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PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Supervisor Matt Gonzalez Endorses
District 5 Candidate Ross Mirkarimi
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- August 11, 2004 -- The Ross Mirkarimi
for District 5 Supervisor Campaign announced today that Supervisor
Matt Gonzalez endorsed Mirkarimi as his successor for District
5 Supervisor. The announcement was made today at a joint press
conference at the Ross Mirkarimi for District 5 Supervisor
campaign headquarters.
“In an exceptional field, Ross Mirkarimi stands above
the crowd. He has wide governmental experience and the ethics
and maturity the job demands. He'll be a strong, yet pragmatic,
progressive voice for District 5,” said Matt Gonzalez,
President, Board of Supervisors.
Ross Mirkarimi will be an independent voice on the Board
of Supervisors. He will bring the courage and leadership needed
to address the city’s most pressing issues. Mirkarimi
has lived in San Francisco for over twenty years and has been
a tireless force for progressive change.
As a strategist, Mirkarimi has led some of the most seminal
campaigns and legislative causes in San Francisco seen during
the last ten years; chief among them are: Prop. H, Police
Reform and Accountability; Public Power; Sunshine Laws; Return
of District Elections; Campaign Spending Limits; Enactment
of Transgender Rights; and the creation of the Department
of the Environment. Mirkarimi has also helped a number of
underdog candidates win elected office.
Currently on a leave of absence from the San Francisco District
Attorney’s Office for his D5 Supervisor run, Mirkarimi
has worked for the D.A. since early 1996 as a criminal investigator
specializing in corporate crime and insurance fraud as well
as environmental crimes. As lead investigator, Mirkarimi was
instrumental in the prosecution of the Old Republic Title
Company -- a complex embezzlement case that resulted in the
conviction of the Chief Financial Officer and the return of
millions of dollars to San Franciscans and statewide consumers.
In addition to concentrating on white collar crime, Mirkarimi
has investigated youth-related crimes and elder abuse. Prior
to Mirkarimi becoming an investigator, he took the unconventional
step of enrolling in the SF Police Academy, graduating as
class president.
Garnering early constituent relations experience, Mirkarimi
served as a legislative aide for Supervisor Terence Hallinan;
assisting Hallinan in crafting some of the most critical legislation
of his term, while also troubleshooting daily for the many
constituents who had grown frustrated with City Hall’s
maze of red tape.
Culminating experience into action, candidate Mirkarimi vows
to be more than just a legislator -- he pledges to do everything
in his power to make life better for all D5 residents. Mirkarimi
will work to strengthen tenant rights, make homeownership
more accessible, bring better mass transit, improve pedestrian
and bicycle safety, bolster Mom and Pop business opportunities,
and work to enact a city-universal healthcare system.
Mirkarimi lives in the Western Addition, ground zero for
the epidemic gun violence in D5. As Supervisor, Mirkarimi
will not let the streets claim our youth without fighting
for effective remedies and increased job opportunities; and
Mirkarimi will not let people walk in fear without enacting
an accountable community policing system.
Mirkarimi was honored by the San Francisco Bay Guardian as
a "Local Hero" 2002 and named by Campaigns &
Elections Magazine as one of "15 National Rising Stars,"
2004.
For more information about Ross Mirkarimi, or to volunteer,
please visit the campaign Web site at www.rossforsupervisor.org
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SEIU, San Francisco’s Largest Union,
Endorses District 5 Candidate Ross Mirkarimi
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- August 18, 2004 -- The Service Employees
International Union (SEIU) has endorsed Ross Mirkarimi for District
5 Supervisor. The SEIU was expected to back a single candidate
who is currently a union organizer, but instead included Mirkarimi
in a three-way endorsement.
“As the leading voice
for working families in San Francisco, the SEIU felt this decision
was a political and moral obligation,” said Monadel Herzallah,
organizer for SEIU 1877. “We needed to give the SEIU members
and residents of San Francisco the opportunity to choose the
best candidate in this uniquely competitive race.”
In San Francisco, the SEIU represents over 33,000 registered
nurses and health care employees, homecare workers, public service
and building services workers, and others. The union’s
endorsement process includes extensive interviewing and deliberative
evaluation by the member leadership.
“The SEIU’s
democratic process showed that this election is not about politics
as usual,” said Mirkarimi. “They realized that there
was more than one candidate with a strong track record of supporting
workers’ rights and organized labor.”
Mirkarimi has been a strong advocate for organized labor for
over 15 years. He credits Mid-western union organizers for mentoring
the early development of his organizing skills. In a number
of campaigns, Mirkarimi has called for the revitalization of
labor unions, including the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act and
of NAFTA/GATT, and for the cessation of outsourcing jobs. He
has also worked to support the creation of a living wage and
state laws that protect union organizing.
In the early 1990’s, Mirkarimi was the legislative aide
for Supervisor Hallinan at a time when some of San Francisco’s
strongest labor legislation was passed into law.
When Mirkarimi helped lead legislative or electoral causes,
his campaign alliances included labor unions. For instance,
in 1994, Mirkarimi forged an unusual coalition of pipe fitters,
Teamsters, and environmental groups to defeat development projects
in Contra Costa County that did not meet local union hiring
standards. As campaign director for MUD Now, Mirkarimi worked
with union labor advocates to build an unusual coalition of
labor, social justice and environmental groups, and community
groups promoting the 2001 public power measure.
Founded in 1921, the SEIU is the largest union in San Francisco,
California and the nation, representing 1.6 million working
people and 120,000 retirees.
For more information about Ross Mirkarimi, or to volunteer,
please visit the campaign Web site at www.rossforsupervisor.org
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
District
5 Candidate Ross Mirkarimi Gains Major Environmental Groups
Support
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- August 16, 2004 -- The Ross Mirkarimi
for District 5 Supervisor Campaign announced today that two
major environmental groups, the Sierra Club and San Francisco
Tomorrow, have endorsed Ross Mirkarimi for District 5 Supervisor.
“Ross has been an environmental leader for nearly 20
years,” said John Rizzo, Chair of the Sierra Club’s
San Francisco Group. “His work has led to much of the
environmental structure we now take for granted, including
the Department of the Environment and the City’s Sustainability
Plan.”
The environmental groups listed Mirkarimi’s experience
in environmental activism, policy advocacy, and environmental
law enforcement as reasons for supporting his bid for Supervisor.
“Environmental protection and good government reform
have been significant pillars in my drive to make all our
lives better, which is why I am honored to have these endorsements,”
stated Mirkarimi. “I’ve always felt that people
have a right to a clean and safe environment. You can’t
separate the environment from most other issues.”
Mirkarimi has promised to push environmental policies at the
Board of Supervisors, including building a coalition of interests
to enact transit-first policies, reducing air pollution, and
moving forward with the stalled solar power initiatives that
he helped pass in 2002. During his run for office, Mirkarimi
has taken a leave of absence from the District Attorney’s
Office, where he investigates corporate environmental crimes.
Mirkarimi, who holds a Master’s in Environmental Science
from the University of San Francisco, began his environmental
work as an undergraduate. In the early 1990s, Mirkarimi twice
traveled to Iraq to lead a Harvard team to study the environmental
impacts of the Persian Gulf War. He published reports in the
New England Journal of Medicine and other publications.
Mirkarimi helped bring to mainstream audiences the notion
of “environmental racism” as Supervisor Terence
Hallinan’s legislative aid in the in the mid-1990s.
His policy work led to the creation of an environmental response
team aimed at the pollution in Bay View Hunters Point. Mirkarimi
was an architect of the City’s Department of Environment,
and was the Environmental Commission’s first vice chair.
Mirkarimi has also led the efforts of several environmental
ballot initiatives, including the public power measures, which
would have increased the use of sustainable energy.
In 1991 David Brower, the Sierra Club’s first executive
director, wanted Mirkarimi to kick-start the Earth Island
Voters Project--an alternative version to the Sierra Club
and League of Conservation Voter’s national electoral
advocacy arms.
The Sierra Club is the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots
environmental organization, with over 720,000 members. Inspired
by nature, the Sierra Club works to protect our communities
and the planet.
San Francisco Tomorrow is a citywide urban environmental organization
founded in 1970. San Francisco Tomorrow is dedicated to promoting
environmental quality, neighborhood livability, and good government
in San Francisco.
For more information about Ross Mirkarimi, or to volunteer,
please visit the campaign Web site at www.rossforsupervisor.org
Press About Ross:
The San Francisco Examiner
Gonzalez
smiles on Green pal
August 12, 2004
Matt Gonzalez has weighed in on the crowded race to succeed
him as District 5 supervisor, calling progressive strategist
and California Green Party co-founder Ross Mirkarimi "simply
the best candidate to be my replacement."
August 12, 2004
latimes.com
August 9, 2004
S.F.
Takes the Lead in New Voting Method In November, voters will
select
their first, second and third choices for candidates in city
races. By Lee
SAN FRANCISCO The city that brought the nation beat poetry,
free love and sourdough bread now is taking on election reform.
With a quiet nod from the secretary of state, San Francisco
will soon let voters rank multiple candidates in citywide
elections, a system that proponents say would eliminate the
“spoiler” problem if used nationwide.
Beyond Chron
Ross
Mirkarimi: Progressive Change, One Campaign at a Time
July 5, 2004
The San Francisco Examiner
ROSS
MIRKARIMI has jumped into the District 5 supervisor fray
May 14, 2004
SF Progressives
Run
Ross Run - Longtime progressive and Green Party leader Ross
Mirkarimi should join the race to succeed Matt Gonzalez
April 25, 2004
San Francisco Bay Guardian
Ross
Mirkarimi named local hero by SF Bay Guardian Best of the
Bay 2002
2002
The Boston Globe
Stakes
high in mayoral race
December 8, 2003
"They're trying to make this a partisan race, that we're
this sort of insurgency trying to take over the town,"
said Ross Mirkarimi, a cofounder of California's Green Party
and a spokesman for the Gonzalez campaign.
"He wants to be a great mayor for San Francisco first
and a great Green second," Mirkarimi said of Gonzalez,
a former Democrat who changed parties three years ago just
before a runoff that won him his seat on the Board of Supervisors.
"This is not about us being anybody's spoiler."
San Francisco Bay Guardian
Matt's
momentum
December 17, 2003
Gonzalez strategist Ross Mirkarimi was more direct: "We've
birthed a movement," he told the Bay Guardian. "Now
we have to make sure it survives."
Salon
Can
Bush be toppled?
June 13, 2003
Mirkarimi: "Bush is beatable. It's going to be tough,
but he is. I think that the economic turmoil and the disclosure
of this administration's deceit -- whether about the case
to build a war against Iraq or the administration's engineering
of unilateral contracting to friends of the Bush administration
-- could be the downfall of President Bush. But that's predicated
on the Democrats' ability to find and home in on their voice,
as they should as the loyal opposition, and to wage an effective
campaign."
Minnesota Daily
War
has long history of wreaking havoc on environment
April 25, 2003
"Long after hostilities cease and peace is achieved,
the lingering consequences of the war continue to harm Iraq's
ecology and people," said Ross Mirkarimi, an environmental
crimes investigator for San Francisco's district attorney's
office.
San Francisco Bay Guardian
Public
power Hall of Fame
January 22, 2003
DOZENS OF ACTIVISTS and organizers lent time and funders (including
the Bay Guardian) lent resources for the Proposition D campaign.
At the top of the list is Ross Mirkarimi, who led the fight
and built up the public power coalition's strength for two
years running, with very limited resources and against great
odds.
The Nation
MUD-Wrestling
in California
November 12, 2001
"This is the beachhead campaign," says Ross Mirkarimi,
campaign director for MUD Now!, a coalition of labor, environmental
and community groups. "If we win, dozens of other cities
will start to look at replacing corporate control with democratic
control of utilities."
San Francisco Bay Guardian
March 22, 2000
FOI
[Freedom of Information] winners
SFS [San Franciscans for Sunshine] was and remains a coalition
of activists and organizations representing a wide spectrum
of concerns. The award specifically recognizes Ross Mirkarimi,
SFS cochair and Prop. G campaign manager; SFS cochair and
gay and lesbian rights activist Jeff Sheehy; lawyers Thomas
Burke and Stephen LeBlanc, who drafted the text of the Sunshine
Initiative; the San Francisco Green Party, whose massive signature-gathering
efforts were decisive in qualifying the initiative for the
ballot; the Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods, which
did much to spread the word and rally neighborhood support;
and others.
The Denver Post
March 17, 1992
Iraq
Paying Bloody Price for War, Study Says
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