Paterson is 70% Hispanic, but few Latinos run for City Council. A group is taking action

PATERSON — In a city where about 70% of the population is Hispanic, only a handful of the 21 people running for the City Council are Latino.

That was an issue Sunday as about 100 people gathered at a Paterson meeting hall for a council candidates forum sponsored by a coalition of local Latino groups.

“The lack of Latino representation is the reason our organization was born,” said Miguel Diaz, who founded the Dominican American Political Force in Paterson several months ago.

Diaz called Paterson’s Latino community the city’s “silent” majority, residents who pay the price for their lack of political engagement by getting fewer neighborhood services.

“If you don’t vote, you don’t count,” Diaz said. “We’re not educated enough to understand we have to work together.”

Three of Paterson's nine City Council seats and four of its nine Board of Education slots are held by people with Latino cultural backgrounds.

In Paterson’s May 14 ward council elections, two of those three Hispanic representatives — Councilmen Alex Mendez and Luis Velez — are trying to hold on to their seats. If they both were to lose — something political insiders say is unlikely — Paterson would have just one Latino on the council.

Goal to sign up 5,000 voters

Four of the 17 candidates who participated in Sunday’s five-hour event were Latino. Later this year, Diaz’s group is planning a registration drive with a goal of signing up 5,000 new voters.

That could have a big impact on local election results in a city where turnout for council elections tends to be low. In 2020, 13,556 people voted citywide in the ward elections, and in 2016 the turnout was 14,701.  None of the winners in the six separate ward contests in those two years got more than 1,750 votes.

Despite its having the largest population in the city, the political power of the Latino community is undermined by a lack of engagement, said Assad Akhtar, who is challenging Mendez in the 3rd Ward. “People take them for granted — they think they're only going to vote for other Latino candidates,” said Akhtar, a South Asian candidate.

Fannia Santana, 30, who is trying to oust Councilman Michael Jackson in the 1st Ward, said she thinks more Latinos will get involved in local politics if they see other people from their culture win elections.

“I hope my candidacy gives hope to others,” said Santana, who has Mayor Andre Sayegh’s backing in a battle against the mayor’s most frequent critic on the governing body.

Another 1st Ward challenger, Ramona Blizzard, said she often encounters people who tell her “I don’t speak English” during her campaign travels.

“It really bothers me,” Blizzard said. “There’s a need for us to make the citizens a part of the city of Paterson.”

Not all residents at Sunday's forum were concerned about their elected official's race so much as their platforms.

“I don’t care if I’m represented by Latinos as long as the person does a good job,” said Ivan Malave, 47, a 6th Ward resident who immigrated to Paterson 20 years ago from Venezuela. "The city I love is not the same city anymore.”

As the father of an autistic child, Malave is concerned above all with overdevelopment and how it’s flooding the schools with more students. “The school system is getting worse and worse,” he said. “I don’t see these people trying to build new schools.”

The moderator of Sunday’s event, Victor Urbaez, an attorney and trustee of the Political Force, said the gathering was promising at the very least, because it helped repair an impression people have that the city’s politics can be dirty.

“So far, there’s no fights in the parking lot,” Urbaez said. “The overall message here is that we can come together, even though we come here with different issues.”

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Paterson is 70% Hispanic, but few Latinos run for City Council. A group is taking action