I’m running for Houston City Council, District C because I’m tired of being lied to, and tired of watching people I care about pay the price for it.

I’m a teacher watching my students disappear from classrooms in real time, cataloging family members they know are unprotected, because city leadership will not tell the truth about cooperation between HPD and ICE, let alone take a stand for our communities. When the community rallies to collect our voices and levy them at city hall, we are painted as irrational, a nuisance, an inconvenient time block on the docket. It’s in the papers we learn of concessions of complicity.

I’m also a queer woman in Houston and I reject flimsy, procedural excuses for why City Hall won’t lift a finger to protect LGBTQ communities in the face of escalating, state-sanctioned bigotry. Silence and pre-compliance are political choices.

My background is in labor organizing, policy analysis, and legislative work in Texas. I’ve worked alongside city officials and in advocacy, with formal training in policy evaluation at Rice University and the University of Houston. Where I have gained the clearest understanding of how policy materializes in real life is on the ground, embedded in systems that are failing.

I’ve spent years organizing, challenging elected officials, and taking action when decisions were being made — not after the damage was done. I don’t believe City Council should be severed from the people. Government belongs to us.

I’m running to be a conduit and a thorn: a conduit for communities that are routinely cut off from City Hall, made to condense their grievances into 1-minute pleas. And I will be a thorn in the side of leadership that expects quiet compliance when Houston needs protection, honesty, and resolve.

District C deserves leadership that tells the truth, acts clearly and with ambition, and refuses to trade people’s lives and dignity for political cover. That’s the work I’m prepared to do.