There Were No Losers in this City Council Race
Assuming the results hold, it appears incumbent Sue Beckmeyer and first-time candidate Christine Boles have earned seats on the Pacifica City Council. The Nov. 8 general election also brought more money to City Hall in the form of a sales tax increase, but little clarity to the debate over fireworks sales as Measure Q failed but just barely.
The good news? The election was orderly. We had none of the nonsense election officials experienced in battleground states across the nation. However, voters were fairly disengaged. San Mateo County reported Friday that 149,225 ballots had been counted from a pool of 432,707 registered voters. That means just over a third of potential voters have been noted so far.
It will get better as the count continues, but it’s not likely to be very good.
Nearly 52 percent of voting age citizens voted in the midterms in 2018; 62 percent of voting age people voted in the 2020 presidential election. If that feels like a lot, consider that ranks 31st among 49 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center. Uruguay came out on top with 90 percent of registered voters casting ballots. The U.S. found itself between Greece and Colombia. Switzerland brought up the bottom with only 45 percent voting.
Doing better will take attention from all of us, including last week’s winners — and losers.
We want to congratulate the victors. Both Beckmeyer and Boles won by considerable margins. In District 5, the incumbent’s focus on the economy and infrastructure clearly resonated with Pacificans who have struggled through a pandemic with less than robust municipal services. She is “only” entering her second term, but she’s been involved in the city’s civic life for years, having been president of the Pacifica Library Foundation and a member of every civic club from Linda Mar to Fairmont. The District 2 winner, Boles, has made a name for herself as a thoughtful environmental champion who does her homework and lives what she preaches in a home that is a model for new construction. We have every reason to believe they will make constituents proud.
We also want to thank two upbeat, community-loving local men who ran clean, robust candidacies for City Council, even if they came up short in the tally.
Paul Chervatin was energized to protect San Pedro Mountain from development due to two housing proposals that he and many others think irresponsible. His pro-environment stance gained notice from lions of Pacifica politics like former mayors Sue Digre and John Keener, and he was proud of the endorsements from labor and open space groups.
Robby Bancroft seemed to be everywhere at once in District 2 in the weeks leading up to the election. The passionate affordable housing advocate was indefatigable, and his social media campaign should go down in Pacifica lore as a model for attracting nontraditional voters to the process.
Why are we taking time to appreciate the “losers”? Because the term is a misnomer, and the continued participation of Bancroft and Chervatin and thousands like them in Pacifica and across the country is absolutely key to our future.
Nationally, pundits are crediting younger voters like Bancroft and Chervatin with preventing a “red wave” that threatened to wash over America leaving a battered democracy that would no longer accept election results and turn back the clock for women and other groups. Our local races were nonpartisan, thankfully. That is why they focused, for the most part, on real issues, and candidates didn’t feel the necessity to answer the drumbeats of tribalism.
We hope, and frankly know, that Chervatin and Bancroft will continue to be part of solutions in Pacifica.
By Clay Lambert, Pacifica Tribune | Nov 15, 2022
Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney
