Since D.C. Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1) announced she wouldn’t run for re-election, a handful of candidates, one of whom Nadeau endorsed, have taken aim at the Ward 1 D.C. council seat.
For at least one Ward 1 resident, however, there might be too many hands in the pot.
“It’s time for us to be shrewd and analytical about these races,” said Lydia Curtis, a longtime Park View resident. “Sometimes you have to get together and make a strategic plan that may not include everybody. There are five candidates and I’m only familiar with the platforms of maybe one or two.”
Those five candidates are: Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners Rashida Brown and Miguel Trindade Deramo; former D.C. Mayor’s Office on Latino Affairs director Jackie Reyes-Yanes; democratic socialist and tenant advocate Aparna Raj; and longtime Mt. Pleasant community leader Terry Lynch.
Curtis, an activist and substitute teacher who’s in her 36th year of living near Georgia Avenue NW, commended Nadeau for, as she said it, standing alone on issues of significance to women and other marginalized populations.
Though she has yet to choose a candidate, Curtis said she wants a pro-union council member who’s passionate about housing affordability.
“They have to be strong and anti-displacement,” Curtis told The Informer, “not just window dressing, pandering to the rich, the corporations and the developers. Someone creating legislation that creates spaces and neighborhoods for the average working person.”
Also noting Nadeau’s efforts to prevent displacement, Curtis told The Informer that she wants the next Ward 1 council member to take on a similar posture.
“They have [to be] really mindful of lifting the poor and the homeless off of the streets,” Curtis said. “There’s too many unhoused people, and it’s just not necessary.”
The Announcement That Kicked Off the Ward 1 D.C. Council Race
Ward 1, which includes the neighborhoods of Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights, LeDroit Park, Pleasant Plains, and U Street, counts among the District’s most racially diverse wards.
Nadeau’s departure from the council after three terms comes amid concerns about public safety, gentrification, and quality of city services and public schools. Last fall, shortly after announcing that she wouldn’t seek re-election, the Ward 1 council member threw her support behind Brown, a social worker and Howard University alumna who, if elected, would become Ward 1’s first Black woman council member.
Brown told The Informer that, as Ward 1 council member, she would cooperate with her council colleagues to make the District safer for residents.
“That is what being a policymaker is,” Brown told The Informer. “It is keeping our residents at the forefront of policymaking. It is influencing those that are going to be working with you on the dais. It is working collaboratively with people to get things done, because at the end of the day, it’s about taking action.”
By the end of January, Brown’s camp collected a total of $15,886 in campaign contributions from District residents and $12,820 from non-D.C. residents, for a total of $28,856 raised since jumping into the race. Per an amended January report, Raj’s camp has collected $44,859 in D.C-based contributions and $14,115 from non-D.C. residents. Since jumping into the race, Raj had also tapped into more than $200,000 in public funds, bringing her to a total of $268,259.18.
An amended Jan. 31 report from Reyes-Yanes’ camp shows that Reyes-Yanes has collected $17,098 in D.C.-based contributions and $5,432 in non-District resident contributions. Reyes-Yanes too has tapped into nearly $71,000 in public funds, for a cumulative total of $93,725.50 in contributions reported last month.
Trindade Deramo’s amended Jan. 31 report shows individual D.C. resident contributions totaling $9,638 and individual non-D.C. resident contributions totaling $1,865. The Ward 1 advisory neighborhood commissioner has also tapped into $53,340 in public funds, which brings his campaign coffers up to at least $64,893.
Lynch’s campaign, per a Jan. 31 report, has raised $6,794 in individual D.C. resident contributions and $4,763 in contributions from non-D.C. residents, while tapping into $48,115 in public funds. With an additional $1,000 from Lynch, this brings the funds cumulatively raised by the campaign to at least $60,672.
As the clock winds down to June 16, the date of the D.C. Democratic primary, Brown continues to engage voters. She told The Informer that she will build on Nadeau’s legacy, especially as it relates to her fight for housing affordability.
Brown, however, said she will do it on her own terms if elected.
“When she hands the baton to me, I will have my own ideals because I’m running as myself,” Brown said. “My platform runs on the legacy that I have as a social worker. as a Howard University graduate, as a longtime Ward 1 resident who served her community and a Black woman leader.”
Terry Lynch: The Man Who Challenged Nadeau Before Her Announcement
By the time Nadeau and Brown stood as a united front, Lynch had already made known his intentions to run for the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat. As he recounted to The Informer, he reached out to Nadeau to let her know about his candidacy.
Lynch said he took on this endeavor out of frustration with Nadeau’s stewardship of ward-level affairs.
“I was not getting the responses that I would expect from a ward council member,” Lynch said about his engagement with Nadeau. “She’d run my ward over these past years, and throughout that period of time, she did not channel [her predecessor] Jim Graham.”
In a text message, Nadeau addressed Lynch’s take on their engagement.
“I always appreciate constituent efforts to improve the community and do my best to address all concerns that come to me,” she said.
As it relates to the events surrounding Lynch’s run, the Ward 1 council member was a bit more direct.
“He did not reach out to me to let me know he was running,” Nadeau wrote. “There’s a slight chance that he mentioned it in passing in an email where he was insulting government services, but it wasn’t a like a ‘Heads up, I’m gonna run.’”
Lynch, a Mt. Pleasant resident of more than 40 years, moved to that community after graduating from Georgetown University and spending a year in Nicaragua.
Throughout the decades, as his two children matriculated through D.C. Public Schools, and well after, Lynch took on a number of roles, including as a member of D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams’ Task Force on the Future of the DC Public Library System and the D.C. State Athletic Commission.
He is also co-founder of the Washington Area Community Investment Fund (WACIF).
As executive director of the Downtown Cluster of Congregations, Lynch recently condemned a racially derogatory image of former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama that President Donald J. Trump posted online. Lynch has also led local houses of worship in distribution of food during the federal government shutdown last year, all while raising awareness about the economic challenges facing small Black churches that have had to move to the D.C. suburbs in recent years.
Lynch said, long before Trump’s return to the White House, Ward 1 has gone to the wayside.
“The ward has fallen behind, far from where it should be today, so what we need is a ward council member who’s going to be focused on every piece of the thousand-piece puzzle,” Lynch told The Informer. “I’m going to give residents my very best work [that] we brought to downtown. I want to bring that to the streets of Ward 1 before it’s another four years, another 10 years, another 30 of ‘that’s just how it is.’”
If elected, Lynch would focus on: public safety, public education, increasing economic activity along Georgia Avenue and other blighted corridors, housing affordability and the efficiency of city services. He said that local issues should take precedence, more so than what he called crusades of national relevance taken on by the D.C. Council in recent years.
“Residents want to know that the snow’s removed, that the alley’s clean, that the streetlight works so they can go about their day-to-day life,” Lynch said. “Those are the services that could come first for a ward council member, but then followed up, of course, with activism on the national, regional issues that are important.”
As the District reels from federal infringement on local affairs, Lynch said that solid governance will be its saving grace.
“We have to continue to work responsibly and show that we can govern successfully,” Lynch told The Informer. “That, yes, we can clean the snow during a snowstorm. Yes, we can have our schools open for and have them heated. We’ve got to show we know how to run a city, can run a city, and will run the city competently.”
Jackie Reyes-Yanes: An Advocate with a Special D.C. Story
If elected as Ward 1’s next D.C. council member, Reyes-Yanes will become the District’s first Latino council member.
However, as Reyes-Yanes explained, an electoral victory will yield dividends not only for Latinos in her ward, but other racial groups she said are clamoring for more than representation.
“They can’t use our people for their own reasons, so I need to make sure that people feel treated with dignity and respect,” Reyes-Yanes said. “But not only Latinos. African-Americans [are] here. How do we keep Ward 1 diverse? Not only the culture, but the socioeconomics also.”
During her campaign launch party at The Oliver last fall, Reyes-Yanes reflected on an upbringing that started in Cantón Las Marías, Nueva Esparta, La Union, El Salvador and brought her to D.C. as a pre-teen. Weeks prior, while speaking with The Informer, she delved into an adolescence peppered, not only with pregnancies and homelessness, but D.C. summer jobs and what she called the saving grace of the Latin American Youth Center (LAYC).
“By the age of 20, I had three children [I was] raising here in Washington, D.C.,” Reyes-Yanes said. “It was not easy but I [turned] my life around. I’m a direct product of what works in the village. Having organizations like the Latin America Youth Center teaching me how to take care of my daughter, making sure that I was connected to services.”
Reyes-Yanes said it was at the LAYC that she discovered her knack for grassroots activism during one of Ward 1’s most critical moments.
“When the Mt. Pleasant fire happened [in 2008], I organized and kept the 200 victims of the fire in the neighborhood,” Reyes-Yanes said, “paying the rent [and] making sure that we…secured funding for that building. It caught the attention of Councilmember Jim Graham.”
Reyes-Yanes, who later served as Graham’s director of Latino affairs and community outreach, credits him with acclimating her to a professional environment and allowing her to help some of the District’s most vulnerable residents.
“That’s when we did the legislation for the [undocumented immigrant] driver’s license,” Reyes-Yanes recounted. “He introduced legislation and then he passed it with then-Mayor Gray.”
More than a decade later, as President Donald J. Trump unleashed federal immigration agents on the District via Section 740 of the D.C. Home Rule Act, Reyes-Yanes walked a tight rope in her role as D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Latino affairs director.
Commending Bowser for the manner in which she engaged the Trump administration, Reyes-Yane said she and other members of the D.C. government did their best to help constituents under the unprecedented circumstances.
“There are some things that she can do as a mayor, but there is also outreach to make sure that people know about their rights,” Reyes-Yanes said. “We have programs, and it doesn’t come out like the flick of a finger. It takes time.”
As Bowser engaged the Trump administration, Reyes-Yanes said she leveraged her role to provide community members with resources. Even so, she acknowledged how, during and well after the federalization period, many residents felt uncomfortable seeking local services.
“We’re humans, and what they want to feel is that they are connected to certain human basic needs,” Reyes-Yanes told The Informer. “[They want to] walk their child to school and not be afraid that they’re going to be picked up. That if you see a crime reported, there’s not going to be something that you’re going to be targeted for.”
In an increasingly expensive city, Reyes-Yanes said that type of anxiety has long permeated all aspects of daily life for all Washingtonians of limited means.
“I’ve been hearing a lot [about] affordable housing. People want to stay here,” Reyes-Yanes said. “And they [want] universal child care. How much are we paying for child care?”
Well before Ward 4 D.C. Councilmember Janeese Lewis George’s introduction of rat abatement legislation, and several months before the District’s bout with “snowcrete,” Reyes-Yanes expressed criticism about the quality and efficiency of District agencies.
“These are the things that I keep hearing,” Reyes-Yanes said, “but connecting it to picking up the trash [and] how we are going to eradicate rats.”
Part of actualizing that vision, she said, is an expansion of an already-existing apparatus.
“I want to build a constituent service powerhouse,” Reyes-Yanes said. “I’m here to listen. I want to be in the streets. I want to be in the church. You got to believe me when I say this.”
Aparna Raj: A Democratic Socialist on a Mission
With the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat, and other council seats, up for grabs this year, Raj said she sees the potential for a paradigm shift of enormous benefit to the District’s most marginalized. Despite what’s been described as some apprehension about democratic socialism, Raj said that, at its root, the concept has wide appeal.
“The goal is for us to transform our government from one that has for so long catered to billionaires who want a sports stadium or developers who want to make money off of our housing,” Raj said. “Now it’s time for a council who recognizes that and will fight for…people to have basic dignity and joy in their lives.”
A decade-long District resident who lives in Columbia Heights, Raj conducted immigration Know Your Rights training during the first Trump administration. She has also organized with the D.C. Metro chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America for tenant’s rights, better working conditions, abortion rights, and protections for immigrants.
Raj’s experience also includes a stint on Advisory Neighborhood Commission 1A’s Housing Justice and Zoning Committee, and instances when she organized tenants in Ward 1 and across the District in their fight for better living conditions and rent concessions.
She said she will bring the same fervor to the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat.
“The role of that seat is to really be an advocate for people to really fight alongside renters and workers and immigrants and families, and try to bring down costs for people,” Raj said.
If elected, Raj will focus on housing affordability, educational equity, and what she described as an overall pivot away from corporation-friendly policies. In alignment with fellow democratic socialist, New York CIty Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Raj supports a rent cap and free childcare.
Raj’s focus on housing affordability comes after nearly a decade of what she describes as legislative assaults on renters.
“We have to do whatever we can to try to give people more power and [tackle] this dynamic between developers and real estate lobbyists having control of our homes and tenants kind of getting pushed to the side more and more,” Raj told The Informer. “It’s been a concerning trend that we saw when TOPA [the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act] was taken away from single family homes in 2018, when it was chipped away a couple of years ago with downtown conversions, and we’re seeing it with ERAP [emergency rental assistance] getting chipped away at more and more.”
On the federal front, Raj has rallied in support of workers affected by the Trump administration’s hemorrhaging of the federal government, as well as immigrants targeted by federal law enforcement. Though Raj extolled Nadeau’s council hearing on possible human rights violations by federal officers, and Lewis George’s efforts on the ground amid federal infusion, she said the council has a ways to go in pushing back against the Trump administration.
“We have the soft power of the council member trying to gain resources, trying to organize escorts so immigrants can go to school or work or wherever they need to do safely,” Raj told The Informer. “Coordinate with mutual aid groups in the area…for folks who aren’t able to afford groceries or can’t go outside to buy groceries. Expanding our social safety net, expanding our unemployment insurance and health care, all of the things that people really, really need to survive.”
Miguel Trindade Deramo: A Man Who Wants to Turn Ideas to Action, Once Again
Trindade Deramo’s election to the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat would be the latest chapter in local civic engagement that includes the preservation of Malcolm X Park, the campaign for ranked-choice voting and open primaries, and efforts to protect D.C. home rule.
For Trindade Deramo, all feats have a common thread in that they’ve fostered unity among D.C. residents who, despite their varying racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds, share a common goal.
“A lot of people come here to develop their values and advocate for what they’re passionate [about], but sometimes the D.C. government has trouble implementing them,” Trindade Deramo said. “One of the most progressive things a public official can do is make sure that the government works for the people, to demonstrate that programs really can make life better.”
Last year, Trindade Deramo became chair of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 1B, which encompasses lower Columbia Heights, Cardozo, LeDroit Park, North Shaw, Meridian Hill, the U Street corridor, and lower Georgia Avenue. He took on that role after spending much of his tenure as 1B06 commissioner coordinating weekly cleanups for Malcolm X Park, engaging National Park Service in its upkeep, and hosting events there, including “Shakespeare at the Park.”
After Trump evoked Section 740 of the D.C. Home Rule Act last year, Trindade Deramo founded the ANC Home Rule Caucus, through which he and more than 70 advisory neighborhood commissioners demanded ICE agents discard their masks and the local public safety ecosystem work independent of federal law enforcement.
A former foreign service diplomat, Trindade Deramo said he would parlay that experience as a council member to unify his colleagues and the mayor around a strategy to counter federal intrusion.
“That’s an important step that I would take right from the beginning and then consistently throughout,” he said. “We need to be a united front.”
If elected, Trindade Deramo counts among his legislative priorities: housing affordability, public safety, responsiveness to community concerns, and strong transportation connectivity. For him, the ideal Ward 1 D.C. council member will balance their obligation to economic vibrancy and maintaining Ward 1’s racial and socioeconomic diversity.
“That’s a dynamic to be negotiated and to be mindful of all the time to make sure that the legacy of U Street as Black Broadway is not something that gets submerged,” said Trindade Deramo, “and that it remains a vibrant commercial corridor…. not just for bars and clubs, but, you know, for jazz, which has been important for decades on that corridor, and for dining and for retail.”
As it relates to housing affordability, Trindade Deramo said the District needs to construct more family-sized apartments and increase zoning density to increase the local housing supply.
“We are seeing displacement of families who have been here for one, two, three, four generations, and we are watching the economy shift much in the same way,” Trindade Deramo told The Informer, “losing over time some of the essential services that make neighborhoods very healthy. This affects all of D.C., but its forces are certainly at play in Ward 1, where housing is only getting more expensive.”
Trindade Deramo said the same notion applies to helping businesses that struggle to stay open, let alone launch, along the U Street corridor and other parts of Ward 1.
“I am watching around the ward as long-time businesses are closing, and sort of middle-range businesses, neighborhood services are also disappearing,” he said. “That could be the kind of corner restaurant where you go on a weekday after work, and you don’t break the bank. The sort of places you rely on for an everyday meal, or a convenience store, or a late-night food option, or sort of a staple retail business.”
If elected, Trindade Deramo said he will bring that issue, and all other issues affecting Ward 1 residents, to the forefront.
“We have a very strong set of shared values here in Ward 1 and they’ve been tested in recent months,” he told The Informer. “My mission is to make sure that those are felt on the ground. That’s what I’m running for council to do.”