04/02/2025
In the lead-up to our joint 10-year anniversary fundraiser on May 1, we will be sharing stories about key moments in our organizing history.
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In a concession interview, former Alder Deb Mell said that we “never stopped running over the last four years.” It’s the one thing that Deb Mell got right. It also underscores the deep divide between the 33rd Ward Working Families (33WF) political project and both mainstream parties.
For them, organizing between elections seems noteworthy because their goal is simply to elect an individual to office. This goal informs their playbook, which is to begin talking to people during petition season and – because elections are so time-limited – to only talk to those most likely to vote. Worse, it leads them to tailor their messaging to what polling says likely voters want to hear. It’s part of why we’ve seen a consistent shift to the right in this country.
From its inception, 33WF has done elections differently because we understand that winning an election is not the end game but one tool in a toolbox to win a different world. Winning here looks like more affordable housing for ward residents, democratic decision-making structures, an end to carceral systems, and communities that care for each other. Winning an Aldermanic seat expands the tools in our toolbox in big ways, so we run elections as a part of our organizing program that never stops.
So yes, this was a campaign that was four years in the making and came from decades of organizing before that. In the years between Tim Meegan’s initial run for the Aldermanic seat and Rossana’s campaign, we organized with #NoCopAcademy and against charter school expansion in our ward, we fought to #LiftTheBan on rent control, we supported the founding of the Albany Park Defense Network, and we built a membership organization where rank-and-file members decide on the direction of the work and take the lead.
In keeping with this, the 2019 campaign started with an internal process for nominating and voting on our candidate. We considered three candidates, collected questionnaires, held interviews, and voted - unanimously - to endorse Rossana. Then, we got to work ordering balloons and launching a campaign.
We officially launched Rossana’s campaign in May 2018 with over 100 supporters filling the room and helping us kick off our fundraising efforts. Then we spent the summer doing voter registration drives, training volunteers, and building our platform. We held a series of volunteer orientations where we provided a draft of our platform planks - everything from housing for all, to ward democracy, to education for all. At each session, folks made additions, suggested edits, and researched policies. Eventually, the sheets of flip chart paper and post-it notes became permanent posters that lined the walls of our office and served to train the over 800 canvassing volunteers that made it possible to talk to every voter in the ward multiple times (not just those mostly likely to vote in a mid-winter municipal election).
By the time petition season rolled around in the fall, our campaign was rooted in the changes people wanted to see - affordable housing, participatory budgeting, community-driven zoning, immigration protections, and an elected official who understood what it meant to need all these things - and volunteers were excited to get out and talk to neighbors about the things they cared about.
We set the goal of collecting all the petition signatures we needed to get on the ballot on the first official day of petitioning, so we planned a big launch with area captains who lead teams of canvassers in every precinct throughout the ward and the response was incredible. Despite a huge morning downpour, over 80 volunteers gathered over 600 signatures (more than we needed to make the ballot) that first day and we ended the day with a cookout at Templestowe Pub. Remember, if you never stop organizing, you can’t forget to make room for joy, community, and food.
Of course, you need to submit many times the required number of signatures, so we kept going for the entire fall, eventually turning in 3,000 signatures. This effort was led by an incredible team of precinct captains, who canvassed regularly several nights a week, recruited folks to join them, and trained new volunteers. This group was the backbone of the entire field operation, keeping things running in our early days of launching canvasses out of a basement apartment.
By late fall of 2018, and thanks to a team of fundraising volunteers, we moved into our campaign office (which is now the home of 33WF). From the beginning, that office has been a space built by and for community, and once we were moved in, our canvasses became events. Caring members provided childcare and sent over tamales to feed volunteers. When people came back from canvassing, they stayed to discuss what they’d learned from their conversations and wrote postcards to the people they’d talked to. Our campaign messaging got even stronger the more we learned. By the time we had enough money for a poll, it didn’t tell us anything we hadn’t already learned from so many conversations on the doors and with our canvassers.
When election day rolled around in February, not only did we make it to the runoff, we ended the first round with the highest vote count in a three-way race. And we still didn’t stop. We grew our canvasses, held community meet-and-greets, visited seniors' homes, and raised money. And then, on election night - the results were too close to call.
So we kept going. We spent two weeks camped out at the Board of Elections counting mail-in ballots, we tracked down provisional votes, and observed a recount. And through the weeks of uncertainty, members and volunteers kept coming and it was clear that no matter the outcome, we’d won because of this amazing community of people dedicated to winning something better.
Of course, we eventually did win the election, with just 13 votes, and went on to have multiple victory parties. But the day that sticks out for me above all of that is a sunny, Saturday afternoon in the middle of the recount where Rossana had the idea to make waffles for the volunteers: “Waffles for the people”. We set up a waffle bar, played games in the yard, shared hopes for an outcome we didn’t yet know, and just kept building community together. Because 33WF never stops running. On issues that matter. And in community with amazing people.
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We hope you'll join us on Thursday, May 1, 6-10pm, at Rockwell On The River (3057 N Rockwell St) for our 10 Year Anniversary fundraiser with United Neighbors of the 35th Ward!
Tickets: https://bit.ly/peoplepower10
