Three LGBTQ community leaders have won appointment to San Francisco s Immigrant Rights Commission, helping to double queer representation on the civic advisory body. At its March 9 meeting, the Board of Supervisors unanimously voted 11-0 to seat the trio of out applicants along with three straight people seeking to be reappointed.
Commissioner Jessy Ruiz Navarro, who is originally from Mexico and the advisory body s lone transgender member, secured her reappointment. When she joined in 2019 Navarro was the panel s first commissioner whose primary language isn t English.
Joining the commission is artist Lucia Obregon Matzer, a queer immigrant from Guatemala who became a U.S. citizen four years ago, and gay Walnut Creek resident Luis Zamora, who works in San Francisco as a facilities supervisor at law firm Morgan Lewis & Brockus LLP and is the current public policy chair for the Golden Gate Business Association, the country s oldest LGBTQ chamber of commerce.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has seated three straight members on the Historic Preservation Commission, leaving it for the time being without anyone from the LGBTQ community. Mayor London Breed is facing pressure to name an out person to a fourth seat she has yet to fill.
Last month, Breed did not reappoint the commission s two gay members, Jonathan Pearlman and Aaron Hyland, who had been serving as the commission s president. Pearlman s Seat 3 is to be filled by an architectural historian, and LGBTQ community leaders have encouraged Breed to name Hyland to it.
Breed spokesman Jeff Cretan told the Bay Area Reporter last week that the mayor will take the lack of LGBTQ members on the commission under consideration as she makes her decision on whom to appoint. It weighs in on such matters as landmarking LGBTQ historic sites in the city and approving queer-owned legacy business and nonprofit applications.
A trio of out applicants seeking appointment to San Francisco s Immigrant Rights Commission won support Monday from the Board of Supervisor s Rules Committee. The full board at its March 9 meeting will take up their appointments as well as the four straight applicants who also secured a recommendation from the supervisor panel.
Aiming to continue serving is Commissioner Jessy Ruiz Navarro, who is originally from Mexico. She first joined the oversight body in 2019 as its first transgender member and its first commissioner whose primary language isn t English.
Navarro, who works for the Mission Neighborhood Resource Center, does not live in San Francisco so requires a residency waiver in order to continue to be an immigrant rights commissioner. The rules committee voted to support her remaining in her Seat 1 on the advisory panel.
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