Hi YIMBY Prop Supporters!
When we started the campaign for our housing ballot measure last year, we were looking at a low-key June election where our ballot measure would take center stage.
But then last month, Mayor Lee, a champion for housing, passed away. Suddenly, the June election — with a citywide, hotly contested mayor’s race — took on a different cast.
Based on all these changes to the immediate political landscape, we’re rolling back the YIMBY ballot prop to the November election.
For most people, this won’t even seem like a big change: all the signatures we’ve collected are still valid, and all the work we’ve done just sets us up for a more secure victory in November. You’ve all done incredible organizing for this ballot prop, and I’m going to ask everyone to keep on working because we’re going to rely on you more than ever going forward.
All this means is that our ballot prop will go on the November ballot instead of the June ballot, with a greater chance of passing and more time for our volunteers to collect signatures.
Reasons to push to November
- We need to focus more on the mayoral election!
With the tragic death of Mayor Ed Lee, the June election is going to be a completely different race. We need to focus a lot of our organizing energy on making sure housing is the number one issue in this race.
- We can run a stronger campaign in November!
The mayoral election will take up a lot of attention in June. It’ll be easier for us to put by-right affordable housing center-stage if we wait until the November election.
- None of the work we have done is lost!
Every signature we’ve collected is still valid, and this offers us an opportunity to run a more grassroots campaign where volunteers make an even bigger difference. Because people have been trained, with more time, we can get more membership-driven signatures.
This also means we can grow our list. Our volunteers have been very successful at having conversations with people on the street and adding to our overall mailing list, helping us grow the movement.
- We can do more activism around statewide issues!
We’ve grown really fast. I don’t think you all quite understand how fast we’ve grown. Membership was launched one year ago, and now we’re close to 1,000 members. We have the ability to make a big impact statewide. By giving ourselves a bit more breathing room for the San Francisco ballot prop, we can up our activism around statewide measures like State Senator Scott Wiener’s SB 827.
This is the right decision and the right strategy for prioritizing our energy and resources for the June election. When we started with the June plan, everything about the political landscape was different. We shouldn’t be stubborn in the face of change and ignore the benefits of shifting focus to November.
That said, there’s still a HUGE amount of work to be done:
- We’ll be mobilizing volunteers to collect signatures for another couple months.
- We’ll be making endorsements for the June election.
- We’ll be fundraising to send our endorsement slate card out city wide.
- We’ll be hosting forums and events for our candidates.
- We’ll be asking you to connect with endorsed candidates and support their campaigns.
- We’ll be mobilizing in support of state bills like SB 827.
- We’ll be making housing the top priority for every election in California this year.
Thank you for being in this with us. We fight, we win!
Sincerely,
Laura Foote Clark