Website: www.WinslowForMalden.com Facebook: WinslowForMalden Group Twitter: @Winslow4Malden Contact: 781-783-2835 We all know that home is where the heart is. That is why Steve, his wife Helen, daughters, and granddaughters have made Malden their home for more than 25 years. They love this city and it’s rich history while looking forward to its bright future. For Steve and his family, that meant investing more than 20 years of passion, experience, and problem-solving to create a bike path through the heart of Malden for generations of kids, families, and seniors to enjoy. It meant working together with the community, educators, and fellow School Committee members to rebuild vocational programs in the Malden Public Schools to give kids a pathway to better-paying jobs. It meant fighting to create safe streets and parks on the Open Space Committee; regardless of whether residents were walking, biking, or driving to protect our kids, families, and seniors. To put it simply, Steve cares. He cares that there are people struggling in this city, dreading the arrival of the next bill, knowing there is never enough affordable housing. As a member of SEIU 888, he cares whether our working families are getting paid fair wages and getting the support they deserve. He cares that we have to worry about safe water and whether our pipes are free from lead. He cares that the people of Malden feel their voice is being heard by the City Council on development, open space, and traffic issues. That is why he wants to bring his passion, experience, and community focus to the City Council as your next Councillor-at-Large.
• What legislation have you been excited to be involved with/pass?
Malden with the election of myself and another progressive councilor, who replaced two socially and fiscally conservative ideologues, now leans cautiously progressive. After many years of delay, the Council supported the creation of a Health Center at Malden High, one of the last urban high schools around Boston to have one. We re-established our disabilities commission. We passed a Complete Streets Policy that the previous Councillor blocked to allow consideration of the 40% of Maldonians who take transit, walk, or bicycle in our transportation planning, we’ve added another $450,000 to make our sidewalks more accessible and will be hiring a transportation planner who will have responsibility for developing transportation plans and projects that meet the needs of transit riders, walkers and bicyclists not just motorists.
In an effort to seek to broaden the participation of our youth and their families in local issues, I lead the effort with Malden Rising Leaders on the Vote 16 initiative to allow 16 and 17 years olds to vote in municipal elections. The youth who advocated for this proposal made a compelling case that Vote 16 would increase voter participation among resident groups that tend to vote less in local elections, such as Malden’s significant Asian, Latino, and Haitian American residents based on the research of communities that have tried it. In those instances, youth helped inspire older family members to vote. The youth advocates also presented studies that show that young people who voted at 16 or 17 become regular voters later in their life. We were able to secure 4 votes in support of Vote 16, 2 shy of the necessary number. Two cautiously progressive councilors raised concerns that Malden would be among the first communities in Massachusetts to seek to implement Vote 16 and had concerns that our City Clerk’s lacked the capacity to handle the new procedures.
• What did it mean to have Mass Alliance’s endorsement?
Mass Alliance’s endorsement helps draw together progressives to work more closely on important issues such as racial and economic equity. For people frustrated by what they see at the national level, endorsement by the Mass Alliance offers the opportunity for people to see that they can make a difference on progressive issues at the local level. Progressives that worked on my campaign went on to work to protect the rights of transgender residents at the state level and to work in Maine to help flip a House seat.
• How did having the Mass Alliance endorsement help your victory?
Mass Alliance’s endorsement helped bring progressives together to back my candidacy that helped secure two more progressive seats on the City Council. That unity has helped re-elect our progressive State Senator and Representative.
Matt Miller
Campaign Manager
I’ve worked on two successful progressive primary challenges, as campaign manager for JT Scott who was elected Somerville City Councilor in 2017, and as Field Director for Nika Elugardo, State Representative for the 15th Suffolk District elected in 2018. Mass Alliance’s training was critical to my success in these elections. The training does an excellent job breaking down what you need to do to win a grassroots campaign, and how to handle nuanced and difficult situations you will face on the campaign trail. I didn’t know exactly what challenges I would face in the campaigns I worked on after the training, but I had a good grounding in how to think about those challenges when they came up.
Year Endorsed: 2019