About Me

I was born in Lansing, MI and grew up mostly in Westchester County, NY with parents who worked in non-profits (my mom at the Red Cross, my dad at the American Lung Association). From them, I learned the importance of working for the common good, and also how everyday people could work together against abuses of corporate power, such as in the case of the tobacco industry. As a young undergraduate at SUNY Albany, I became active in the student anti-sweatshop/global justice movement. I also spent several years living and working in Central America - in Guatemala with a popular education organization that worked in peasant and indigenous communities, and in El Salvador with a solidarity organization.

For the past 14 years, I’ve worked with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), organizing personal care attendants in Holyoke and surrounding areas in Western Massachusetts for the first 10 years and working as a Learning Coordinator remotely with our international union since 2019. All of my work has involved working with low income workers often also facing marginalization on the basis of race, gender, language, sexual orientation, disability status, or other identities. I have seen firsthand the power of workers organizing, believing in and building their own leadership and knowledge, and demanding change. My belief and hope that we can create a world with social, racial, and economic justice by building democratic movements from the ground up is the guiding principle of my life and work.

I identify as white, cisgender, and part of the LGBTQ+ community, and I understand that both unpacking and being aware of the unearned white privilege I was born with is a) central to all of the social justice work I engage in, b) a lifelong process that is never ‘done’, and c) very personal. I continually work to educate myself and challenge my own beliefs and assumptions, through reading, workshops, interactions with BIPOC colleagues and friends. When taking action for racial justice, I take leadership from BIPOC leaders and organizations on how white folks can show up as much as we possibly can. I hope to show up better every day, and to be open to receive feedback and be made aware of the mistakes I make so that I can do better in the future. As a mother to two biracial, bilingual children, I strive to be aware of how my white privilege (and their lack of it) can affect their education, relationships, identity development, and safety - and how in consistently showing up for racial justice, I’m also showing up for them.

In a time when so many of us are distressed about our slide into fascism/authoritarianism at the national level, I think it’s more important than ever to take action locally both to protect our neighbors targeted by the Trump regime (immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ+ folks, workers, etc) as well as to build political alternatives, strategies, and policies rooted in values of solidarity and the common good.

Despite the potential of local government as a site of resistance and alternatives, Amherst faces problems rooted in a town council that has remained largely stagnant since the 2017 town charter that created it. The council has prioritized oversized building projects and development continually in our town budgets and policies, at the expense of living wages for our civil employees and educators and basic services and infrastructure that residents like me and my family depend on.

The Town Council has not made a serious, good faith effort to implement recommendations from the CSSJC (Community Safety and Social Justice Committee) - going so far as to freeze new hiring for CRESS this year.

Amherst residents are deeply concerned about the climate crisis and would like to see policies at a local level that can offset the impacts of the federal government’s disastrous policies that double down on the use of fossil fuels, but the Town Council moves too slowly on even the most simple, common sense measures we can take.

The town is not maintaining its vital infrastructure (like the roads, DPW building and fire stations) that serve residents, but is instead borrowing millions of dollars to build a larger library whose size and cost is not justified by the needs of the town population.

In our schools, paraeducators are not paid a living wage, teachers’ pay increases don’t make up for inflation, and educators who play vital roles in our school system are being laid off - all while institutions like UMass and Amherst College contribute little to help fund the services and infrastructure that they make use of in our community. There have been significant and damaging budget cuts to our public schools for two years in a row now.

The town has a lot of expensive new student housing going up, but scant genuinely affordable housing for families to be found.

I’ve been active in Amherst for many years now, working on progressive candidate and issue campaigns, serving briefly on Town Meeting before it was eliminated, and serving on the Amherst School Committee’s Enrollment Working Group. This is my second time running for Town Council, because it is still my belief that Amherst deserves a Town Council that reflects the diversity and priorities of its residents.

Most working people like myself participate less than we’d like due both to our busy lives and competing demands of work, childcare, and family responsibilities and to the high bar of entry to participation in town government imposed by the 2017 town charter that eliminated Town Meeting and subsequently established undemocratic Town Council procedures and practices. The result has been that a select few run our town government with priorities that don’t reflect that of many residents’ – but it doesn’t have to continue that way.

Participating in local democracy should not be a privilege reserved for those who are retired or well off. In my campaign and my service, I commit to reach out to all of the residents in my district - to have conversations about the issues that matter to them and what we can do about them together. As an organizer, this is what I do best - meet people where they are, find ways that they can get involved, and demonstrate the power of a group of people united to make change. And if I am elected, I will do everything I can to make our local government more accessible and remove barriers to participation for ALL residents of Amherst.