total time: 16.36 minutes
total words: 1368
[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. Thanks so much for joining me. If you don't mind introducing yourself, just with your name, pronouns, and a bit about who you are.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Sure. I'm Emily Lazzaro, Emily K. Lazzaro. My pronouns are she, her, and I am running for city council.
[Danielle Balocca]: Emily, we do know each other, but this is the first time I've heard you pronounce your last name, so that's helpful.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Oh my gosh, that's funny.
[Danielle Balocca]: Well, yeah, thanks for being here. And we do hope to talk about your run for city council, but before we get to that, if you could just share your favorite place to eat in Medford and what you like to eat there.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Yeah. Oh God, there's a lot to choose from. My favorite place to eat in Medford, I think, Ooh, oh, it's apples and oranges, you know, because I really like Real Gusto a ton. I think their pizza is amazing, but I also really like Tenocht a lot. It's like a different thing. It's just, I don't think I could put them in competition with each other.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, they seem like, yeah, apples and oranges for sure. I think that real gusto is like our standby for like, we're gonna go out to eat before a show at the Chevalier, like that's where we'll go, we know we like the food there.
[Emily Lazzaro]: It's so nice that it's, there's the Chevalier bringing in like really big shows, brings in so many people to the square and they get to experience the food that they might not have like tried before. Oh, also Bob's! Oh, there's so many places!
[Danielle Balocca]: Bob's is so good. I haven't spent a lot of time there, but I hear about that one a lot. It's really good. Eggplant Parm. Awesome. So yeah, so we wanted to have you on today to talk about your run for city council. So if you don't mind just sort of describing your path to local politics or how you decided to run for city council in Medford.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Totally. Well, I, a few years ago, worked as the executive assistant to the superintendent of schools in Medford for Dr. Marice Edouard-Vincent, and I really, really loved working for her. She was amazing. And while I was there, that role does a lot of work with the school committee because the superintendent is always present at the school committee meetings, her office sets the agenda, in that role I was like posting open meeting notices, there was a lot of sort of like clerical work to do with school committee and I learned a ton about the incidents of local government through that. Prior to working for the superintendent, I worked in the state house for a senator. Before that, I interned for Rep. Christine Barber, who represents part of Medford. And all of those experiences were wonderful. And actually, I've gone backwards. I'm going back in time instead of starting at the beginning. But in 2016, I decided to go back to school and get a graduate certificate in gender leadership and public policy at UMass Boston. So, uh, I learned a ton about public policy, a lot about it. That program is really incredible about, um, giving students an approach that's really acknowledges, uh, intersecting marginalizations. What's the word for that? Uh, intersectional feminism. Yes. So it's public. I know that it's public policy through a lens of intersectional feminism. So it was really valuable for me. It was like conversations that people started. Having more widely in 2020. I had been having a night 2017 2018. So I Was really glad to see that sort of shift Culturally, but anyway, so I had been studying public policy I was thinking I would be like a legislative aide forever and I really didn't think about running for office but that's when they start sort of saying, you know, like I We had a speaker one day who was like, women need to be asked seven times to run for office, so let me be the first to just ask all of you to run for office please. And suggest that it's a good idea and you can do it. So we're kind of moving forward through that. Then working with the superintendent, I saw a lot of how the city worked and the reason I decided, really I decided a couple of years ago I was gonna do this and I've been sort of gearing up for it in my mind. The reason I decided I wanted to run for city council instead of school committee was because I saw most of the people on the committee were, I was in agreement with their policy ideas, but the thing that they needed more of was money. And I know that that's something that I could have greater influence on from the city council side. I know that the schools need money to achieve the policies that they want to achieve. And the, the greatest way to be able to accomplish the things, accomplish your goals is to have enough funding. So, um, so that's how we got here. It's been, it's been a logical journey for me, but I understand why people would be like, why aren't you running for a school committee? And, um, uh, a bunch of people said they weren't running after I had. already kind of decided to do city council. So, you know, I think they're all super valuable positions though. Another reason though is that city council is heavily male and I think they could use a little bit more female representation.
[Danielle Balocca]: That question was in my mind as you were talking, especially talking about your, um, your work with the superintendent, but then also in my mind was that same, the same idea of like, why would I ask a woman and I haven't been asking the male candidates, right? Why they're not running for school committee. So I think it's a great point. And, and it sounds like, in the last couple of years, there have been more people, more women running for city council, definitely more women elected, more women running this time, so that's exciting to see. Yeah, it's very cool. It's exciting.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Yeah, I mean, it feels almost retrograde to say I'm running because we need more women representing on the city council. It seems so basic to me, but we still need it.
[Danielle Balocca]: I think it's interesting to think about your experience with policy and just observing what's going on in local politics over the last several years. I think a lot of people became more engaged during COVID when we could just watch City Council over Zoom. I wonder what your critiques are, what you'd see as elements of our city government that you'd see as priorities for change.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, my priorities have a lot to do with some of the work I've done over the past few years with the Malden Warming Center. I'm the assistant director of the Malden Warming Center. which is a seasonal homeless shelter in Malden. And we're open December to March. And in the off season, we do like fundraising projects and various preparation things. But it's, it's a service that is run by a nonprofit with a ton of support from the city of Malden. And Medford doesn't have an equivalent to that or actually doesn't have an equivalent to a lot of the services you find in surrounding communities for addiction, um, for just housing security, um, people who are under threat of being evicted, people who are, have like food insecurity. All of these things are not, there's not like a. a well of services in Medford and a really high priority for me is making sure that we're able to take care of everybody who lives in Medford and sort of bolster the support services that they might receive on the state level or the federal level. Medford has more that it can offer, I think. So that's one of my biggest priorities. I think another thing that is important is making sure that we're prioritizing bringing revenue into the city. So funneling funds to the areas that need it most and making sure that we're thinking deeply about how to thrive as a community and how to make sure that we're fully funding places like the library and the schools.
[Danielle Balocca]: I think that's an interesting point that I haven't heard a lot of people talk about. I think we hear a lot about development and bringing businesses into the city and increasing revenue, and not necessarily how that relates to maybe the people in Medford that are struggling, the folks that you're naming. Struggling with staying house, struggling with mental health addiction, and how those things I think are often talked about separately or maybe not at all and how they really can be connected.
[Emily Lazzaro]: The income inequality in this city is really a tricky situation. I think a lot of people who have come recently are much more interested in giving back to their community, a community that's supporting them, that's giving them a lot. they're like, well, we should absolutely be taking care of everybody who lives here. But the opportunity doesn't necessarily present itself if the city isn't pushing those priorities.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. And I think that's a question that we kind of always try to think about when we're talking to people running for public office is like, What do you see as like inequitable in the city and how do you, what do you see as like a way to try to address that?
[Emily Lazzaro]: Yeah. Uh, I, I do think that there, there is an incredible amount of political will in Medford to take care of people on an elemental level. Like, you know, we have free food pantries all over the place that are just, you know, people walking by and like putting a bag of rice in there and taking it as needed. Um, and like people want to help, but those small scale things are kind of stop gaps. Um, there are food pantries, but they're run largely by nonprofit organizations, churches, and not, not with support from the city that I think we could encourage.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, no, it does remind me of sort of like the way, like our federal government is modeled, right? That like, there are these small measures that sort of help to keep people where they're at, basically. Like, right. Like we'll do, and community efforts. Like, I think like the, some, some groups in the city, like the, like Everything is Free Medford do a great job of sort of trying to support each other in an informal way, right? But there could be something that comes more as like a city initiative that would be more sort of long lasting and sustainable. Yeah.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Totally. I mean, city governments are made up of the people that live there and it's all, um, it's mutual aid and people are doing it on their own, but with greater infrastructure to support that, that could only be more powerful.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Are there examples from other cities that you would like? Well, the one I know the most about is Malden and Malden is a lower income community than Medford, but it doesn't. Income doesn't necessarily influence addiction and mental health issues. And that's most of what we see as our guests at the Malden Warming Center. So Malden supports the Warming Center because they have a whole department where Folks on staff with the city work as recovery coaches. They come every night to the center They have conversations with the guests if they need help Connecting to resources in the city or resources and other nonprofit organizations those folks who are deeply connected with city government know how to point them in the right direction and also have lived experience of going through addiction and overcoming it and being in active recovery. They can bring them to meetings. They use like a city van to take anybody who wants to to an AA meeting once a week. I mean, these are the kinds of things that can help support people in your town who need help. And I believe that there have been recovery coaches in Medford before. I'm not sure if there are now. Another thing is even if these services are available, they're not super accessible. If it's not super easy to find out, if you're somebody who's really struggling and you're trying to find help, if it's not available to you easily, then that's another barrier.
[Danielle Balocca]: I think what you're describing in Malden is also like this. you might have the systems in place or the services in place, but that sort of trust of the residents to access those services is really important. We do have a great city social worker in Medford, Alicia Gambino. She used to be a recovery coach. I know she and the public health department are trying to expand that program. And I think it took something like COVID to really highlight all the work that those folks do and to try to expand that program. But you're right, I think the resources need to be allocated in that way for sure. Yeah, definitely. Great, so anything else that you're kind of working on or anything else that's sort of important for us to know about your campaign?
[Emily Lazzaro]: I don't know. Well, right now I'm really in the fundraising zone. You need money to sort of access a lot of the resources that are available in the larger sort of national parties and lists of voters and people to talk to and how to send out mailings and stuff. So it's really like, it's very expensive to run a campaign, even just for a city. So that's where I'm at right now, and I'm also just doing my best to try to meet people and have conversations and hear what people want out of their local government. So we know each other because we do boot camp together, but it's not like real boot camp, like exercise boot camp. But we also have kids in the school system. My kids go to the Brooks. They're entering first grade and third grade, which is really, oh, it's a sweet spot. It's good stuff. They're like fun. They remain messy, but they're fun and they can entertain themselves. And the messiness, I'm sure, will continue through their 20s. I don't know when that stops. But yeah, so I'm a mom in town. I, you know, I really like running. You might see me running this summer. And, you know, I have a lot of interests outside of local government, but I think that people with well-rounded lives coming in and saying, you know, like, this is my experience in the city and this is where I see room to grow and improve, that's a great thing. writer, working on a revision of my novel right now, and there's a lot going on, but it's all fun stuff.
[Danielle Balocca]: It's all, like, soul-filling, you know? Yeah, it sounds very community-oriented, so I kind of wonder, like, what, if you could share sort of what, like, I think everybody, everybody lives somewhere, right, but not everyone is so connected to the places that they live, and I wonder what kind of connects you to Medford, what What do you kind of appreciate about the community here? Yeah, oh, Medford is the best place I've ever lived.
[Emily Lazzaro]: I've lived, so I grew up in Connecticut. My family's from Worcester. I moved to Boston for college, and I stuck around. I went to BU. And I lived in Boston, Roslindale. I lived in Cambridge and Somerville. And then, you know, we sort of got, we followed this, like, millennial pattern of getting pushed out of cities closer to the center of Boston. because it was too expensive. It got more and more expensive and we kind of rode the wave out to Medford and then we we bought our home seven years ago and it's such a wonderful place to live. It's really got a great amount of diversity of racial diversity, but also income diversity and people with different life experiences and coming from different perspectives and different places and all coming together to live, to like sort of cultivate this beautiful community that we have. You really see that when you're involved with the public schools in town, I think. Um, and, uh, you know, it's a beautiful place to live and it's super convenient. And even though they took away my favorite express bus to Boston, that's the MBTA's fault, not Medford's, but that was a good bus. Oh man. Take the HOV lane. It was beautiful. But it's like 354, 356, I think. Maybe both of them. Um, I really love living in Medford though. I think it's really beautiful. Um, it's got, lakes, it's got the nature, I mean, the fells. So I don't know, it's just like a really, I really love living in Medford. I loved like, like the festival, Circle the Square was so fun. I got my tarot cards read. It was amazing. That scares me a little bit. No, it's a little scary, it's a little scary, but it was all good stuff. It was positive. It was really fun. My daughter got henna and face painting and it was the best. I could have stayed there all day. I'm going to go to the farmer's market today. It's just a really good community. makes me feel really grounded and connected living here.
[Danielle Balocca]: I agree. Yeah. And so we try to kind of provide more like humanize you a little bit. Sure. Politicians sometimes can feel a little like sterile. So I wonder if you could share something about yourself that maybe people don't know or might surprise us.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Oh, okay. Oh, I got a good one. Okay. Okay, so I went to BU for theater and I studied, it's like a conservatory style acting program. So I did that and after graduating, I worked as an actor for a while. I did like small local theater. I also was a playwright, but Massachusetts has this tax break for film companies that shoot in Massachusetts. So, you know, a lot of movies are set here and some of them that are set in like Alaska will shoot in Massachusetts because there's a tax break and it's easier to get here than to get to Alaska. I'm thinking of The Proposal with Cinderbuck specifically. They shot that in Rockport. Yeah, so a lot of people that I know from like the theater community are like in the background in that movie. It's really funny. But I actually was in an HBO show that shot here. It was a miniseries called Olive Kittredge, and it was shot in Essex. Oh, I didn't know about that book. Yeah, the book is amazing. And I love the second book, too, Olive Again. It's Elizabeth Strout. She's an incredible writer. So Frances McDormand optioned this book, and HBO made a four-part miniseries, and I was in one of the episodes. I had, like, seven lines. But you can't really even barely see my face. we know you're there, but I was in it. And sometimes I still get like residual checks for like 13 cents for like a foreign. I don't know. It's something I don't understand, but I'm like cashing it.
[Danielle Balocca]: Great. It's very fun. Cool. And what about like any advice you receive that you'd want to pass on?
[Emily Lazzaro]: Oh, interesting. Something actually that Kit Collins said to me recently that I've been trying hard to remember because my I think a lot of people who end up in local politics or, I mean a lot of different fields that where I find myself can be. people who give a lot of themselves to, um, causes or other people. She said to me, you have to be really careful with your time, really conscious of how you protect your time, kind of. So make sure that you're doing stuff that's like, I think this, this qualifies like for your whole life, people's whole lives. Like, What am I saying yes to and what am I saying no to? And am I saying yes to something for somebody else that is not sort of feeding my soul? And am I saying no to something I really want to do because I'm afraid? All of these things kind of like... Protecting your time, the way I need to think of it is I say yes to everything, all the time. And being more, a little bit more strategic, but mostly so that I can like, I know for myself, I would love to be in bed at 9.30 every night. So every opportunity that I can take to do that, I need to take it. And when it's unavoidable, or the balance to that is like, it's gonna be so fun that it's worth staying up till like, 11. Like a city council budget meeting. Well, like a city council budget meeting, I know. This year wasn't as late as previous years. I didn't stay up for the whole thing. I am tired. I get tired. But it was only until like 12-15. But last time, last year, I think it was like 1-32. So late.
[Danielle Balocca]: So crazy. You can't do that every year. Yeah. We didn't get into that, but yeah, a whole conversation there about that whole thing. Oh yeah. No, it's very interesting. Very interesting conversation. Yeah. Well, thank you. Is there anything else you want to add before we wrap up?
[Emily Lazzaro]: No. One thing I will add, if we're humanizing each other here, Danielle, who never gets humanized on this podcast, I don't think, is, everybody should know, an excellent and intimidating broad jumper. Your broad jumps are so far. It's so frustrating, because I try to do it. I do these little bunny hops across the court in car park, and Danielle leaps like a gazelle. It's annoying and impressive.
[Danielle Balocca]: I have been called a gazelle before. I do think I'm the only person in that group that's never had a baby, so. Well, great. Well, thank you, Emily. Yes, thank you so much for coming and asking me questions. It was fun. Good luck in November. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. The Medford Bites podcast is produced and moderated by Danielle Balacca and Shelly Kisherman. Music is made by Hendrik Irenese. 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. Never Bites. Good job.
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total time: 16.36 minutes total words: 1368 |
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