Soli Alpert (Berkeley City Council District 4, California, candidate 2024)

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Soli Alpert

Nonpartisan

Candidate, Berkeley City Council District 4

Elections and appointments

Last election

May 28, 2024

Education

High school

Lowell High School

Personal

Birthplace

San Francisco, CA

Religion

Jewish

Profession

Public servant

Contact

Campaign website

Campaign Facebook

Campaign X

Campaign Instagram

Soli Alpert ran in a special election to the Berkeley City Council District 4 in California. He was on the ballot in the special general election on May 28, 2024.^[source]

Alpert completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Soli Alpert provided the following biographical information via Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey on May 9, 2024:

• Birth date: May 23, 1997
• Birth place: San Francisco, California
• High school: Lowell High School
• Gender: Male
• Religion: Jewish
• Profession: Public Servant
• Prior offices held:
  • Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board Commissioner (2018-Prsnt)
• Incumbent officeholder: No
• Campaign website
• Campaign endorsements
• Campaign Facebook
• Campaign Instagram
• Campaign X

Elections

General election

Special general election for Berkeley City Council District 4

Soli Alpert, Elana Auerbach, Ruben Hernandez Story, and Igor A. Tregub ran in the special general election for Berkeley City Council District 4 on May 28, 2024.

		Candidate
		Soli Alpert (Nonpartisan)
	Submit photo	Elana Auerbach (Nonpartisan)
	Submit photo	Ruben Hernandez Story (Nonpartisan)
		Igor A. Tregub (Nonpartisan)

---

	Incumbency information for this election was not available.
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

Endorsements

To view Alpert's endorsements as published by their campaign, click here. Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Alpert in this election.

Campaign themes

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Soli Alpert completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Alpert's responses.

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Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I’m proud to serve Berkeley as the Vice Chair of the Berkeley Rent Board. I became involved in local progressive activism as a student at Cal, first with UC Berkeley Students for Bernie, which became the Progressive Students Association, and then with the campaign of Councilmember Kate Harrison in 2017. After her victory, I joined her staff as a part time Legislative Assistant. I was elected to the Rent Board in 2018 with the Right to Housing Slate. The following year, I worked with my coworkers to unionize the City of Berkeley’s Legislative Assistants with SEIU 1021, the union representing most City of Berkeley employees, and served as a steward and delegate for the union until 2022. I was first elected Vice Chair of the Rent Board by my colleagues in 2020, and re-elected in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

I am also active in progressive Democratic politics, being twice elected as an Democratic Party Delegate from our Assembly District to the State Democratic Party Central Committee. I currently serve on the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club Coordinating Committee and as an Alternate Member to the Alameda County Democratic Party Central Committee. I am a member of Local Progress, a national coalition of local progressive elected officials, and East Bay DSA.

In my non-political life, I’m an avid player of TableTop Role Playing Games, and can often be found rolling dice at Victory Point Cafe and Games of Berkeley.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

• Affordable Housing for People, not Profit:

  Invest City resources to build new affordable housing for our community, and convert existing market housing into affordable, social, and cooperative housing; Advance compassionate solutions to homelessness, prioritizing services rather than punitive measures; Expand and protect tenants’ rights, including passing TOPA; Ensure our housing supply is accessible to seniors and disabled residents; Strengthen local labor standards in new development, building on the successful model of the HARDHATS Ordinance; Further our commitment to Right of Return and other policies that address red-lining, displacement, and gentrification;

  Enhance City enforcement of housing anti-discrimination law
• Public Safety for All: Reduce the scope of police in areas such as noise complaints, mental health response, homelessness, and traffic enforcement so that they can focus on the areas where they are most effective; Expand our Specialized Care Unit to 24 hour service and insource this work to City workers; Increase street lighting and other forms of environmental deterrents to crime; Invest in unarmed ambassador programs that provide services like walking people to and from their cars at night, as recommended by the Commission on the Status of Women; Waive qualified immunity for armed City personnel; Save Alta Bates hospital through the creation of a public health district; Build community readiness for fire and invest in fire safety
• Making Berkeley Work for Working Families: Expand the City’s enforcement of our local labor laws; Pass universal just cause in employment for all workers; Use City contracts and grants to promoting unions and unionization; Develop good paying, dignified jobs that reinvest in our community; Ensure pay and benefits for City workers are competitive with the private sector to attract and retain workers; Support small businesses in the Downtown, including by penalizing corporate landlords for prolonged commercial vacancies; Partner with Berkeley City College to provide education and career opportunities for working-class young people

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

As a Council Aide, I have advanced policies in support of workers’ and tenants’ rights, affordable housing and anti-speculation and anti-displacement, and open and transparent governance reforms. I co-wrote the Berkeley Fair Workweek Ordinance, which brought landmark labor protections to shift workers in our community.

As a Commissioner and now Vice Chair, I have collaborated on proposals to expand the coverage of eviction control to more Berkeley tenants, shone a light on government inaction to protect tenants facing dangerous and uninhabitable living conditions, and advocated for mitigations in City upzoning proposals to protect vulnerable communities from displacement. I am proud to have helped author and pass the Empty Homes Tax.

What do you believe are the core responsibilities for someone elected to this office?

I believe that Berkeley is a truly unique community and presents a unique opportunity to advance progressive programs and policies at a municipal level that will advance the interests and well-being of working people. Berkeley is small enough that dedicated grassroots organizing can directly compete with big-money power, has enough resources to advance groundbreaking progressive policies, and has a progressive voter base that supports those efforts. We have been first in the nation on so many things as City, including opposition to South African apartheid, banning natural gas in new buildings, requiring curb-cuts in sidewalks, adopting local sanctuary city policies for draft dodgers during the Vietnam War, and giving benefits to the same-sex partners of City employees.

I believe a Councilmember with values rooted in the working class, in co-governance with progressives, tenants, and the labor movement can make Berkeley a testbed for a new generation of national firsts. And we can do that while delivering paved, safe streets and sidewalks, public safety for all, and housing affordability. We don’t have to choose, as some have suggested, between a bold progressive agenda and the nuts and bolts of local government - we can do both.

What is the first historical event that happened in your lifetime that you remember? How old were you at the time?

I’m not sure if it’s the first historical event that I remember, but the earliest political event that informs my values is the Prop 8 campaign in 2008. I was born and raised in San Francisco to lesbian moms. I remember sitting in the back of our car while we drove down Mission St, and my mother pointing up to the yellow “Yes on Prop 8” signs covering the second story windows of a martial arts dojo. “They want to divorce us,” she said.

It was bizarre to see people in my community openly calling for a policy that would hurt me and my family based on their personal religious views. It has informed my steadfast belief that government policy should always be used to benefit the vulnerable and most in need, not punish or isolate people you view as different.

What organizations or individuals have endorsed your campaign?

SEIU Local 1021

DSA
California WFP
Berkeley Tenants Union
Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club
Our Revolution East Bay
East Bay DSA
Cal Berkeley Democrats
UC Berkeley YDSA
Telegraph for People
Berkeley D4 Councilmember Kate Harrison
Berkeley D7 Councilmember Cecilia Lunaparra
State Senator Aisha Wahab
Berkeley School Board President Ana Vasudeo and Director Mike Chang
AC Transit Board Director Jovanka Beckles (#2)
Berkeley Rent Board Chair Leah Simon-Weisberg and Commissioners Nathan Mizell, Dominique Walker, Xavier Johnson, Ida Martinac, Vanessa Marrero, and Andy Kelley
Oakland City Councilmember Carroll Fife
Former Oakland Mayor Jean Quan
Former Alameda County Superintendent Sheila Jordan

A supermajority of Berkeley D4 City Commissioners

What are your views on financial transparency and government accountability?

Some Councilmembers and senior management seem to view public oversight as an impediment to their “more enlightened” work. I fundamentally reject this. The job of the City is to serve our residents. When people have questions about how their money is being spent and their services delivered, we need to answer their questions, not brush them aside or attack them as obstructionists. And the job of Councilmember is to engage in the political work of holding the City accountable to the standards and expectations of our residents.

Too often, political disagreement is suppressed while personal conflict flourishes. I promise to hold to my values and the values of D4 and not be cowed into pretending all is well when it is not. That doesn't mean we can't work cooperatively on common goals. There are things about which I agree with every member of the Council. But far too often, I have seen elected officials enter the Council and get stuck in the echo chamber, forgetting that our job is to work for the people of the City, not protect each other and management from criticism.

I will defend public process from attacks like the recent attempt to move all Council meetings to 10 AM, which would impede many working people from being able to attend meetings. I will work professionally and respectfully but hold fast to my obligation to transparency and accountability. It is not unprofessional to hold the City Manager accountable to our residents expectations, as some Councilmembers seem to think. It is in fact the core of a Councilmember's job.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

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