By Alexa Gagosz
While Massachusetts and 13 other states’ voters will be heading to the polls on Tuesday, fixated on Democratic Presidential hopefuls, residents in East Boston will have a choice on the future of the neighborhood’s progressive evolution. For Eastie voters, there will be two entirely different slates running for the Ward 1 Democratic Committee to choose from on the ballot.
From the current ‘Unity Slate,’ named Group 1 on the ballot, which possesses members that bear an array of ideologies that lie on various spectrums of the Democratic party to the ‘Fresh Slate,’ listed as Group 2 on the ballot, whose 20 members look to extract control of the incumbents and further the progressive agenda in the community.
Ward Committees, which are seen as the grassroots level of a political party by promoting the platform, help nominate and support the party’s candidate and send members to state conventions.
Group 1, which is the incumbent “Unity Slate,” consists of candidates Brenna Callahan, Joseph Ruggiero, Jason Ruggiero, Katherine Boyd, Liana LaMattina, Michael John Sulprizio, Devon Williams, Jeffrey Thomas, Claudia Correa, Luz Gladys Oliveros, Fernando Ortiz, Tania Delrio, Kathleen Orlando, Teresa Polhemus, Nicole DaSilva, Louis Michael Scapiccio, David Urkevich, Linda LoPriore and Braulio Felipe.
Joseph Ruggiero, who has served on the Ward Committee for the past four years, says there is a good cross-section of the neighborhood on their slate, with 40% generational East Bostonians who have lived in the community their whole lives, 30% are new to the neighborhood and a little over 25% Latino.
“It was important for us to have a good representation of the neighborhood,” said Ruggiero, who says their goal is to motivate all of Eastie’s Democrats. “We pride our group as being a broad spectrum of the neighborhood and the party.”
Correa, who moved to East Boston 20 years ago, will be listed on Group 1’s ballot as a candidate and said she is hoping that their inclusive slate compels people to feel as though they will be directly impacted by the Unity Slate.
“At the end of the day, people go to meetings that they feel impacts them the most. Parents go to school meetings,” said Correa. “Now we want them to also come to Ward Committee meetings.”
Group 2, known as the “Fresh Slate,” carries candidates City Councilor Lydia Edwards, Gabriela Deanna Coletta, Gail C. Miller, Kannan Thiruvengadam, Brian Joseph Gannon, Sandra Nujjar, Matthew Cameron, Heather O’Brien, Victoria Jane Dzindzichashvili, Zachary Edward Hollopeter, Margaret Farmer, Jo Ann Fitzgerald, Ricardo Patron, Giordana Mecagni, Dionyssios Mintzopoulos, Benjamin Brackett Downing, Lisa Jacobson, Jesse Glen Purvis, James Niels Rosenquist and Aneesh Sahni.
For Gannon, who has served on the Democratic Ward Committee before in East Boston, says that up until this year, he cannot think of a time when an entire slate challenged an incumbent, citing both his efforts and Fresh Slate in Ward 18 located in Hyde Park.
From Councilor Edwards, who Gannon labels the core of progressive action in City Hall, to the various nonprofit personnel and activists of Group 2, he explains it has been their goal to create a diverse and active ward committee.
“The minimum is to create a caucus each year,” said Gannon and explained that his fellow candidates are aware that many residents are unsure of what a Democratic Ward Committee does, but is looking to change that. “We want to do more than that. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to change how politics work in the city.”
From voter registration drives to social media outreach and door knocking, both Group 1 and Group 2 have prepared for Tuesday’s vote with one inconvenient truth: the potential lack of votes as many Boston residents throughout the city have historically left the Ward Committee votes blank.
“A Ward Committee is the smallest microcosm of what the Democratic Party does. It’s the smallest part but one of the most important ones,” said O’Brien on Group 2. “It should be the most accessible to people.”
East Boston’s Democratic Ward Committees will be the fourth item to vote for on the ballot come March 3.
