SALEM — Ward 5 City Councilor Jeff Cohen recently announced he will not seek reelection this fall.
Cohen, 68, previously served as the city’s recycling coordinator; co-chair of the Salem Human Rights Coalition; a board member on Project OUT; vice-chair of the Sustainability, Energy & Resiliency Committee; and a board member of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
Cohen has represented Ward 5 for two terms, succeeding former longtime councilor Josh Turiel, who did not seek reelection in 2021. One of the reasons Cohen says he isn’t running this year is to instead engage more actively on city issues such as the housing crisis, climate change, and wage theft.
“Government is a weird thing, and you don’t realize this until you get there, in that councilors and legislators work in a very incremental way,” he said. “They always want to talk about stuff a little bit at a time. But we have a housing crisis, we have a climate crisis, and we have a wage theft crisis. Those require urgent, bold, and immediate action, which can be hard to do in an elective body.”
Reflecting on the past four years, Cohen says he is proud of passing the city’s wage theft ordinance, helping pass an Indigenous People’s Day holiday, moving forward the city’s condo conversion ordinance. He also noted his advocacy for Salem’s sanctuary ordinance several years ago to protect immigrants, which he worked on as chair of the Human Rights Coalition and which motivated him to run for the council in the first place.
“In November of 2016, the day after Trump got elected, our No Place for Hate Committee, which is now the Human Rights Coalition, decided we wanted to do something dramatic,” he said. “We decided we wanted to turn Salem into a sanctuary city to protect immigrants. I wrote the ordinance, but by the time it got to the council it was watered down a lot and a lot of the provisions were removed. And so I started to think like ‘geez, if I was councilor, I could have fought harder.’”
One of the main people who inspired Cohen to get involved in social advocacy and local government was his mother, Ann Cohen.
“My mom was a teacher for 45 years in Marblehead, and was one of the most iconic social activists who ever lived,” he said. “She taught me that you can never give as much as you get, and you should always focus on the people who need help. My mother always put everyone else first, so my thing is helping people, whether that means they’re unhoused or victims of hate crimes.”
Over the next eight months as Cohen’s tenure comes to an end, he said there’s a lot of important work to be done.
“We have the condo conversion ordinance that, to me, is very important,” he said. “We have parking minimums, which is going to be contentious. And I know it’s controversial, but it’s really important that we keep the spirit of this camping ordinance and the fact that we have to provide shelter. 40Rs will also come before us, and I’m really in favor of the Lifebridge project.”
Cohen stresses the importance of residents to be involved with city boards and committees on local issues.
“A key thing that I tell people is that everyone can do something, you just have to find your level,” he said. “I think that you can participate and contribute as much if you’re on a city board as being an elected official. And one of the problems is we need more diversity, our government should be more reflective of the community it serves.”
Michael McHugh can be contacted at mmchugh@northofboston.com or at 781-799-5202