Story Updates

Checking in on stories from Oregon, New Mexico, and Colorado.

Volunteers with Food Not Bombs in Roswell, New Mexico. Image sourced from their Facebook page here.

Once a quarter, or whenever I think about it, really, I like to revisit past stories to see what’s been happening since I last checked in. I’m usually pretty amazed, and this time I’m absolutely floored. I’ve been saying a long time– long enough to get all blue in the face– that working folks are the folks who get things done, and these updates go to show just that. Guess I’ll keep yelling it from the hilltops!

Greeley, Colorado: Boy howdy, is this town hot! Last summer, I spoke with a bunch of folks up in Greeley, a growing but still small city an hour north of Denver, where most residents work at the local meat packing plant and hospital. I talked to an electrician, a teacher, a caregiver, and a young man who worked at Chick-fil-A, among other people. They were all working together to try to stop their City Council from basically giving away their tax dollars to a millionaire developer who wanted to build a fancy new stadium for his hockey team.

It’s a wild ride of a story: After their local government ignored their protests, the citizens petitioned to get the issue onto the November ballot. While they had more than enough signatures, a judge declined the petition on a technicality. Unable to get the issue on the ballot, residents then launched working-class candidates to challenge the incumbents and nearly won multiple seats, including the mayor. Meanwhile, the millionaire developer started a PR firm backed “community group” and filed lawsuits against anyone who opposed him. The city put up over 40 city buildings, including their city hall and fire station, as collateral to finance the project, and the millionaire steamrolled ahead, clearing the land and getting it ready to build on.

But local residents didn’t give up. They launched a second petition drive, this time to call for a special election so local residents could finally weigh in on the development– and it worked. A special election was held in February, and in one of the biggest special-election turnouts I’ve ever seen, voters voted to HALT the development project. Over 20,000 people turned out to vote (there is something like 60,000 eligible voters in the city)-- showing the City Council just how much people really did care about them forking over their taxes to a millionaire.

What’s more, in the midst of all this, a group of local residents has started their own media outlet, the Greeley Free Press, and you can follow them here.

Bend, Oregon: Speaking of media, Mandy Hodge of Oregon has also started a Substack. As some of you might remember from a story we wrote last summer, Mandy lived out on federal forest land for the better part of a decade, until she and about 100 others were evicted late last spring. Mandy emerged from the experience as a fierce fighter for the rights of people living in China Hat and other forest areas, ensuring that the growing rates of homelessness were understood as a result of extreme housing prices in the region. Mandy’s Substack is really powerful, and I read every single post. It’s called Displaced by a Moment. On it, Mandy has been interviewing others who are unhoused in the Bend area, making sure their voices are heard and that her hometown understands who is living out on federal land and why. It’s worth a follow, I assure you.

Chaves County, New Mexico: For the last year and a half, a group of volunteers have been gathering at Pioneer Plaza in downtown Roswell to serve food to those in need. Last year, we talked to Jocelyn Smith, a local mom who works at a radio station, about this effort. The thing to know about Roswell is that it’s pretty poor. A small city isolated in the middle of the hot desert, Roswell has a severe affordable housing crisis and, as a result, a growing number of people who are living doubled up or without any housing at all. Jocelyn and the other volunteers with Food Not Bombs have been collecting food and redistributing it– trying to ease one burden of many that Roswell residents face. However, the city started to push back and has now demanded that the volunteers obtain (and pay for) a permit to serve food. Last week, the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, and the law firm Smith and Marjanovic called on the city to rescind the ordinance and allow the group to continue sharing food. Stay tuned.

Are you or someone you know organizing to make your hometown better? I want to hear about it! Reach out to me to tell me about the grassroots organizing happening in your neck of the woods!