LYNN — Neighbor 2 Neighbor Action Fund, a statewide grassroots political organization, announced endorsements of four City Council candidates running this year.
The Lynn chapter of Neighbor 2 Neighbor endorsed incumbent Councilor-at-Large Nicole McClain, Councilor-at-Large candidate Jose Manuel Encarnación, Ward 1 candidate Michael Satterwhite, and Ward 4 candidate Natasha Megie-Maddrey.
The Lynn chapter of the statewide Neighbor 2 Neighbor Action Fund consists of more than 50 community members who work to encourage the involvement of minority and working-class voters in local politics by building issue-based coalitions in the city.
“We’re ultimately a power-building organization,” Ana Salazar, co-organizer of the Lynn chapter of Neighbor 2 Neighbor, said. “It’s all ultimately a long-term view to shift the balance of power and build up our communities.”
According to Gabe Cohen-Glinick, who is also a co-organizer of the Lynn chapter of Neighbor 2 Neighbor, the organization made its endorsements after identifying candidates whose values matched those of the organization’s members in a vetting process that included interviews and questionnaires.
“These are the people that we felt best represented those (values),” Cohen-Glinick said. “We work to try and get candidates elected who will work with us to push those policy changes forward and bring the voices of working people to the forefront of conversations in the city.”
Cohen-Glinick said one of the standout issues in the 2023 election is affordable and equitable housing, which he said must start with having more high-quality options for working families to live in.
“I think the biggest thing for our members is around the housing crisis and just the cost and quality of housing in the city,” Cohen-Glinick said. “We really want to make sure the candidates we support have bottom-up solutions to address the housing crisis.”
Other issues identified by Cohen-Glinick and Salazar were environmental concerns, health and mental-health equity, infrastructure, and public-safety reform.
According to Cohen-Glinick, an important part of the endorsements was making sure the city’s leaders look like its residents.
“It’s really important to us. We’re a multiracial coalition of people,” Cohen-Glinick said. “That representation hasn’t been there… in spite of the fact of what our population looks like.”
The city’s preliminary election will be held on Sept. 5. The general election, which will ultimately determine the council’s makeup, will be held Nov. 7.
