, the ECDC will provide coffee, tea, and water. We will invite the candidates to bring finger foods.
Although the description makes it sound complicated, the endorsement meetings have generally been informative and even fun. This is local retail politics in action, and will be an experience you will want to enjoy.
CANDIDATE STATEMENT of DOLLENE C. JONES
Occupation: Retired Bus Driver
My education and qualifications are: My educational background is I’ve attended 4 years of college at the College Of New Jersey at Trenton. I also hold a certificate of completion in labor studies from Laney College here in Oakland, CA. My qualifications for the board are as follows: Two years in the maintenance department at NJ Transit and 21 years of serving the bay area as a bus operator at the AC Transit District! I will take the 23 years of training, boardrooms,union meetings and my expertise to lift up the voices & questions that continue to go unheard even today. I work with many senior groups in the community and I will help them with keeping their independence by making sure the buses return to their neighborhood. AC Transit still faces FINANCIAL CHALLENGES after all these years!!
Resolving these issues will be my first priority. If you give me your vote, I will give you the very best of my abilities and a 110% commitment to meet the transportation needs of the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District. I humbly thank everyone who has previously endorsed and/or voted for me!
CANDIDATE STATEMENT of H. R. CHRISTIAN PEEPLES
I have been riding AC Transit buses for almost 40 years. Twelve years ago I gave up my car and now go everywhere by transit. AC Transit is hiring more operators and mechanics to improve reliability. We need to add back more service. All of that takes money. I have helped get federal, state and local money. AC Transit spends your money wisely. We now buy buses in Hayward, engines in San Leandro and NextBus from Alameda. We have reduced management and pay our top management less than before. I took a 5% reduction in pay, get no pension and pay 10% toward my health care. I have always led in support for AC Transit’s hydrogen fuel cell bus program —the largest and most advanced in the country — grant funded so it does not impact service. I have supported better access for disabled persons and low fares for school children. My longstanding effort on mass transit issues and my years of hard work on AC Transit’s Board have led to endorsements from Congresswoman Barbara Lee, the Sierra Club, Senator Hancock, Assemblymembers Skinner and Wieckowski and many others. Further details and contact information: www.smartvoter.org/vote/peeples; (510) 326-6841; chris_peeples@yahoo.com. Thank you for your vote.