Carmella Glenn Elected 18th District Madison Alder on April 1st: Empowering the Community (Part 2 of 2)
Long-time Madisonian Carmella Glenn is a violence intervention supervisor with Public Health Madison & Dane County.
by Jonathan Gramling
Carmella Glenn, the newly-elected alder to Madison’s 18th district, has an air about her, a quiet confidence of someone who has seen and experienced it all and in coming to terms with it, has come to love herself. It was who she is and now she is focused on what is to become, using that lived experience to empower the community, particularly the northside that she represents.
On some levels, Glenn has been waiting her time, to make sure the time was right, before she ran for public office.
“When we bought a house, I started looking into it,” Glenn said. “The only reason it took me this long is I have an 18-year-old who graduates this year. And I have a very political, demanding day job. In the formative years, we know that young Black men tend to have a high incarceration rate. I just knew that it was important for me to be available those nights and weekends for him. I waited and the opportunity came. I knew he was going to graduate. I had a talk with him right before I announced. He said, ‘Mom, don’t wait for me to leave. I would love to be a part of it.’ So it was a family decision and I ran.”
In some ways, Glenn is like a child in a candy store. She sees so much potential in everything around her and wants to empower her northside community to be the best it can be.
“We have so much greatness over here that it it is a perfectly well-oiled machine and I want to leave it alone,” Glenn said. “I want Northport Apartments and the well-oiled machine under Pat Wongkit to be able to maintain what she has done over there, the well-oiled machine of Kennedy Heights. The well-oiled machine of things that happen around here environmentally and what is protected. I want to maintain the island feel that we feel because we live on the northside: the wildlife, the water, the community. We are a special community who really respect and love. We’re a group of YIMBYs, Yes In My Backyard. I don’t know how many doors I knocked on where people said, ‘We have to build housing. We have to build housing.’ I’m so lucky because I know other alders who know we need that and they knock on the door and they don’t get that. People are like, ‘Don’t put that over here.’ I want to have people who look like me and my identity from the LGBTQ+ community, from the Black community, from the women, from other people of color to understand and dig in and fight at the table with me and have a voice.”
Glenn sees the potential for the northside that others don’t because she looks outside the box. She hopes to use her seat on the Plan Commission to make sure the northside reaches its full potential.
“I’m very excited around what we can do economically,” Glenn said. “Just Bakery was born in a church right over here in Lakeview. People don’t realize that in our district, we don’t have a lot of businesses, but we have churches that have empty rooms and empty space. Is there someone who has an idea of some service that they would love to do? Is there extra space in one of those rooms? I want to work with Alder Julia Matthews on Warner Park. I want to make sure that everything with the Raemisch Project goes forward and the railroad. I want to see housing go.”
With housing, Glenn wants to make sure that the term affordable housing does indeed apply to economically challenged people.
“People say, ‘Oh, you’re building all of this affordable housing …,’” Glenn said. “It’s affordable for a teacher and a police officer who have that kind of income. I think we need some affordable housing. I think we need to be able to build and educate people on how to be home owners and give them the opportunity. We have housing that is based on 40-60-80 percent. Most people think that is the same as our low-income housing, which is 30 percent of your income. It’s not until you look into it that you realize that it is based on this median wage of $76,000 - $78,000 depending on who you are looking at from the federal government. But if you don’t compare that and then go, ‘Read the latest Race to Equity report that says the average Black person or person of color has a median income of $38,000 - $42,000,’ then guess what. They still don’t have affordable housing because they are dishing out basically 80 percent of their income for rent.”
Glenn admits that she has been a systems disruptor, advocating from the outside. And now is the time to see it from a different perspective.
“Sometimes when you are screaming and yelling, you’re right,” Glenn said. “But sometimes when you’re screaming and yelling, you’re wrong. And I want to get inside and understand it, so I can then translate it to those who are like me or were like me and say, ‘Yeah, what I thought we could do and can’t do isn’t in our control, so it really it’s not the alder’s problem.’ I want to know that.”
That doesn’t mean she has stopped being a disruptor.
“I have been known around here as a system disruptor for everyone. And everyone takes it as a negative thing. But if all of us know that the system we currently live in does not serve all, what is wrong with disrupting it a little bit? Disruption means change. And I don’t want to disrupt to be loud. And I don’t want to disrupt to be on a pedestal as I know best. I want to just make some change and I want to be a part of the other 19 people helping do that.”
Carmella Glenn will be a powerful voice for District 18 in Madison.
