WORCESTER—After a subdued final appearance at the city council table, outgoing District 5 Councilor Etel Haxhiaj chose a different venue to deliver her closing message: the community she represented.
In a farewell statement posted to social media on Dec. 23, a day after the council’s final meeting of the year, Haxhiaj said she intentionally held back from making final remarks during the meeting, opting instead to speak directly to residents.
“My love for my city is deep,” she wrote. “Thank you, all.”
Haxhiaj, who lost her reelection bid in November to challenger Jose Rivera after a heated campaign, used the statement to reflect on four years on the council — years marked by confrontation, activism, and persistent calls for accountability around policing, housing, immigration and discrimination.
She described learning early in her term that “the walls were going to be thick,” and that change would require more than weekly meetings or moments of public outcry. Her remarks centered on people she said were routinely pushed to the margins of civic decision-making: women and children in shelters, unhoused residents, survivors named in the U.S. Department of Justice report on Worcester police, and community members who spoke publicly only to be dismissed as “chaotic,” “disrupting” or “divisive.”
The statement also referenced moments that defined her tenure and the broader council climate. Haxhiaj pointed to the experience of the state’s first nonbinary elected official, former Councilor Thu Nguyen, who alleged transphobia and discrimination within City Hall and pushed — alongside Haxhiaj — for a third-party investigation earlier this year. She also referenced the treatment of the council’s only Black member, saying frustration expressed on the council floor was weaponized in familiar ways.
“Common political wisdom says a ‘successful’ politician is one who is liked by everyone,” Haxhiaj wrote. “Powerful changemakers, on the other hand, are those who walk a path of resistance.”
Throughout her final months in office, Haxhiaj continued to press the city on issues that had become central to her platform. In December meetings, she raised alarms about potential federal cuts to permanent supportive housing, pushed for the creation of an Office of Housing Stability, called attention to long-abandoned properties in her district, and sponsored a proclamation recognizing International Migrants Day — a discussion that again exposed ideological fault lines on the council.
Her farewell statement also alluded to Eureka Street, the site of a May immigration enforcement action that drew national attention and resulted in criminal charges against Haxhiaj, which remain pending. She has maintained that her actions that day were in defense of her constituents and has described the prosecution as retaliatory and politically motivated.
“We have seen how quickly people tire of remembering the violence on Eureka Street,” she wrote, thanking those who refused to stay silent “in the face of institutional power.”
Haxhiaj acknowledged that her approach angered some colleagues and residents, but said it also galvanized others to respond to misogyny, transphobia and xenophobia with solidarity.
Public service, she wrote, is “a calling — a calling to building a community where all are included in the successes of our city.”
As she leaves office, Haxhiaj said her work is far from over. She plans to continue organizing and advocating outside City Hall, “on the ground,” alongside neighbors she says remain most vulnerable.
“I look forward to being powerful in the service of others outside this room,” she wrote, “and on the ground, where many of us will fight to keep our neighbors safe.”
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