Part 1: SF Rules Committee & BOS Meeting: What a fucking week!
Mandelman Reveals His Trumpian Self with Sunshine Task Force. Lead up to Dorsey's associates and policy advisors targeting and harassing me again, the worst I've felt since 2023.
Do you want to know what the local effects of Trump and Musk’s techno-billionaire fascist takeover looks like on the local level? This post will tell you so.
Once again I was targeted, filmed and harassed for exercising my 1st Amendment right of free speech—the very same free speech that lawyers say allows my harassers to say all they do about me. It was a week where a local journalism student interviewed me, my family and friends for a profile on me, and I got to hear so many wonderful things about how my activism has inspired others, how much they value it. At the same time, it was a week where my harassers leveled up their creepiness, filming me as I was making this public comment (photo below), imediately posting it on Musk’s Nazi X platform to rile transphobic hate against me. I was sitting next to Laurence Lee, who I best know as a SF Board of Education recaller. We are aware of each other, two people on opposite sides of the political spectrum. I looked down at his phone and saw him watching a video of my public comment already on X. “Are you watching me?” I asked him. He looked at me, “Yes.”
I share my perspective as an autistic, ADHD, trans, bisexual person of Mexican heritage abolitionist who lives in the heart of severely overpoliced “the open-air drug market.” Another disclaimer is I have no faith in our government, so I judge without any benefit of the doubt. This is where my experience being a vocal resident of SF targeted by friends of my D6 Supervisor has led me.
But first, the Rules Committee meeting.
Monday, February 24, 2025. Rules Committee Agenda & Video
I really was expecting a quick, boring meeting, but then BOOM! Agenda #2 rolled up with a showdown for an appointment to the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force.
250120 [Sunshine Ordinance Task Force] Hearing to consider appointing one member, term ending April 27, 2026, to the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force.
Vacant seat 10, succeeding Thuan Thao Hill, resigned, must have demonstrated interestin, or have experience in, the issues of citizen access and participation in local government, for a two-year term ending April 27, 2026.
1 seat / 2 applicants
Cynthia Dai, seat 10
Honest Charley Bodkin, seat 10
Per the Sunshine’s website, “The purpose of the Task Force is to protect the public's interest in open government… to ensure that deliberations of commissions, boards, councils and other agencies of the City and County are conducted before the people and that City operations are open to the people's review.” This is a pretty important task force for maintaining transparency in our government, and holding our government accountable to that. Without transparency there cannot be accountability.
I knew of Honest Charlie from his mayoral bid this past election, and his following me on Instagram. I’ve also seen him regularly attend BOS meetings because apparently he has a civics blog as well. I have no opinion on him beyond that. I did not know Cynthia though learned she has been very involved in local government.
The two applicants were allowed a couple minutes to make their case for being appointed. Honest Charlie went up to bat first, extolling his previous journalism experience, his civic blog, and no mention of the mayoral run. He was also allowed to go over his alloted him. He let slip that he was told this seat was for bloggers just like him. Chair Walton asked, “You told you that?” After a hesitant pause, Honest Charlie said he spoke with someone on the Sunshine Task Force. That was all he said, very transparent indeed.
My takeaway was this seat isn’t specifically for bloggers like Opaque Charlie.
Cynthia stepped up next and extolling all her experience in local government, including Redistricting, and as well as serving on non-profit boards. She even came prepared with three ideas to improve the task force. One interesting tidbit she shared was 50% of the Sunshine requests are due to 7 people who don’t follow through.
Public comment on this agenda item proceeded. Honest Charlie had one guy in his corner, another fellow who ran for mayor in November. Cynthia had several people hype her up. Her supporters were people from orgs like the League of Women Voters. One guy kinda threatening there would be consequences for not appointing Cynthia who is also a lesbian; he claimed the SF Board of Education (BOE) recall was partially inspired by a gay parent being passed over for a Parent Advisory Council seat. Being that the BOE recall was an astroturf, right-wing, racist, mysoginistic shitshow, that’s quite the message to send.
I was last to give my two cents, summarizing that the woman candidate (who is Asian and lesbian) is obviously overqualified for this seat, outshining Honest Charlie, a white man. She has all the qualifications City Hall values. But if the seat was given to Honest Charlie, it would be an obvious “fuck you” to anyone who wasn’t a white man. I ended, “So it seems like you’re in a pickle here and maybe this government system isn’t working out.”
Mandelman smiled as he watched me walk to my seat. He was still staring and smiling after I sat down, so I tilted my head and smiled back. He immediately dropped the smile and turned his face back to his laptop. That’s actually caught on the SFgov video recording, interesting to watch. I suspect it was because I just unwittingly set him up to look bad, but who knows what makes these powerful men smile at me.
Mandelman spoke. He flat out said because Cynthia did not share the same opinions as him he wasn’t going to vote for her. He respected her, he thought she was intelligent, but he disagrees with her opinions often. He thanked Honest Charlie for speaking with his staff. Is this the “task force” Opaque Charlie was referencing? Mandelman continued that he knew there were more applicants in the pipeline, one of which incorrectly submitted their application to his office. Is this normal, yall? The President of the BOS vetting applicatings for the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force and only approving ones that align with him? Does that sound a little…Trumpy? A lot Trumpy?
Chair Walton said he believes in diversity and doesn’t choose people on whether they agree with him or not. He didn’t want to embarass anyone but he was going to hold a vote on selecting Cynthia with a positive recommendation to the full Board. Walton voted Aye, Vice Chair Sherrill and Mandelman voted No. Next week’s Rules Committee meeting is canceled so we’ll have to wait a little bit to see who the next Sunshine applicants are.
So…this Rules Committee meeting was Monday. After this meeting I did some writing at a cafe, transcribed a poem I’ll be reading in public, and met up with the student journalist for my interview. I was feeling rather great, you know? That sense of happiness in this horrible, facist, anti-trans, white supremacist country would be shot down the next day. Thursday I would have the worst panic attack of my life, not sure if I was having a heart attack. My wife would have to spend a while telling me to breathe in and out, me in fetal position against her lap with my eyes shut. I share this so you get a small sense of how real and detrimental this targeting and harassment these sociopathic associates and policy advisors of my Supervisor is.
Part II: SF Rules Committee & BOS Meeting: What a fucking week! coming soon.