The San Francisco Board of Supervisors Rules Committee on Monday advanced the application of Amerika Nachele Sanchez to a vacant seat on the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force. Cynthia Dai, a lesbian and former elections commissioner, had applied for the seat but was not present at the March 24 meeting after her name was not advanced at a meeting last month.
The committee forwarded on Sanchez's application with a positive recommendation to the full board on a 2-0 vote. (Committee Chair District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton had an excused absence.) The seat is for an unexpired term that ends April 27, 2026.
Dai's application was seen as being in jeopardy after the February 24 rules meeting when gay board President Rafael Mandelman, who sits on the rules committee, said he could not support her because he disagrees with her, as the Bay Area Reporter previously reported.
Dai, a former member of the San Francisco Elections Commission, first spoke at the committee's February 10 meeting, where she was the only applicant for the sunshine task force. There, several members of the public spoke against her, mainly because they didn't like actions the elections panel took in 2022 during the city's contentious redistricting process. The elections commission had three appointees on the redistricting task force and at one point the commission eyed removing them, though that did not happen.
Reached by phone March 24, Dai said she wasn't aware her application was still active and had another obligation so was not at the meeting. She had no other comment.
At Monday's rules committee meeting, there were three other applicants, including Honest Charley Bodkin, who was also present at the February 24 meeting. At the time, the committee also declined to advance his application forward, and Mandelman had hinted there might be additional applicants.
Those included Sanchez, a District 10 resident and principal for the Five Keys Schools and Programs, and Kartik Sathappan, who works in tech and was not present at the meeting. District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill, who was serving as acting chair of the committee, said that Sathappan had sent a letter to the panel.
In addition to serving as a school principal, Sanchez is also a member of the city's Human Rights Commission, she told the panel.
"I'm very interested in the seat for the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force," Sanchez said.
She explained that her experience as a school principal will serve her well dealing with issues of transparency and public accountability.
Mandelman noted the importance of the task force, whose creation voters approved 27 years ago. Its purpose is to protect the public's interest in open government. It also provides information to city departments on appropriate ways to implement the Sunshine Ordinance. However, Mandelman also said that a lot of city resources go into the task force for its responses to complaints, some of which are routinely made by the same people. He asked Sanchez how the work of the task force could be improved.
Sanchez responded that she would look at labor and other costs in the interest of the task force's time and how it is used.
Bodkin spoke at Monday's meeting and reiterated his support for open government. A former reporter at the Los Angeles Times, Bodkin, who goes by Charley, said he also had ideas to speed up the process of complaints made to the task force.
"Should I be appointed, I won't let you down," he said.
Three members of the public spoke during public comment. One was in support of Bodkin and one was in support of Sanchez. The third speaker read a previous statement issued by the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club that chastised Mandelman for thwarting Dai's application.
"We are disappointed that Board President Rafael Mandelman has chosen to derail Cynthia Dai – a qualified queer candidate for the Sunshine Task Force – simply because he 'disagrees' with her," the club stated March 3. "This is not how you foster good governance. This is politics, plain and simple."
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