Ida Martinac is a first generation immigrant from Croatia and a single mother. The Yugoslav civil war of the 1990s inspired her to study International Security at the City College of New York. Upon learning about the forces and various theoretical paradigms at play, she was interested in exploring the possibility of a new understanding that the academic wisdom at the time hadn’t accounted for. After many years of thinking on the subject, she has come to understand that the only true path to peace and security is for humans to individually work on bettering themselves. Our outer world is nothing but a manifestation of our inner world. 

Meanwhile, Ida studied Environmental Law with the aim of working on mainstreaming renewable energy, because post 9/11 she saw that the US destructive foreign policy was driven by an unhealthy energy policy. She wrote a law review note on Environmental Justice concerns in unbundling Renewable Energy Credits from the underlying energy. She also served as the Environmental Law Review editor at Golden Gate University, and helped put together a symposium on renewable energy law and policy. She has dedicated her career to civil service, currently working as a California Department of Justice Legal Secretary, where she is also a shop steward with her union, SEIU Local 1000. Single motherhood interrupted Ida’s big plans for working on energy policy, but she hopes to use her knowledge to work to create climate programs at the Rent Board that will improve the quality of life of Berkeley tenants while building her community’s climate resiliency and reducing their emissions. 

Given Ida’s predilections for always trying to solve large problems facing humanity, she was swept away by Bernie Sanders’ presidential run in 2016. Bernie offered systemic solutions for systemic problems, and his approach was rooted in Justice: economic, social, criminal, and environmental. Ida gave her all to elect Bernie in both of his presidential runs, and focused on voter education and protection in California. With Bernie not being President, Ida has come to accept the maxim that all politics is indeed local, and that it’s up to the citizens to organize and fight for a better future, rooted in humanity, justice, and sustainability. Ida has come full circle from studying theoretical paradigms of international relations to getting her hands into the soil of local politics.

Twitter: @Ida4RentBoard2022

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