total time: 33.43 minutes
total words: 1170
[Danielle Balocca]: Hey listeners, this is Danielle. And Shelley. Shelley is a radical Dravidian and racial equity activist.
[Chelli Keshavan]: And Danielle is a community mobilizer and changemaker. And this is the Medford Bites podcast. Every two weeks, we chew on the issues facing Medford and deliver bites of information about the city by lifting the expertise of our guests.
[Danielle Balocca]: Join us in discussion about what you hope for the future of Medford. And as always, tell us where you like to eat. Welcome to the Medford Bytes podcast. We're thrilled to have you again for season three. Some exciting news. The Medford Bytes podcast is now brought to you by myself, Danielle Belacca, and Shelly Kashevan.
[Chelli Keshavan]: After participating in the spring of 2022, I jumped at Danielle's invitation to co-host. I'm so happy that you did.
[Danielle Balocca]: This podcast was created during lockdown from Lockdown Energy, but a little bit like lockdown, it was beginning to feel kind of lonely. So I'm really looking forward to how we can combine our ideas with the knowledge of our guests this season.
[Chelli Keshavan]: As am I. Speaking of guests, in today's episode, we talked with City Council Vice President Zach Bears, about what we can expect on the ballot tomorrow and in November for our local and state elections.
[Danielle Balocca]: Tomorrow is a big day for our local elections. And one thing I'm really grateful for that Shelly's brought to the podcast is her knowledge of social media. Shelly, can you remind folks where they can follow us?
[Chelli Keshavan]: Absolutely. As always, we are on Instagram at our MedfordBytesPod. And newly, you can find us on Facebook at MedfordBytesOneWordPodcast. Be sure to hit the Follow button for updates and information between episodes. You can also leave us reviews and feedback there.
[Danielle Balocca]: Well, I hope everybody enjoys today's discussion. And don't forget to go vote tomorrow if you haven't already. Go vote! All right, thanks so much for joining us today. First episode of season three, we're getting ready for. So I'm here today with my co-host, Shelly, and I'll ask our guests just if you could introduce yourself with your name, pronouns, and just who you are.
[Zac Bears]: Sure, hi, good to be here. Excited to be here for season three. I'm Zach Bares, he, him pronouns, and I'm the vice president of the Medford City Council.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thanks, Zach. It's been a while since we've talked to you. So I'm going to ask you the same question that we asked you before and that we ask every other guest, which is just your favorite place to eat in Medford and what you like to eat there.
[Zac Bears]: I've got to be consistent. I'm going to stick with Colleen's. And I love a BLT and a raspberry lime Rickey, maybe ice cream. They've got great choices, great options. And it's summer, so I can't not highlight Colleen's in the summer.
[Danielle Balocca]: That sounds great. I'll have to try. I haven't tried the raspberry lime Rickey since you talked about it, but I'm missing out. Well, we, you know, invited you on for a bunch of reasons, but one of them I think was to talk about, you know, the two elections that we have coming up in September and November. And I think this episode should come out the day before that September election. So I'm wondering if you could kind of walk us through what to expect from those two ballots.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, so it's the 2022 elections already. I mean, you know, there's an election every year. So it's not that big a surprise. But this year, it is an even year. And it's not a presidential year. So it's our state elections here in Massachusetts. There's a primary on Tuesday, September 6. which is the day after Labor Day, and there's a general election on Tuesday, November 8th. similar to other elections, you have a primary election where you kind of selecting candidates for different offices, and then a general election, which will be kind of between the candidates selected for each party. In Massachusetts, it's usually Democrats and Republicans, that's pretty common everywhere. But you know, something that's interesting about Massachusetts, I think, as a lot of people know, is that Democrats are a very strong majority in terms of being elected. They control the Senate seats and all of the House seats and super majorities in the state legislature. Right now, not the governorship, but that also may change this year. We're electing a new governor, which is a big deal. So the primary elections are really important because that's where you select the Democratic candidate who will be running in the November election. And in many cases, It's actually the September election that is the most competitive and will determine who will end up being the person in office and not the November election. But as usual, you know, the way that our system works more people vote in November than September so. Um, you know, really voted getting out to vote in September, Tuesday, September six is important. And here in our area in Medford. There's going to be a lot of a lot of races on the ballot so you know it can be tough to figure out exactly. You know, who you're supporting, definitely important to try to do some research beforehand if possible. By the time this comes out, there will also have been early voting and mail voting. So that's another change in Massachusetts that's similar to two years ago. There's just a lot more ways that you can go out and vote, which I think is great. And that'll be true in November as well, where there will be even more opportunities for that. But so for the primary election, again, it's focused on the parties selecting their nominees, their candidates for the general election in November. And the offices that are on the ballot are our statewide offices. We have Governor's Race. It's on the Democratic ballot. It's Maura Healey and Sonia Chang-Diaz. Sonia Chang-Diaz has dropped out, but her name is still on the ballot. There's also a Republican primary, Jeff Diehl and Chris Doty. For Lieutenant Governor, there is a Democratic primary between a number of candidates, Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, State Representative Tammy Govea, Dr. Tammy Govea, and State Senator Eric Lesser. And so, you know, I'm just going to list them out here. You know, I'm not going to get into who's who because we'd be here forever. But those are the three candidates who are running on the Democratic side. And then there's two candidates running on the Republican side, Leah Cole-Allen and Kate Campanelli. And then there's the kind of quote unquote down ballot statewide races. We have attorney general. So Maura Healey is running for governor. So she's the current attorney general. So we have an open race for attorney general. And we also have an open race for governor, which I didn't mention as Charlie Baker's leaving and you didn't hear me list his name as a candidate. So Open Race for Attorney General, Andrea Campbell, former Boston City Councilor, Quentin Palfrey, who was a lawyer in the Obama and Biden administrations and was the Democratic Party nominee for Lieutenant Governor in 2018. And then we have also Shannon Liss-Riordan, I'm trying to remember everybody who's been a longtime labor lawyer. You may have seen her advertising so far, and I think I've gotten a couple pieces of mail from her. Secretary of State, you have seven-term incumbent Bill Galvin running against Tanisha Sullivan, who is the longtime president of the Boston NAACP, and a well-established lawyer in her own right who has done a lot of work around voting rights. Also an open race, you have former Assistant Secretary of Transportation Chris Dempsey, who's facing off against State Senator Diana DiZaglio. And so those are all the Democratic primaries. I can't remember all the Republican candidates for the down-ballot statewide races, so I apologize for that. But right now, Democrats hold Secretary of State, Auditor, Attorney General, and do not hold Governor, Lieutenant Governor, which are currently Republican held. And then in Medford, the other piece of this, you have the statewide races. And then every two years, we also elect our state representatives and state senators. For Medford, I don't believe Senator Jalen has a primary. So very likely that she is running again, very likely You know, I haven't heard about any write in campaigns, but very likely that she will be the nominee for state senator for the Democratic Party. I don't believe that representative Barbara or representative Garber Lee have primary challenges either, but there is, you know, a very, I think, exciting and. uh you know looks like it's going to be close race in the kind of north and east sides of Medford between representative Paul Donato and Nicole Maslam. It's a rematch of 2020 where that was also a very close race and I know there's been a ton of campaigning, signs, lots of door knocking, mail so that I happen to live in that district so I will be able to vote in that primary. Not everyone in Medford does. It's only about half the city, again, on the north and east sides of the city. But, you know, so that's kind of the ballot for September. And again, really, you know, given where Massachusetts is at, you know, and where Medford is as well, it's very likely that whoever wins the state representative primary will win this election in November and become our state representative for the next two years. And the same goes for all of the other races that I mentioned. September is the big one. It's exciting. And, and, you know, a lot to think about a lot of research to make sure you know who you think best represents you of the candidates who you have a choice to vote for.
[Danielle Balocca]: You're looking into those numbers from that state race from two years ago and it I didn't realize that Nicole Messam had won the Malden part of that election by like 100 votes. It was very close. So that'll be an exciting one to pay attention to this year. Yeah, I also live in that part of Medford. So I'm excited to vote.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Absolutely.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. Great. So we're voting mostly on those people's positions for that September primary. And then whoever wins on the Democratic and Republican side will vote on for those offices in November. But then I also understand there's some different ballot questions in November as well.
[Zac Bears]: Yes, so November 8th, and again, I don't want to discount the importance of voting in any situation, but you know, most likely, you know, you're going to end up with the candidates from the primary for Democrats and Republicans. They're going to go head to head against each other. Right now, looking at the polling, it's looking like a Democratic sweep, you know, across the state. Very likely, you know, we'll see if that changes. So the really big thing to focus on in November, though, is ballot questions and what these are essentially we have a process either of gathering signatures or going through the legislature where we can as voters be allowed to directly vote on laws and changes to the laws and in this case. even changes to the state constitution. So there are three questions this year. The first one question one is a constitutional amendment called the fair share amendment, and that would create. It's also known as the millionaires tax, it would create a new tax rate for people who make more than a million dollars a year. only on the money that they make over $1,000,000 a year. So it's a new 4% tax. If you make $1,001,000, you would pay 4 cents more on that extra dollar that you made over $1,000,000. It would affect less than 1% of Massachusetts households. And the other piece of that is that the amendment would go directly to fund our public K-12 schools, public colleges and university system, as well as our transportation system, which I think anyone these days, you know, even if you don't take public transit every day, knows is in big trouble. So needs this funding to really move forward into the future. This would be the first time right now Massachusetts has a flat income tax, which means that the less money you make. essentially the more of your income you pay. So, you know, if I make a million dollars and I pay 5%, that's very different than if I make $10,000 and pay 5% because I really need that money to survive. It's very different than like the federal income tax, which is progressive, graduated, where, you know, if I make a million dollars, I pay a higher percentage than if I make $50,000. So, This would bring a piece of that kind of equity and fairness to the tax structure in Massachusetts, and it would also go towards funding really essential public goods, like our education system and our transportation system. So that's question one, and it's a really important question.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, before we move on to the other two, if I have a couple of follow-ups and Shelley, you might as well, but I know like that there's been some big budget questions in Medford as specifically around like our schools, our school budget, and also transportation. So I guess I'm wondering like how this might, how we hope this would impact Medford or how it could impact?
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, so I've been working on this for almost eight years. There is, if you remember in 2018, this was going to be headed to the ballot four years ago in 2018. And basically the high-end corporations in Boston filed a lawsuit and were able to get it thrown off the ballot on a technicality. That's why it's now coming back four years later under a different process. The first time we gathered signatures to get it on the ballot. And then the court said that you can't use that process to do this. So we had to go through the legislature for the last two terms to get it on the ballot this time. And something we've been talking about this whole eight year period is there's first, you know, getting it on the ballot. Second is making sure that people vote for it and approve it. And then the third piece is actually how it will be allocated. So right, it's dedicated to these important buckets, education, public colleges, transportation, but there's still the process that has to happen of where exactly in those areas is this money going to go? And that may even change year to year as budgets change. So there's kind of two things ahead of us. One is just, yes, voting for, the fair share amendment so that we, you know, can get that on the books of the state constitution. And then the second piece is going to be talking about how do we want this money allocated for our communities. And so that's how it could really impact a place like Medford. You know, for example, if one of our, you know, big issues is spending on roads and sidewalk maintenance, which I'm sure is if you walk around Medford or bike around Medford or drive around Medford, you know, is a major issue. the state could invest more into the state program for funding cities and towns, basically send state money to cities and towns to fix our roads and sidewalks. Another major thing that's been talked about is changing how we fund public transportation. You know, right now, cities pay an assessment. It's pretty significant. I think ours is almost $9 million last year, which is almost 5% of our budget as a city. Now, it doesn't exactly work out that way. But if, you know, because we get more state money than we pay out, right, so it's a little different. But if that, you know, for example, if we said, you know, we're gonna use this funding stream to fund the T instead of charging municipalities, that could be a significant boost to our city budget. Funding for public schools, you know, we get a significant amount of state funding for public schools. It's not near, you know, I think over 85% of what we pay for schools is paid for by the city. So we're not one of those communities where the state is really funding a huge chunk of our budget. But as we know, when we're in the situations that we're in, $500,000 and a million dollars really can go a long way. So changes or additions to that funding would be helpful. And then, you know, public colleges and universities is actually where that's where my organizing around this started. It would impact the city differently because we don't, you know, as a city and a community pay for those services, like the city doesn't pay Bunker Hill Community College for any reason. But, you know, there's a huge affordability and student debt crisis for people who are trying to access the college education. public colleges and universities really are the bedrock of that. And, you know, increasing funding for those institutions would help a lot of families and students here in Medford as well. So it's a little bit different. It wouldn't impact us, you know, the budget, but it would certainly impact our community by increasing access to public colleges.
[Danielle Balocca]: And it's striking that sort of figure that you gave around how many people would be impacted by the increase in taxes versus how many people would benefit from that increased revenue. And you also mentioned, I'm going to get this question in here now, but about the MBTA. And we know that there's two major bus routes that are being eliminated in Medford. And so I wonder if you could speak to that impact or how that relates to this question of the fair share amendment.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I mean, I think public transportation in general really needs more support. During the pandemic, Governor Baker, well, the MBTA and under Governor Baker eliminated the express buses in Medford, the 325 and 326 buses, which got you from certain parts of Medford to Haymarket. And I think that to me is an example of kind of the zero sum thinking that we have right now when we are fighting for scarce resources and not talking about making investments. You know, it was basically said, well, we need to eliminate these now because the ridership is low because of the pandemic and we'll move those resources elsewhere. But now they don't want to move the resources back. This is part of also a larger project that's going on. It's called the Bus Redesign Project. which is impacting all the bus routes in the MBTA from every single MBTA community, there are really drastic proposed changes. Some of them I think are smart and right on. You know, Medford would see under the current draft proposal, you know, a 96 bus that would come every 15 minutes, a 101 bus that would come every 15 minutes and some changed routes that really will help a lot of people who use those buses. But instead of thinking in an additive way, It's been kind of in a in a zero sum balancing way where we may be gaining some great things but there's parts of the community that are really going to lose out with reduced buses reduced frequency. And, you know, and and as part of this whole project we're not getting back the express buses 325 and 326 that were eliminated a couple years ago. And also, I'll make a plug for the 710 bus through the Fulton Heights was also eliminated and it's not going to be coming back under this proposal. So I would say like an investment like the fair share amendment, seeing how that money could be appropriated really could go a long way towards not just having a reliable and you know, sustainable public transit system that's not catching on fire and you're not jumping off of the Mystic River Bridge, but actually thinking about expanding and making sure that when we're redesigning the bus system, it doesn't mean we are adding service in one place and removing service in another place, but really trying to expand that public service as much as we can for everybody. So that's one way this could play into it. The T's problems are huge. I would not say the fair share amendment is going to solve all of them. Medford's problems are huge. The fair share amendment is not going to solve all of them. We all know the issues in education, but it is a tool that will help us really make some huge advancements and provide reliable sources of revenue. That is much needed. And I think you made a really good point. We're talking about something that benefits everybody in Massachusetts, even the people who are paying a little bit more, who make millions and millions of dollars, you know, the 0.5% and up. They want, you know, to live in, there's a reason they're here in Massachusetts. And one of those reasons is that it's a great place to live and good education. And, um, you know, transportation used to be really good. And those are things that I think we want to keep and maintain just to have a healthy society, healthy and fair communities. So I think this to me is a no brainer. That may not be true for every voter, but I hope that a huge majority will be supportive of this because I think it really will make some big differences in people's lives.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I'm excited to see how it all pans out for sure. Yeah, I want to let you continue those two other ballot measures as well.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, there's two more. I don't know a ton about them. One is about dental insurance. It's question two. It's been proposed by, I think, a dentist who has issues with how insurance companies are reimbursing their expenses. So basically, my understanding of is it would set a certain floor for basically 85% or more of a bill would have to be for for your dental care and not for the administrative costs. I don't know the facts and specifics behind it. That's just kind of my quick read. Certainly not sure exactly how I'm going to vote on it without more research. But that's question two. And then question three is part of a longstanding debate in Massachusetts between package stores and grocery stores and convenience stores about the sale of alcohol. Right now, you probably know that a lot of, if you go to the grocery store, most grocery stores don't sell alcohol. Most convenience stores don't sell alcohol. And there's kind of very specific beer, wine, and liquor stores. and this I believe is reflective of kind of a compromise approach which would expand like the number of say you're like a Cumberland Farms or 7-Eleven you can only sell alcohol I think in like 12 stores in the whole state right now. I think this would expand that up to 18 stores so would like give a little bit more for the chains to sell alcohol but without necessarily out competing the smaller, I don't know if they're locally owned or not, but the non-chain stores. And I think it also would allow for, I think some changes to how you can check out alcohol. I'm not really sure exactly on the specifics there either. So definitely one to do more research on. But I think the general gist of that one is that if there's a yes vote, a few more stores around the state would be able to sell alcohol. That's a, you know, kind of those second two are really nitty gritty things. And I think one of the reasons that they're on the ballot is kind of one of the reasons this whole process exists is sometimes the legislature just doesn't want to take something up on its own. For the fair share amendment, they can you can only pass a constitutional amendment through a referendum vote. So that has to be voted on. But these kind of reflect a couple of issues, you know, the sale of alcohol in certain convenience stores and the reimbursement rate of dental insurance. You know, those are pretty specific items. And for whatever reason, the folks who want the law changed weren't getting their way in the legislature and decided to ask the voters to make the call.
[Danielle Balocca]: And Medford won't be voting on any kind of tax override this year. Is that also true?
[Zac Bears]: There's no local referendums for Medford, as far as I'm aware. Certainly none initiated by the city council. No tax override. So we still could have a vote on something like that before the next fiscal year. It would likely be in a special election. So, you know, one of the reasons to do it the way that we were thinking about it was we already have an election. Let's just do it instead of having to schedule a whole other election and pay for that. You know, I won't get into the super details, but Medford has a pretty big structural budget deficit. And unless either magical new revenues come in or, you know, some other special circumstances happen next year, we're going to be looking at, you know, cuts across the city budget, cuts to the level of services that the city is providing. Um, that's not something that I think is sustainable. I think given the situations that we see across the city, um, but you know, it didn't, didn't make it through the process time to be considered on the ballot this November. So, um, we're going to have to have conversations and think about what the city council, the mayor, um, can do to hopefully find an answer that isn't just cutting more from the city budget and the school budget.
[Danielle Balocca]: Oh, so yeah, it sounds like it's not going to be something that we'll be able to vote on in either of these elections that potentially in the fiscal year as in a special election. And you've already given us a lot of really valuable information. I have tried to understand what a tax override like prop, what is it two and a half does or means and in my brain really, really doesn't work that way. Is there like a simple way of explaining it that like, might help us understand like how we're currently taxed? What this would change about taxes if it were something that we considered?
[Zac Bears]: I will try my best. Proposition two and a half is a very convoluted law, because all that it basically is grounded in is that people like the idea of the number two and a half, 45 years ago, so they picked two and a half. But essentially, the law says two things. One, it says that no community can have basically no community can tax more than 2.5% of the total value of all the taxable property in their community. That doesn't apply to Medford. We tax much below that. Essentially what it means is your maximum tax rate would be $25 per $1,000 of value. Right now Medford's is $9. So we're very far away from that maximum of $25 or 2.5%. The other thing it says that's much more impactful and this affects every community is what we think about when we think about two and a half, which is it says that the city's total tax property tax amount. So the amount that everybody pays, residential, commercial, add it all up, that amount can only go up 2.5% per year from the previous year. There's kind of an exception, which is that if there's something new, that gets added on as well. So a new building, that's value gets added on above the 2.5%. But basically, it says that our tax levy can only go up 2.5% per year. at an aggregate. So it doesn't mean that each individual house can only go up 2.5% per year or each individual property. It's actually about the whole property tax levy that we pay. And an override would mean that we could increase that amount more than 2.5% per year. So I don't know if that's exactly a simple explanation. I think to kind of put it in context, 2.5% per year is generally below the amount of inflation and the amount of the costs of the city are growing every year, which means that, you know, if health insurance is about 5% per year for the city, but the city can only raise the revenue 2.5%, maybe a little more than that with new growth, then you're spending more next year on health insurance and less on something else. So you're crowding out the important investments that we need to make. An override would be for one year, just for a single year, instead of going up 2.5%, you would go up 5%, right? Or some amount, or it's really in the amount of dollars, right? So we were talking about $12 million and $3 million, things like that. $12 million would have been going up about 10% more. So instead of 2.5%, you'd be going up about 10%. There's a lot of reasons to have a different number, but essentially for 40 years or more, we've been crowding out the important investments that we need to make in our city budget because we've been restricted by this 2.5% cap. Really the only ways, and then maybe this adds a little more context too, right? There's cities like Cambridge and Somerville, they focused a lot on new growth. which means like Kendall Square. So they've built this whole Kendall Square that didn't exist 30 or 40 years ago. So they've been able to have a higher property tax levy and almost all of it's been coming because they've just really grown a lot. Somerville has been a little less than that, but like Assembly Row and Union Square, they've had a new growth strategy as well. Menford has had a very, very slow rate of new growth. I mean, I know people see a new apartment building or they see the Wegmans and they think, oh, you know, But compare that to Kendall Square, you know, you're talking about a few million dollars versus hundreds of millions and billions of dollars. So, you know, and then, so that's one route to fund your budget under this, you know, arbitrary cap. And the other route is an override. So if you go to a place like Westin, they've done 80 overrides in the last 40 years. Now Westin's a very rich community, But they basically, you know, essentially what this has done, Medford has not only done zero overrides in 40 years, we've never even had one on the ballot in the last 40 years. So you can kind of see that the way that this law was set up, and this law was, you know, came up in the late 1970s, early 1980s, the Reagan era, very much an anti-tax movement. No one expected it to pass in the ballot when it passed. So it kind of came as a huge shock to everybody that this was even happening. In the 80s and 90s, you saw huge cuts to municipal budgets. That's something I've been looking at recently is trying to analyze the impact of it on Medford's budget. So I've been in the library history room like copying print budgets into Excel and trying to figure out that those figures but really, you know, unless you're a rich town that does overrides all the time, or you're in a city where you've had a lot of new growth. It's really just stagnated the resources that cities, governments have for public schools, DPW, you know, all of the social services, health departments, housing support, affordable housing. I mean, you could go down the list of all the things that we need. but aren't able to do right now because of our limited resources. And you can really trace a lot of that back to Proposition 2.5. One anecdote I'll give and then I'll, you know, I know you asked for a simple explanation and I gave a long contextualized one. But an anecdote that I've heard is that in the 70s, we had almost 150 people working at the Department of Public Works. And we only have about 50 people there today. So that is an example of kind of You know now maybe machines are better that has may have had an impact, but I don't think you can say that there was no funding impact that led to that kind of drastic result. And I certainly don't think you can say that not having more people there you know if we had more people there. we'd have more sidewalk crews we'd have more road repair we'd have more more support for that kind of basic infrastructure work as well, so. Again, it's not simple. And one of the reasons this is such a difficult conversation is that the law is really complicated and the law is designed to be complicated because it's designed by people who never wanted taxes to go up and didn't believe that government services were important. So that's kind of the environment that we're existing under. And I think that, I think I will say in a positive sense that I think Medford is just seeing the conversation around it and also people living and experiencing the lack of services that we have. I think people are really ready to have a conversation about raising the revenue we need to invest in improving the city.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. So it sounds like two and a half comes up kind of like twice. Like you can't have a tax rate that's higher than two and a half and you can't raise revenue by more than two and a half percent. Is that right?
[Zac Bears]: Right.
[Danielle Balocca]: Okay.
[Zac Bears]: Correct. And so those, yeah, I mean, but the funny part of that is that those two concepts aren't really linked. And the idea that they'd both be two and a half is just because the people who wrote it were like two and a half, we'll cap it at two and a half. And you can't grow by more than two and a half, not based on any sort of economic concept other than we don't like taxes.
[Danielle Balocca]: So it's hard to understand because it doesn't make a lot of sense.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: That's really helpful. And it also like that in relationship to how you explained like growth in other cities and how that's able to sort of offset maybe the impact on like individual families is helpful to understand as well. So thank you for that and for the extra time spent in explaining that to us, I appreciate.
[Zac Bears]: Totally, happy to talk about it. I think if more people knew about it, we'd be in a better place.
[Danielle Balocca]: Very cool. Thank you. And this was a lot of really helpful information. I want to see, Chelly, if you have any thoughts. I know we're having a little bit of a technical issue on your end, but if there's anything you want to add or ask Zach while we have him, I'd love to hear it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, I should have been taking notes. I learned so much. Thank you so much. I think maybe in closing, what might you say to get folks out on the 6th when I hear a number like 100 votes? meaning change. In my mind that means grow, vote now. So my thought would be how do we get people out? What would your guidance be?
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I mean, you know, in the first place, I would just say that The primary is really such an important election in Massachusetts. I know everyone thinks, oh, I have to go vote again, or I'm going to have another chance in November. You don't have another chance. You know, this is the time that you're picking the people that you're going to have options for in November. So, and again, you know, in most of the races, the September vote is going to decide the race, not the November vote. It's really important to get out in September to vote in the primary, to pick the candidate that you think best represents you, that should best represent the Democratic Party or Republican Party. You know, because that's in Massachusetts, again, it's for better or worse, one party state. It's the Democratic Party. And this is the Democratic primary. So that's where that decision is going to be made. I think that's the most important thing I can say. You don't have that opportunity in November. The people voting in September are making the choices for the people who vote in November. So if you want to be part of making that decision and not just be handed other people's choices in November, it's important to get out and vote in September.
[Danielle Balocca]: And I think there's like those two, like I said, there's two really interesting races to me that like secretary of state, who's that, you said it's like his seventh or so term. Also the state rep in our area, like has been in several terms. And when we talk about like Democrats and Republicans, I think there is like a real range within those two parties, right? And like thinking about people that were elected 20 plus years ago versus some of the newer candidates, it sounds like September really is the opportunity to use your vote in some way to impact those two races. And I think also looking at the diversity of people running for some of those more open races, I think that's a real chance to use your vote in that way to, as you're saying, help us decide for November.
[Zac Bears]: Yes, I'd absolutely say that the Secretary of State race, the State Representative race for North and East Medford and West Malden, which is Paul Donato and Nicole Muslam. And then I would also highlight, it's a little less exciting and it's less exciting of an office, but I would also highlight the State Auditors race. That one right now is the tightest race of all of them. Um, it's basically 50-50 right now between Chris Dempsey and Diana DiZaglio. Um, so that's, uh, you know, of all of the races, that may be the one where, you know, like in 2019, when Julia Mejia won the Boston City Council at-large seat by one vote. Um, you know, maybe that's the one-vote race, or maybe the state rep race is the one-vote race where your vote really could be the deciding factor. Um, I mean, every vote matters in every race, but, you know, those exciting, close, competitive races really are somewhere where your vote matters even a little bit more than every other race.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thanks for the question, Chilean. Yeah, so yeah, anything else that you either of you want to make sure we mention before we wrap up? Yeah, I think we'll just vote.
[Danielle Balocca]: And it was like, think about that idea of making a plan to vote. Like if you're going to vote by mail, if you're going to go in person, when you're going to do it, when the, like, you know, reminding yourself where you're pulling places, I've gotten some stuff in the mail to make, like, you know, make sure that you're registered to vote. Um, I know last year, some of the polling places changed a little bit. So like making sure, you know, how you're going to do that, I think is always a good idea. And it's like a Tuesday after a holiday weekend. Kids are going back to school, all that stuff. So I think I can never take for granted the importance of a plan. So yeah.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. And I'll say one more thing. I do think that having the day after Labor Day being Election Day is a disservice to voters. I think it should be a little bit later if you're going to do that and give people a little more time. That being said, we're not going to have it for this episode, but there will be a lot of early voting and mail voting for that. And then for November, there will be mail voting, and I think at least 10 days of early voting, which in Manfred will be at City Hall. And the registration deadline has been shortened a little bit as well. So I think you can register up to 10 days in advance of the election to be eligible. I think it used to be 20. So that's another change that happened recently. We were shooting for zero. We really wanted to go to same day registration, but there was some improvement there as well. So there's a lot of ways to get out in November and September. And I'll just say the only thing, you know, I haven't given my opinion on anything I think except the fair share amendment. So I'll give it again. Yes on one, yes on one for the fair share amendment.
[Danielle Balocca]: And that's something the city council has like voted to support as well as the school committee in Medford, right?
[Zac Bears]: Yes. City council and school committee have voted to support the fair share amendment along with I think over a hundred other city councils and school committees across the state. Um, and the state legislature, uh, voted, um, I think over 75% in the House and the Senate as well in support of it to get it on the ballot. So, um, really some universal, uh, agreement that this is something that we need. Close to universal as you get.
[Danielle Balocca]: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for spending time with us today and hopefully we'll, um, have some exciting results from the election.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Zach. Thank you, Danielle. Thank you, Shelley. So great to be back and really looking forward to everything that you all do in this season of the podcast.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. The Medford Bites podcast is produced and moderated by Danielle Balacca and Shelly Keshaman. Music is made by Hendrik Irenys. We'd love to hear what you think about the podcast. You can reach out to us by email at medfordpod at gmail.com, or you can rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts. Thanks so much for listening. Guys, what's the name of the podcast? Never Bites!
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