AI-generated transcript of Paul Ruseau

[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 change maker. 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. All right. Thanks so much for joining me today. Do you mind just starting us off by introducing yourself with your name, pronouns, and who you are?

[Paul Ruseau]: Sure. My name is Paul Rousseau. He, him, pronouns. I'm a parent, a Medford resident for 21 years. I have been on the school committee for nine years. My fifth term I'm in right now.

[Danielle Balocca]: So before we get started, I think we're hoping today to talk mostly about your campaign for our state representative. Before we get into that, though, I'm wondering if you could answer the question that I ask everyone, which is, what is your favorite place to eat in Medford? And what do you like to eat there?

[Paul Ruseau]: Sure. So El Tecuba, there's a number of places, but I feel like if I say Goldilocks, I mean, I've listened to these podcasts and Goldilocks has got an unfair share of answers. And I do love Goldilocks, but El Tecuba is incredible. Pollo con mole is really very good. And they also have this special, but it seems to always be a special. So I hope it just stays that way. And it's one of their soft tacos with, I think it's a prime rib or something. It's just so good. But I feel like the unacknowledged thing on their menu that needs more attention is their, Mangolin, which is a mango sorbet with some kind of spicy thing on top. It doesn't make sense that it would work, but since I love mango sorbet so much, I was like, all right, I gotta try this. It is so good. It is unbelievable that it's actually so good, because you just don't think of a mango sorbet and something spicy together, or at least I never did. really good. I also feel like it's important for me to note that I have a Somerville favorite place, too, and that is Painted Burrow. And I love that place because, well, first of all, our waitress knows me. Like, I don't order. She just knows exactly what I want to drink, what I'm going to eat. I literally, I'll sit there like, oh, what is it I order all the time? And she comes over and she's like, this is what you get. And so, um, I don't know that I've looked at the menu in a while. So, cause I don't remember what I order. She just gets me the right stuff.

[Danielle Balocca]: Do you have a favorite drink from either of those places?

[Paul Ruseau]: Um, you know, I'm a, I like a Paloma from, if I am going to drink, I like a Paloma from Alta Cuba. It's a, like, like a sunset something. It's a very sweet drink. I do like my drinks sweet, because I'm a hardcore lightweight, if that's actually a thing. It takes very little for me to be done.

[Danielle Balocca]: All right, well, thank you. Those are making me a little bit hungry.

[Paul Ruseau]: I'm hungry, too. I didn't actually eat, so now I'm like, I should have. made the mistake of doing this around dinner time but um all right well thanks so i'm hoping we can transition to talking a little bit about your campaign for state representative um could you tell us a little bit about how you decided to run for that position sure um so christine had called me seeking an endorsement um when just prior to her announcement um and i've known christine her whole time she's been in office um and i was of course very happy to endorse her um and You know, I hadn't really been thinking much about the race before then, but her phone call kind of got my, you know, got the juices moving a little. And, you know, a lot of the biggest frustrations I've had on the school committee is that a lot of things I want to get done in Medford are either things that have to happen at the state level or at the state level, they have restricted us from doing things that we want to do. A good example, is so school start times it's it's settled science at this point high schoolers should be going to school late 8 30 um and you know my own experience as a parent my elementary school son was up at five o'clock every day and it's like Oh my God, nine o'clock is a long way away. And then of course, once I had teenagers, I was like, you know, drag them out of bed. It is just a biological issue that they should be going to school later. And there are a few communities that have made the change. The problem with having it done at a community by community level is that school districts do not stand isolated. Like, after school gets out, students are, especially at the high school level, are participating in sports with other schools. And so then their schedules are not lining up. So it's really a very big challenge to have school by school fixing this problem. There are a few that have done it, and it's a big lift. And I think part of why it's such a big lift is because there's like a four or five year ramp to the official change because you have to deal with all your contracts, you have to deal with your transportation provider, you have to deal with all of the sports and other extracurriculars that interact with other districts. And it's a very, very big lift. And so I think that's something that should be down at the state level. At least, it's not gonna be easy for districts when this happens. There's no easy way to make this change. But if all districts are doing it at once, you don't have a bus provider who is using a bus at one district and going to another district. And then now they are supposed to be in two places at once. And you don't have the problem of kids participating in a sport. And in one place, they're an hour late. The evenings are short when school gets out. And so this is something the state has to do. The other bigger issue, I mean, this is a big issue for teenagers and for folks who understand the science behind this. I don't think it's a top priority for a lot of parents. I bet it's top priority for a lot of high school students. But the other biggest issue, of course, is the Chapter 70 funding formula for K-12 education. It was dramatically improved with the Student Opportunity Act, and as a result, communities that were You know, our less well-off communities in the state, Worcester, Brockton, Springfield, they got enormous increases in the amount of money going to them, and they needed it, and it's deserved, and it's appropriate. But Medford and Somerville are hold harmless communities, which means that we just get, so when the state does the Chapter 70 allocation each year for public schools, they do this thing where if you technically would get less, they won't give you less. So you're not just like having a contracting amount of money each year. And that less might be because you've had a declining enrollment or whatever. But the way they also recognize the fact that like, even if we gave you the same amount, that's a problem. Inflation, contracts, everything's going up. So they, this thing called hold harmless. So if we have 4,000 students, the law says you get $20 I believe it's $20 per student, no matter what. So that would be $80,000. An increase of $80,000, for instance, to a district like Medford is is a rounding error, you know. It's not enough for one FTE teacher. It's not enough for a lot of anything. And so Medford and Somerville are both in that situation. Now, the legislature has often given more than the $20, because they recognize that the hold harmless districts, for which there are many, are really struggling. And so we need to really take a hard look at that formula. It does not keep up with inflation at all. There's also an inflation cap, which if we were not a whole harmless district and we were going to get more, it would still cap at, I believe, 4.5%. So if inflation was 7%, the most they could give a community more would be 4.5%. So what does that mean? That means communities either reduce the amount of service to students, or they stop paving roads so the cities provide more money, or they don't do a lot of other infrastructure projects in the city. You know, that's a city council, town council kind of a situation to make those decisions. But the issues that are affecting Medford to a large extent now are at the state level, not at the local level.

[Danielle Balocca]: Thank you, yeah, so it sounds like one of the things that motivated you to enter this race is to have more of an impact from the state level funding, it sounds like, in particular for schools in Medford, Somerville.

[Paul Ruseau]: When I'm doing endorsement interviews, and I've done 26 of them, which is a lot, but people always ask, what are your top three issues? And it's like, as a school committee member of five terms, it would be disingenuous for me to not have that as my top issue, because that would be just strange. But whether it's the menstrual equity bill, or the Healthy Youth Act, there's all these things that are just not getting through the legislature. They just, the legislature needs to get them through and get them done. It's not that I think those bills necessarily need any improvements. They just need to actually get off the table and voted on and be done. They're overwhelmingly supported. The machinery of the state house is the problem that keeps them from getting to a vote. But other major issues that I care a lot about are, so healthcare is, Health care is a very generic sounding word. I always want to make sure it's clear that when I say health care, I always include dental health care, mental health care, health care is all of these things. I also include senior care. It's an umbrella term for me and I think in society in general, we generally think of it as like the primary care doctor or you go to Mass General Hospital and that's health care. But I include everything else in there because I don't think I don't think healthcare providers think of them as separate. I think the only reason we think of them as separate is because of our for-profit healthcare system that has separate insurances. I mean, I have three insurances. I have my medical insurance, I have my dental insurance, and even though my medical insurance provider is also my mental health provider, if you look on the card, it's actually another company. So I just want to be clear that I think of them as one thing and we should be treating them as one thing. And so we, you know, Massachusetts did, the voters did say we wanted single payer health care and the legislature, I don't remember the exact year, the legislature actually said they just ignore the voters will. And look, Moving from our current system to a single payer healthcare system is a technical challenge that will require years of preparation. Once we decide we're doing it, we vote. It's still going to be years before we can actually say we have it. But we aren't even, all we talk about every year is how much health insurance is going up, how much the GIC, the government insurance is going up. And like, that's the whole conversation. And I think we need to have the conversation. The other conversation we need to have around health care, and I've mentioned this in a number of interviews, is when do we have the conversation as a society about how much health care should cost? What percentage of our entire economic system should be dedicated to health care? We're so stuck in the freaking out, reacting to the increases, the annual increases, which that has to happen. I'm not saying we don't do that. We also need to have the conversation of, well, what should it cost? As a society, what do we think it should cost? And until we have that, I think it's a little odd to be focused on the increases because, well, are we getting a good deal now? I mean, I know compared to other healthcare systems in the world, we definitely aren't. And I think that once we have that conversation about how much should it cost, which I think we would have if we were doing a single payer healthcare system, then we can really get into the nitty gritty of, well, how did we get there? But we're not anywhere near there right now. I tell some folks who are like, how dare you ask a progressive or a lefty for three issues when my list is probably, you know, a hundred issues long. But it's fair because there's only so many hours in the day and the term is only two years long. So, like, where am I going to focus is a very reasonable question. And, you know, if there were a thousand legislators, maybe we could focus on 100, 200 things at once, but that's, I don't think a reality. So housing is another big one for me. Again, like healthcare, education, housing, like they all intersect with each other. They intersect with our immigrant communities. All of this stuff intersects with itself, with all these other issues. And it's a little odd sometimes for me to talk about them like they're separate. But on the housing front, I know that some folks think that all we need to do is build more housing. If that was the solution to our housing problems, then the market would have taken care of it long ago. And I think that the problem is, the market is the problem. We have the situation we have exactly because that's how it was designed to be. It's not an accident. Most people, myself included, think of our home as our biggest asset. And I don't plan to actually ever leave my home. But a lot of people do. They raise their kids in a home and then they sell it and move somewhere else that's much less expensive. And they have an expectation of significant gains. And You know, that's part of the culture at this point. It's not really up for debate. But if we expect 5, 10, 15, 20% increases annually on these properties. It is a bit of a challenge to expect people to vote against that. So building more housing will not solve the problem. It will just like, we'll have more housing that will also become wildly more expensive. And there will still be no housing for folks who are in a different income bracket, which I mean, I'm no longer in an income bracket that could buy a house. I was 20 years ago when I bought my condo for $340,000 before the bubble burst. And then I was stuck, which, I mean, I'm glad I was here. I didn't feel stuck, but there was no chance for me to sell my property for probably another five years before it was worth what I had bought it for. But now it's worth like 800 and something thousand dollars. And sure, I did my kitchen over. That was very expensive. But I got the value of living here, which is a lot, that's why you should really want a home, as well, I got that value out of the home, and then I'm also getting like $450,000 in cash for doing nothing else. It just doesn't make sense to me that, you know, I didn't do anything to earn that money. the system was designed to ensure that I got all this extra money. And if that's the system we're gonna have and we're gonna keep it. then there's no building our way out of this problem. So social housing is something that I want to deal with at the State House. So social housing, probably most European countries have it, where you'll have, it's owned by the city, or the government of some sort. And one apartment has a doctor living in it, the next apartment has a custodian, and the next apartment has a lawyer, and the next one has a teacher. It's not owned by the folks live there. And there's no expectation that their housing is this giant asset that grows wildly. And so aside from the keeping the value of those properties from exploding and becoming a problem. You also remove this us and them thing that we have in this country. And we, anybody says we don't have it is just not being honest here. Like, you know, the reason all public housing, although it started to change, there's a new place in Somerville, but most public housing is, kind of prison-like, you know, tiny windows. Their appointments are not very nice. It's intended to be like, hey, you're too poor, so we're going to let you have this. But it's very judgmental, the designs, the way that you know, I mean, not to mention the fact that there isn't anywhere near enough. But in Europe, that's not the way it is. Like, and I'm really happy with the Somerville project that's happening over on Route 16, that, you know, those look like lovely apartments. I'd live there, you'd probably live there, and they're not for just anybody. And, but the way the law is right now, they can't have public housing that allows for a low-income person and a high-income person to live in that building. It's you building low-income housing, that is low-income housing only. And it sounds a little like I'm trying to like, let's build some public housing for people who have lots of money. And that is one way to see it. But I think we have to address the fact that Lots of money to buy a house right now is more money than most people make by a long shot. I'm a software developer. I'm in that group of people that allegedly has all the money in the world. I could not imagine being able to afford my condo I live in now. A single family home would be completely impossible. And so who are these people that can afford all this stuff? There are people who are having 40, 50, 60% of their incomes go to pay for their mortgages. And they have to have another person with similar incomes to do it. And that's not... sustainable. And that number is just going to continue to go up if we don't address the fact that housing as an investment is actually the root of the problem.

[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, that value of the home being an asset, how that excludes so many people. And also a home, a place to live, shouldn't be such an inaccessible thing. And a reliable, safe place to live that you know is going to be yours for a long time. I remember my parents paid for college for me and my sister by taking out equity of their home, which we wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise, and we were lucky to be in that position. Right now, like you're saying, our house, which is not very nice, has quadrupled in value since we bought it, which is nuts. You'd be nuts to pay what they say our house is worth.

[Paul Ruseau]: But if you sold it today, somebody would be there with cash in a bag and probably pay more than the U.S.

[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. Yeah. And like that's, and that sort of generational wealth of children will be set up differently versus people that don't own homes in Medford. What are the steps you imagine you would need to go through to change to more of this social housing model?

[Paul Ruseau]: Sure. So first the state would have to remove the restriction. Um, there are communities that want to do this already. Somerville I know does. I don't know if Medford, I mean, I haven't actually talked to Medford city councilors about this, but I'd imagine Medford might be up for that. Um, and, there are other communities that would like to do this. So it's not like we would change that law and then suddenly every public housing project that exists would suddenly have lawyers and, you know, people making six figures also living there. Because if you look at them, most of them are not places that if you cannot live there, you are going to not live there. I'm not suggesting that our values of our properties just get plummeted. I don't imagine a scenario where they just go down, but we just need to stop the obscene growth. One or 2% a year should be fine, or whatever inflation is, something that is makes sense in some way, and so making that an option for communities who want to go there and do that. And then the other challenge is that communities, municipalities are not the unit of government for building large-scale housing. They don't have the money. Like, that is, and honestly, I mean, the state could bond for a large number of billions of dollars for something to start doing that. And there has been some of that stuff this term as well. But honestly, it's a federal government level thing. Like, we need to spend... a shocking amount of money to build housing. And look, I mean, there's no scenario where you build housing for cheap. That's just not a thing. And I think the scale of the individual unit cost is so high that it is really most municipalities can't afford it. I mean, Somerville has Assembly Row, but this year their budget is in a tough spot because growth has Not stopped, but their growth number went from like a very high number to I think $5 million this year, which is a small amount of growth compared to what they is like a 75% reduction is what I watched their city council meeting and that's what I they were saying is growth is down 75% and again that's like. partially the economy and all the other stuff, but also just like they built the spaces they had. So once that's all built, then what? So I think that solving this problem has to happen ideally at the federal level, but the state has to at least get out of the way for communities that want to prioritize doing that. I think Cambridge, you know, just did the They made it by right that you could do, I forget, four stories or something. And the ADU laws are very good. My own street on Orchard Street, there are three ADU. Two now that are done, another one's being built. I'm amazed, because there's these big backyards. look, I love open space, but nobody uses these backyards and we need housing. So I'm thrilled by these ADUs that are going up and they're going up. They're looking lovely. They're the same style of the other homes because they're right there. So I think those are going to help, but yeah.

[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I think Cambridge has their city council meeting a few weeks ago and they had passed this different housing allowance, but they wanted to do a feasibility study, I think, because they're worried about how much developers are gonna take advantage of that. So versus like actually creating housing that's affordable.

[Paul Ruseau]: Yeah, the developers issue is an important one. People like we keep building lots of luxury housing and that's the market is building luxury housing. if a municipality wants to build housing, that doesn't have to be luxury housing. And if there's a market for luxury housing, it is kind of an odd thing to think the developer's not gonna build that. It's like, you know, when you buy a car, all the add-ons is exactly where the carmaker makes all their money. And so, you know, buying the low end version of a car versus the one with the, you know, extra navigation system and, uh, on going wifi and, and, uh, sports package, like that's where they make all their money. So developers are frankly just doing the same thing. And so I think that we need to do something about developers and making sure that they're paying their share, whether it's, um, um, they should be paying the municipality when they're building properties. But I think to suggest that we're going to stop building luxury housing in the open market doesn't make any sense. Because if you have the money, do you want a property that has the Home Depot appliance? Well, the appliances at Home Depot are great, but like the Home Depot cabinets, or do you want the custom cabinets with the marble or courts. So if you have the money, you're going to pick the latter. And there are still far more people looking for those properties than there are spaces.

[Danielle Balocca]: So we've had this long history of, like, you know, capitalism running how we do everything. And so to sound like important priorities, you have some great experience in the school committee and local government. I'm wondering, like, what you think sets you apart from the other folks running in this race?

[Paul Ruseau]: Sure. So I just want to be clear. I know the other folks running in the race. I like them very much. And so, you know, it's interesting. You know, if we were in a place where it was a Democrat against a Republican, it's frankly easier. uh here it's like who can be further left and i do think i've kind of covered that one and i i feel like i'm further left and i have a history that uh a record that can show that um but what sets me apart i think is that um i You know, one of the things politicians, and even my own campaign literature has it, and it's a pet peeve of mine, but I still have it on my literature, because there are some things where we don't have better words. You know, politicians all say, I'll fight for, I'll work for, I'll support. And those are real. And I use the word fight for in my literature. But showing up and voting is not the job. It's just not the job at all. I mean, you do have to show up and vote, but that is to say that showing up and voting is the absolute bare minimum and not what I want from my own state rep, my own state senator, from anybody who represents me. And I think that in my last five terms on school committee, I've really shown that I don't just show up and vote. I've written every policy in Medford for the last nine years except for two, and that's because we have somebody on the school committee now who also likes to write policy, which is lovely to share that burden, because it is a lot of work. But writing the policy is powerful. Because other folks, other members of the school committee, for instance, they're reacting to what has been written. So while it ends up being a policy that is the school committee's policy, it's not my policy, even if I wrote every word and nobody has anything to say, it's not my policy, it's the school committee's policy. The writing of it yourself is incredibly important, and I will be doing that at the State House as well. Now, obviously I won't get to write everything, every bill, because other people will write them too. But I think having the chops to be able to just sit down and write a bill, to read a bill and understand what's wrong, what isn't really happening that we want to happen. Those are the level of details that I just naturally seem to understand. I think part of it is because I'm a software developer, and when you write software, you are writing something that a computer interprets to get a result. And so I am, always, by not obsessed, I'm just naturally always thinking about the outcome. And I think that's where a lot of laws fall down, is that the outcomes are, there's just an assumption of what the outcomes will be. To treat everybody as if they're doing the right thing and not like doing something shady, but What's going to happen when this thing becomes a law and how it will play out in the lives of the people of Massachusetts isn't clear to a lot of people, I don't think. You know, one of the things that the legislature does a lot and it affected my life very much this year is, so I adopted my children from DCF in 2008, excuse me. And that was the year they passed a law that said that children adopted through DCF receive free tuition and fees at state universities. And so, you know, I'm like, great, my kids are going to state universities or colleges. That's their option. And of course, I was a new parent. I wasn't involved in anything related to elections or laws or any of that stuff. I was a bit naive. So we lived our lives with the knowledge that that was actually what was going to happen, free tuition and fees. But the legislature does this thing, it affects schools and it affects Frankly, it affects every lever of government and every level of government. They put a comma subject to appropriation. The result is that they actually are only going to give us 10% for my kid's education. Now, 10% is great. We'll figure it out. But I can afford to figure out how to pay for that. There are surely other families who can't. And so they go and they get this form from DCF, and it's It says, yes, this person's eligible, and you look on the website and it's about 10% of tuition and fees. Well, where's the other 90% coming from? I don't necessarily feel like I am owed it or deserve it or anything like that, but that subject to appropriation is all over the place. So one of the things I wanna do with the state house, I don't wanna ban the use of the words subject to appropriation. What I wanna do is maybe have a new law that says, subject to appropriation laws, have a five or 10 year ramp. And they must be fully funded by the end of whatever that number is. So first year, you give it as much as you can. And you know, there's always economic ups and downs. But I think that when a law gets passed, there's a signing, there's everybody celebrating, there's, you know, it's a party. But if it's subject to appropriation, and the answer is you're really not going to appropriate money for it, I feel like it's disingenuous. And I know that sounds like I'm calling my future colleagues disingenuous, and I don't mean to, but I could not feel comfortable going back to my constituents and saying, we did it. and then the next year we're doing 5% of the thing. When we come back and say we did it, we make it sound like we did all of it. It's all there. And the other thing that happens when you pass any law is that the advocates are freed to move on to other issues that matter to them. And that's good, but what you've also done is taken the heat off as a legislator, taking the heat off, they all disperse to their other issues or maybe more about the same issue. Their focus is no longer on this thing that you finally, quote, succeeded in getting done. but it isn't getting done if you're subject to appropriation. And this happens in education every year. How much are we gonna really reimburse you for charter schools? How much are we gonna really reimburse you for transportation overage, for special ed costs that are too high or higher than you planned? They're never too high, but you know what I'm saying. I just think that we need to get a little bit more honest and real about what it is we're passing. If we're going to say subject to appropriation, that has to have a specific meaning in the law that has a ramp. If you can't do it, change the law and put some cap or something on it. But, you know, we're going to do this subject to appropriation and then you never really do it. where does that leave? And you do that at the state level. And then every community doesn't know what to do because the state budget happens after all the cities and towns and school districts have finished their budget. So they don't have any idea what the appropriation is gonna be. They can guess if it was 10% last year, let's hope it's 10% this year. It could go up, it could go down. It's just impossible to plan with the level of accuracy that I think the voters expect. And then the voters appropriately get angry when things aren't. what we thought they were going to be, and I think that a lot of that blame belongs at the legislature. So that's one of the things in particular that I know that every community, I don't know that voters necessarily understand the subject to appropriation problem. I can tell you that every elected official in the state at every level definitely does, and every school superintendent and finance director absolutely does.

[Danielle Balocca]: I would say that most people don't understand what their state reps do, so I think this is helpful in a lot of ways, just to help folks understand what is in your control. And I think also talking with Christine about her job over the last many years is that there's a lot of work that takes a long time, which sounds like you're probably familiar with on the school committee, but writing these bills that you hope will pass, but also being able to see them through and building the relationships with other people to help them pass.

[Paul Ruseau]: Yeah, I think the relationships, you know, when somebody is like, what's your job as a legislator? It's to build relationships. That's the actual answer. Whether it's with advocacy groups and constituents or with your other, your colleagues, you know, that is one of the challenges with the two-year term. You build these relationships and sometimes they leave, whether they've been, you know, retired or they have been replaced. So the building relationships is a substantial amount of work that is a continuous amount of work. There's no, like, you get to do it once and then you have the same set of colleagues long enough to get anything done. No, you have to just keep doing that. But, you know, in Medford, I was the first Our Revolution candidate nine years ago. And You know, we have 12 of the 14 local seats are now our Revolution Medford endorsed candidates. And I don't think I can take any of the credit for it necessarily, but I do. I'm incredibly proud somehow anyways, because the way we built that coalition, I think, can be replicated at the state level. And I'm hoping to be the first person that I don't there's other very progressive folks and other folks who are running right now that I think if they get elected will be immediately like my in a cohort with me. But you know, what Medford did, I think, in our revolution, Medford, that I think is sort of the crux of why it's so successful, is the people's platform. We built the people's platform, and I say we, I mean, The residents built the people's platform. The candidates have to sign on to it. And you can't sign on to most of it. Charter schools is a good example where if you agree with everything in the platform, but you do support charter schools, you can't be endorsed by our revolution effort. I'm not saying you're a bad person or that your opinions on charter schools are completely invalid. They're not part of, the platform is explicit about charter schools. So you build the set of values, the membership, which anybody can become a member, the membership votes, is this the platform for this year? And then candidates can sign on and say, I absolutely agree with this entire thing. And then we do an endorsement process. As I said, there are 26 organizations that I've sought endorsement from and they have legislative agendas, but most of them don't really have like a, here's our statement of our values that we think you need to agree to. to even be considered for endorsement. They have great endorsement processes, and it's a labor of love. I know how hard it is. I've seen the folks doing the endorsements in Medford. It is a huge lift for just Medford, which not a lot of candidates. Some of these other, Planned Parenthood and all these other organizations, they're doing endorsements across the state for all the Senate and House seats. That's a massive effort, and I think they, It's mostly unpaid labor, so you know I have a lot of opinions on that. But. I think that. Focusing on a set of values which I think I would like to do at the Statehouse with other reps and try to like grow this out of from Medford. You know there are two other seats that represent Medford so and move it. I feel like it would sort of be best to sort of move it. geographically, because that's one of the other challenges at the Statehouse that we're going to have, I'm going to have, is that in Medford, we're all like, we have a border, we're all close enough, we can, you know, go get a drink. It's a very different task if you're in, you know, Western Mass. So the geographic challenges I think will probably have to change my strategy on that. But yeah, it's a lot of people too. That's the other thing. It's like, it's 160 state reps. That's a lot of people to develop the level, like the relationships I have with our revolution, Medford endorsed candidates, and even the ones who have not been elected. Like those are lifelong relationships. and I count them among my best friends. So I do think it will be a challenge to have that high of fidelity of relationship with so many other people who are not next door. But I'm hopeful, I'm hopeful.

[Danielle Balocca]: So before we wrap up, I'm wondering if there's anything that you want to share about how folks can get involved in your campaign or how to get more information or any events that you're hosting.

[Paul Ruseau]: sure so um my website is electpaul.org i'd like to keep that easy so that nobody has to figure out how to spell my last name and um you can sign up for a lawn sign there events we were going to do a campaign launch um but I'm on the school committee. I'm on the school building committee. It's like, they're just like endless meetings that take multiple hours. And it was just, it started to get late. And I'm like, okay, a campaign launch in July is weird. Like the election, September 1st. So instead, we're just going to do volunteer launches. But we're not having a giant party. Well, obviously we'll have a party after the election. And we may just change our mind and throw one in in the summer too. It's, it's, you know, that part's up in the air. But yeah, the website is the place to sign up. And if anybody, of course, wants to donate, that would be great too. One of the challenges is that, you know, with Our Revolution Medford, like we ran a combined slate. And so we would have a mailer with 13 faces on it. Well, guess what? That makes it much cheaper. I gotta do the whole thing myself. And it's a bit, you know, my campaign will cost about what an Our Revolution Medford municipal slate costs. but it's just me. So that is a challenge that I'm finding. And the rules are actually different at the state level than the municipal level around finances, like what I can actually do as a candidate, how I can spend money. So it's been a little bit of a learning curve there, because I was so accustomed. I've always been the rule guy. I knew what the rules were. I would help new candidates understand the rules, because they aren't logical. I've not really enjoyed the part having to learn a whole new set of rules for the state level race, but it's fine. I've got it. So yeah, but people want to volunteer. That would be great. We will have phone banks and text banks and door knocking. And this is going to be a challenging election, not just because there's other candidates that are formidable, but because September 1st is probably the worst imagined date for an election that ever existed. So it's before Labor Day. So anybody, but it's after people's camps get out if they have kids. So I think anybody with kids that can have them and has the means, which frankly is most people in this district, they're going to take their kids somewhere. They're not going to be here on Tuesday, September 1st for the actual voting. So getting out the vote is going to be a really, unusual experience. We're probably going to have to like camp out on people's doorsteps and drag them to the polls and be like, you know, what's your plan? No, I mean, what's exactly your plan? Because there'll be early voting, you know, the mail-in voting thing, you have to do that. ahead of time, a significant amount of time. You have to know you're gonna do that to do that. You can't just decide at the last minute. So any parents or other caregivers that just at the last minute decide, I can't take this for a whole week, let's just go to New Hampshire or whatever. they won't be able to do that. They might be able to do early voting if they decide early enough. So the get out the vote effort is going to be a huge effort and it's going to be very different than we've ever had because it's just a terrible date, a terrible date.

[Danielle Balocca]: Paul, are you the only Medford resident running for this?

[Paul Ruseau]: The only Medford resident running. Yeah, I'm glad I'm not running in the Senate race where there's like 50 people running. It's not 50, but there's a lot of candidates for that seat. So that's kind of a wild. It's like before papers were due, it's like it seemed like every week there was a new person running and I was like, wow. So yeah, but just me for Medford. I won't be just representing Medford, obviously, but I think that Medford's voice, I've told other people this, Somerville has a higher political engagement than Medford. And why isn't really important. The residents have a higher level of political engagement. As I saw at the caucuses where I couldn't even comprehend how many people showed up to the Somerville caucus. Medford's was better than it's ever been. but not anywhere near as much. So in my mind, I'm a little worried that if we have a Somerville rep with the level of Somerville engagement that Medford might get forgotten. If I'm elected, I'm quite sure that Somerville, people who are engaging with the Somerville rep like they're going to be at my door like that's not a question um it will be literally impossible to ignore Somerville which I wouldn't do anyways um but I do think it would be possible to kind of ignore Medford so I I'm really hopeful that um that I win because I want to represent Medford and Somerville. This is my neighborhood. I care very much about it. And I did live just over, in the district also, just over the Tufts Hill in Somerville before this on Powder House Boulevard. So yeah, I've been in this area for an incredibly long amount, long time, so.

[Danielle Balocca]: But I do think it's meaningful to Medford residents to know that you're the only one from Medford running, and I think that'll

[Paul Ruseau]: Yeah, yeah, they gotta vote, they gotta vote. Somerville too.

[Danielle Balocca]: Well, thank you, Paul. This has been really helpful and informative. Anything else before we wrap up?

[Paul Ruseau]: No, thank you. I really appreciate these and I'm glad that we finally had one. Thank you and have a good evening. Take care.

[Danielle Balocca]: Good luck in September.

[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. Bye bye.

[Danielle Balocca]: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. The Medford Bites podcast is produced and moderated by Danielle Balacca and Shelly Keshaman. Music is made by Hendrik Idonis. 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? Medford Bites. Medford Bites. Good job.