total time: 3.21 minutes
total words: 67
[Matt Leming]: Hello, Medford. My name is Matt Leming. I'm a scientist, a naval officer, and for the past two years, a city councilor, and I'm running for a second term. I grew up in a military family, moved around a lot, did my PhD in the UK, and moved to Medford as a post-doc and mass general. Now, when I moved here, I could barely pay for a room in a small apartment. That's not because the research I was doing in Alzheimer's is not valuable. It's because something about the system is broken. In the past 41 years, U.S. rents have risen 323 percent, home prices 441 percent, and median household income a mere 37 percent. And to even begin addressing this, we need to start locally. In 2023, after lobbying council to pass an affordable housing trust, I ran for council myself, talked to a whole lot of voters, and began serving in 2024. Massachusetts has state laws that prevent city budgets from keeping up with inflation and Medford has stagnated in its growth for a very long time. So Medford has a budget problem and Medford's housing is too expensive. This past term, I and many of my colleagues on council have stopped kicking the can down the road. Backed by many parents and young families in the community, we campaigned for a successful ballot initiative that saved 40 teaching jobs in the Medford Teachers Association and funded a full-time road repair crew in the Department of Public Works. This past term, council approved new public housing for seniors, and I'm working at the state and local level to fund our new affordable housing trust. The city and the community spent years developing a vision for the city that addresses our affordability crisis and dwindling budget, and I've been working to implement that. Our current development is patchwork and we need a vision that leads to more sustainable growth in our city so that we can grow our tax base. I'm also working on new building regulations to mitigate traffic demands brought on by new developments, discourage vacancies in current buildings, mandate greener building practices, and with an historic conversion ordinance, maintain the many historic buildings that compose Medford, all while incentivizing housing affordability. This past term, I've made Council a more transparent body by instituting a City Council newsletter, live streaming our meetings on YouTube, holding office hours at the Medford Senior Center, and writing about all of it on my personal website nonstop. I instituted a first-of-its-kind program to house low-income veterans, and I passed a law that will allow Medford residents to voluntarily donate to an in-need veterans fund on their tax bills. In January, Council passed a Welcoming City Ordinance, and in my work with the Democratic City Committee, I spearheaded a campaign to inform non-English-speaking residents of their constitutional rights in these very dire times. In short, I am not kicking the can down the road. I'm putting in the work needed to make a vibrant, affordable, and welcoming community, and I will continue putting in the work. Thank you very much for your time and attention, and don't forget to vote on November 4th.
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total time: 3.21 minutes total words: 67 |
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