The Worcester city council currently has two blocs. The first is ideologically diverse, pragmatic, and serious about governing. The other has spent the past year pushing dangerous policies and smearing their opponents. It does so hoping to sway enough voters to become the majority in the next election. Voters must not let that happen.
That second bloc is led by Etel Haxhiaj of district 5, along with at-large councilors Thu Nguyen and Khrystian King. Nguyen stopped attending meetings and, after it became clear that they were highly unlikely to be re-elected, dropped out of the race. King is the bloc’s candidate for mayor, running against incumbent Joe Petty.
The Haxhiaj/Nguyen grouping has engineered numerous controversies over the current council session. All have been either performative or genuinely bad for the city. Early on in the term, for example, they pushed to get the city to regulate crisis pregnancy centers, the controversial anti-abortion “clinics.” There are many solid arguments against these facilities. Still, the proposed regulations would set the city up for lawsuits it would easily lose. They would also benefit the CPCs with free publicity.
In October 2024, Haxhiaj and Nguyen led a crowd of protesters to shut down a city council meeting because they temporarily couldn’t get their way on an anti-Israel resolution. The resolution shouldn’t have been on the agenda under council rules. Still, the city clerk gave Nguyen and Haxhiaj’s activists the chance to put a request for a rules-waiver on the next meeting’s agenda. Instead of doing that, the protesters, under Haxhiaj’s and Nguyen’s leadership, chose to storm the council meeting. They caused such a disturbance that it had to be adjourned.
More recently, that grouping has condemned the Worcester Police Department, the city manager, the mayor, and several councilors for an incident on Eureka Street involving ICE. When immigration agents showed up to deport a mother, Worcester police were called to the scene to keep tensions between ICE and community residents from boiling over. The police department had few options available. Still, the Haxhiaj bloc accused the police of assisting ICE.
The incident at Eureka Street is particularly important, because it portends the kind of danger the city would find itself in were this grouping ever to gain power.
The WPD maintained its long-term policy of not cooperating with ICE. It hasn’t shared information with ICE, held anyone for ICE, or enforced immigration law in any way. What the police did there was to keep order – nothing more. When community members attempted to stop ICE, the police were forced to intervene.
The alternative would have been a standoff between the federal government and Worcester residents. The Haxhiaj/Nguyen bloc acted as if the police should have allowed or even created a confrontation with federal authorities – a dangerous move for a mid-sized city like Worcester.
Generally speaking, Worcester residents are opposed to Trump and his policies on immigration. The mayor led a demonstration in support of the city’s immigrant population during the first Trump term and has since reiterated that the police do not work with immigration authorities. At the same time, Worcester is not in any position to be the city that ends up in a standoff with the Trump administration. Such a standoff was hard even for Los Angeles – the second largest city in the country. The LAPD is similar in size to that of several small countries.
Policy issues can and should be debated. Ways that the city can work to mitigate some of the damage coming from the current administration should be discussed. Nevertheless, the sheer recklessness of the grouping is at best only an electoral ploy. At worst, it is a danger to the city. Those who are allied with them have no business in government.
Not every idea from Haxhiaj, Nguyen, or King is bad. Indeed, Haxhiaj and King have put forward some good proposals. However, whatever good they have done is offset by their irresponsibility. King himself is a good person with some interesting and useful ideas – but his judgment in aligning himself with Nguyen and Haxhiaj is too much of a red flag.
Imagine if that grouping gained a few seats and King won the mayoralty. October 2024 was the first time in decades, if ever, that a council meeting was forced to adjourn, but it hasn’t been the only time since. Spectacles like that wouldn’t be occasional occurrences. They would set the tone for government. Would little Worcester – and not L.A. or, to use a more recent example, Chicago – be the city where the national guard is deployed?
Voters must not reward these dangerous patterns of disruption – and must make sure they are not allowed to define city government.
Mark Your Ballots
It is preliminary election day in Worcester, the day when the at-large race for city council is reduced from 14 to 12 candidates. There are a number of candidates running – more than enough to have a good, sane, and diverse set of voices after the November general election.
The most important person to vote for is Moe Bergman; he has been a stable presence on the council and has functioned as a practical problem solver – and not as an ideologue. Because of that, he has been a primary target of Haxhiaj, Nguyen, and their allies. He is in a slightly more difficult position than others, because his name appears last on the ballot (the positions are assigned by random lottery). Make sure to vote for him first.
It also makes sense to vote for Joe Petty. He has led the city through a period of remarkable economic upswing and presided over a number of impressive building projects, including the construction of thousands of new apartments. Kate Toomey also deserves a vote.
Keeping Petty, Toomey, and Bergman as high in the vote count as possible will send an important message about voters think of the dangers to city life posed by the Haxhiaj/Nguyen bloc and their allies.
You can pick up to six people for the at-large race. Make sure to vote for the above three. If you want to vote for more, Jermoh Kamara is great and everyone loves Gary Rosen. (I’m still learning about Owura-Kwaku Sarkodieh – but from what I’ve heard, he would not be a bad choice at all.)
REMINDER: You can pick no more than six candidates. If you pick more, your ballot will be disqualified.
Five of the people listed above, combined with Donna Colorio (who as the sole Republican on the city council adds a diversity of thought – and has a dedicated voting base sure to keep her in the council through the next session), can create a balanced and diverse council to lead Worcester for the next two years.
The same dynamic applies in the school committee, where there’s a battle in District E. It is important for everyone who can to vote AGAINST Nelly Medina. Medina is an anti-Israel extremist. Worcester schools have so far been able to avoid the antisemitic biases that have been pushed and taught in schools across the region and country . The local AFL-CIO has endorsed Kathi Roy.
