Alyssa Rosenberg explains why she's running for Ward 22 co-chair: She immigrated to the United States the day after her 21st birthday, and she voted in every election, she told me, until she lost her house. When she was evicted, she went looking for the people she had voted for -- her alderwoman and then-Mayor John Daniels -- and found that her vote didn't count for anything. After all the campaign promises she'd heard, all the trips to the polls, all the levers she'd pulled in the privacy of the voting booth, no one would help her. No one seemed to care. So quite understandably, she abandoned the system that had abandoned her and stopped voting altogether. Alyssa and her running mate, Shaneane Ragin, are running against a team headlined by the ward's former Alderperson, Mae Ola Riddick, who failed to serve the needs or interests of her constituents and this fall lost the Ward Committee Nomination, got on the ballot and lost the primary, and conducted a secret write-in campaign but lost a third time for re-election in the general election, despite the efforts of Yale's Office of New Haven and State Affairs - and a third ticket with a disenchanted former Riddick ally. Alyssa and Shaneane represent the first co-chair ticket for the ward that brings together a woman from Yale and another from Dixwell, and their vision for the community is one that everyone who cares about Ward 22 should get behind. Check out their website here.