Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Zeneta Everhart, who became a voice against racism and gun violence last year after her son survived a mass shooting, is one step closer to becoming one of the first councilwomen the Buffalo Common Council has seen in almost a decade as she defeated her opponent for the Masten District seat, India Walton, in the Democratic primary on Tuesday.
Acquiring well over two-thirds of the vote, Everhart will still have to face former mayoral candidate, Walton, in the general election come November, as Walton is on the ballot for the Working Families Party. Everhart also has to defeat Murray Holman, who runs on the Conservative line.
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"We are going to do work in this community," said Everhart. "We are going to transform this community. I will not do this alone, I've said that from the beginning. This is about us all. We are going to make sure that government functions in the city the way that it should."
Everhart has had a long history of serving the East Buffalo community, working as Director of Diversity & Inclusion for New York State Senator Tim Kennedy, she reminds the public that she's put the work in, and she's just getting started.
"I've always been in Masten doing the work. I've been here. I live here. I help run programs. I work with the block clubs. I make sure that they get the resources that they need. I do the work in the community. That's why I was able to connect with them. I gave them hope over the years, not just through this campaign cycle, I've been doing this."
Everhart has also been in Washington several times recently, bringing awareness to the tragic, racist mass shooting that happened at the Tops on Jefferson Avenue, a shooting that resulted in the injury of her son, Zaire Goodman. But Everhart mentions that is not the only thing she discussed with the nation's elected officials.
"I talked to them about the housing stock on the east side of Buffalo. I talked to them about us only having one grocery store. I talked to them about the streets. I talked to them about the business district. I didn't just talk about what happened on 5/14, I talked about the community as a whole."
Everhart is thinking big for the City of Buffalo. She highlights some of her top priorities when she gets into office.
"We're going to make sure that our renters have access to homeownership. We're gonna build up our business district. We're going to make sure our seniors can stay in their communities. We're going to make sure our renters can stay in their communities and not get priced out. That is what this is about. I am doing this for the people just like me, who struggle, who have dealt with so much in their lives. I have dealt with so much in my life. This is my way to pay it forward. I am doing this for the community. I did this for Zaire."
If elected, Everhart would be the successor to Councilman Ulysees Wingo, who decided to not seek re-election. Wingo would serve a total number of 8 years as the Masten District representative when his term ends at the end of this year.
Walton, 41, was trying to make a comeback after a rollercoaster defeat in the city's mayoral race in 2021. In that contest, she stunned the political establishment by scoring an upset win over the longtime incumbent, Byron Brown, in a primary where she ran far to his left as a democratic socialist.
With no Republican on the ballot, Walton briefly looked like a sure winner in the general election, too, but Brown came back as a write-in candidate and won with the support of centrist Democrats, Buffalo's business community and Republicans who said Walton, a former nurse and labor organizer, was too liberal.
In the hotly contested Democratic Primary for the Ellicott District council seat, Leah Halton-Pope won with nearly 50% of the vote. Incumbents Rasheed Wyatt won in the University District, Joe Golombek in the North and Bryan Bollman in Lovejoy.
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