Why are you running for Councillor and what particular skills can you bring to the position?
My wife and I moved to Salem in 2018, looking for an affordable community to set roots, and raise a family. If I were to move to Salem today, I could not afford the condo we bought in 2018 anymore let alone a home like the one I live in today, and the reality can be even worse for people struggling to stay and be part of this amazing city. I am running for Salem City Councilor At-Large to continue to serve, fight for and alongside people most marginalized, and make sure Salem is an affordable, accessible, and welcoming City for all. I am the only candidate who has the combination of lived experience, policy expertise, and a record of creating solutions for people. As a formerly undocumented immigrant from Brazil, I have experienced displacement, poverty, and many of the challenges Salem residents face today. I overcame these challenges by working with my community as we lifted each other up. I have 13 years of policy experience as an organizer, advocate at the federal, state, and local levels, and successfully seeing policies become reality. I will bring constituent services skills that I have developed as a direct service provider, as a public servant who prioritizes helping people find resources, and as someone who has worked to bring people up at every point that I could in my career. I can write ordinances AND help people find solutions. From potholes to policy, I am ready to serve on day one.
Residents are facing housing instability and displacement. Do you have specific plans that would protect renters in the city?
As someone who has experienced displacement and instability, nearly every policy I support is a policy that addresses housing stabilization in at least one way. I also understand that we need to have short term and long-term strategies to increase stability and reduce displacement. In the short-term, I am a strong advocate for funding programs that effectively help renters stay in their homes. I have been working to support Salem’s Housing Stabilization efforts by finding ways to allocate some of our ARPA dollars to that important work and will continue to support funding these efforts as a Councilor. In the long-term, while state law prevents us from having rent control, I would support a home rule petition asking the state to allow Salem to enact controls that meet our needs. Building more affordable housing gives renters more stable housing choices. Increasing tenant protections through condo conversions (a work I have proudly been a part of in the writing of our draft condo conversion ordinance) can help people not face sudden displacement. Improved public transit can increase access to affordable transportation options. Zoning reform can remove exclusionary policies and increase production options, especially of affordable housing with reasonable rents. Although home ownership is not desired by all, I personally know it can prevent inhumane rent hikes, give families stability, and improve generational wealth. I would support strengthening Salem’s homeownership programs, and help connect local residents who can and want to own with additional resources to become homeowners.
Salem is already seeing the effects of the climate crisis, including flooding during storms and high tides. Focusing on what you would do, what are your top priorities to mitigate the climate crisis?
Protecting the environment and tackling our climate crisis are values and goals that must be present in every policy consideration we make. Mitigating the climate crisis must be an ever-present goal and priority. Our housing must be sustainable, our infrastructure must promote zero-emissions, and we must improve people’s ability to get to and from work without relying on cars. We must prioritize reducing carbon emissions, invest in our resiliency, and improve our greenspaces and tree canopy city-wide. We are already doing some work with businesses to reduce their emissions, and we must enact ordinance that requires new businesses and homes to be emission-free. We have several plans addressing our resiliency needs and must make sure those plans’ recommendations are implemented or updated to meet today’s challenges. Our 2014 Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Plan includes 43 recommendations, and many have not been fully addressed. We must take these plans seriously and do the work we plan in them. Trees and greenspace are important to improve stormwater runoff, reduce heat areas, and improve air quality and general quality of life. We must improve our green spaces, including those in sidewalks, and ensure that our streets have a strong tree canopy to meet those goals city-wide. We are already experiencing the effects of human made climate change and cannot leave environmental and resiliency decisions to the federal and state governments, Salem must step up and never stop working to mitigate the climate crisis.
Salem strives to be a diverse, equitable, and inclusive city. What have you done to lead on these ideals and how will you support work in this area?
As a Latino, an immigrant, and someone who has been excluded from various tables of decision-making that impacted my life and that of my community, I value diversity, equity, and inclusion in all aspects of our city life. I am proud to have been able to implement this lens to several initiatives in Salem. As a member of Salem’s housing production plan steering committee, I was concerned with the plan’s ability to engage low-income, immigrant, and historically marginalized and excluded groups of people and neighborhoods. I was able to help our plan engage residents through the food pantry, and to make sure the voices of leaders from the Latino Leadership Coalition were part of the conversation to make sure our plan was the most inclusive it could be. As Councilor At-Large, I will be able to continue to implement this lens through the entirety of my work. When tackling housing production and affordable housing, we must be sure to make inclusive decisions that build affordable options for housing across the entire city. Our transit decisions must ensure that all our sidewalks are safe, reliable and ADA compliant, and that we are prioritizing finding ways to increase options for public transit in the city and our region. No matter the policy, making sure we keep diversity, equity, and inclusion principles at the forefront is essential to continue to build a welcoming city.
On average, 30% of Salem residents voted in the past municipal elections. Please outline some ideas you have that can enhance voter engagement and elections.
The most effective policies that can be implemented to increase voter turnout are needed to be implemented at the state level and I support policies such as same day registration, early voting, vote-by-mail, automatic voter registration and address change, and making election day a holiday. At the city level, we can give power to 16-to-17-year-old residents to vote, and we can make sure that additional central voting locations are available beyond our ward polling locations such as voting at City Hall on election day, and partnering with the USPS to allow voting at Salem’s post office for all Salem residents. I am also a supporter of Ranked Choice Voting for all our elections as well as the elimination of preliminary elections through the implementation of RCV and would work diligently as Councilor to come up with the best system possible to meet Salem voters’ needs. We must also increase transparency within the Council. We’ve done some good work to establish hybrid access, and, despite occasional challenges, this is mostly working. But we must do more. I would work to improve access to ordinances online, similar as to how the state has bills and budgets online. I believe votes must be recorded online in an easy-to-search manner. This will likely require an evaluation of our current technology shortfalls, followed by action steps to address them including finding best available solutions to be deployed. I would support funding this type of assessment and finding ways to implement changes effectively and expeditiously.
Learn more
Campaign Website: www.FilipeForSalem.com
Campaign Email: info@filipeforsalem.com
Social Media: www.facebook.com/FilipeForSalem