why I’m running

Winchester has been my home since 2010. I graduated from Handley in 2015, and from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2018 as a Buckley Public Service Scholar and Chancellor’s Science Scholar, with my sights set on the Peace Corps and a life of public service.

Then the pandemic hit, and those plans fell apart overnight. I came home to Winchester to regroup and in the months that followed, when so many places were closed and people were advised to socially distance, I found myself spending my days in our parks. What I found there was neglect: trails littered with garbage, restroom facilities kept locked or nonexistent, lack of recreation equipment, forested areas overrun with invasive species: a city that didn’t seem to have room in its budget or its imagination for the outdoor spaces that make a community livable.

I took the time to do the on the ground research. I emailed the Parks & Recreation Department. I emailed City Council representatives. I asked questions about why our parks looked the way they did, and what it would take to fix it. Mostly, I got silence — or the same answer, over and over: not enough money, time, staff. I'm sure it seemed like an insignificant or inconsequential issue to the people I was asking. It wasn’t to me or to the people I found at the parks. It was the first time I began to understand how city leadership and management regard the public, and how easy it is for the people asking questions to be ignored.

That's part of why my vision for Winchester is an expansive one: real, dignified public transit – including pushing for mass-transit connections between Winchester and the towns and counties around us; bike lanes and safer streets in the commercial corridors where people actually walk, work, and shop; more green space, including restored parks built for climate resilience; and promoting real incentives for homeowners and businesses to cut their environmental footprint, from composting to sustainable building.

I care about the environment, but I don't only care about the environment. I believe our city government exists to work for the people who live here, not the corporations and business interests that come through town looking for a deal. Sustainable growth means a mix of housing – not just single-family homes or luxury condos – along with the water, sewer, and road infrastructure to support it, and it means advocating for our schools. It means having someone on Council who fearlessly asks the hard questions, who is independent and will listen to all residents' concerns and ideas, and who will do the research and data analysis to make informed decisions affecting generations of Winchester residents. The people of ward 4 and Winchester deserve nothing less from our public servants and leaders.

When I came back to Winchester, this time in 2023, it was on my own terms: ready to put down roots and be part of this community for good. At the same time, the conflict in Gaza had restarted. I was as vocal then as I'd been years earlier as a student at Handley about my support for human rights, such as rights to life, education, healthcare, and self-determination. I spent dozens of hours talking with neighbors and canvassing, gathering hundreds of signatures on a petition asking Winchester City Council to adopt a resolution on the conflict in 2024. I spoke publicly about it, even though most of the Council treated it as something that had nothing to do with Winchester, despite the facts. I faced mischaracterization and slander for that activism. I stayed in it regardless, showing up to City Council meetings and organizing with other people who wanted to take a stand, too.

Then ICE activity started rising across the country, and I worked alongside others in our community and across the region to get trained and prepared for the possibility that it could reach our neighborhoods. We canvassed with Know Your Rights (red) cards and shared information with local businesses about their First and Fourth Amendment rights. That preparation turned out to matter here in Winchester. Our neighbors have faced unconstitutional targeting in and around Winchester– they have felt the reverberations of violence in our nation, and many have decided to hide or run out of fear.

Through community supported research efforts, I helped discover our city’s ties to DHS Immigration and Customs Enforcement through a nearly half million-dollar contract to reserve space at our local Northwestern Regional Juvenile Detention Center. I helped organize a petition to end the contract between ICE and NRJDC– the last contract of its kind between a municipal jail and ICE to hold juveniles. Despite opposition from leaders in local political parties, we refused to back down on the demand to get ICE out of Winchester. Another reason I am proudly running as an independent, not endorsed by either Republican or the Democratic party, is because both parties are concerned more with profit and the status quo than the people and their needs.

I am proud of my heritage, of my mother tongue, of our American history– Winchester gives me the courage to fight for just treatment and full rights for all people. I believe all people – regardless of immigration status – have rights simply by virtue of being human. Our Constitution guarantees many of those rights to everyone within the United States, not just citizens. Immigrants make our community richer, more diverse, and stronger, and I wholeheartedly believe that without qualification. Not just because I am here today because of the brave immigrants before me who ventured to this country, but because I see the stories of my parents and my grandparents in so many that live in our neighborhoods today: one of perseverance, hard work, and struggle.

Winchester is becoming a harder place to afford, no matter who you are – harder to find decent work, housing, and health care, hard to get around without a car and to find fresh food nearby. These are not unique problems for Winchester, but each of us are affected.

I look forward to the conversations I'll keep having on doorsteps across Ward 4 about how we shape this city into one we can all truly enjoy and create a future for us and the generations to come after– not one where we barely scrape by.

I believe in restoration. I believe in justice. I believe in a true democracy – of and by the people. I believe in the power ordinary people have when they ask a question, when they speak up, when they show up.

Our Ward, Our Say.