Partner Profiles
To lead off 2023, we’re introducing you to one of the most valuable contributors to the Reclaim Your Future campaign in 2022! Meet Lenna Ortega, the program administrative coordinator for the Arizona Marijuana Expungement Coalition.
“When I was in high school and college, I’d have teachers and professors explain the system and illustrate how the system was broken in so many ways. And just hearing that, it’s easy to kind of accept it,” said Ortega, the program administrative coordinator for the Arizona Marijuana Expungement Coalition.
“And yet, here I am 15, 20 years later, working with people who are doing something about it. It took me a while, but I finally found the right place to be and the people to work with to help bring about reform,” said Ortega, a Phoenix College graduate and certified paralegal.
In her role with the Coalition, Ortega tracks, prepares and submits monthly program and finance reports to the Arizona Department of Health Services, which funds the Coalition’s work thanks to the 2020 passage of Proposition 207, the initiative that legalized adult recreational use of marijuana in Arizona and created a path to expungement for people with marijuana-related criminal records. Ortega also collects data, assists with outreach clinics, identifies cases in which Coalition partners can be most effective, and tracks expungement petitions as they are prepared for filing with the courts.
“My job is to support the program and program manager (attorney Martin Hutchins) with pretty much anything they need,” Ortega said.
Not long after expungement went into effect in Arizona, Lenna attended a resentencing hearing for an incarcerated person represented by Coalition attorneys who was released from prison after their marijuana conviction was expunged.
“On a daily basis…I get to hear from people who are so grateful to get help from the Coalition, to be free from this burdensome record.”
“And that’s something that’s happened again more times since then, thanks to families and people in prison finding out more about expungement,” Ortega said. “But on a daily basis doing this work, I get to hear from people who are so grateful to get help from the Coalition, to be free from this burdensome record.
“They’ll call or email me and explain that they’re trying to get the title to their vehicle, or they lost a great job they wish they still had,” Ortega said.
“These might seem like simple things to a lot of folks, but all those little things add up and really hold people back from so much.
“Just to hear people on the phone say how grateful they are,” Ortega added, “it’s been really cool to be part of that.”
If you don’t find Lenna at the next #ReclaimYourFuture expungement clinic in Phoenix in January, she plans to be at the Willo Home Tour and Street Fair on Feb. 18-19, answering questions about expungement and connecting people to the Coalition.
For event details, see:
https://azexpunge.org/legal-clinic/willo-street-fair-02-19-23/