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Vol. 52 • No. 10 • March 10-16, 2022
Castro merchants decry ‘routine’ vandalism by Eric Burkett
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fter a chilly weekend, it was a beautiful, warm Monday morning in the Castro. A promising start to the week, unless you happen to own Mudpuppy’s. The night before, March 6, someone smashed the large plate glass windows of the 10-year-old dog grooming shop, which hung over the holding pens where their canine clients await their turn with their groomers. By Monday morning, two workmen were busy installing new windows. Inside, co-owner Todd Ahlberg was feeling frustrated with what was only the latest in an ongoing stream of vandalism on Castro Street that have become seemingly routine. “If there had been a dog in the window, they’d have been killed,” said Ahlberg, a gay San Francisco native. He had heard the attack – and Ahlberg feels strongly it was an attack – from his apartment upstairs above the shop. Running downstairs, he saw who he said was a man he recognized throwing benches from a neighboring ice cream shop into his storefront. The suspect, said Ahlberg, was a guy he’d seen around the neighborhood for the past two months, a guy he’d seen allegedly smoking
Courtesy Ballotpedia
The Stanley Mosk Library and Courts Building in Sacramento is home of the 3rd District Court of Appeal.
Number of CA LGBTQ judges continues to climb by Matthew S. Bajko
U
nder Governor Gavin Newsom the number of LGBTQ judges continues to climb on the California bench. Since he took office in 2019, the number of out jurists on state courts has increased by at least 30%. Due to omissions and a lag time in the reporting of LGBTQ demographic data for California judges, the growth rate in seeing LGBTQ people become judges is likely even higher. After a lackluster start during his first year in office, when the ranks of LGBTQ jurists remained flat, Newsom has helped spur two years of growth through his appointments to judicial vacancies. According to the latest demographic data for the makeup of the state courts, annually released on March 1, there was an official tally of 76 LGBTQ judges as of December 31, 2021. But the number of LGBTQ people serving on the California bench is now at least 83, according to figures compiled by the Bay Area Reporter. That total includes the swearing-ins of gay Alameda County Superior Court Peter E. Borkon last month and lesbian Justice Laurie M. Earl to the 3rd District Court of Appeal in January; both were appointed by Newsom. There are now five LGBTQ appellate justices in the state, even though the data for 2021 shows there being only two. Borkon brings the number of out judges on the Alameda bench to 10, the most of any county in Northern California. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles County Superior Court continues to have the most out jurists of the state’s 58 county court districts, with at least 26 serving as of December 31 based on the latest data. Over the last 14 months the number of LGBTQ judges grew by at least 14%. It is a slight decrease from the nearly 16% increase in out jurists seen last March, as the B.A.R. reported at the time.
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Todd Ahlberg stands in front of his dog-grooming business, Mudpuppy’s, as a workman replaces the shop’s windows following a vandalism incident the night before.
meth, a guy who had been taken in by police recently after behaving erratically, naked and dragging a blanket at 18th and Castro, only to show up on the street again two days later. “He’s progressively getting more dangerous,” said Ahlberg.
See page 10 >>
Out South Bay judges tell their stories by Heather Cassell
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ecoming a judge in California is not easy, as most jurists are appointed by the governor after applying and waiting a year or more. The number of LGBTQ judges in the state increased in 2021, according to data released by Governor Gavin Newsom’s office, and there are now at least 83 out members in the judicial branch, according to data from the state and the Bay Area Reporter. Three of Santa Clara County’s six out judges recently participated in a panel discussion and talked about their career paths and what it means to create welcoming courtrooms. Ken Yeager, a gay man and executive director of the Bay Area Municipal Elections Committee Foundation, which sponsored the event, invited the trio as part of the organization’s focus on South Bay LGBTQ history. “If I had to take a test on ‘Jeopardy!’ on how many we had and who they were, I would have probably failed it,” said Yeager, a former county supervisor and San Jose City Councilmember. In the process of reaching out to the jurists, he discovered how “remarkable” they all are, he said. Judges Julie Emede, Charles F. Adams, and Jessica Delgado took part in the February 12 panel at San Jose’s History Park. The other three, Judges Jacqueline Arroyo, Beth McGowen, and Shawna Schwarz, who was the county’s first out jurist, were unable to participate. “It’s very important for the LGBTQ community to really know who these community
See page 11 >>
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Eric Burkett
City public safety officials said the problem is common not just in the LGBTQ San Francisco neighborhood but also up and down the state. “What you’re talking about is a larger social issue that is daunting to the state of California,” said David Burke, a civilian with the San Francisco Police Department who serves as District 8 public safety liaison. “These people should be in mental institutions that we don’t have. If we don’t have that, what do you think is going to happen? “The police are out there doing their job,” said Burke, a straight ally. “We do everything that we can. What we’re talking about is a much larger societal problem that we’re not going to arrest our way out of.” Ahlberg’s frustration is nothing new. Many of his neighbors feel much the same. Vandalism is a serious problem brought in, they say, by the large numbers of homeless and mentally ill folks who come to the Castro to hang out or to pitch their tents for shelter. At a meeting of the Castro Merchants Association only five days before Ahlberg’s shop was vandalized, Paul Perretta, co-owner of Hot Cookie, complained of vandalism at his store. Someone
Heather Cassell
Administrative Presiding Justice Mary Greenwood of the 6th District Court of Appeal, left, moderated a panel featuring out Santa Clara County Superior Court Judges Julie Emede, Charles F. Adams, and Jessica Delgado at History Park in San Jose, February 12.
leaders are,” Yeager said. An estimated 30 people came out to the park to listen to the judges speak. The event took place outside of the “Coming Out: Queer Silicon Valley” exhibit that the B.A.R. previously reported on. Speaking about their experiences and what they bring to the county’s courts and the people who enter their courtrooms, the judges were humble and thoughtful. The judges spoke about their unusual journeys to the bench, being out in the courtroom, and creating welcoming courtrooms that are inclusive.
Journey to the bench
None of the judges had traditional paths to the bench.
A Midwestern woman, Emede, 60, came to California to live her life freely. She started her career in the technology industry at HewlettPackard, managing products for Asia. While working there, she decided to go to law school and follow her teenage vision to be an attorney and a judge. “In the back of my head, I thought, ‘Well, if it doesn’t work out, I’ll just go back into business,’” she said about going to UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. “Fortunately, it did work out and it’s really what I wanted to do.” She came out in law school and didn’t look back, finding herself appointed to the Santa Clara County Superior Court by Republican former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2009. She took her seat on the bench in 2010. Adams, a 43-year-old gay man born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, practiced civil litigation and family law before becoming a research attorney for Santa Clara County Superior Court. He then became a staff member for U.S. District Judge Edward John Davila in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Assisting judges with legal research for cases, he realized that he wanted to become a judge himself. The opportunity came when former Governor Jerry Brown (D) appointed him to the bench in 2018. Adams spoke about hesitating when faced with the question to list his last nine courtroom cases. He hadn’t argued a case in court for about nine years at that point, he said. See page 10 >>
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