Four precincts control the entire city

Gillian Ganesan on how the west side casts its wicked ballots over the rest of Worcester

The following is a piece written by my Worcester Sucks Election Squad co-organizer Gillian Ganesan. Make sure you come down to Steel & Wire next Thursday, July 31, 7 p.m. for the first installment.

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Four precincts control the entire city

By Gillian Ganesan

Greetings fellow residents of Worcester, where nothing is possible and everything is fine! I can’t stop thinking about the upcoming municipal election. Pacing around my apartment muttering to myself about cronies and voter turnout. My wife is used to it by now.

Last time we did this, we lost. With the exception of a couple stalwart fighters on the city council and the school committee, we carry on under a quavering, nasally regime of cranks. White devils with money to burn decided who governs a city of marvelous diversity—I’ve recently been inspecting a depressingly thorough little tabulated spreadsheet breaking down the last municipal election, and like, four precincts, all coincidentally touching the Holden line, far and away out-voted everyone else. That’s four precincts that control our city, out of sixty total. They stay tucked away behind Newton Hill and cast their wicked ballots over the rest of Worcester. What the hell! (Highly related post from March: “The uneven geography of political backwater”)

CUTLINE: Precinct/ward map

It’s a condition that we’ve never been able to shake. Historically, we have always been a city made up of immigrant workers, most often governed by a tight-knit group of fashy nativists who set up their own little gated community within the walls of city hall. In the early days of the 20th century, when unions were building a movement across the commonwealth, Worcester was the white whale of organized labor. The industrious capitalists of the municipality pitted ethnic groups against each other, using language barriers and neighborhood lines to hold organizing at bay. A strike would break out, and factory owners could bring in new workers easily, preying on desperation and division among the working class. Meanwhile, they, the ruling class of their day, stayed in perfect formation, in solidarity with each other against the population of the city. They all went to the same private schools, frequented the same clubs, sicced goons on immigrant workers, and spent their leisure time in the surrounding towns. Sound familiar?

The glue that holds our cranks together, which has always held them together, is a common interest in their own wealth. Our current crop spend money on each other’s races, shake hands with the same developers, and live in the same pricey neighborhoods. They barely have to do any actual campaigning, because in exchange for selling their council votes to the highest bidder, they receive support and name recognition. Case in point: Alex Guardiola, running unopposed for school committee in District D, received in December donations from various members of the bunch–Joe Petty, Mo Bergman, Kate Toomey, even our dear insurrectionist Kathi Roy joined in the fun. His campaign was nice enough to contribute to Bergman and Mero-Carlson as well. I hope they’re all enjoying their little circlejerk.

How long do we have to endure this? The hallmark of a typical Worcester city official is simpering cowardice and unapologetic greed. Even when good people have managed to squeeze through the iron gates of cronyism into elected office, they are faced with a cabal of bootlickers. The Petty Pals are all too willing to sell the soul of this city down the river so that more “luxury” apartments can stand empty next to a stadium built on false promises, while around the corner the cops gleefully commit hate crimes, harass homeless people, and kidnap our neighbors. As ever, forever. They’ve repeatedly (literally) locked us out of civic participation, and are currently trying to make it impossible for Worcester residents to have a say in the process of government, the timing of which seems awfully interesting considering the city-wide outrage at their multifaceted inaction.

The thing is, despite the corruption and cronyism, their grasp on Worcester’s government is not as tight as it seems. Last time around, Candy Mero-Carlson, Worcester’s premiere transphobe, only won by 160 votes. A completely beatable number in District 2, which is why it hurts so bad to think about what could have been (all of us living blissfully, not having to watch Candy get belligerent once a week). Breaking down the at-large numbers, it shakes out like how you might expect – Joe Petty got the most votes, around 11,000, with Kate Toomey and Khrystian King close behind at around 10,000. The counts drop off from there. But the margins are not impossible. Last election, only 19.42% of registered voters turned out. Even bumping our city’s participation up by 1% could drastically change our at-large situation. For instance, Donna Colorio and Morris Bergman languish in the tepid zone, around 8,700 total votes each, city-wide.

They only beat out most of the progressive candidates by a few hundred votes—it was not a sure thing for them. What would happen if 1,000 more people had shown up? 1,500? What if we could get them to vote this time? With almost 119,000 currently registered voters in Worcester, the possibility doesn’t seem so far-fetched to me.

People are registered to vote here, they just are not showing up down-ballot. Worcester is a unique place, but in this way, it’s like everywhere else. Many people just don’t have the information they need to know when local elections are, who is running, or what the difference between candidates is. So they don’t vote, because it’s easier not to. People have busy, difficult lives—going out of their way to engage with politics is not a priority for most.

Despite this, it is extremely possible to motivate people to go and cast a ballot. It’s what field organizing–door-knocking, phone-banking, et cetera–are designed to do. I’ll spare you a full background on my career, but I spent a long time running field campaigns up and down the ballot. In my ~professional~ opinion, municipal elections are where they work best, partially because turnout is typically so low that the city establishment gets lazy. Joe Petty’s little clique relies on people staying home to hold onto their power. We may not have the money or the connections that they do, but we can work harder and talk to more people. Sometimes that’s enough. Andrew Cuomo was basically pre-anointed to be the next mayor of NYC until Zohran Mamdani showed up and inspired people to fight for something new. What if we tried that here?

Right now we are looking down the barrel of another municipal election. September 2 for the preliminary, where Worcester decides its next group of at-large councilors and the District E school committee candidates; November 4th for the general, when we vote for our district councilors, the mayor, and the rest of the school committee. Like always, an election is a window of opportunity, but the window will close. For a little while now, Bill and I have been mulling over what to do about it. We decided the best place to start is to just invite people who care to get together. To that end, we’re holding a series of bar nights, where people who want to be involved in this election can gather and hang out. Trade canvassing anecdotes, bits, commiserate about what a shitshow our elected officials are, each of us offering what we can. The first one is next Thursday, 7/31, at Steel&Wire. We’ll have some of the good candidates there, I’ll be helping people get involved with volunteering if they aren’t yet, and Bill will be running some fun open-newsroom activities. Very casual, mostly just about having a nice time with nice people. I’d love to meet ya!

I don’t really like the slogan that often goes around: “when we fight, we win.” I think if we’re fighting for something real, there’s always a risk of losing – and frankly, if victory comes too easily, it probably doesn’t meaningfully impact the power structure. However, it is true that there’s no possibility of winning anything without a fight, and there are losses that set up wins down the line. Maybe we don’t break down the iron gate this time. But if we can push a couple good people through the bars, and support them while they’re in there, maybe next time we can get a couple more through. And after that who knows. Someday maybe we’ll wake up in a city that sucks less. It’s a sacred hope kept alive across the ages by everyone who ever gave a shit about each other.

Gillian Ganesan (@gillianganesan) is a Worcester-based organizer, writer, and concerned citizen. Former campaign strategist at the ACLU, focused on police surveillance and the First Amendment.