total time: 3.43 minutes
total words: 60
[Anna Callahan]: Hi, I'm Anna Callahan. I'm one of your current seven city councilors, and I'm running for re-election. I've only been here for one term, so less than two years, and I'm really proud of the work that we have done so far. We took a lot of steps to rein in our rodent population with three ordinance to help our staff be more engaged. We have helped make a bunch of steps toward more affordable housing. We have also protected a lot of our residents from the Trump administration, and we have gotten more funding for our schools and for our roads. I know those things matter to me so much. And you can really count on me to be a reliable vote for the values that I think we all share here, which is caring about each other, being an inclusive city that cares about everyone and takes care of each other, about, you know, looking at our climate and having sustainability goals, affordability goals, and affordable housing especially. You can really count on me for those things. But I want to talk today a little bit about what makes me unique as a city councilor, and that is in the area of democracy and engaging people in the political process. So I take it very seriously that only about 90% to 95% of people will never reach out to their city councilors or show up at a city council meeting. And so I take it upon myself to go into the community to hear from those people who are not actively engaged. And I actually have a team. I have five teams of volunteers. One of my volunteer teams helps me with the logistics of setting up these listening sessions in the community, which might be in a neighborhood or with a union or at a church. I have another volunteer team that helps me before every city council meeting. We go over every item on the agenda. We do research. We reach out to people in the community. And then I have three policy teams. And the most important thing for you to know is that if you have an idea on how to make our city better, you can come to me. We'll talk about that idea, ideally with other friends of yours or neighbors. And then I can hook you up with other people in the city who are also interested in that idea so that we can all work together to make it a reality here in Medford. My three current policy teams are working with the city to organize events where a ton of neighbors will come together to plant city sidewalk trees in some of our most barren neighborhoods, which are mostly in South Medford. We've gotten like 70 people interested in doing that, so that's very exciting. We have a couple of policy teams around housing. One is around co-housing. A number of seniors came to me and were really interested in this type of housing, so we're working toward that. And then another one on home sharing, which is allowing our seniors to age in place. It's something that other cities have done. It's been really successful and helps also with our affordable housing crisis. And the most important thing for you to know is that if you have an idea to make Medford better, come to me, ideally with some other folks that you've been talking to about this idea. I will help you to get a whole team together with other people throughout the city and whatever resources you need so that we can all work together to make Medford a better place. Thank you so much.
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total time: 3.43 minutes total words: 60 |
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