The local chapter of Restore Equality 2010 – the campaign to repeal Proposition 8 in 2010 – presented its statewide plan and elected its leadership at the Tubman-Chavez Multicultural Center on Sunday, Sept. 20.

“This is historic. This is totally grassroots. We built it out of nothing,” said Zakiya Khabir, member of San Diego Alliance for Marriage Equality, who along with 80 activists from across California developed the plan at a statewide marriage equality meeting in San Francisco last month.

The 2010 plan outlines the campaign’s geographic, communications and leadership structure.

The campaign structure divides California into 10 “regions,” with San Diego County as one region.

Voter turn out, natural boundaries and local transportation patterns decided the regions, Khabir said.

Each region will have between one and six “regional representatives” or local leaders to oversee signature campaign and fundraising activities, the plan specifies. The San Francisco meeting decided the number of representatives per region based on the number of residents who voted on Proposition 8. San Diego County will have three representatives.

The audience elected local activist Sean Bohac, Stonewall Young Democrats of San Diego Communications Director Jonathan Goetz and San Diego Equality Campaign Executive Chair Sara Beth Brooks as the campaign’s three regional representatives for San Diego County.

“I’m looking forward to building an interactive campaign, where we can all use our collective strengths and talents to combat discrimination,” Brooks said. “I want to focus on training for the signature gathering – there is incredible detail to the signature gathering process – as well as the on-the-streets visibility that I love.”

“As an experienced field director, I will empower individuals with the concrete tools, kits and training they need in order to be effective,” Goetz said. “And as a person of faith, I will continue to question people on the role of big government in prohibiting churches from marrying their gay and lesbian members.”

The plan requires the campaign’s regional representatives to create local “hubs,” groups of volunteers who will carry out signature gathering and fundraising raising activities in different sub-areas of a region.

San Diego County will most likely have four hubs, located in North County, South Bay, San Diego central and East County, Khabir said.

The plan determines that regional representatives will also work as “conduits” of communication between regional hubs and the State Advisory Panel, which includes all 30 regional representatives and two other groups: a council of “affinity” group representatives, including faith, labor and people of color and a group of representatives from pro-marriage equality organizations such as the Courage Campaign and Equality California. The Statewide Advisory Panel, once fully formed, will elect and advise the campaign’s top leadership or Executive Council.

Lisa Kove, executive director of the Department of Defense Federal Gay Lesbian Bisexual Employees, who has been working with the 2010 campaign since the San Francisco meeting, said the 2010 campaign structure is more democratic compared to last year’s ‘No on 8’ campaign.

“The ‘No on Prop. 8’ campaign was basically a conglomerate of traditional LGBT organizations that knighted themselves and [told us that] it would be our fault if we did not follow their directions. So we followed orders, and then we lost. It was a top-down oligopoly,” Kove said. “Our campaign is a bottoms-up, fully democratic process. Our leadership, at all levels, is democratically elected.”

The issue between those who support 2010, as the year to overturn Proposition 8, versus those who support 2012, repeatedly emerged during the meeting.

Candidate for Assembly 76th District Toni Atkins, who spoke first at the meeting, took the middle ground.

“I think that both sides have made some reasonable and rational comments,” Atkins said. “I can’t deny the relevance of any of the points that have been brought forward.”

“But here’s what I think, and it’s from my gut,” Atkins said. “I know that the work that you and we are doing on this issue is right.”

Local activist Pat Washington, in contrast, spoke unequivocally in support of 2010.

“Do you want marriage equality when it’s politically expedient, or do you want marriage equality now?” Washington asked. “There is no wrong time to fight for what’s right.”

The campaign today submitted its ballot language to the Secretary of State, who will take a month to review and return it , Brooks said.

In the meantime, Bohac, Goetz and Brooks will set up the region’s hubs.

Brooks and Kove said the local chapter needs volunteers, with or without experience, to do a wide variety of jobs, including recruitment, phone banking, data processing and writing blogs.

“There will be all kinds of jobs for the campaign, and we need everyone,” Kove said.

Once the campaign’s ballot language is accepted, its signature drive will begin, most likely this November, Brooks said. After that, the campaign will have 150 days to collect 1.2 to 1.3 million signatures to qualify its referendum on the November 2010 ballot. For more information about the 2010 campaign or to volunteer for a local hub, call 619-368-9948 or e-mail sarabrooks@gmail.com.