For the first time since he was first elected, Council Member Luis Bettencourt has a real fight on his hands. Tenant organizer Marisol Ferrante entered the Foundry Row council race Monday, arguing the district's own council member has grown too close to the developer reshaping it.
Ferrante, who organizes the Foundry Row Neighbors Coalition, a tenant and small-business group formed two years ago in response to rising rents near the Foundry District Lofts development, filed paperwork Monday to run against Bettencourt in the district’s upcoming election. It is the first time in his tenure that Bettencourt, who has represented District 5 through the neighborhood’s transformation from a former factory corridor into a biotech and residential hub, has drawn a candidate considered a genuine threat.
“Luis has been a reliable vote for whatever Millrace Development Partners wants in this district for years,” Ferrante said, referring to the city ethics board’s ongoing review of a complaint alleging the developer bundled campaign contributions to Bettencourt ahead of a zoning vote benefiting the company’s second phase of construction. “People in Foundry Row are proud of what this neighborhood has become. They also want a council member who represents them, not just the developers building around them.”
Bettencourt defends his record
Bettencourt, who is also a co-plaintiff-adjacent figure in the ongoing Lowertown tenant lawsuit against Millrace over an affordable-unit shortfall in his district, said he welcomed a competitive race but rejected the characterization that he answers to developers rather than residents. “I’ve voted against Millrace on at least one significant item this year, and the ethics board is reviewing a complaint, not a finding,” Bettencourt said. “I represent a district that includes biotech workers, longtime homeowners and renters worried about displacement, and I don’t think any of them are served by pretending this neighborhood’s growth can simply be reversed.”
I didn’t ask anyone to bundle donations, and I’ll cooperate with whatever the ethics board needs. What I won’t do is apologize for supporting the redevelopment that brought thousands of jobs to a neighborhood that used to be boarded-up warehouses.
Luis Bettencourt, City Council Member, District 5 (Foundry Row)
Ferrante said her campaign would focus on three priorities: stronger enforcement of affordable-unit requirements in new development, a moratorium on further height-cap exceptions for towers proposed near the Foundry District Lofts site, and public disclosure requirements for any council member’s campaign contributions tied to active zoning applications in their own district. “None of what I’m proposing would have stopped Foundry Row from growing,” she said. “It would have made sure the growth came with real guarantees instead of promises that got quietly restructured later.”
A district still defining itself
Theresa Nakamura, executive director of the Bellwater Chamber of Commerce, said Foundry Row’s rapid change had made District 5 one of the city’s least predictable political contests. “Five years ago this was one of the safer seats on the council because almost nobody who lived there voted,” Nakamura said. “Now you’ve got biotech employees who just moved in, longtime homeowners, and renters who feel like the neighborhood changed underneath them. Any of those groups could decide this race.”
Denise Okonkwo-Marsh, lead organizer of the Lowertown Tenant Alliance and a named plaintiff in the Foundry District Lofts lawsuit, said her group had not formally endorsed a candidate but praised Ferrante’s entry into the race. “We’ve spent two years arguing in court that Foundry Row’s affordable-housing promises weren’t kept,” Okonkwo-Marsh said. “Having someone run for that seat who’s spent those same two years organizing tenants, rather than defending the developer, is worth paying attention to.”
Council President Walter Kowalczyk, who has worked alongside Bettencourt on several votes including the transit corridor and the storefront-vacancy ordinance, said he expected the race to be closely watched citywide. “Foundry Row is the neighborhood everyone points to as evidence Bellwater’s recovery is real,” Kowalczyk said. “Whoever wins that seat is going to be seen as a referendum on how that recovery is going, whether that’s fair to the candidates or not.”
Both candidates said they expected the ethics board’s findings, due within roughly three months, to become a central issue in the campaign regardless of the outcome. Ferrante said she would push for the board’s findings to be made public before ballots are finalized, while Bettencourt said he would accept whatever conclusion the board reaches. “If they find something, I’ll answer for it,” Bettencourt said. “If they don’t, I expect Marisol’s campaign to stop treating a pending complaint as though it were already proven.”
Ferrante said she planned to spend the coming weeks knocking on doors throughout the district rather than waiting for a formal debate to introduce herself to voters, arguing that many Foundry Row residents, especially newer arrivals working in the biotech cluster, do not yet know who represents them. “A lot of people who moved here in the last three years have never voted in a district council race,” she said. “I’d rather meet them at their door than assume they’ll show up already knowing my name.”
Bettencourt said he intended to campaign on his full record rather than solely on the redevelopment he has championed, pointing to his support for the transit corridor’s affordable-housing requirements and his vote against one of Millrace’s recent proposals as evidence he does not simply defer to developers. “I’d invite anyone who thinks I’m a rubber stamp to look at that vote,” he said. “I don’t expect that to satisfy everyone in this race, but I’d rather run on the whole record than let one complaint define eight years of work.”