Lifelong Aurora local and Black Lives Matter activist, Candice Bailey, is eager to offer her deep knowledge and commitment to her city to tackle some of the most challenging issues in Colorado’s most diverse city. Economic solutions come front and center for her as low income, immigrant, refugee, and BIPOC communities face rapid gentrification and housing insecurity, as well as rampant police brutality and homelessness. 

Candice believes healthcare access and basic ID’s like driver’s licenses are essential public safety issues, which means expanding access for undocumented members of the Aurora community. Running in a city where 1 in 5 city residents are foreign born, Candice recognizes access to liveable wages, public banking options, and human wellness services as essential for all individuals, including immigrants and refugees. Candice also prioritizes standing up against corporations to ensure families and individual home buyers have access to affordable houses.

As the youngest person and first Latina ever elected to Aurora City Council in 2017, Crystal has already proven her commitment to finding solutions for top-priority community issues like affordable housing. While on City Council–and despite the tough political dynamic of working without a voting majority on many policies–Crystal still successfully established a housing strategy for the city and has worked to obtain necessary funding and policies that can meaningfully address Aurora’s housing crisis. If elected again, her work will expand to fight for raising the city’s minimum wage and ensuring that all Aurorans have access to public transportation. 

Crystal also stood strongly with immigrants and refugees during her last term by swiftly responding to attacks on the AAPI community with concrete solutions, as well as broadly defending immigrants’ rights by sponsoring a bill for an immigrant legal defense fund in Aurora. This work reflects her ongoing desire to ensure all Aurorans feel safe by reforming the Aurora Police Department. She will keep working to expand community-led solutions like Aurora’s CAHOOTS program, where mental health and healthcare workers respond to 9-1-1 calls. Voting for Crystal would give her the opportunity to reach her potential, to keep fighting and winning for Aurora residents on issues that matter most.

Lifelong Aurora local, Bryan Lindstrom, has been a teacher for years in the city, so he knows firsthand the challenges facing families here. He also understands that he can’t teach his way out of injustices: that’s why Brian decided to jump into the City Council race where he can more directly affect change for his community and students on issues such as raising the minimum wage, fighting for housing as a human right, and community safety regardless of age, race, religion, or immigration status.

Bryan is an organizer, activist and vocal opponent of the growing inequality in Aurora. He also believes the Aurora Police Department needs to be reformed and community-based solutions expanded–like healthcare providers responding to 9-1-1 calls. Brian also believes addressing issues like food insecurity, housing instability, and mental health needs should be at the forefront of safety and security responses. Bryan’s past work and future vision of equality and justice mean that he will represent Ward 2 for those whose voices are too often being erased as the city grows.

Ruben Medina has been working in the Aurora community for years on many fronts. A former firefighter, current recreational specialist, and board member at both the Denver Foundation and Rise Colorado, Ruben believes local voices can fight for change. He wants to ensure historically marginalized communities get the resources they need to thrive–whether that is opening up a youth center with wrap-around services, providing BIPOC business owners with entrepreneurship support, or implementing community policing programs. Ruben wants to work in partnership with Aurora residents to envision what the future of the city can look like and find solutions together. 

As a small business owner, mom, and activist, Shenika Carter holds strong roots in Commerce City. Seeing communities plagued by corporate pollution that contaminates the water and air and exposes kids to high levels of lead and toxins, Shenika ties her commitments to racial, economic, and environmental justice together. She centers fighting for green jobs, building up infrastructure and public education instead of policing. She wants to boost the minimum wage and access to childcare, and ensure tax credits to help small businesses as critical for the health of the city.

Shenika believes immigrants and refugees in the Commerce City community deserve access to both healthcare and strong legal defense to defend against deportation from their homes. Regardless of immigration status, Shenika holds that all families deserve public services and tax credits that protect kids and strengthen households. The city council has long lacked the community-centered leadership Shenika intends to bring, and she runs to ensure the issues that impact BIPOC families, immigrants and refugees, and working people are addressed with more meaningful long-term solutions.

Lucy Molina’s parents first marched as local Colorado activists alongside Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez, and she continues that legacy today in her race for a City Council seat in Commerce City. As a Latinx activist with deep roots in her community and a history of justice advocacy, Lucy wants her community’s voices truly represented on the City Council. 

Her mission is to hold large corporations accountable and ensure BIPOC communities don’t continue bearing the brunt of environmental racism spurred by polluters like Suncor. Lucy has been working for years on issues such as driver’s licenses for all, activating community members for real solutions, and pushing for corporate accountability from environmental degradation. Voting Lucy onto the City Council fights for Commerce City residents to have a local voice–not corporate interests–standing on their behalf for a more just, healthier city. 

As an Indigenous woman, mother, and activist, Renée Millard-Chacon understands the deep inequities harming her community–and the systemic changes required for Commerce City. Meaningfully addressing environmental racism stands at the forefront of her campaign in a city suing a major corporation for contaminating drinking water and exposing kids to higher concentrations of toxins. Renée has a long history of working in the Indigenous justice movement where real solutions for clean air and water and land protection take center. 

Whether as food access, increased minimum wage, affordable housing, or policies that hold corporations accountable for their environmental desecration and health impacts, Renée is boldly committed to restorative justice and equity for all people–including immigrants and refugees. She is a seasoned educator devoted to kids, the future of her community, and Indigenous ways of understanding public safety. Renée is running with the intent to flip norms in Commerce City from top-down governance to working with grassroots community relationships to build long-term, bottom-up solutions. Voting Renée into City Council means a fearless voice for BIPOC families and kids and the most basic human needs of shelter and clean air, land, and water. 

Araceli Calderon is a tenacious leader for immigrant rights in District 6, having worked to strengthen local refugee and immigrant protections and opportunities for the past 20 years. She is the daughter of Mexican agricultural workers and has been on the front lines of developing an immigrant legal defense fund–especially seeking support for DACA students. 

Araceli also advocates for educational services for immigrant students at Centennial BOCES and believes it’s important for immigrant and refugee families to understand the resources available to them, such as driver’s licenses and healthcare options. Araceli leads through a co-governance model where building solutions alongside local community members takes priority.

Having been raised in Denver as an undocumented child in Denver Public Schools, Xóchitl brings a pro-immigrant lens with her candidacy for the DPS School Board. She believes all students deserve a quality, equitably-funded education, and she sees education as a strong pathway to economic security, civic and community involvement, and personal empowerment. 

Xóchitl advocates for smaller class sizes for stronger learning environments and wants to see better relationships between schools and parents–as well as schools and community nonprofit organizations who resource families in the communities she hopes to represent. She also believes immigrant families in her district deserve access to a legal defense fund, driver’s licenses, and better information about available healthcare and childcare options. Xóchitl brings a voice from and for southwest Denver families.