Two candidates — both of whom have served on the city’s Human Welfare and Community Action Commission — filed their intent to run for the District 2 Berkeley City Council seat this week.
Cheryl Davila and James Reagan submitted the paperwork Tuesday and Friday, respectively. Councilmember Darryl Moore, who was first elected in 2004, filed his intent to rerun for the seat in February.
District 2 comprises the southwestern region of the city, stretching from the Berkeley Marina in the west to Sacramento Street in the east. It is bordered by the cities of Oakland and Emeryville.
Davila was appointed by Moore to the Human Welfare and Community Action Commission in 2009. She served on the commission until September 2015, when she was removed from her seat by Moore after she brought forth a proposal to divest city funds from companies affiliated with the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
In March, Davila was restored to the Human Welfare and Community Action Commission after she was recommended by other commissioners to fill a vacancy in her district’s elected seat.
“My courage and commitment to the community mandates not caving into greed or the ability to be bought or sold,” Davila said in a statement submitted to the Berkeley Progressive Alliance. “I will be dedicated to building bridges to unite our community and neighborhoods.”
Reagan said he encouraged Davila to run for the spot and listed her removal from the commission as one of his motivations for running. He expressed the importance of providing a range of choices for voters in local elections.
“When it came down to the line of looking at (the proposal), she was terminated,” Reagan said. “I thought that was dead wrong.”
If elected, Reagan said he would stress the consideration of commissioners’ voices. He added that he also would focus on issues of affordable housing, homelessness and government transparency.
When Reagan first came to California in 1984, he struggled to find affordable housing and was sleeping in his car, he said. During this time, he stayed in a homeless shelter that later offered him a job. Since then, he has co-founded 17 homeless shelters and now serves on the Homeless Task Force.
Reagan also served as a human welfare commissioner between 2010 and 2014. He was the Government and Community Relations Advisory Board member of People’s Park from 2007 to 2010.
Nanci Armstrong-Temple applied to be endorsed for the District 2 seat by the Berkeley Progressive Alliance, but no paperwork showing her intent to run is listed on the city website.
According to her statement to the Berkeley Progressive Alliance, Armstrong-Temple has organized in the movement for black lives and served on the board of the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, a social justice organization.