N E W S
An Uncomplicated Politician in a Complicated Time
Can Juanita Johnson Find The Answers to Change Omaha?
PHOTOS AND STORY by Chris Bowling
T
he view outside Juanita Johnson’s office is not spectacular. Across from City Hall she can see a six-story parking garage while city buses flow westward down Farnam Street. Inside, the room’s sparse decorations include a portrait of a young Black person looking upward. Two photo albums sit empty on a shelf. She hopes to fill them with evidence of her accomplishments, a kind of proof of purchase to show community members in years to come.
But Johnson is stepping into this office at a time that’s anything but uncomplicated. Preceded by protests and a pandemic, the 2021 city elections carried more drama, controversy and urgency to address inequity, especially in her district of northeast Omaha, than in recent years. And while every race from mayor to city council was challenged, Johnson, a political outsider and longtime community advocate, was the only candidate to unseat an incumbent.
That’s the kind of legislator Johnson wants to be: utilitarian, analytical and, above all, beholden to the people she represents — an uncomplicated philosophy that connects back to the reason Johnson ran in the first place.
The question now is how will Johnson fit into the dynamics of the city council, which includes two other new members in seats that were either vacated or filled by an appointee. Topics like reallocating funds from the police and slowing the destruction of properties to make way for new development gained little traction before. Now some hope Johnson’s election, as well as close calls in other races, will send a message that the community needs the city to be more proactive.
“We needed a change,” said Johnson, 59, a Democrat, who beat 12-year incumbent Ben Gray, also a Democrat, in May to represent District 2 on Omaha’s City Council. “We needed someone that would represent the community [by] being the change agent for that community. And I identified myself as being that.”
8
“I think there has to be a real reckoning with how the city is run,” said activist Ja Keen Fox.
July 2021
“Currently, city council rubber stamps [everything] without question, or if there are questions, they’re not presented in front of the public. And so we need to better understand who our city council people are, and they should be willing to perform in front of the people.” Others wonder whether the results of the 2021 election were enough to send that message. Mayor Jean Stothert won a third term by large margins. Many candidates, like Jasmine Harris who ran for mayor and espoused social justice causes, never made it past the primary. “It almost feels like, will people see how serious it is?” Harris asked. “Because it’s a lot of the same people who do the work [year after year], right? And people are getting tired.” Johnson herself may not use the language some want to hear. As of right now, she isn’t in favor of taking money from the police if it means cutting back training. When she talks about bringing jobs to the community, she said the city needs to reexamine how it hires labor for contracts. It’s a
balancing act, she said, and often there won’t be clear, onesize-fits-all answers. Accessibility and commitment to the community she’s lived in nearly all her life are at the center of Johnson’s political philosophy. And if she can let those principles guide her, Johnson said she’ll have a good shot to set local politics in a new direction. “That kind of input is good,” she said. “It’s challenging; it’s thought-provoking. It says [citizens] care. Only when we identify issues and concerns are we able to make a difference. A huge difference. A change. Are those conversations uncomfortable? Yeah, they’re uncomfortable. But we have to get past being uncomfortable and deal with ‘Where do we go from here?’”
“My Neighborhood Is a Reflection of Me” Though Johnson was born in Omaha, her family moved to
