LOCAL STORY CANDICE BAILEY SPEAKS AT AURORA DEMOCRATIC BREAKFAST FORUM IN OCTOBER. CREDIT: GILES CLASEN CANDICE BAILEY IS RUNNING FOR AN AT LARGE SEAT ON THE AURORA CITY COUNCIL. “…WORKING ON COMMITTEES AND BOARDS AT THE STATE AND LOCAL LEVEL SPEAKS MORE FOR WHO I AM, AND HOW I WILL LEAD, THAN THE WORK THAT I DO ON CORNERS WITH BULLHORNS.” CREDIT: GILES CLASEN RUNNING TO CHANGE BY GILES CLASEN AFTER SPENDING YEARS FIGHTING FOR CHANGE as community organizers, and motivated by their desire to change the system from the inside, community organizers and advocates for social justice are running as city council candidates in Commerce City and Aurora. Candice Bailey, who became known throughout Aurora and Colorado for her vocal criticism of the Aurora Police Department following Elijah McClain’s death, is running for an Aurora City Council At Large seat. “I think that as a Black woman, I’ve always stood up for what was right,” Bailey said. “When I organized protests, with respect to Elijah McClain, I didn’t do something unique; I did something that every one of us should have done – that we had the responsibility to do. Standing up for someone who is brutally murdered — that is the right thing to do.’ Bailey said she wants people to know that she will always fight for justice, but her work for police reform has included more than organizing protests to draw attention to the brutal tactics of Aurora police. Without endorsing any one candidate, Colorado Congressman Jason Crow suggested there are many models of service that help prepare individuals for office. 8 DENVER VOICE November 2021 “No one person or organization can solve all of the challenges we face,” Crow said. “We have never before in our country or community history faced as many and as different types of complicated and overlapping problems. We need lots of different perspectives and different people to come together and figure out how to address those challenges. That’s going to require diversity of thought, it’s going to require diversity of background and experience,” Crow added. Representative Iman Jodeh, who represents Aurora House District 41 in the state house, agrees. “It’s important [for community organizers to run for office],” said Jodeh. “These are the folks that are in the trenches; these are the folks that have the lived experiences that I think the majority of [elected officials] haven’t had.” After years of advocacy for Indigenous and Chicano communities, Renee Millard-Chacon is running for a seat in Ward 3 for Commerce City Council and is campaigning for environmental justice within Commerce City. “Commerce City’s [elected] leaders don’t look at the health and safety of the community as a priority,” Millard-Chacon said. “They focus development on economic benefits. But the economic benefits are only creating a future for a privileged few while harming current generations and future generations.” The two environmental concerns Millard-Chacon has built her candidacy on are the Suncor refinery and potential for new fracking wells being approved in Commerce City. “With the pollution from Suncor, and the future pollution from fracking, we’re getting hit double and adding to those systemic health disparities,” Millard-Chacon said. The Commerce City Council passed Ordinance 2266 in March, which now requires all oil and gas permits be approved by the city council. “This change makes the 2021 Commerce City election the most important election in a long time,” Millard-Chacon said, “because the city council will play a larger role in approving oil and gas drilling permits.” A report released in 2019 by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment found individuals living within 2,000 feet of fracking wells are exposed to benzene and other chemicals that are health risks. Both Bailey and Millard-Chacon have participated in community engagement through nonprofit work. Millard-Chacon co-founded the nonprofit Womxn of the Mountain, an organization focusing on cultural education and inclusivity training. She also formerly worked at Spirit of the Sun, an organization that works with indigenous tribes to create new development opportunities and improve tribal economies. Bailey has founded nonprofits and businesses that train officers on addressing trauma in the community. She also serves on the City of Aurora Community Police Task Force, as well as a half dozen other local and state boards and committees. Additionally, she has trained police officers throughout Colorado on trauma-informed policing as part of her nonprofit and small business ventures. “I think that my track record of working inside of public safety, working on committees and boards at the state and local level, speaks more for who I am, and how I will lead, than the work that I do on corners with bullhorns,” Bailey said. Trauma-informed practices involve recognizing and responding to the effects of trauma in behavior to a police presence. It is a policing practice interwoven with de-escalation tactics to prevent violence during police encounters. Bailey believes that police have a difficult job and face damaging trauma within the job, and she wants police officers to understand they are valued within the community. Still, Bailey believes defunding the police is an important step forward.
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