[John Petrella]: Hello everyone and welcome to Medford Happenings, a show for and about the city of Medford. I am John Petrella and the purpose of this program is to give Medford citizens facts and information to help you make informed choices. And our guest for today's show is Patrick Clerkin, who is a candidate for our Medford City Council. I want to thank you, Patrick, for joining us today. I also want to thank you for being a candidate for City Council. It's important that we have people actually run for the job. So thank you for being with us.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for having me, John. It's really great to be here.
[John Petrella]: OK. We're going to get right into it, Patrick. We're not going to hold back here. So we'll start the show by asking you to share with our audience just some background, general background information about yourself. Who's Patrick Clark, and how long you've been in Medford? Sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I've been in Medford for nine years now, coming up in September. And before that, I grew up in North Reading. I've been a North Shore guy my whole life. And I went to North Reading Public School. And when I was in school, my favorite subjects were actually history, geography, and literature. So what does somebody whose favorite subjects are those do after that? They go to school for engineering, of course. I went to Northeastern for mechanical engineering and it was it was partly My high school had a couple programs. It was not like the Medford High School with these great vocational programs, but it had an architecture program or a class, I should say, an engineering class, and those sort of stoked my curiosity. So when I went to Northeastern Mechanical Engineering, did a couple co-ops there. If you're familiar, they have this, you do classes one semester, jobs another semester. That was great because that was work experience. And I also got involved with a fraternity when I was there and was eventually the president of the fraternity. So that's my entry point into leadership roles. And really post-college, I started working for a company in the semiconductor test industry. Nothing that you or I would ever work with. It's really company to company stuff. And I was there for a couple years and I just kind of decided, you know, corporate was not really like I was too restless for corporate. And so I ventured out on my own and I really got involved with At one point, I was doing my own entrepreneurial pursuit called Tether, and that was in the realm of communications and software. And then I also started making money through doing handyman work, which I really enjoyed because that was more practical, hands-on. It was very face-to-face with clients, and I got to know a lot of my neighbors. So I'll say that Those were sort of my entry points into, because people look at why you're involved in politics. Engineering is sort of this profession that allows you to look deeply at problems from a systemic level and to look at the limitations of systems and to look at the possibilities. So it's that. It's a combination of having gotten to know my neighbors through the handyman work. And I would say it's also the desire to be civically involved and an intermediary between people. OK.
[John Petrella]: Good answer. Interesting stuff. Can you give us a couple of reasons why you're running for a seat? What prompted you to decide to run for the job?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I mentioned before that I started doing handyman work. And at one point, one of my neighbors said, oh, I really wish that we had better options for city council and that people were better addressing these issues. So I looked into it. That was 2023. And I really jumped in at the last minute. This was like a week before the you have to get signatures to get your name on the ballot. It was like a week before the signature deadline. So when I say I was running for council, it was more like I was sprinting for council because it was such an immersive and quick process. But what I learned from last time, I didn't win last time, but what I learned was that one of the biggest issues that affects the city, that affects all of the problems that people see, is the communications issue that's citywide and it's gotten particularly bad over the last five or six years with the lack of a common hub of information, like a city paper or something like that. And so now we have some of these new sources, like we've got Medford Happenings, we've got Gotta Know Medford, we've got some things that have filled that void. But after I ran last time, I really got this civically oriented group of people together who really all saw the communications as a problem. And we were meeting every week at the library, pretty much from New Year's to Memorial Day, trying to set something up. And what we came up with was called the Medford Community Network. And it kind of got shelved, but we got pretty far with that. And that's the foundation that I'm building upon this time. I have some ideas around improving the communications throughout the city.
[John Petrella]: Okay, so you mentioned a few things there. You know, our current city council, obviously you're running, you mentioned, you know, things aren't going maybe in the direction that a lot of people want to see the city going. You know, what suggestions or what, you know, how do you go about resolving? I mean, you could pick a couple of issues. Sure. Let's just even take one or two issues. How do you resolve them? I mean, what's the best way to go about it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, so there's kind of two things that need to, two realms of problem that need to be addressed. One of them is infrastructure, and one of them is more cultural in the city. And so from the infrastructural side of things, I'm really focusing, first of all, on citywide issues and local issues. But the ones that I've put on the back of my literature are the city budget, The development, both commercial and residential, zoning is a big, big topic right now. The high school, what to do with that, whether it's going to be a new high school, whether it's going to be doing renovations. And then the fire station is another one. And I think that was pretty much it. One of the biggest things that I've noticed is lacking is it's unclear what the processes are for these things, or if there are processes. And I'm not putting that on any given person, but coming from that engineering perspective that I mentioned before, What I would be looking for is some kind of a flow chart that says, OK, this is the first stage. This is the second stage. Does it pass this stage? Yes or no. If it's a yes, it goes in this direction. If it's a no, it goes in this direction. And it says the different departments that are involved, the different stakeholders that are involved. And it really gives... It would really add to the transparency and accountability that you often hear politicians talk about, which often unfortunately falls through the cracks. So I think that there's ways to do that now. fiddled around, people talk a lot about AI these days, and I'm not really on the doom train. I'm not really on the hype train. I try to walk the middle path. But I was fiddling around with chat GPT and just asking it some questions like, you know, hey, generate for me a sample of a of a flowchart depicting a municipal Department of Public Works filling in cracks and holes in city streets, you know, what that would look like, or Or show me what a typical budgeting process would look like for a city of 65,000 people. And it's a little bit wonky. It'll spit out something with typos. But generally, it's pretty good. It's impressive. And I think that those could be models for what we could build in the city. That's one thing. There's others, but yeah.
[John Petrella]: So you mentioned communication and transparency. And I'm going to bring this up. And this is like, I have an issue with it. A lot of people that I associate with, a lot of people, seem to think there is a serious You know, there's a lack of transparency, there's a lack of communication, whether it's they're not listening, whether it's they're not being clear, whether the word's not getting out, the word's getting out. late, not blaming anybody, but there is definitely a lack of the communication. To me, personally, that's like a big issue. So, you know, what are your thoughts on that? Is there a solution? Can you solve it? What's the story?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yes, and yes. I hear that problem all the time. I mean, that's probably the biggest problem that I hear, and I do think it can be addressed and it can be solved, but it's not an easy snap your fingers fix. Yeah, the zoning thing right now that's happening. I would say that thankfully, I just saw the other day, the mayor is releasing a letter saying, hey, I think we should move the decision for this process to the fall because a lot of the public is feeling caught off guard or uninformed about this, and I think that's very much the right choice. Let's take the zoning. A lot of people feel like this information is being dropped out of the void at the last minute and that the public comment period has passed and that there are these sort of uh, in sincere efforts to get public opinion, like the, these, uh, cardboard cutout attempts to, to, hey, we're, we're listening to the public, but are you really listening to the public? And so, um, once again, I'm not trying to, to put that on, on any given, you know, person. Uh, in some cases I do think it's deliberate where, you know, the, the process has already gotten to a certain point and all the consultants have gotten involved and, and it's just about done and it's like, Like we don't want to get the public to shut this down at this point. So let's kind of you know Pass it through the through the later hours of the night or something like that. But then I think other times there's there really is information that's posted out there, but it's posted in one of the drawers of the bureau in the city website, and who is ever going to find that?
[John Petrella]: It doesn't come out of the drawer.
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't come out of the drawer, and so a couple weeks ago I really scoured the city website, and I'll be the first to say that The new city website is actually, it has some problems, but it's much better than what it was. And there's a lot of great stuff on there. There's maps of the city that show these plans. There's all these different project proposals. But if you don't know that they're there, like what good are they to some extent? And so so that's why I think that there needs to be a bunch of people in the city the council included Working together to to address that to work with this, you know, you've interviewed gotta know Medford, right? They could be a new they could fill that void. Yeah, and and I think that the city On the front page of the city website, there currently is a section that shows the quick links for city services. And then beneath that, there's news and events. But I think there needs to be either a link or a little bulletin board that shows all of the currently ongoing city projects and links to key maps and key project developments. I think that would go a long way as well.
[John Petrella]: So, you know, you mentioned the mayor. I want to thank her because I read that letter, as have a lot of people that she wrote. And I think it it's accurate. I think it's a good letter. And I think she's, you know, standing up for the people on this on this issue. And as you said, it's a big issue. And you made a lot of good points, and I appreciate that. But yeah, I want to thank the mayor, because I think it was important that she took the lead on this. And I think she did a good job doing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think it was the right choice.
[John Petrella]: So now I'd like to just talk about, we're talking about zoning, we're talking about everything else. It's no secret, it really isn't, economic growth. It's stagnant, not there. How do you approach it? How do you get on the council? How do you approach the issue? What's the best direction you think to go in?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean I don't think that the immediate, and things have gotten bad enough where to some extent people might feel that this is the only option that they have, but I don't feel like the answer is just to squeeze the life out of the homeowners, you know, and wrench money out of their equity. You know, it's not to say like taxes are a necessary evil, but I think if it's part of a bigger package and a wider lens view of how to balance the city budget, I do need to familiarize myself more with the the details of the city budget. But broadly, I think we need to focus on seriously increasing and diversifying the commercial and industrial tax base, and you don't do that in the residential areas. The residential component of development is a separate issue, but you do it on the Mystic Ave corridor, you do it partly in the Wellington area, in East Medford, you do it in places that are already really you know, zoned for and have significant commercial and industrial development. I think it's a damn shame that in the city, and this isn't just someone who's deeply at this point, I consider myself pretty aware of what's going on, but I've heard these comments from people who really are just casually observing. They go for walks with their dogs, they take notes of things. But some of these boarded up shops and stretches of boarded up windows, I have a friend who lives over near the royal house and we used to take my dog for a walk and it can't even be real. There's a sausage casing business and it's just been shut forever and there's a whole strip of And you see a lot of those types of things throughout Medford. So I think that the city can create certain incentives, like maybe expedited permitting processes could be one. Maybe the utilities are a mess, in the sense of particularly the streets, making streets in front of businesses more attractive.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, that would be nice. I hear you on that, sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's other financial arrangements that can be made.
[John Petrella]: Down by the courthouse and a few other spots down there, there's development. It's begging for development. Mr. Gav is begging for development. And the squares, yeah, I think we need to do some things. How big and how much, that's the question. But appreciate your input. answer.
[SPEAKER_02]: One last thing is I do think that it doesn't have to be an either or thing of you have to wholly satisfy the homeowners or wholly satisfy the renters or wholly satisfy the landlords. It's something that if it's done wisely, it can balance all of those forces. Because Medford at the end of the day is an ecosystem and you need all those groups.
[John Petrella]: And Medford has always, I'm going to say it, they've always been able to do it. People have always, you know, I've lived here my whole life and it's, everyone's always been able to work with each other to get things done. And, you know, I think that's another part of the whole process. I think you're right on that, you know, the people and everything. All right, let's you mentioned now you mentioned taxes spending whatever so what's your priorities? I mean spending in taxes spending in taxes. What do we do?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah well It would be nice if there if there was an audit but that is there's been some resistance to that and When it comes to priorities in the city for for spending I would say putting a significant amount of that money into projects that are already underway, like the fire station is a big one that was already promised to the firemen and the fire tower when the new police station was put in. And there's a plan for that on the city website. So seeing that through is one thing. looking seriously at how far we can stretch the money that we have. I do think that, you know, Rick Orlando was on in one of your episodes and he was talking about the process of building schools. The school is one of these looming things. What do we do with the school? Do we renovate it? Do we do it over again? Well, Rick talked about how if we're you know, if we were even to consider redoing the school all over again, we're not going to get the same, you know, abatements as previously. You know, there was that racial balancing that paid for, you know, like 90% of the schools or 75% of the schools. So I think we should prioritize the school because this school does have this studio that we're in right now is a gem. There's the robotics club that's a gem. This school has, I'm blanking on the name right now, Bistro 489. There's some really great stuff at this school, both vocational and otherwise. But maybe we could look at it, how do we stretch our dollars? Some people say, absolutely no way, never renovation, redo the whole thing. Well, first of all, we're not going to get those refunds that we previously did. Second of all, There's good bones in this school. There's a lot of, I mean, it's a brutalist architectural style like the Boston City Hall, but maybe efforts could be done to make it more, you know, coming into the school to feel less sort of ominous, I would say.
[SPEAKER_01]: A little more palatable.
[SPEAKER_02]: And to just renovate parts of the building. It was built for a certain number of students that it currently is not filling, I don't think. I've taken a tour of the whole school, so that is a goal of mine. I have a neighbor down the street. a couple, and they just moved here a couple years ago, and they're saying that they're already considering moving out. Like, they have a baby, they have another one on the way, and they're like, the school system, we just, you know, whether it's true or not, perception is reality to them. And they say, you know, we're moving out. And I think they're not alone with that. There's people who look at the school. So I would consider that like, A hemorrhage within Medford is the school system. And outside of that, I would just say, yeah, the streets. The streets are a mess. And putting forward on the city website, there's a plan for all the streets, prioritizing them by area. Really putting that forward and putting that next to that process flowchart that I was describing before. So people can see and hold the city accountable. Those are the big ones.
[John Petrella]: Figuring out how to make it a reality. That's a key. So we covered a lot of things. I just want you to, I sort of, how do I say it? I think it would be helpful if you could, let's say, paint a picture for your concerns, solutions, ground up. I call it, And you mentioned it earlier, the streets, the cleanliness, whatever you want to call it. I call it meat and potatoes of running a city. What do you think about the meat and potatoes?
[SPEAKER_02]: see it from two angles one is the on the streets level which is the meat and potatoes of like what is what is the average resident of Medford see and they see bad quality streets they see and unfortunately the bad things tend to stick out more than the good things and the things that are working you know you don't you know and when you're paying attention to things you don't go oh that's working really well you go oh that's a mess So it's really unfortunate. But people tend to lock into the things that aren't working. So the state of the streets, the fact that we have a bunch of business sections that are more worn down or mismatched or, uh, you know, not really diversified in the sense of, you know, not to, not to demean banks and credit unions and barbershops, but we have a lot as I walk around, we have a lot of both, both of those. So, um, a, a focus on the, what people actually see on the front end and then simultaneously on the back end, there's all these, these, um, these processes and communications failures that are happening that would make addressing the front end more possible. And I'll say that this is both meat and potatoes and back end but I mentioned before how there's an infrastructural part of this and then there's also a cultural part just getting people to talk to each other again and not see each other as villains you know it's it's really like the number of people that have just disengaged has left the the smaller public square open to to be taken over by Brats and bullies I would say And there's a lot of people who do participate who really just want to see things work and they're trying to get things work get things to work, but you know, there's there's also a lot of rancor and a lot of stuff that sucks the oxygen out of the room, you know, and I do, I want to see neighbors talking to neighbors again and seeing each other as such, rather than like, you're a red, you're a blue, you're this, you're that. It's not helping. And so that cultural component play in people talking to each other again, plays into whether this stuff gets done and whether neighborhoods can start participating in the political process.
[John Petrella]: You know, that was a great answer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[John Petrella]: It was. I mean, it's it's truthful, too. I mean, I agree with it. That was a good answer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you. And by the way, block parties are one of the biggest examples of this. Like that might seem like a small thing, but it's a sign in my it's like a vital sign, in my opinion, of like a healthy neighbor.
[John Petrella]: Honest answer. And we appreciate that. So now let's just you know, I always got to ask a personal question. I got to get something in. Sure. So let's what's your least and most favorite things going on in Method that Patrick likes to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. Well, some of the more relatable things would just be discovering new restaurants and trying new things on the menu and discovering like, oh, we've got Wright's Pond in North Medford that has its own beach. You know, that's not a lot of towns have that, you know, that aren't oceanfront. So there's just a lot of cool stuff that I've been discovering. sort of a behind-the-scenes satisfaction is just seeing how How much common ground that there is with all the people that I talked to I really enjoy the conversations that I have with people and just finding out that like this person who would Never associate with that person actually has so much So much of a common description of what they consider the strengths and the weaknesses of the city, you know, and and so there really is like a a ton of budding potential. And it's just seeing that validated is really reinforcing, I would say. So that's one of my favorite things. But negative things is the counter to that. Well, first of all, driving over all those potholes all the time, that's definitely a negative thing. Passing by a lot of these things that have so much potential, but it's just not realized. Those boarded up buildings, those neighborhoods that could be having block parties and could be getting together but aren't. Um, and then also just the people who are talking past each other, but, but missing the opportunity to sort of connect, you know, like two ships in the night.
[John Petrella]: So, no, that's. Thank you for that answer. Uh, it's, it's true. Good one. And I just want to mention one thing now, because while we're on the subject of people getting together this Saturday, we have circle the square.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[John Petrella]: It's always crowded. I mean, yeah, I know you'll be there. It's a good place to be. And I just wanted to throw in a plug for that. That's always a great thing. So anyhow, I want to thank you. That was the last question I had for you. And I want to thank you for joining us. Great conversation. And I enjoyed having you. And I'm sure the people that watch the show, listen, whatever, they're going to get a lot out of this. So thank you, Patrick.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, John, for giving me a platform to talk about some things that are just quick soundbites.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, you're more than welcome. We welcome anyone. Anyone who's running for office, you know, seeking re-election, you're more than welcome. They know how to contact us. So the last thing I got, you know, just give us a quick, you know, how do they get in contact you if someone wants to?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep, so my campaign email address is clerkin4medford.com and that's C-L-E-R-K-I-N. And my campaign website is clerkin4medford.com. The email address is at the bottom of that if you don't remember it. And then I'm on Instagram. facebook and reddit and all those are uh clerking for medford some what whether it's the number four or the word four for you'll find me good stuff patrick thank you and and i should just one last little plug is on my uh website my campaign website i do a weekly blog updating what i'm doing and you know the people i talk to and the canvassing the events all that so uh check that out yep
[John Petrella]: Hopefully you'll get some people looking at it. Well, you know, it's that time again. I want to thank you for joining us on the show. For joining us on Method Happenings. And second, you know, being a candidate for the Method City Council. Good for you. I'm glad. I also want to take a minute to thank everyone who has been watching the show. Thank you for your feedback. Whether it's positive or negative, we'll take it. I also would like to share a comment. If you'd like to share a comment or are a candidate for city office, opening a new business, an existing business, you represent an organization with upcoming events, if you'd like to appear on a future show, you can contact us at johnpetrella.com. 55 at gmail.com and I just want to point out a lot of people are joining us sending us great ideas for shows so we do have a lot of great shows coming up I just want to mention that we have a few more candidates coming on which is always I enjoy doing these shows I really do
[SPEAKER_02]: I can tell, and you've got a lot in the pipeline.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, no, I do. It's fun to have all this in the pipeline. So you'll be able to see replays of this show on Method Community Media. We're on Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 6 p.m., and you can also see Method happenings on MethodTV.org, YouTube, and Facebook. So thank you everyone for joining us. And from all of us at Method Happenings, I'm John Petrella, Patrick Lurken, and please stay informed. Have a great one. Ta-da!