OpEd: Sean Elo-Rivera for City Council District 9

Editor’s Note:  San Diego Jewish World plans to announce its official endorsements in October for national, state, and local offices as well as on ballot measures facing voters in the Nov. 3 election.  In the meantime, we have invited our regular contributors, as well as members of the San Diego County Jewish community, to offer their personal endorsements, giving positive reasons for voting for a candidate of their choice.  We anticipate we will receive endorsement columns from both sides of the aisle, and pro and con arguments regarding ballot measures.  We hope they will be of assistance to our readers. If you’d like to submit an endorsement OpEd, please send it to donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com.  Remember, we are looking for positive reasons to vote for your candidate, not attacks on the opponent! — Donald H. Harrison

By Bernie Rhinerson

SAN DIEGO — In 2018, from out of the blue, I got a call from a young man named Sean Elo who said he wanted to talk to me about running for a seat on the Community College Board of Trustees. I agreed to meet Sean for a cup of tea at LeStat’s Coffee House to talk about his plans.  I really liked Sean right from that first conversation. I was so impressed by his sincerity, his passion to serve and his commitment to make a contribution that would help the young people in his community.

During that first conversation, Sean told me he was going to run a campaign against David Alvarez, a very well-known former city councilmember who had already gotten my formal endorsement, the endorsement of the District’s employee union and the local Democratic party.  I told Sean he was a long shot but that I was happy to help him with my knowledge and insights about our community colleges and our Board responsibilities. Sean impressed me with his passion to work with the youth in his community and his abilities to set up a grassroots network of supporters for his campaign. There was just something about Sean that made me think he just might pull off an upset and win his first political campaign.

And that’s what he did, in November 2018 Sean was elected to the San Diego Community College District Board of Trustees in an upset that shocked political insiders.  He won with huge support from young voters and through his tireless efforts to knock on doors and connect with voters.

Before I tell you more about Sean’s work as a community college trustee and why I think he will make an excellent city council representative, let me share some insights about Sean’s background.

Sean was elected to our Board, I was the only Jewish Board Trustee, you know the one who has to remind staff every year to avoid setting meetings on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. As I got to know Sean better through our work on the Board, I learned about his Jewish heritage and about his deep commitment to Jewish values.

Over several conversations, I learned that Sean’s father was Jewish and his mother’s family are Ashkenazi Jews who came to Brooklyn, New York from Ukraine to escape the pogroms that took the lives of so many. His father’s side are Sephardic Jews who were forced from Spain to Turkey and then to Syria where they eventually fled to New York to avoid persecution. Sean shared that he received some formal Jewish religious training in middle school, but the most important lessons he learned while growing up came from conversations with his father and from his own self-education.

Sean and I talked about our work on the Community College Board as our work for “Tikkun Olam,” helping the world. I could see that this was a Jewish value that Sean was passionate about and that he was committed to Tikkun Olam in everything he was doing in his life. He also talked about his how his personal studies of Jewish history and values gave him a deep sense of commitment to the principles of honesty, integrity, and justice for all, especially those who are subject to the most intense forms of oppression. I could clearly see that Sean saw is public service work as a reflection of his Judaism.

Sean’s strong commitment to social justice and “opportunity for all” (his campaign slogan) have guided his work on the Community College Board.  During the last two years, I have worked closely with Sean on the Board’s sub committee to develop our annual Board goals.  Sean has been a real leader helping to infuse social and racial justice goals into our Board’s policy goals and has also strongly supported making environmental justice and climate action a priority for our District. Sean has uplifted student voices and input, always is seeking student involvement and comment on all of our Board actions. Throughout all of his work as a Board trustee, what has impressed me the most is Sean’s strong sense of ethics, honesty and transparency, character traits that are essential for good governance and which will serve him and the community well when he is elected to the City Council.

I am hopeful that voters of City Council District 9 will also recognize Sean’s character, his intelligence and his commitment to community service when they cast their ballots. Sean is working hard to pull off another upset against opponent Kelvin Barrios, who is heavily funded by his union employer and who is reportedly under investigation for his misuse of funds from campaigns he has worked on. Sean, on the other hand, is continuing to put his values to work in his community to create opportunities for young people and is working hard to connect with the voters before this important election.

If you live in District 9, I encourage you to vote for Sean because he can bring energy, new ideas and the right values to our City Council.  To learn more about Sean, visit https://seanelorivera.com .

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Bernie Rhinerson is Board Trustee of the San Diego Community College District