Last week, more than 100 West Side neighbors attended our first-ever virtual annual meeting! Together, we celebrated 2020 accomplishments, envisioned a just and joyful West Side, and looked ahead to what we’ll accomplish in 2021 and beyond. We're so excited and grateful that we've got each other. Watch the annual meeting on YouTube.
Also, check out this one-pager summarizing what we accomplished together this year and what we're looking forward to in the years to come!
Honoring outstanding West Siders
This year, we received so many nominations for West Sider of the Year, that we decided to celebrate outstanding West Siders with not one award – but three! Learn more about these outstanding West Siders and watch videos of them receiving their awards! Here are the folks we're honoring this year!
- 2020 Spark of the West Side: Payton Ortiz & his Grandfather Dan Wolff, and Mother Anna Wolff
- 2020 Heart of the West Side: Jesus Ramirez
- 2020 West Sider of the Year: Maria McNamara
Meet our newly elected (or re-elected) board members!
At the meeting, West Siders voted for the WSCO board members who will start terms in 2021. The results are in! You and your neighbors
- re-elected Kim Moua;
- elected Teresa Zaffiro and Mario Páez; and
- selected alternates Sebastian Ellefson and Marcus Troy.
Read more about the newly-elected board members on WSCO’s blog!
Meet the members of WSCO’s Equitable Development Scorecard Team!
This spring, we were going to host a party to celebrate the members of our Equitable Development Scorecard Team – but we missed our opportunity as we readjusted to life in a pandemic. Thankfully, we got to introduce this team to West Siders during our annual meeting!
The Equitable Development Scorecard is a tool developed by West Siders, for West Siders to decide whether we, the community, support development projects and other investments proposed for our neighborhood. While all West Siders can use the Scorecard, the Equitable Development Scorecard Team leads efforts to open conversation with developers, score proposed projects and engage with their neighbors for feedback and discussion. Read more about the members of our current Scorecard team!
Gratitude
A huge thank-you to Captain Ken’s Food for their chili donation! It’s been a decades-long tradition to eat chili at WSCO annual meetings, and we’re grateful that Captain Ken made sure a pandemic didn’t get in the way of that! We’re also incredibly grateful to vocalist Jamela Pettiford for sharing a powerful land acknowledgement to set the tone for our meeting.
We can't wait to get to know you better!
For those of you who are new to WSCO, welcome! For those of you who are not, welcome back! We’re looking forward to getting to know everyone a little better in 2021. We’ll keep you informed of opportunities to get involved via our newsletter (sign up here) and on social media (follow us on Facebook and Twitter). Don’t hesitate to contact us at info@wsco.org with questions or feedback. We want to hear from you!
Here are three ways you can get involved right now!
- Fill out this commitment form to tell us a little more about yourself and how you’d like to get involved on the West Side.
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Register for our next West Side Voices Forum on Tuesday, December 8. The West Side Voices Forum is WSCO’s monthly meeting. We get together to discuss important things happening in our neighborhood and organize within our five Action Circles:
- Land Use: ensuring new development benefits West Siders
- Community Care: investing in life-affirming public safety
- West Side 100: organizing for 100% voter turnout and staying engaged to hold elected leaders accountable
- Health and Environmental Justice: fighting for systems that ensure access to healthy natural spaces, good food, and clean air and water
- Housing Justice: demanding safe, quality, affordable housing for all West Siders
- Donate to WSCO. Invest in us so that, together, we can continue building power for a just and joyful West Side!