Celina Reynes for San Leandro City Council


I'm so excited to announce my support for the campaign of this incredible community organizer, advocate, activist, educator, Alameda County Democratic Party associate, former East Bay Stonewall Democrats Club Board member, and, most importantly, my friend... Celina Reynes for San Leandro City Council!

Celina is a third-generation San Leandran, a descendant of Portuguese immigrants, a vibrant member of our LGBTQ+ community, and has been an integral part of the work happening in our city to implement progressive initiatives, from police reform to homelessness to healthcare to the environment to local development.

She founded San Leandro for Accountability, Transparency, and Equity (SLATE) which successfully jump-started the city's creation of civilian police oversight through a grassroots movement of hundreds of residents, local leaders, and social service organizations.

Celina also served on the Community Advisory Budget Task Force (CABTF), including a leadership role in crafting a statement of shared values where she ensured that San Leandro prioritized equity, innovation, safety, health, sustainability, functionality, transparency, and accountability.



In the middle of all of this, she has continued to work with our youth as a school teacher at Bishop O'Dowd during the historic and unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19. She was also recently admitted to UC Hastings Law! She volunteers at community cleanups, organizes and speaks at local events, as well as donates to our neighbors in need. Celina embodies public service as she embraces the work we still need to do to build a better San Leandro for everyone.

Coming up on October 16, she will be holding a birthday/campaign kickoff at nearby Drake's Barrel House from 1:00 to 3:00 PM. (Masks are required.) RSVP here. Recommended ticket price is $27 and cake and refreshments will be served. They're going to have a slew of amazing speakers lined up, including Victor Aguilar, Aisha Wahab, Igor Tregub, Deborah Vanderzon Acosta, Nick Thorn-Sermeno, as well as many others.

In the meantime, you can donate here and, also, don't forget to follow her campaign online.

I'll say it right now and I will stand by it: a vote for Celina Reynes is a vote for a San Leandro we can all be proud of!


Take note and take care.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

San Leandro Crime Rates: What's Happening?

Image
(Photo credit: SF Chronicle ) If you live in the Bay Area, you've probably been inundated with hysteria about the local crime rate from catalytic converter thefts to store burglaries. So what's happening in San Leandro? Well, let's dig into the data.  https://www.sanleandro.org/449/Crime-Analysis . I looked at the December 2022 Uniform Crime Report (UCR) for the most recent data. Total YTD Crimes for 2022 are almost the same as they were in 2019, within 5% of each other. Thankfully, nearly all of that is property crime and not violent crime (property crime is, coincidentally, 95% of all crime in 2022 and 2019). Still, it's hard to call crime going back to pre-pandemic levels as we continue to transition out of the pandemic anything other than a return to normal. Albeit, a still unsatisfactory normal. I say unsatisfactory because total YTD arrests have continued to decrease significantly since 2017, when the high was 2,799 compared to 2022's 1,292. It's unclear
Read more

A Brief History of Zionism

Image
( From JTA ) I cannot help but notice a lot of disinformation, ignorance, and bigotry coming from people who call themselves pro-Palestinian and/or pro-Israel as this conflict continues to spiral into ever more suffering. Sometimes, I feel like the best thing I can do when struggling amidst human tragedy is to focus on education as a path for compassion, understanding, and solidarity. Since I am Jewish, I will tell a story of my people. So, I am here to share a little bit about the history of Zionism , which at its core is the belief in the Jewish people's right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. While Zionism has this central core meaning, there are several expressions (or "flavors") of it in practice: political, revisionist, labor, cultural, religious, practical, reform, & radical. There's actually even green Zionism! But all forms tie back, in some form or another to Israel - actually Yisrael, whether Am (the people), Eretz (the land), Medina
Read more

HOPE for Housing in San Leandro

Image
Do you believe everyone deserves a safe place to call home? It's a simple question really, but for some people, the answer isn't. As far back as 1944 , we've known that housing is a human right. Even now, when we think of the "American Dream" we think of housing. We imagine a place to live and call our own. So much of our identity and community is intertwined with the place we think of as home. But for many people in San Leandro that's impossible. The minimum wage here is $15.50 per hour . Assuming you are getting shifts full-time, your annual earnings before taxes are $32,240. Meanwhile, the median rent for a studio apartment is $1,849 per month. That's $22,188 per year. You now have $10,052 left for everything else . Oh, but wait, taxes are actually $5,408! Now you only have $4,644 for groceries, utilities, internet, transportation, health insurance, and maybe some clothes to wear. For the entire year. After rent and taxes, you have to live on $387 pe
Read more