SAN FRANCISCO — When Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra picked the people who will help him build a government, he reached into the Bay Area and tapped a man this community already knows.
Kenneth Maxey II, President and CEO of the Urban League of the Greater San Francisco Bay Area, has been named to the governor-elect’s transition team. He will lead external affairs along with Democratic strategist Courtni Pugh.
That puts a Bay Area civil rights leader in the room while the next administration takes shape.
He was there early
President and CEO Maxey did not wait for the returns. A week before the election he stood with Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee at a reception for Black community leaders at Oakstop in Oakland to support the campaign. On election night he told the room the community was blessed to be able to call Xavier Becerra its next governor.
Under his leadership, the Urban League’s Bay Area affiliate has pushed to get Black businesses and Black residents a bigger share of opportunity across the nine counties. Its State of the Black Bay Area report put numbers to how far behind too many Black families are.
A friend of this newspaper
Readers of The Sun-Reporter know his work even if they do not know it is his. President and CEO Maxey was one of the minds behind the Talented 25, the annual honor Publisher Dr. Amelia Ashley-Ward launched in 2014 to recognize the people making life better for Black San Francisco and the Bay Area. It has become one of the paper’s best-known traditions.
Who else is on the team
Liz Saldivar, a longtime aide to Gov.-elect Becerra, is running the transition. Lindsey Cobia and Kyle Layman are senior advisers. Arsenio Mataka, most recently a deputy at the Bay Area Air District, directs policy. Nicole Elliott leads the review of state agencies.
“This transition has one job,” Gov.-elect Becerra said in announcing the team.
What comes next
Gov.-elect Becerra takes the oath of office on Jan. 4. Between now and then, the transition decides who gets hired, which promises come first and who gets heard. The Bay Area’s Black community has someone at that table.
Sun-Reporter photo.
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