total time: 19.46 minutes
total words: 1459
[John Petrella]: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Method Happenings, a show for and about the city of Medford, and I am John Petrella. And the purpose of this program is to give Medford citizens facts and information to help you make informed choices. But before I introduce today's guests, I want to just take a moment, extend an invitation to any member of the Medford City Council any member of the Method School Committee who is a candidate for reelection or to any new candidate running for office in Method to appear on the show Method Happenings where you can share your positions on the current issues facing the city. You can reach us at Method Happenings, 02155 at gmail.com. It's that simple. methodhappenings02155 at gmail.com. And thank you for that. Today, I wanna welcome our special guest, Patrick Lurken, who is a candidate for our Medford City Council. Patrick, thanks for joining us on the show. And we're gonna get right into the questions, all right? Right into it. The first question, Patrick, we're going to get right into the zoning. A lot of talk about zoning in Method these days. How would you deal with it? And I'm going to give you these three specific areas we'd like for you to answer today. The first one is generating community support for zoning that will create affordable housing.
[Patrick Clerkin]: So this isn't a brilliant answer. It's a simple answer. It's just something that we have to get right, which is getting people the information that they need in as simple as terms and as compelling of terms as possible. So that means the way that I see it, showing them a map of this is what the city looks like. This is what we're proposing, highlighting the areas of where we're planning to put additional housing, and then saying, this is how it affects your life, and this is why these areas are optimal. We've looked at other areas, and I think it's really important to justify to people that we didn't just pick these areas out of a hat, or we didn't pick these areas because someone in government or in the periphery of government had some connection to that area. It's really well thought out, and I think that if we There's this paradox that exists of if you want to get this better information out to people, but you Already can't get it out to people. How do you how do you let them know about it to begin with? And I think that really communicating with Through this channel through Medford happenings and also got to know Medford are two big Opportunities that we have right now to really get it out to people.
[John Petrella]: Thank you for that. That's what we're trying to do get information out There's been talk and I'll ask you this like let's call it part B of the same question, what will you do to create, I guess I'm gonna call it an advisory council on zoning and also on the affordable housing?
[Patrick Clerkin]: Yes, I think that we need to find the influencers within Medford, the people within different districts, the people within certain knowledge categories, because they're not always the people in the titled positions, first of all. This is something that I was thinking about previously when I was working on a media project a couple years ago called the Medford Community Network. We were trying to basically think, how do you identify these key stakeholders who are very knowledgeable? And I think If you put the word out, once again, I'm probably going to repeat this a lot, through these new channels, through this one, through God I Know Medford, hey, All Point Bulletin, we're looking for people, if you know a lot about this, if you care a lot about this, we need you to be the representative so to speak, for your area of the city. And when it comes to holding them to that, I think we have to set a regular meeting among those people. And I don't know, there needs to be a leader of some kind. So I don't know if the leader is going to be chosen among them or exactly how that would look, but yeah.
[John Petrella]: But you need a good group of people. You need some talented people, experienced people. That's basically what you're saying. And to communicate it out so the public knows what's going on. I don't mean to interrupt, but that's a big part of the problem, I think. It's just not out there. People don't know what's going on.
[Patrick Clerkin]: Yeah, and I think that people who are more casually, people who want to be more civically involved in the city are dissuaded because of the just general tenor intention of politics right now, where they're observing, whether you realize it or not, they're observing other people who are putting themselves out there. And when those people get piled on, they go, okay, no thanks.
[John Petrella]: Right. Yeah. No, you're right.
[Patrick Clerkin]: Yeah.
[John Petrella]: Absolutely right. Okay. And the last part of this three part question, you know, we're trying to attract public and private investments to support affordable housing and method, not an easy thing to do. What's your thoughts on that?
[Patrick Clerkin]: On the public side of it, I think that if we put together a, when I say we, I have to decide exactly, think more about exactly who the we is, but putting together a coherent proposal, couple of pages that could be handed over to housing and urban development at the state level. Like if we're trying to get state funds for something like this, we have to, We have to, I think, show that we want to work with Massachusetts, but we're not going to get bullied and pushed around for state-level needs. Because one of the questions that exists right now is, OK, yes, there's some grant money out there, but what are the strings attached to it? And I have an announcement coming over the speaker. Give me one second.
[John Petrella]: That's OK. We can't hear it on this end.
[Patrick Clerkin]: You can't hear it on that end. Okay. So, so basically, you know, the question is what strings are attached to the, to the grant money and I think that a lot of people feel that. sometimes the things that are being pushed in Medford, is it really in Medford's best interest or is it the best interest of other entities like the Massachusetts government? So I think if we sort of meet them at the table with our counter-proposal, then that's a step in the right direction for public funding. When it comes to private funding, I think maybe working with the business community in Medford, partly the Chamber of Commerce, partly other maybe individual business entities, and Bruce Patterson, my campaign manager, actually introduced me to something that worked in Chinatown, where they wanted to put in some businesses and then there was the local said, well, if you're gonna put in these businesses, you're gonna put in this housing as well. And then there was pushback and then they said, no, we mean it. And then the businesses acquiesced and there was funding for the housing. So those are two leverage points, I think.
[John Petrella]: So people communicate with each other, they negotiate, they mediate, boom, it gets, yeah. All right, so let's go on to the next question. Many citizens, This was under the chair of Milton McDonald. And they did, they worked diligently, let me get that correct, for two years to bring forward a revised city charter. So this is going to be another one of those three pointers. What do you feel about, how do you feel about the committee's work product on the charter?
[Patrick Clerkin]: Well, a while back, probably a month and a half ago, I read through the entire document and I'm a big fan of it. I think that they did a great job. When I previously ran, I wasn't as familiar with their work and I was a little bit concerned, okay, how is this being done? Is there gonna be politics baked into it? But it's a really, I think it's a significant leg up on our current charter and I don't see any, you know, politics baked into it. So I think they did a really good job. Particularly, I'm a huge fan of the word-based representation. There's two other aspects as well that I really like.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, a lot of people like that. So as a whole, you believe it'll help the city or is this going to create problems as a whole?
[Patrick Clerkin]: As a whole, I certainly believe it will help the city. I would definitely encourage people to vote in favor of it. And I'm actually going to make a little video about that. But the word based representation is a huge step in the right direction. When I was talking about the answer to your previous question, Right about kind of community liaisons in these different areas.
[John Petrella]: Right.
[Patrick Clerkin]: Should the charter pass in November, there's going to be a period of 2 years before it goes into effect. And so I think that ultimately having this word based representation is going to be a huge step in the right direction for making sure. broadly every area of the city is represented. The second thing that I really like is that built into the charter is a review every 10 years, which I think is absolutely necessary so that this current situation doesn't happen again. And then the third thing is it forces, there's wording in the charter that forces the mayor and the city council to address budget much earlier in the year rather than waiting until the June deadline. They have to address it earlier. We need that in my opinion.
[John Petrella]: So, basically, I mean, there are sections of sections. You would consider, you know, maybe removing adding or modifying and it's in there that it can be done. Correct. I mean, you're going to be able to. I think the way I read it is you're going to be able to make some adjustments as we go. Is that correct?
[Patrick Clerkin]: Correct. There's a, you know, there's a amendment process that's laid out. It's just like with the constitution, you wouldn't want a document that is so easy to change that anyone could just get all the time, but you want to have a built in adjustment process that adapts to the times.
[John Petrella]: All right. Great, great answers. Thank you for answering those. We're gonna move on again here. Let's focus on Method. We need more revenue services, that's it, sources. We definitely need more revenue sources. So what programs would you institute, basically to grow Method's tax base? What can be done?
[Patrick Clerkin]: Well, I'd really like to focus on commercial revenue. I don't think I'm saying anything new there, but I do think that we need to get the zoning process right. We've been focused on residential with the zoning, but the commercial aspect of it, I think we have to create incentive packages for businesses. Talking to somebody recently, I have a weekly Colleen's event every Wednesday. And there was a gentleman who was talking to me, he's a contractor and he's done work in Malden. And he says, Medford and Malden are night and day when it comes to the ease of getting stuff done. And I asked him more about that. And he just said that they basically just create a package for you where they say, this is what you need, these five things or whatever. And once you get that done, it's a breeze. once the contractors get that done. So I think that not only making it clear what people have to do, and this is across basically everything in our government, we just have to have clearer processes for people because I really feel like we don't have some of this stuff written down and we're just going on the fly a lot of the time. And if that's not the case, then where are the processes, you know? So I think we have to be clear with our processes. The second thing for the businesses is just create a better package of incentives that draw them in, like maybe quicker utilities hookups for their businesses. maybe having a storefront, what do I want to call this, like a storefront beautification grant or something like that, maybe having expedited permitting. There's a lot of options that you could bundle together and make it enticing to be commercially vested in Medford.
[John Petrella]: More inviting to business owners.
[Patrick Clerkin]: More inviting to business owners. And we get more tax base off of business.
[John Petrella]: So we're gonna, what you're talking about is basically making it less complicated.
[Patrick Clerkin]: Right.
[John Petrella]: And yeah, okay.
[Patrick Clerkin]: You're gonna notice this is essentially a common answer or a common factor across a lot of money.
[John Petrella]: Yep, yep, yep. So, you know, as part of that, I guess, do you have any specific solutions, I guess, to better manage city expenses? Anything you can throw in there, you think? Are city expenses being managed properly? What can we do?
[Patrick Clerkin]: It's a little bit of a black box to me. So I'm digging into this myself right now to get a better sense of it. I do think that the what I previously mentioned with the charter is a big step in the right direction where it forces management earlier in the year and in a more transparent and simple manner. Probably, you know, I don't know that our city has that. We have a very strained budget, but we probably need a second paid person somewhere to to address it and I know that putting out money for anything is seen as really during these lean times is seen as really drastic or is that really necessary but that this is something that is an absolutely critical area that you know it would it would ease up tension in all these other areas the way that I see it.
[John Petrella]: No, I think you're correct. I think it's an accurate statement that sometimes you do, you need to spend that money. Yeah.
[Patrick Clerkin]: And I'll add that I think that possibly, I just said this the other day, I was doing an interview with the Tufts Daily. I think that, and people might get squeamish about this, but I think that the relationships between Tufts and Medford and Medford and the Chevalier need to be revisited, not in a way that scares away Tufts or the Chevalier, because they're wonderful assets to our community. But, you know, with Tufts, for example, there's the pilot program and there's these town and gown services that Medford receives in place of taxes. And maybe it can't be monetary, the compensation, but maybe the compensation or the arrangement between Tufts and Medford, who have both grown significantly since the original arrangement. negotiated where attention and these in-kind resources get shifted from one area to another area that's really, really within the city's needs right now. And I think that there's potential exciting room for negotiation there. And then same with Chevalier, where Chevalier has a big network. And if we can work with the Chamber of Commerce and with Tufts to, or I'm sorry, with the Chevalier to tap into that network and say, hey, how can we you know, use you to maybe optimize the Medford Square development process or something like that.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, yeah. No, it makes sense, Patrick. Good answer. You know, the next city council, as I'm sure you are aware, and hopefully you're going to be part of that next city council. I think you'd be a great councilman. Anyhow, it's going to be faced with voting to support or not support I mean, let's be honest, two significant overrides or debt exclusions. One's going to be for a fire station. And the second is going to be to support a new high school, the high school. So these are tough questions I'm asking. But the first question, do you support or oppose either or both of these initiatives? And I know it's a tough question because we're not really sure. Is it going to be an override at that exclusion? But I mean, the bottom line, you know, what do you think?
[Patrick Clerkin]: So I won't bury the lead. I view overrides in general as financial duct tape. And I. I support the underlying initiatives. I do think there needs to be a new fire station. And I know we're well on the way with the proposal and the development. So I suppose I support that. And I remember seeing that the sanitation and the fire station was quite a mess. And just in general, it's been a long time coming. The fire tower was taken down. There was nothing put back up. The police got a new station. It's time, I believe, for the firemen to get there. The underlying project I support when it comes to the high school I lean towards Renovation, I don't think that it's in our capacity being these lean times right now To support a full high school as much as it would be great to do that. I previously mentioned based on Rick Orlando's Previous interview on this show back in the 90s. We got a huge reimbursement. We really wouldn't get anywhere near that these days so But I would like to see the range of options. I would like to see the best case proposal for a complete do-over for a completely new school, for strategic renovations, and then basically for doing nothing. And I'd like to compare them. So back to the override aspect, I do think that when it comes to overrides, I would like to see the case laid out for people. why the override is the only option, if that really is the only option. I'm not saying there aren't cases that an override might be effectively the only option, but you really have to lay out that case. When it comes to city finances, you either tackle the revenue side or the expenses side or both. And with revenues, you pretty much have commercial revenues and that's... up and in zoning you have bonds that you can issue and you have tax overrides primarily and and then you have grants and with the with the recent grant cuts you know at the federal level and in the state level you know rippling down If you're going to make the case that an override is necessary, I want to see complementary efforts in the other areas to either increase the revenues or decrease the expenses. I want to see what else you're doing. Because what you're doing with overrides is you're basically targeting a specific group that is highly vested and really can't do anything. You're basically just, I've said it before, you're basically like a towel squeezing equity out of people's.
[John Petrella]: Right. No, I know. Yeah.
[Patrick Clerkin]: So I really want to see the public case made, if someone's going to be advocating for an override, that other things are being done. And even then, I would be very hesitant to support overrides.
[John Petrella]: You know, I want to thank you, because it's a tough question. And you were very honest in the way you answered that. And we appreciate that on the show. I think that's important. So I want to thank you. You actually answered, you know, two questions. Oh, nice. Question on that all in one. So that was great. I like that. But yeah. Oh, I mean, that's a great answer. And I think it's important. You know, anyone that's running for council, the honesty part of it, the getting the information out, you know, and I mean, you're giving us good answers. you know, whether people are gonna be with you or not with you, but at least it's honest, it's upfront, and... When you're honest and upfront, the rest is in your hands.
[Patrick Clerkin]: You just go, the rest, you know, is fake.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, they're good answers, Patrick. They're good answers. It's what, I think it's what people are looking to hear, you know? You know, there's good in the answers. There's some, you know, stuff I think people are gonna wow, you know, but honesty, I love that. All right, so we'll go to the next question I have, which is just a sort of general question. Are there any other important issues, concerns, you know, you see facing method, you know, maybe that we haven't covered today or in your last show, you appeared on the on the show prior and with some great answers. You know, you're thoughtful in your answers, you know. So is there anything else you can think of we haven't covered as far as issues, or do you see any problems developing, you know, in the near future, future? And how would you approach, if you could come up with any, you know, how do you approach solving them, Patrick?
[Patrick Clerkin]: Sure, so a couple come to mind. And this is the one that always is at the tip of everyone's tongue, is the state of the streets in the city. And I think that's partly, once again, an aspect of getting the current plans out there to people so that they can actually see. Because some people think that there's actually nothing being done at all. And I stumbled upon, months ago, when I scoured the city website, there's actually a city-wide heat map of all of the streets that that indicate by degree of severity the prioritization of the different streets when it comes to getting them fixed, and the sidewalks. So I think even just putting that out there, it's one of those situations where a lot of people, in the absence of information, they tend to grow more irritated. So that allays some people's, right there, that allays, okay, at least there's a plan, you know? And then the second part of that is getting the finances and the communications right. So that ties into the other, you know, getting the communication simple, getting the finances tied to other sources. So I digress on that particular topic. The other areas to me are Arts and culture, I think that there's a consolidation, or I know that there's a consolidation happening right now in the arts and culture space. I think that's actually a very good thing. Because arts and culture is more decentralized by nature. It's sort of the seedbed of creativity. You don't want it to be too top-down controlled. but it's actually good that some of these entities are coming together and they can coordinate resources and projects better. I would love to see the arts and culture community tied into more civic projects that are put into murals that are more relevant to Medford and Medford history, I would say. Yeah, phenomenal. And that's not, you know, Medford has a rich history. It has Italian and Irish and Jewish and black. And now we have Brazilian and we have, you know, Tufts area hillside. And there's just so many you could have. I think that would be a huge part of of neighborhood integration and neighborhood identity is sort of and I'm hoping that can be tied into the. you the new charter if it passes and charter represent word based representation. And then the third thing is I would love to see better relations with, um, with public safety officers. And I think that the national night out was a huge step in that direction. I was I was actually just talking with in tandem with the public safety officers, with veterans as well. I was just at a veterans meeting this morning at the senior center. And one of the things that's up for conversation is the American Legion, the future of the American Legion. Could it be a separate, could the veterans affairs office in the city hall be in a separate building? And could it be actually at the American Legion? And could that be a hub of other things as well, like a community food bank and offices related to other things, a bulletin? So I think that that would be, this is less urgent than some of the other matters.
[John Petrella]: No, but still, it's nice. That sounds good. It really does. I like that. I like that a lot, Patrick. That sounds great. All right. So I got last question. You know, I think I'm pretty sure you got this one down the last question, you know. What's coming up for you, Patrick Lurken? And if someone wants to get in touch with you, you know, how do they go about doing it, Patrick? And I know you're working hard. People see you all over the city. You're out there talking and people like what they're hearing. So if they want to get in touch, they want to help you out, whatever it is, what's going on with Patrick?
[Patrick Clerkin]: Well, six week, five week sprint, basically. That's what's going on and probably diminished sleep. But I am in the midst of revamping my website right now. I requested from people all over my life. Going back a while. I'm talking I requested testimonials from them basically character references saying you know me from from some aspect Maybe you were a roommate. Maybe you were a client. Maybe you were a manager, but I have a like 45 testimonials that I'm gonna be posting out saying hey Because you can hear it from me, but I can you know, I can say hearing it from others really matters So that's that's coming out got a fundraiser coming up on October 9th. That's gonna be at Bertucci's I should I should clarify that once I confirm with them. It's going to be a British Yes, and outside of that, you're just going to see me everywhere. You're going to see me at events. You're going to see me canvassing. I'm getting really strategic with, okay, where did I miss at the preliminary? What? Cuz cuz general generally before the preliminary throughout the last three or four months I was just trying to hit broadly everywhere in the city I was going to registered voters, but now I have to be very specific as you know trying to shore up my my support So that's that's basically what's going on with me and where you'll find me everywhere and when it comes to contacting me My email is clerkin4medford at gmail.com. My website is clerkin4medford.com. And then you can also contact me on my social media. I'm on Instagram and Facebook, both of which are clerkin4medford, whether it's the number four or the word F-O-R. You'll find me.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, they'll figure it out. So basically, clerkin4medford.
[Patrick Clerkin]: Pretty much. Just across, just search that, you'll find me. Yeah. The last thing I just want to say to people is, um, so I've been in Medford for eight years. I ran three years or two years ago. And so I have more name recognition, but it's still an uphill battle with name recognition. So if you like my ideas, I'm not tied to a large organization and I don't have the multi-generational name recognition that some people have. So if you like my ideas, if you know someone who wants a sign, If you could donate, it goes a long way. Even just spreading the word to people that I'm running, it all adds up at the end on November 4th. So you can contact me. You can let me know. I really appreciate it.
[John Petrella]: I'll end it by saying you're a great candidate. You're a good person. You're a wonderful person. You're working hard. And I personally, myself, my opinion, Absolutely. You got my vote. And I think you're going to be a really, I think you're going to be a great city council, a Method City Councilor. And I think Method needs people like you. There's a lot of work to do. And I, for one, I'm confident that you can do it. I really am. So thank you, Patrick, for joining us again. So that's it for the show. I want to thank you, you know, first for joining us on the show and second for being a candidate for the Medford City Council. And before we close, I want to let you know we are looking, we're looking for some Medford residents to appear on Medford Happenings on a future show. And what we're looking for is people to share their views on what they expect, what they're looking for, from the members of the next city council. I think it would make for a great show. And, you know, Bruce, Paul, and some of the other people that helped with this show think it's a great idea. You know, get some feedback from the people that are actually doing the voting. And, you know, I'm going to be voting for you guys come November. So if you're interested in doing something like that, please, once again, contact us. Method Happenings, 02155 at gmail.com. It's pretty simple. I'll say it one more time. Method Happenings, 02155 at gmail.com. So I want to thank everyone who has been watching the show and thank you for your feedback. And I'm not even going to say negative feedback because it's been all positive. It's been great. We're happy. I can't, you know, I can't believe it. Not that we don't deserve a little negative feedback, but it's been all good. I want to remind everyone you'll be able to see replays of this show on our really, I'm talking fantastic website, methodhappenings.com. That's methodhappenings.com. It's our website. Thank you for all the views we're getting. You can also find us on YouTube. And for the Method Happenings team, I'm talking about Paul, Marco, Bruce, Margaret, James. I'm John Petrella. Thank you, Patrick Lurken. And stay informed, Medford.
[Patrick Clerkin]: Thank you, John.
[John Petrella]: Thank you, Patrick.
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total time: 19.46 minutes total words: 1459 |
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