Community Alliance for Better Government (CABG) endorses Stephanie Mendoza for Evanston City Clerk in the upcoming primary election on February 23, 2021.
Ms. Mendoza has consistently lived the values that CABG espouses: personal integrity, principled leadership for racial equity, and the belief that government serves the people and not vice versa. As a first-generation American, she understands barriers, including language, that too many residents suffer in accessing services and the political process. She draws on her lived experience as an activist in local schools, Connections for the Homeless, and as community outreach director for Evanston Latinos.
CABG believes that Ms. Mendoza can fulfill a central duty of the City Clerk: to affirmatively solicit and provide a platform for the voices of all people of good will, including those traditionally marginalized, in shaping City priorities.
Community Alliance for Better Government coalesced in 2019 as a grassroots campaign for racial justice, transparency, and accountability in Evanston in the wake of the unfair firing of the successful and broadly popular leader of the Youth and Young Adult Division, Kevin Brown, a Black man. Evident to the scores of supporters representing every ward, race, age, and income level was that the Mayor and City Council members, with few exceptions, did not care. The City Manager search that followed did nothing to allay that anger, as favoritism for the incumbent made a sham of its own commissioned national search and resident input process.
Stephanie Mendoza is CABG’s fourth endorsed candidate in Evanston for the February 23, 2021 primaries. CABG also endorsed Daniel Biss for Mayor, Diane Goldring for 4th Ward Alderman, and Devon Reid for 8th Ward Alderman. All would further CABG’s Platform for Government Transparency, developed by residents in an open process at CABG’s “Call to Conference” in January 2021.
“We are making not only endorsements, we support the people in holding elected officials accountable.”
Bennett Johnson, chair of CABG
CABG will actively campaign for the candidates it endorses and urges all residents to vote on February 23rd.