Join us as Michelle Meow brings her long-running daily radio show to The Commonwealth Club one day each week, exploring important issues of interest to the LGBTQ community.

Our in-studio special guests this week: Jeff Sheehy, incumbent District 8 Supervisor in San Francisco, and Rafael Mandelman, who is running to replace Sheehy on the Board of Supervisors

Jeff Sheehy was appointed District 8 supervisor by Mayor Edwin Lee on January 6, 2017 to fill the seat vacated when Scott Wiener was elected to the California State Senate. Jeff is a long-time HIV/AIDS activist and pioneer for LGBT equality who has dedicated his life to public and community service. As former president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, as former Mayor Newsom’s HIV/AIDS advisor, and as a victims’ advocate in the San Francisco District Attorney’s office, Jeff Sheehy has spent his career fighting to protect vulnerable communities.

Before joining the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Jeff led communications at UCSF’s AIDS Research Institute, educating the public about UCSF’s cutting-edge research. Jeff is the first person openly living with HIV to serve on the Board of Supervisors. A pioneer in the LGBT equal rights movement, Sheehy helped create and pass San Francisco’s historic Equal Benefits Ordinance, making San Francisco the first city in the United States to require that all businesses and organizations seeking city contracts offer domestic partner benefits.

Jeff is a longtime Glen Park resident and neighborhood activist, where he lives with his husband Bill Berry and their daughter Michelle, who attends San Francisco public schools.

Rafael Mandelman is running to represent District 8 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. As an urban development attorney, Rafael has spent the last 17 years building affordable housing, revitalizing commercial districts and making more livable neighborhoods in the Bay Area. Growing up in the city, Rafael attended Brandeis Hillel Day School and Lick-Wilmerding High School before going to Yale on scholarship. While at Yale he studied affordable housing and community development—returning in the summer to teach at-risk San Francisco middle school students.

After receiving a masters degree in public policy from Harvard and a law degree from UC Berkeley, Rafael returned home to San Francisco. Rafael has been a strong neighborhood advocate as president of the Noe Valley Democratic Club, commissioner on the San Francisco Board of Appeals, chair of the San Francisco LGBT Center, and president of the District 8 Democratic Club.

As an urban development attorney, Rafael has helped build thousands of affordable housing units all over the Bay Area. He sweats the details, doing what it takes to make affordable housing and livable communities a reality. Rafael’s commitment to building housing and ending homelessness is personal. When he was 11 years old, Rafael’s mother’s mental illness started her spiraling down a path that led her into repeated hospitalizations and ultimately homelessness. Rafael became responsible for his own care—finding housing, getting himself on Medi-Cal and to his own doctors appointments, and getting himself through high school. As an adult he was able to secure a guardianship for his mother, and find her the long-term care she needed.

It was a path made possible by the dedication of educators in Rafael’s life, and making sure San Franciscans have access to education is why Rafael ran for City College Board of Trustees in 2012. Elected by a wide margin, Rafael became President of the Board. He was widely acknowledged for steering the 80-year institution through its recent accreditation crisis. His leadership ensured that City College would weather the crisis and implement new innovative programs like Free City College.

See upcoming Michelle Meow Shows at The Commonwealth Club here.