The charges against the mayor are serious, and the voters of Lawrence have every right to decide his future. If a recall petition is certified, I will urge every resident to vote. But I am not running on anyone's slate — not the mayor's and not his opponents'. I'm running to fix trash, safety, housing and trust in City Hall, no matter who is mayor. Lawrence has spent too many years picking sides and too few years picking up the trash.

Here's the honest answer: the Council cannot add a single dollar to the mayor's budget — it can only cut or reduce. What I can do is scrutinize every line, protect core services like trash, police, fire, seniors and youth programs, and vote against any tax increase that isn't tied to visible results on your street. I will also make sure the budget gets a real vote every year instead of passing by default.

Water and sewer are run as a separate enterprise fund, and the Council approves the rates and the borrowing behind them. I'll ask the question that rarely gets asked in public: what are we paying for, and is it being delivered? Any rate increase should come with a plain-language explanation of the project it funds and a schedule the public can check.

I won't promise what a city councilor can't legally do — I can't change federal immigration law. What I can do is defend the Lawrence Police practice of not sharing immigration information in minor or traffic matters, because a mother who is afraid to report a crime makes every one of us less safe. I'll support know-your-rights work with our churches and community groups, and I'll make sure City Hall services are open to every resident in English and Spanish. This is a public-safety issue: victims and witnesses have to be able to trust the police.

Three things I can actually move from the Council. First, safe-passage staffing at both high-school campuses at dismissal, funded in the budget so it doesn't depend on who's paying attention that week. Second, youth summer jobs and late-night recreation protected from cuts — kids with a paycheck and a gym are kids who aren't on the corner. Third, backing our Police Chief on recruitment while requiring staffing, response-time and complaint data to come to the Council in public. Safety and transparency go together.

I support stability — for the family paying $2,000 a month and for the neighbor who owns the three-decker and lives on the first floor. Rent control is illegal under Massachusetts law today, so promising it would be dishonest. What I'll fight for is real: proactive inspections of absentee landlords with repeat violations, a mediation and eviction-prevention fund so one bad month doesn't put a family on the street, repair help for owner-occupants who keep rents fair, and faster, honest permitting so we can actually build more homes.

Because I'll give you numbers you can check instead of promises you can't. Every quarter, the trash hauler's performance comes before the Council in public: missed pickups, response times, and the penalties actually charged under the contract. Cameras go up at the ten worst dumping spots and we use the $5,000–$10,000 fines the city already has. Rat complaints trigger a building inspection, not just a spray. And 311 response times get published by district every month, so if your neighborhood is being served worse than another, everyone will see it.

The state receiver controls that timeline, not the City Council — and I won't pretend otherwise. But the Council has a voice, and I'll use it: I will push the Commissioner and the receiver for a published, dated plan to return the schools to local control, and for real Lawrence input in choosing the next superintendent in 2027. Fifteen years of receivership is long enough. Our parents, teachers and elected School Committee deserve to know the path home.

Look at what experience has gotten us lately. I'm not a politician — I'm a neighbor who has spent years showing up for this city, and I'm running with a plan you can hold me to: five commitments, each with a number attached. In my first 100 days I'll file the open-checkbook ordinance, request the first public trash-hauler review, and hold listening sessions in every district in English and Spanish. Judge me on that.

My mother is Haitian and my father is Dominican. I came to Lawrence at eleven and grew up on the Northside; I've cut hair on South Broadway for twenty-four years and most of what I hear in that chair is in Spanish. I'm not asking anyone to vote across a line — I've lived on both sides of it my whole life. Trash doesn't care what island your family came from, and neither do I. If you want a councilor who will pick up the phone whether your name is Rodríguez, Pérez, Pierre or Sullivan, I'm asking for one of your three votes.

We'll always tell you. Our 24/7 text line and website assistant are digital, they say so in the first message, and they only answer from this campaign's published plan. Any call or text you get from us comes only because you signed up and said yes — and you can stop any time by replying STOP. When you want a human, say so and a real volunteer follows up within a day. We use technology to answer your questions faster, never to pretend to be someone we're not.

Yes, with safeguards. One councilor stole ballots and went to jail — and the answer was to take mail voting away from 40,000 honest voters. That punishes seniors, people with disabilities and working parents for someone else's crime. I'll support restoring mail-in voting with real protections: signature verification, a ban on third-party bulk drop-offs, and specific safeguards for seniors in housing complexes. Secure and accessible are not opposites.

You don't have to choose between us — you have three votes for At-Large, and most people only use one or two. Keep the councilors you trust. I'm asking for the vote you haven't been using, for a councilor who will spend it on clean streets, safe blocks and honest government for every neighborhood in Lawrence.