BERKELEY — Building affordable housing, blunting gentrification and finding compassionate solutions to homelessness were central issues addressed April 30 by mayoral and council candidates seeking joint endorsement by the left-leaning Berkeley Progressive Alliance, Berkeley Citizen’s Action and Berkeley Tenants Union.

Councilman Jesse Arreguin won the mayoral endorsement. Council endorsements went to Nanci Armstrong-Temple, District 2; Ben Bartlett, District 3; Sophie Hahn, District 5; and Fred Dodsworth, District 6.

Mayoral candidates Arreguin, Councilman Kriss Worthington, homeless activist Mike Yee and graduate student Ben Gould vied for the some 125 convention attendees’ support.

Arreguin, garnering 65 percent of the vote, came out swinging — not against others competing for the endorsement, but against Councilman Laurie Capitelli, likely his most formidable opponent in November.

“Special interests run city hall; the voice of the public is not heard,” Arreguin said. “Do we need a mayor who’s focused on the profits of himself and his friends? Do we need a mayor who’s a real estate agent at a time of an unprecedented housing crisis where we’ve seen gentrification throughout our city?”

(Capitelli, a former Red Oak Realty partner, advocates “expanding affordable opportunities for very low income residents and for our local workforce.” See laurieforberkeleymayor.com.)

Arreguin touted his record opposing conversion of rental units to condos, and his support of expanding renter protections and a landlord tax for affordable housing.

Worthington, who failed to get convention rules changed to allow dual endorsements, received 24 percent of the vote.

Worthington, who consistently votes in the minority faction with Councilman Max Anderson and Arreguin, argued, given rank-choice voting, that he and Arreguin endorsing one another would benefit progressives. Worthington pointed to his record fighting for the city to grant nonprofits predevelopment funds making them eligible for other funding, and his advocacy for new student housing near UC Berkeley.

Lee, who won 4 percent of the vote, called for tiny houses for the homeless, and neighborhood councils to “create a more accountable method of crafting public policy.”

Gould, who received 3 percent, supported building more housing. “Rich people are going to move here no matter what,” he said. “It’s a question of, do we let them kick people out of their current homes or do we build new places for them to go?”

In southwest Berkeley’s District 2 race the vote went to Armstrong-Temple, a Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists board member who is active with the black lives matter movement.

Armstrong-Temple accused District 2 incumbent Darryl Moore, who was not at the convention, of trying to dissuade her from running.

At a recent meeting “he offered me a commission seat if I don’t run,” she said. “And he also let me know there’s lots of money in the city for nonprofits if I needed (funds) for my projects.”

Moore denied Armstrong-Temple’s claims in a phone interview. He said that because she had no commission experience, which most council members have before running for office, he’d told Armstrong-Temple “‘I’d be more than willing to put you on a commission to help prepare you for a run for the council.'”

And when Armstrong-Temple talked about difficulties funding her arts nonprofit, Moore said he suggested she apply for Berkeley’s federal grant funds.

On the issues, Armstrong-Temple condemned the “fast-paced development and profit mindset that has taken over our city and made it more important to our city officials to get rid of things that make it ‘look bad’ rather than spend the time and energy to find real solutions.”

She said she would have preferred the convention endorse both herself and Davila.

Davila, attending a conference, was represented at the meeting by her son Armando Davila. He said his mother’s impetus for running was her removal by Moore in September 2015 from the city Human Welfare Commission, where she had served since 2009, because he opposed a resolution she authored in favor of boycotting Israel.

The commission later recommended reappointing her to a seat reserved for low income residents, which the council approved in March.

Davila supports mandating 30 percent affordable units in new developments, the use of tiny homes for homeless people and is concerned with poor West Berkeley air quality, her son said.

Planning Commissioner Ben Bartlett, supported by retiring Councilman Max Anderson, was the overwhelming District 3 favorite, with 87 percent of the vote. Bartlett described fighting a developer’s attempt to evict his mother and his work on a capital campaign to build housing on Berkeley Way with services for 100 homeless people.

The other District 3 candidate, retiring Berkeley schools communications director Mark Coplan, addressed meeting the needs of homeless mentally ill and foster youth “suddenly adults without income,” as well as helping people “one paycheck away from homelessness.”

Districts 5 and 6 candidates Sophie Hahn and Fred Dodsworth, unopposed at the convention, won the endorsement of the groups.

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