Something to Build On
From outrage to petitions to recruiting candidates to run for office, a working-class movement is brewing in Colorado.
Earlier this summer, I met with people in Greeley, Colorado, who were incensed that their local city council had sold them out in favor of a millionaire. It was immediately clear to me that these people passionately love their town and are willing to fight for it.
Greeley’s leadership ignored local residents’ questions about the $1.1 billion plan to build a new hockey rink for Martin Lind, the owner of the Colorado Eagles and a big-time developer. So excited to please their millionaire pal, the city mortgaged its own fire department, recreation center, and even its own town hall to make the deal happen.
Local residents called foul. They tried just about everything to get their local government to listen. They attended city council meetings, wrote Op-Eds, held protests, and even circulated a petition to get the Cascadia question on the ballot. But they were met with resistance at every turn– the city even managed to get the successful petition drive overturned based on a technicality.
They felt like they were up against all odds. And, honestly, they kinda were.
But the nearly 9,000 people who had signed the petition in this town of just over 100,000 demonstrated that the Cascadia issue was deeply felt by their neighbors. The roadblock they were facing was that the people in power were not listening to their constituents.
So decided to change who is on the council.
For local residents concerned about the Cascadia giveaway, this fall became a crash course on elections. While most were voters, they had often been choosing between “the lesser of two evils” over the years. So they asked a new question: What if they backed up a few steps and tried to change who was on the ballot?
Organizing under the banner of Many Hands Action, they ran a “Run for Office 101” and volunteers talked to their friends and recruited working-class people to run for local office. Rolling into November, for the first time anyone can recall, a working-class person was contesting for every seat on the ballot.
Every. Single. Seat.
As they knocked on doors and phone banked, the residents of Greeley wouldn’t let the city forget that voters had said, loud and clear, that Cascadia is the issue they care about. They held a public candidate forum that pressed candidates on working-class issues, including the billion-dollar development, and every working-class candidate used the idea of a Community Benefits Agreement– a tactic to force Martin Lind and the city to make sure Cascadia benefits working people– as part of their key talking points during the campaign.
And on election night?
They lost. After putting it all on the field, none of the candidates they had recruited or endorsed won a seat on the city council.
So why does it still feel like winning? Why are the people who poured so much time and energy into circulating a petition, speaking out a town council, recruiting candidates, knocking on doors, turning out voters— why are they feeling so good?
Because they put up a fight– which hasn’t happened in Greeley in a long while.
“This year I am so proud that we created a community we didn’t know was there, we brought people together to have better representation, and those people are willing to stay working together,” says Mary Metzger, who was instrumental in knocking on doors during the election, and previously helped circulate the petition about Cascadia.
Voter turnout increased dramatically in Greeley (16.2% higher than in the last decade of general elections), even as it decreased in the surrounding county. The group’s endorsed mayoral candidate, Tiffany Simmons, secured 44% of the vote, more than twice what any other challenger in the last decade has achieved. And most importantly, because the group now knows that there is a base of at least 9,388 voters in Greeley who will and do support worker-centered policies and candidates.
Now that’s something to build on.
“The biggest thing I’ve noticed when talking to people is they didn’t know we were here, and once they do they’re more motivated to get involved,” says Mary. “If we can keep people engaged, we can see change happen. We are growing our group and we have hope.”
These organizers I’ve been talking to – Mary, Brittni, Joel, Antonio, Jennifer, Morgan– and the many other Greeleyites who started this year upset that their city council voted while ignoring public input on Cascadia have, through ups and downs, uncovered a truth about Greeley: Working folks make this town. They did this while a millionaire and his PR firm attacked them, courts ruled against them, and their city did them dirty.
But never mind all that: They’ve come out the other side knowing that nearly 10,000 of their neighbors have their backs.
I think that’s not too shabby.
Gwen, this story meant so much. Please keep it up, I restacked and hope to get some writing done on a few local candidates in my area who made some inroads this last cycle. People Power!