With upcoming municipal elections in April, in the coming weeks, the Review will profile candidates running for the Park District of Forest Park’s Board of Commissioners. The Review’s previous issues have focused on Tim Gillian and Sammiejo Oswalt. Today, the spotlight is on Maria “Betty” Alzamora.
Betty Alzamora moved to Forest Park in 2007 by way of multiple municipalities.
She was born in Caracas, Venezuela; raised in Montreal, Canada; and has lived in Mexico City, Mexico; London, England; New York City; Miami, Florida; and Chicago.
Alzamora’s childhood friend moved to Chicago with her family, and Alzamora’s cousin moved to Oak Park with his wife and kids. Alzamora bought a house in Forest Park to be close by, but also because she started feeling claustrophobic living in big cities.
“I needed to go back to a place where there’s space,” she said of why she moved to Forest Park. “It’s our proximity to the forest preserve, the parks.”
Alzamora started seriously considering running for the park district board during Covid-19, when she noticed herself appreciating the outdoors more.
A lifelong avid cycler, Alzamora found a growing connection to nature during the pandemic. She started going on more walks through the forest preserve and cemeteries. When the pool opened, she spent at least an hour swimming there every day.
“I’m a product of community centers, recreational centers, and municipal pools. These were lifelines,” she said. Those places, she added, taught her values and entertained her. “Where would I have gone if not for these safe havens?”
“This has become such an essential part of who I am,” Alzamora added of these community spaces. “Why wouldn’t I be eager to lend a voice, maybe a new perspective?”
Alzamora’s advocacy
During the day, Alzamora’s works as senior program manager of automation at Uber Technologies. Working in the corporate sector, Alzamora has career experience in customer service and commercial sales.
“The practicalities of managing budgets and organizing and planning and strategic visioning are part and parcel of what I’ve done professionally,” Alzamora said.
But she also has extensive experience in community organizing.
“The commonality between the work that I do and as a community activist, as an organizer, is elements of bringing people together, being able to … build teams, engage people, listen above everything else,” Alzamora said.
She was a coordinator for Let Forest Park Vote, the group that petitioned for the binding referendum to let locals vote on whether video gaming should be allowed in Forest Park.
Alzamora was an acting campaign manager for Forest Park Forward, the slate of commissioners that Mayor Rory Hoskins ran with in 2019. Jessica Voogd, commissioner of public property, was the only successful commissioner on the slate.
“It brought me a little bit closer to the hyperlocal, the day-to-day issues that matter from a village perspective,” Alzamora said of her Forest Park Forward experience. “It brought me closer to understanding some of our civic institutions … and helped me to establish a better, stronger, more rooted foothold within this community.”
Alzamora co-founded the groups Oak Park Area Migrant Resettlement Mission and Forest Park Against Racism. She’s also been on the board for PASO, Oak Park Area Lesbian and Gay Association, and is currently on the board of directors for Indivisible Chicago Alliance and Equality Illinois.
Setting goals
If elected to the park district board, Alzamora’s priorities would include understanding what’s logistically possible when it comes to the Altenheim, the Van Buren bike trail, and the land at H&R Auto. The chosen use of any of these spaces, she said, will likely impact the others.
“All of this is so complex. I want to understand it. That’s one of my big priorities,” she said. “We talk about the interconnectedness, but let’s bring it down to the practicalities.”
She also mentions creating more opportunities at the park district for older teens. And pitches having town halls or organizing office hours with a commissioner at a coffee shop.
“Are we sure that we’re engaging everybody to the best of our abilities?” she asks. “There’s a lot of people out there with opinions on things they would want out of a park district.”
Alzamora is also a proponent of making sure that diversity is better represented throughout park district programming.
“I identify as an out, queer Latina woman,” she said. “When I’m in the pool, I don’t necessarily see people like me.” She added, “as a kid, I thrived when I could look at people and see role models that I could see myself in.”
And while she has a lot of ideas for the park district, if she’s elected to the board of commissioners, she said she’ll respect and listen to everyone’s thoughts and opinions.
“Anytime you put your hand up to do something like this, you have to go at it eyes wide open,” she said of the hard work leading up to the election. She’s focusing on “building relationships, so much learning, so much to unearth and to research, and not taking for granted institutional knowledge that has been doing this for so long. But at the same time being able to say, ‘I’ve earned a seat at this table and there are things I want to ask about.’”
“I might be a newbie and a neophyte in running for elective office, and I don’t have any direct experience in working for park districts,” she added. “But if not for park districts, I wouldn’t know what kind of human I’d grow up to be. That, to me, matters.”