Extra

After two terms, I get the impression that Buffy Wicks doesn't want to represent me, or District 14. Yet she is so confident of keeping her state Assembly seat that yard signs, speechmaking (beyond select audiences) and appearing on the same stage as her opponent, i.e. acting the part, are plumb unnecessary. The 'check incumbent' box is enough for the un-wary who affect every key election.

Her series of triumphant Draconian housing legislation suggests she represents some other locale, perhaps in Trump Country. Rather than community or constituency, she overtly serves YIMBY ideology, and its purposeful smothering of opposition, forcing inappropriate development on now-defenseless communities, under its grand master Sen. Scott Wiener. Gutting a health bill (AB 598) to become a support for BAHFA intrigues tells me she doesn't fear sneezing. Thank your higher PG&E rates on her killing AB1999. As for the UC-'I Love Noise' (AB 1307) success, please note her own quiet neighborhood.

So, why should we trust someone over 30 to replace her? Margot Smith is a longtime resident of Berkeley, with a UC PhD in Public Health. She didn't suddenly appear, as if on assignment. She says, "I'm running because I object to the laws the Buffy Wicks votes for", and exemplifies what might be called Berkeley Values: Housing for all incomes, not by developer diktat; Support of environmental laws, not their evisceration; Public schools, not charters; Support of newsprint media, not social-media gloss-overs; Fixing Prop 13, and the return to our communities the right to their own voices