Petrelis Files

SF Ex: Petrelis' BART Positive Pledge, Vote for Jane Kim

To her credit, Supervisor Jane Kim attempted to get her state senate opponent Supervisor Scott Wiener to sign a positive pledge, avoiding negative or malicious attacks by the candidates and their surrogates with a focus on issues. Wiener rejected Kim's request to jointly put their names on the pledge.

I was inspired by Kim and reached out to my two opponents for the BART board seat in District 9, asking them to sign a positive pledge. My hubby has voted-by-mail for Jane and I will do the same on November 8. Vote for Jane Kim for state senate and reject the politics of her competitor.

Today's SF Examiner printed a letter from longtime sunshine advocate Patrick Monette-Shaw touching on some of these facts. I'm happy he wrote this and that the paper ran it, if only because it's more attention for the BART race and gives my campaign mainstream media attention.

Vote for zealous Petrelis for BART board! Thanks.

How about the death of playing by the rules?

Stuart Schuffman’s column about the end of civility was terrific, reporting that Supervisor Scott Wiener refused Supervisor Jane Kim’s call for a pledge not to run negative attack ads in their state Senate race. “Who does that?” Schuffman wondered.

Stuart, meet Gwyneth Borden, candidate in the BART District 9 election.

BART candidate Michael Petrelis called for a similar pledge, which he and Bevan Dufty signed. Borden refused, saying she was politely declining signing. Her rationale? “Ultimately, history is not on the side of African-American women who play by the rules.”

Borden quoted a character from the movie Working Girl: “You can bend the rules plenty once you get to the top, but not while you’re
trying to get there. And if you’re someone like me, you can’t get there without bending the rules.”

Is no-negative-ads civility any skin off Borden’s nose? Along with the death of civility, is playing by the rules also now dead?

Patrick Monette-Shaw