Milk club under fire
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Star power for One Fair Wage
ARTS
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Roberto Devereux
Nightlife events
The
www.ebar.com
Since 1971, the newspaper of record for the San Francisco Bay Area LGBTQ community
Vol. 47 • No. 38 • September 20-26, 2018
Public weighs in on next SF health dept. head Cynthia Laird
Mark Leno
Leno rules out 2019 mayoral run by Matthew S. Bajko
D
espite losing the special mayoral election in June by 1.1 percentage points to London Breed, gay former state senator Mark Leno has ruled out challenging her in 2019 when she seeks a full, four-year term. In an interview Monday with the Bay Area Reporter, Leno said that, “I have no plans to run at this time.” He noted that any serious challenger would need to soon enter the race. “It is coming up fast,” he said of next November’s election. “Whoever does run needs to start a campaign within months.” He declined to comment on how he felt his opponent in the race has been handling being mayor since her swearing-in ceremony in July. Breed sent him a See page 14 >>
San Francisco health commissioners, including Cecilia Chung, right, listen to public comment about the next health director during a meeting Tuesday.
by Alex Madison
T
he most common attributes people want to see in the next San Francisco health director are prioritizing collaboration, support for nonprofits, and mitigating health disparities among minority communities.
Those were the themes of a public meeting convened by the Health Commission as it seeks a new director following the abrupt departure last month of Barbara Garcia, a lesbian who had led the sprawling agency for nearly eight years. Garcia was forced to resign due to a conflictof-interest investigation into allegations that she failed to disclose her wife’s income from a
college that had received a million-dollar, solesource contract with DPH, according to the San Francisco Chronicle and other newspapers. Garcia had been with the department since 1999 and was selected as the department’s director in 2011 by then-mayor Gavin Newsom. The commission welcomed public comment See page 12 >> Jane Philomen Cleland
Nonbinary person heads youth panel by Alex Madison
T Gaku Shiroma/Gaku Shiroma Photography
Judge Jonathan Karesh
Gay judge to preside over San Mateo courts
by Matthew S. Bajko
J
udge Jonathan Karesh is set to become the second LGBT judge to preside over the San Mateo County Superior Court when he begins a two-year term in the leadership position in January. It is believed that, come 2019, Karesh will be the only LGBT presiding judge of a county court system in California. And he will be one of only a few nationwide; a map of LGBT judicial officials compiled by the LGBTQ Victory Fund lists only two out presiding judges at the moment. “It really is an honor to get this position and to know my colleagues have the confidence in me to do it,” Karesh, 58, told the Bay Area Reporter in See page 15 >>
he San Francisco Youth Commission swore in a new nonbinary chair and transgender vice chair last week, and almost one-third of its members identify as LGBTQ. The commission is a body of 17 youth between the ages of 12 and 23 who represent the city’s 11 supervisorial districts. It was created by voters under a 1995 amendment to the City Charter and is responsible for advising the Board of Supervisors and the mayor on policies and laws related to young people. This year the commission plans to work on issues surrounding gun violence, violence in schools, voting rights, and increasing affordable housing. Chair Bahlam Javier Vigil, 20, is genderqueer and prefers gender-neutral pronouns. Vigil was a commissioner last year, and decided to run for chair, which they won by a 12-5 vote. “My motto as a person of color is that it’s my responsibility to ensure that people with a similar skin color, and all other minority groups, get the representation they deserve and need,” Vigil told the Bay Area Reporter. Their vision for the commission includes making “drastic changes for a more accountable and productive commission.” Vigil, the District 11 representative, plans to make some logistical changes, including creating two legislative affairs officer positions on the commission. Currently it only has one. Vigil wants the commission’s three separate committees: criminal justice, civic engagement,
Rick Gerharter
Bahlam Javier Vigil is the new chair of the San Francisco Youth Commission.
and housing to work closely with the supervisors’ legislative aides. Each committee working on legislation will be required to work with at least one legislative aide to ensure there is no overlap when it comes to what aspects of legislation the Board of Supervisors is already working on. Vigil also encouraged his executive officers to build stronger relationships with individual members of the commission, something that was lacking last year, they said. “When you build personal relationships, you can support one another a lot more,” Vigil said.
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An example Vigil gave of this was if LGBT members have experienced something personal that they don’t want to share with the commission as a whole, they can personally reach out to an executive officer who can advocate on their behalf. Vigil will also put in place more detailed and structured job duties for each role of the commission to make meetings run more efficiently, along with requiring the three committees to submit a monthly report to the executive members of the commission detailing what they are working on. “I am trying to make as many internal changes for the commission to flourish this year,” they said. “I also want the leaders to be able to leave the commission with a political foundation and platform, resources, and a network to be able to continue their political and advocacy work.” This is an opinion shared by the new vice chair of the commission Felix Andam, 16, and another queer trans commissioner, Jo Jo Ty, who is 19. All three of the commissioners said they plan to advocate for the LGBT youth community. “There is a lack of queer and trans youth representation at the city government level. As a youth commissioner, I want to use this platform as an opportunity to raise awareness of issues LGBTQ youth face in the city because our needs are not being met under this current system,” Ty, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, told the B.A.R. “If we don’t address these issues, LGBTQ youth will remain disconnected, unheard, and invisible to their peers, community, and elected See page 15 >>