Meet Edward
I’m a renter, union member, LGBTQ community organizer, and public transit professional. I’ve managed winning campaigns and organized marches, sit-ins, protests, and fundraisers. I’ve worked in the labor movement, at nonprofits, and in government.
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I've written laws for three local legislators, overseen budgets to keep projects on track, and built consensus to get difficult things done. And today I advise on transit strategy and communications for the City of San Francisco.
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Funding for public transit is broken. Our politics are broken too. These are the problems I spend every day working on, and these are the reasons I'm running for BART Board.
The Wright Track Record
just a few of Edward's accomplishments
A drawing I made as a kid: my dad as the "king of buses", with a bus-topped scepter and bus seat throne
A lifelong love of transit​
As a queer kid growing up in a small town in Michigan, I was enchanted by transit. To me, if you could take a train to get there, it was somewhere worth going. My dad sold parts for trains and buses, and he'd take me to rail yards and bus yards in cities throughout the Midwest. My grandfather worked on the railroad, and my great-grandfather did too. I always knew I'd live somewhere with transit, and BART made it possible.
Before I could afford to live in San Francisco, as a broke college kid trying to connect to community and culture, BART opened it up to me. Ever since, I've relied on it to get to class, to work, and to see family and friends.
And like everyone who counts on BART, I'm worried the opportunities it's given me won't be there for the next generation.
BART's future is our future
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Every day, hundreds of thousands of people take BART to jobs, community, and culture. Every day, it keeps hundreds of thousands of cars off our roads, and their carbon emissions out of our atmosphere. And BART is essential to our economic recovery, and our climate, housing, and equity goals.
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All of that is at stake in this race. BART's ridership is less than half of what it was before the pandemic, and it's facing a fiscal cliff in just a few years that could change or destroy the system as we know it. The challenges facing BART are existential. But I've never been afraid of a challenge.
The challenges facing BART are existential — but I've never been afraid of a challenge.
When Trump began separating and detaining families at the border, I cofounded Families Belong Together San Francisco, cofounded a benefit fund for immigrants and refugees, and organized 12 hours of continuous protest at the only ICE Detention Facility in the Bay Area that led to the cancellation of ICE’s contract. When Patriot Prayer and open white supremacists came to San Francisco, I helped organize the Come Together March and raise over a hundred thousand dollars for nonprofit groups working on the ground to empower communities of color and combat white supremacy.
When the pandemic hit, as Chief of Staff for Supervisor Gordon Mar I worked to write and pass laws to expand paid leave and labor rights for essential workers with Public Health Emergency Leave and helped create a new right to re-employment for workers who lost their jobs due to COVID-19. I spearheaded our work to create the car-free Great Highway Park, a controversial issue I never shied away from, and the Outer Sunset Farmers Market and Mercantile.
I helped strengthen our democracy with 2018’s Sunlight on Dark Money ballot measure, the strongest dark money disclosure law in the nation. And I expanded public financing in local elections to amplify the voice of working people in our politics — because the volume of your voice in our democracy shouldn’t be determined by the size of your bank account.
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I proudly served two terms as President of the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club, one of the largest Democratic Clubs in our City. I’ve served on the Board of Women’s March San Francisco, New Leaders Council San Francisco, the New Avenues Democratic Club, and the Working Families Party Bay Area.
Today I work on transit strategy for the City of San Francisco, helping lead our efforts to improve safety, speed, and reliability on Muni. I live in SoMa, right by Civic Center station, with my husband Joe, puppy Stella, and cat Maiqui.
And I would be honored to continue to serve San Francisco as your voice on BART Board. I'm the only candidate in this race with experience in public transit, public policy, and public budgets, which are the core responsibilities of the office I'm running for, and I believe this seat is how I can be of best service to my city and community.
This system and this city have given me so much, and this is how I can give back — by putting my experience to work to ensure BART not only survives, but thrives.
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Black Lives Matter Sunset Solidarity March on the car-free Great Highway, June 2nd 2020. Photo by Karl Mondon