More than half a century after Norris P. Gregory for Black people seeking elective office in San Bernardino, incoming council members Ben Reynoso, Kimberly Calvin and Damon Alexander are primed to set another precedent for the local Black community.
Come Wednesday, Dec. 16, when the three newly-elected officials take their place on the City Council, San Bernardino will have three Black representatives serving concurrently for the first time.
“The public is miles ahead of the hiring authorities in the city when it comes to being inclusive of African Americans,” Hardy Brown, a Black pioneer and local community leader, said this week. “This is why I am fighting so hard to bring diversity to the city staff and especially in the Police Department.”
In a year when several Inland Empire cities declared racism a public health crisis following the deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, San Bernardino’s new governing body not only reflects the majority-minority city, but also voters’ call for racial representation at City Hall.
“I’m very aware of the struggles of the African American community and the Latino community,” said Reynoso, who is biracial and set to represent the 5th Ward. “Right now, I have an extremely unique opportunity to be as honest as I can. I’m not campaigning anymore. I want people to know I’m going to be as true as I can. I want people to say, ‘He did tell the truth. He did say how it felt when it comes to the way we feel policed, feel targeted, how the outreach from the police isn’t as preventative as it can be.’
“I have the opportunity to meet people I’ve never met before, a lot of Black and Brown people,” Reynoso added. “To tell them ‘I’m you. I represent you because I understand you.’”
While incumbent Councilman Juan Figueroa and Calvin won election to their respective 3rd and 6th ward posts in March’s primary election, Reynoso and Alexander raced ahead of their Election Day opponents last month and were certified winners Tuesday, Dec. 1, by the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters.
At 28, Reynoso is one of, if not the youngest candidate to win a seat on the council.
Alexander, meanwhile, is the first Black man elected to represent the 7th Ward.
“Having three African Americans being elected to the council at one time shows that we as a city have grown,” Alexander said. “It doesn’t matter what ethnicity you are or what culture you belong to as long as you put the people first and that is your first priority.”
When the new council convenes for the first time later this month, in more ways than one it will bear little resemblance to the seven-member body that represented more than 215,000 residents just two years ago.
Aside from Mayor John Valdivia, a two-term councilman when he ran for the city’s top elected position in 2018, Councilman Fred Shorett, who narrowly won reelection two years ago, is the last remaining link between the two councils.
Throw in the recent hiring of City Manager Rob Field and leadership at City Hall has been overhauled in short order.
“I think we were voted in because people knew the way we were engaging them was authentic. It wasn’t a sales pitch,” Reynoso said. “So what we offer as new blood or whatever you want to call it is a genuine authenticity when it comes to representation, actually listening to people and not becoming the expert once you get elected.
“Your role,” Reynoso added, “is just like any great teacher or anybody who steps into a role that is above the typical notion of a learner. Representatives need to be learning all the time from their constituents.”
Among the issues to address once in office, Reynoso said he intends to champion higher development standards, education initiatives and career employment. Inspired by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and the former presidential candidate’s penchant for attracting young people to politics with truth, Reynoso, a Cajon High School graduate, said he hopes to do the same here.
“The future is the youth,” he said, “and I will be intentional about engaging with them.”
As a retired special agent with the U.S. Department of Justice, Alexander said he is especially concerned with the homicides “currently plaguing our city.”
Having brought down crime in the once-beleaguered Delmann Heights neighborhood when he was an active agent, he said, Alexander hopes to broach with police leaders actions San Bernardino can take to thwart the latest “homicide scourge.”
“People want to feel safe,” he said. “People want to know they can walk their dogs and go to the park and walk to their car without knowing that something’s going to happen to them fatally. We have to know that our Police Department is doing something other than business as usual.
“If there’s something of this magnitude going on in our city,” Alexander added, “it’s not good enough to talk about it. We have to do something. We have to be action-oriented.”
Charged with speaking out for the first ward drivers see traveling east on the 210 Freeway toward San Bernardino, Calvin, executive director of Akoma Unity Center, believes her Westside neighborhoods have been chronically marginalized and neglected.
“I believe the 6th Ward is the gatekeeper to the city flourishing,” she said. “I’m interested in making sure when folks enter into San Bernardino through the 6th Ward they have options to spend their dollars here in their own neighborhood: entertainment, food, grocery stores, housing. What don’t we need in this area?
“I believe as we begin to tackle the quality of life we have within our community, you’ll see the sense of pride that has always been there.”
More than three decades after Valerie Pope-Ludlam became the first Black councilwoman in San Bernardino, Calvin, now set to represent Pope-Ludlam’s former ward, acknowledged the significance of sitting beside two other Black leaders, while also recognizing the added responsibility being Black and in a position of power brings.
“Honestly, I believe that people may see themselves on the council more at this point in time,” she said. “But nevertheless, historically, when African American, when Black people obtain or reap certain positions, we also have more responsibility on us, which means you have to work two to three times harder.
“I do believe Councilman Reynoso and Councilman Alexander, we’re very, very much aware of what is upon us,” Calvin continued, “and we have agreed that we will work very, very hard to make sure that when people look back in history, they will say we were some of the hardest working council members San Bernardino has ever had, and that we definitely left our mark on the city.”
The swearing-in ceremony is set for 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 16, via web conference.
