November 2026 Election Endorsements – Emeryville, Alameda County, California

Emeryville City Council:
Corry Frydlewicz ✅💖

There’s just something about her I can’t resist voting for. Amazingly, she seems to be fully aligned with my views and priorities. Check her out:

Corry’s priorities:

• DeFlock Emeryville — Get surveillance off our streets and out of our budgets.
• Empower City Services — Ensure our city budget goes toward the most effective ways to improve everyday life for Emeryvillains (not a typo) especially public health and safety.
• Affordability — Build affordable housing and work to prevent price gouging from big businesses and corporate landlords who prevent Emeryville families from making economic progress.
• Hold Sutter Accountable — Sutter must fit into our city and contribute to our values if they want to come here.
• Support Small Local Businesses — Creatively adjust city policies to favor our wonderful homegrown businesses and make the big chains pay their fair share.
• Make City Council More Productive — Reduce time spent on grandstanding, arguing over toothless proclamations, and general egocentric drama and actually get things done.

Emeryville City Council Seat #2: ???

I plan to endorse a secondary pick for Emeryville City Council (despite that possibly hurting my own chances) because it’s what I’d do any other election year for my ballot posts. I’ll try not to wait too long, but I may want to meet them each in person first.

You’re not allowed to vote for me twice — I checked — so if you’re not sure who should be your distant second choice, I think [TBD] is a solid pick.

Right now, I’m ranking the other three candidates like this:

2. Brandon Soublet

I had a chance to meet with Brandon recently, and it helped me confirm my suspicions that we’re aligned on most topics. His knowledge and research regarding the Sutter Hospital proposal also helped solidify and refine my own stances on that major issue in Emeryville, so I’m grateful for that.

I’ll update my takes on his 4 big issues on his website with that new clarity:

• “Safe, Walkable, & Bikeable Streets” is pretty unanimous across the board for this race, which I love. Brandon is just as dedicated to these issues as I and other councilmembers I support are.
• “Responsive Public Safety” definitely doesn’t mean continuing our over-investment in policing as I feared it might. Brandon, like me, supports more effective and cost-efficient ways of crime prevention before they happen and a narrower focus for our police to handle the most important actions that they’re best suited for.
• “Thoughtful Housing & Development” he mentions isn’t about NIMBYism as I originally feared but more about making sure these new developments adhere to our city’s established values, respect the existing communities here, and are invested in our collective vision for Emeryville in the future. He, like me, likes high-density housing supported by robustly maintained public parks and transit access.
• “Community-Centered Governance” is also not necessarily an outright “no new development” stance. It’s a recognition that if big corporate developers want to come here, they have to listen to our residents, respect our shared values, and contribute to our city like everyone else.
  • Brandon was previously in the Neighbors United group I mentioned in a previous version of this post, but stepped down when he filed to run for office.
• Because I was so impressed with him in our meeting, I think he may have won my second vote away from either incumbent! But there’s still time left to decide.

2. David Mourra (incumbent)

I agree with him on most things, and though I would’ve voted differently on a few topics over his first term, I respect his reasoning and think he’s been a good voice on the council.

• David was waiting outside the clerk’s office when I left my filing meeting because he’s just as organized and responsible as I am. I like that he seems to respect the time and effort of city workers, but I wish he were more willing to compensate them and fund their functions adequately.
• I obviously disagree with his vote in favor of Flock surveillance. I expected his experience in engineering would’ve made him more skeptical of their claims, but he’s an intelligent person who’s guided by hard data so I’m sure he’ll come around.
• I like that he wants to make sure we carefully consider things, but it rarely seems like tabled votes and discussions get substantial new information between then and the follow-up meetings where the vote occurs again. I don’t understand the need for delay, but perhaps there’s stuff behind the scenes affecting it?
• All-in-all talking with Mourra about public safety felt very familiar. It echoed many of the discussions I’ve had over my years as an activist with centrist democrats about their need to find good safe balances for my “radical” ideas. I think we’d work well together, even if we may occasionally get on each others’ nerves, as any coworkers can do.

4. Kalimah Priforce (incumbent)

I tried to like Kalimah. He’s clearly passionate about our city and his geeky charm draws a lot of people to him. I relate to all that too — perhaps with a little less charm and a little more geek. Few paid attention to my efforts in aligning with him until after I’d already had my opinion soured by multiple unpleasant interactions online. Now I often see anonymous commenters saying I’m out to get him or the like. I want to be able to work with anyone on the council, so I don’t like that framing, but he is currently my least favored option. But it’s not because I don’t like many of his principles.

• He’s a true extrovert who really exemplifies the parts of campaigning I find most difficult. I love talking to people, shaking hands, finding where we agree on issues, and amazing future visions for Emeryville, but I need to recharge my social battery a lot in between. Kalimah seems like he lives for that stuff, and I think that’s a great strength in a public official.
• I agree with a lot of his high level objectives: including everyone who lives here in city decisions, especially those of us whose voices have been muted by loud corporate and moneyed interests.
  • I think a lot of his supporters are just like me: we don’t have a ton of time and extra money on our hands to hold city council and others doing the work accountable to the silent majority of voters here.
  • Back when I still used social media regularly, I agreed with a lot of his big political stances. Since quitting it, I’m less aware of all the day-by-day hot takes but I know he and I are still both democratic socialists who love Zohran Mamdani so we can’t be far off in our intentions.
• I look at his first term and simply don’t see someone who’s actually made strides toward those goals. I get that there’s a learning curve — I expect to have my own — but other rookie members David Mourra and Matthew Solomon seem to be doing great work efficiently getting their objectives in front of the council and executing them.
• Not only does he support the Flock contract, but he asked for twice as many cameras as everyone else on the council when he motioned in favor of them.
  • He even requested one be placed near his home.
• Priforce focused his efforts on being given the title of mayor, which is mostly a formality here. The council wasted months and thousands of dollars of taxpayer money on his censure. This was the last straw for me.
  • Whether or not that censure was handled properly is irrelevant, because no other council member has ever caused that.
  • I’ve never seen a flyer in my mailbox for someone running for mayor in a city where there was no mayoral election, let alone from someone who wasn’t even on that year’s ballot. We all have our weird hobbies and passions for graphic design, but most of us don’t forcefully include everyone in our city to participate and pay for it.

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Emeryville School Board (Emery Unified School District Board of Trustees) 💖

There’s not a lot of info about this race yet. I usually decide after seeing the League of Women Voters Forum for this race, which will hopefully happen in September or October.

Regina Chagolla (incumbent) ✅💖

Regina is an elementary school teacher in the Berkeley Unified School District and I voted for her last time. She’s an active and passionate advocate for students and public education, and I fully endorse her.

https://linktr.ee/regina4emery

The Second and Third Seats

After that first vote, I’m undecided about some of the others.

2. (tied) Kimberly Solis is an Emery High graduate and former school board trustee (2020–2024).
3. (tied) Christopher Keith Allen has three children who went through our schools.
4. (tied) David Ridlehuber seems like a decent guy but it’s unclear why he’s running so far. He’s on the art board, so that’s cool.
   
5. Brian Donahue has a permanent restraining order against him for relentlessly harassing public officials and workers. I would feel irresponsible forcing anyone to work with someone who can be so hostile to city workers.

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Emeryville Ballot Measure BB: Business License Tax Reform — YES ✅💖

To protect City of Emeryville services/ensure smaller businesses pay less than larger businesses, shall the measure be adopted to: • keep parks/playgrounds safe; • repair potholes/maintain streets; • maintain 9-1-1 response; • improve crime prevention; • maintain senior/youth services; • general government use; by updating/simplifying Emeryville’s 42 year old business license rates up to 0.4% of gross receipts (described in the ordinance) until ended by voters, providing $12,400,000 annually, requiring independent oversight?

Sounds great to me so far.

I wish it had a more progressive increase for larger companies. We shouldn’t have a maximum annual business tax cap at all, or it should at least be even higher. It only protects the corporations in least need of protection.

How/When Inflation Adjustments Work

Inflation adjustments are great for minimums, but are insufficient for caps that generally affect entities at the accelerated pace of the “winning” side of the stock market. If we need a cap at all (we don’t), I’d suggest doubling the inflation rate on it. High inflation is best mitigated by revenue pulled from the biggest profiteers of such inflation and poured into those worst affected. In this case, that’s probably small businesses or consumers.

But all in all, these are good adjustments and I support the measure.

California Prop 1: Affordable Housing Bond — Yes ✅

Building housing requires flexible funding. It’s annoying that these construction projects tend to always go over budget*, but they do. Bonds aren’t ideal, but they can help us actually finish these projects and not leave them stagnant, as a huge waste of money and effort. Let’s finish this necessary work.

*Part of the reason this happens so often is public officials regularly choose development contracts based solely on the lowest bidder. So those companies are incentivized to cut corners and “forget” necessary line items to make the project work in order to sell the lowest possible estimate. Then, when the winning company is confronted with “Whoa! What a surprise! These lighting fixtures need wiring! We hadn’t anticipated that!” we get endless change orders that bloat the price well beyond those original estimates.

California Prop 2: Rainy Day Fund — Yes ✅

This strikes me as fiscal responsibility. It has broad support from Democrats with vague reasoning about saving money for unforeseen future needs. That crashes against broad descent from Republicans who don’t seem to actually read anything but just yell about “out of control spending” no matter what’s going on in the world at the time.

The only opposition I see boils down to:

We don’t have a rainy day fund in California. All this does is create a bigger slush fund for money to be used the following years instead of returning the money to the taxpayer.

Joe Patterson (R) — State Assembly Member 5th District

Returning money to taxpayers is something only rich assholes expect or care about. Everyone, especially people who need it most, benefit from public services.

• What is Proposition 2 before California voters in the 2026 election? (Mercury News)

California Prop 3: Make High-earner Income Tax Permanent — Yes ✅💖

Tax the rich. Always and forever. Tax them until billionaires stop being a thing. Nobody needs this much wealth, especially while most of us struggle to feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves while ensuring we’ll continue to be able to do so in future years.

California Prop 4: Public campaign financing — Yes ✅💖

Public financing reduces the power of big money in elections.

California Prop 5: Recall Election Reform — Yes ✅

Recalls are absurd enough already without all the current nonsense about choosing replacements. When it comes to voting rights issues, I generally trust the League of Women Voters who’ve endorsed this measure.

California Prop 37: $25 Billion Homebuying Loan — Yes ✅

I believe these numbers are too high. I’d rather cap it lower so it helps people who truly need it most. With that said and with inflation increasing rapidly recently, a little headroom isn’t too bad to fill the gap. I’m hesitantly endorsing this one.

Proposition 38: Immunology research bond — Yes ✅

Selfishly, as someone with Alzheimer’s in my family, I want to give myself and my family the best chance we can get. (Sorry Robert Kaplan)

California Prop 39: Voter ID — No ✅💖

Don’t let oligarchs steal votes from the most vulnerable among us.

California Prop 40: Billionaire Tax — Yes ✅💖

It should be permanent! But that doesn’t mean doing the right thing once is a bad thing. Hopefully this passes and we get more like it next election.

California Prop 41: Audit New Tax Spending — No ✅💖

This “audit” attempts to reverse the billionaire tax, preventing us from spending the revenue or pay it back. I hope California voters are too smart to fall for this.

California Prop 42: Prohibit New Personal Property Tax and Retroactive Taxes — No ✅💖

Prohibiting taxation is unrealistic, irresponsible, and puts a chokehold on public services. This is a blatantly stupid way the richest people aim to punish us for rightfully wanting them to pay their share in taxes.

California Prop 43: Limits Voters’ Ability to Raise Revenue for Local Government Services — No ✅💖

Nothing is more counter to my beliefs than limiting funding essential services to save rich folks a few bucks in taxes.

• Prop 43 on Ballotpedia

California Prop 44: Clinic Funding — Yes ✅

I stand with the United Healthcare Workers Union. There’s a lot of contradicting info from different types of healthcare providers and healthcare admin about this prop, so it’s a little confusing to read about. I choose to pay more attention to the nurses on the ground than to the higher level managers and established doctors who benefit more from the status quo.

California Prop 45: Expedited Environmental Review — No ✅💖

I’m all for consolidating and reducing red tape to build housing, but I don’t believe environmental reviews are the right place to cut back. Air and water quality are already behind public health guidelines set by the WHO as-is. We can’t let big businesses like PG&E and Edison — who’ve been setting our homes on fire, by the way — cut back our environmental protections. Environmental justice means safe air and water for everyone, forever.

• What Price, Abundance? (Sierra Club)

California Insurance Commissioner: Jane Kim ✅💖

My favorite insurance commissioner I’ve ever seen run in my time in California. Let me refer back to my June endorsement:

My years as a board member in my HOA have taught me even more about insurance companies and how they scam us constantly than I already knew before.

This role in state government is more pivotal than many realize. Jane Kim has the right background, the right ideas, and the right endorsements to make the changes we desperately need.

June 2026 Election Endorsements for Alameda County California

California Superintendent of Public Instruction: Richard Barrera ✅💖

Shaw, the president of the Chino Valley Unified school board, has been a vocal opponent of California policies that allow transgender students to participate in girls sports and prohibit school districts from requiring teachers to tell parents if they believe a child identifies as LGBTQ+.

Shaw and Barrera offer starkly different visions for California schools

This is an essential fight for the rights of the most vulnerable.

California State Assembly 18th District: Mia Bonta ✅💖

Mia Bonta has been a solid advocate for those in need. She’s done great work in the state assembly the entire time I’ve lived here. I see no reason to change course.

Andre Sandford has good intentions, but has tired “solutions” to local problems that’ve been shown not to work over decades of attempts. He wants to increase police budgets, thinks cutting property taxes is how we improve affordable housing, and wants to continue tearing up homeless encampments for development. Sounds a lot like a republican to me.

He’s also been spamming my email inbox for several years now, totally ignoring unsubscribe cues. So fuck him.

June 2026 Election Endorsements for Alameda County California

California Controller: Malia Cohen ✅💖

Obvious choice.

California State Board of Equalization, District 2: Sally Lieber ✅

Lieber wins my vote here mostly via her many solid endorsements, but also because her opponent opposes the billionaire tax on spurious grounds.

June 2026 Election Endorsements for Alameda County California

California Secretary of State: Shirley Weber ✅

Obvious choice.

California Treasurer: Eleni Kounalakis ✅

Obvious choice.

California Attorney General: Rob Bonta ✅

Rob Bonta has consistently stood up for everyday Californians throughout his career.

• Acted fast to fight ICE and other fascist attacks on Californians
• Defended reproductive freedoms
• Fought employer wage theft

Bonta on Gender-Affirming Care

Rob Bonta has defended gender-affirming care during his term, though he’s done so using less potent legal tactics many advocates disagree with. He also needed to be pressured into doing a better job at it, which is disappointing. That said, no other candidate will do any better here.

June 2026 Election Endorsements for Alameda County California

Since I wrote this, Bonta has been showing up, and won a recent victory for trans healthcare I’m grateful for.

California Lieutenant Governor: Fiona Ma ✅

Obvious choice.

California Governor: Xavier Becerra ✅

Unquestionably, the lesser of two evils. Xavier Becerra sucks, and we really needed to see that back in June, but here we are in November doing harm reduction once again. Hopefully we can pressure him to do better for us and not just his friends in insurance companies, fossil fuels, and big tech. If not, hopefully we get better options next time.

Endorsements for Races I Can’t Vote In

Oakland City Council (District 2): Nate Adams ✅💖

Nate is a dedicated democratic socialist who wants to make life for working class families easier in Oakland. We share a similar platform, so of course he’s my pick for my neighbors in Oakland.

https://www.nateforoakland.com

Charlene Wang

Charlene Wang

Wang is also great, but I think Nate has a much better pro-worker position on several policies. I don’t believe this district will go wrong with either choice, honestly.

Oakland Mayor: Barbara Lee ✅💖

Barbara Lee is one of my favorite politicians to ever represent me, and she’d have to stop being herself completely to lose my support. Luckily for Oakland and its neighbors, she has not stopped being her amazing self.

https://barbaralee4oakland.com

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Berkeley City Council, District 1: Daria Wrubel ✅💖

I already liked Daria on paper, but when we met at a local event I knew I was among a kindred spirit. I whole-heartedly endorse

https://www.dariaforberkeley.com

Berkeley Rent Board (5 seats)

1. Avery Arbaugh ✅💖
2. Nathan Mizell ✅
3. Ida Martinac
4. Vylma Ortiz
5. Derek Rodriguez

I’ve met the checkmarked folks in person and know they’re on the right track. The others are co-endorsed by them.

Berkeley Measure U: Infrastructure Funding — Yes ✅

While this funding is a drop in the bucket (deficit), we need to fill that bucket and every bit counts.

• Berkeley has a 30-year plan. Its leadership must match (The Berkeley Scanner)

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Alameda City Council (2 seats)

1. Thushan Amarasiriwardena ✅
2. Tyler Savage
3. Amos White
4. Steve Slauson
5. Maria Bondonno

Alameda Mayor: Malia Vella

She had the best answers in multiple forums I’ve seen her in, and has been endorsed by several people I trust in Alameda.

• https://maliavella.com/
• Mayor Hopefuls Differ on Infrastructure Bond, Urban Development Strategies (Alameda Post)

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Albany City Council

1. Jon Destin ✅
2. Aaron Tiedemann
3. Robin López
4. Katherine Enos
5. Chris McDaniels

• Albany council candidates clash over housing, taxes (Albany Scanner)

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AC Transit Board of Directors, Ward 3: Adriana Valencia ✅💖

A fellow New Jersey born Project Manager who’s passionate about reliable, affordable, and transparent public transit organizations will get me every time.

https://adrianavalencia.com

AC Transit Board of Directors, Ward 4: Sarah Syed ✅

Syed is endorsed by several prominent orgs including the Sierra Club. I have no idea who her opponent is.

AC Transit Board of Directors, Ward 5: Murphy McCalley ✅

As far as I can tell, both the other candidates aren’t serious. One of them thinks public transit will somehow be solved with magical robotaxis, and both have no real info but are running for like 5 races simultaneously. Rich dudes have too much free time and money on their hands.

EBMUD, Ward 2: Luz Gomez ✅

Endorsed by The Sierra Club.

EBMUD, Ward 3: Marguerite Young ✅

Endorsed by The Sierra Club.

EBMUD, Ward 7: Gary Wolff ✅

Endorsed by The Sierra Club.

East Bay Parks Director, Ward 3 — Rebecca Lewington ✅

She seems great, and her opponent is accused of sexual harassment and retaliation, so that’s an easy nope.

https://rebeccalewington.com/

U.S. House of Representatives, District 11: Connie Chan ✅💖

Connie Chan is the most competent candidate in this election, and the way she’s conducted herself in her campaign has only made that clearer to me as it’s progressed.

Scott Wiener

Statement Regarding Scott Wiener

I was a hesitant supporter of Scott Wiener after he was pretty effective in his roles. I briefly looked past his many shortcomings because he got a few great things done. But he’s made far too many mistakes for me to tolerate him a moment longer. Luckily, he once again has a great opponent to choose instead.

He was on thin ice with me when he had to be dragged into making the weakest possible anti-genocide statements he could muster. Which uncovered his history pro-Israel action behind the scenes.

A bill currently languishing in the House, H.R. 3565, would block the sale or transfer of certain bombs and other weapons to Israel. Chakrabarti has aired ads calling on Pelosi to support the bill, which has not passed out of committee. Interviewed this week, Wiener twice declined to say how he’d vote on H.R. 3565

Wiener’s Run for Pelosi’s Seat Marks a New Phase for California’s Housing Politics (KQED)

The last straw being him taking attention at the Trans March this June and complete silence in using that attention to support the trans marchers who were unfairly persecuted by unwelcome SFPD officers at their own march. (#noCopsAtPride)

Fuck Scott Wiener.

Media coverage has centered the fears of a cis politician who was yelled at while ignoring families with young children terrorized by police brandishing weapons at peaceful protesters.

A Fuller Story of this Year’s Trans March (Assigned Media)

San Francisco Supervisors Demand Answers After Pride Weekend Police Raid
An example of strong leadership from Jackie Fielder, the one who always should’ve taken Wiener’s seat in the first place.

Algorithmic Endorsements

I endorse these candidates whenever doing so does not contradict any other endorsement above it in the order on this page.

Every Other Working Families Party Endorsed Candidate ✅

https://www.caworkingfamilies.org/bay-area

Anyone Running Against Republicans ✅

If you find a reasonable Republican that’s an exception to this rule anywhere in California, please let me know because it’s such a rarity. Likewise for any feasible non-Republican candidate who’s somehow worse than the Republican they’re running against.