[John Petrella]: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Medford Happenings, a show foreign about the city of Medford, and I am John Petrella. And the purpose of our program is to give Medford citizens facts and information to help you make informed choices and to discover city services or businesses you may not have been aware of. And our guest today is Chris Oates, candidate for the state representative 34th Middlesex District. Welcome, Chris.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Good to be here. Thank you.
[John Petrella]: Good to have you on the show, Chris. We are going to go right into it, Chris. So first of all, tell us a little bit about yourself. Who is Chris Oates?
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Great question, I ask myself that every day. So I grew up in Canton, just south of Boston. Now it's known as the home of the Karen Reid trial, which is a weird thing for your hometown. Yeah, that's very strange. But so I grew up in Canton, I went to college in Rhode Island, and then grad school in England. I was doing a PhD in international relations, because I wanted to go into foreign policy. I grew up, I was 17 when the Iraq war started, so I was like, I want to, I want to go into foreign policy, prevent the next one from happening. And then after the PhD, because I decided I didn't want to go into academia, I started working as a, it's called a political risk analyst. So basically a pundit, but we were supposed to be correct about our predictions. And that led me more into state level policy, because that's where I thought there was like a real, like a lot of stuff that mattered, not just in general, but like to my life and like housing and, you know, traffic. And that led me to join the Ranked Choice Voting campaign in 2020. And that was around the time where I moved to Somerville. I live literally on the Somerville-Medford border near Magoon Square. And after that campaign ended, I started a business to try and make state legislatures more accessible. My son was born at the exact same time, which is a terrible way to start a business. Anyone out there thinking about starting a business when you're about to have a child, reconsider, please. It's not the right time.
[John Petrella]: It's complicated.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like a lot of late nights from the baby and then a lot of early mornings from the startup. But yeah, just bending around the policy world. And when I heard that this seat was coming up open and knowing that I could do the job and knowing it's not like a convenient time and that my son's four and I'm still a primary caregiver because my wife's a doctor and works very long hours, very difficult hours. But I was like, you know what, if you think you can serve your community, I think you kind of, you owe it to them to do that.
[John Petrella]: You give it a try, yeah, and sounds like you're, you know, you got some good experience there. And it also sounds like you're a very busy guy, and that's good. Good to be busy.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[John Petrella]: Always good. All right, so, you know, now that we know a little bit about you, obviously you have some experience. Can you, you know, maybe give us, you know, what is it about your experience that you think, you know, it's prepared you to be an effective state representative?
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this is a great question because I feel like so often people just ask you what you want to do and not whether you can actually do it. And I feel like there's three things that if you're going to be a good state rep, given the good ones that I've seen, the first one is you've got to be able to break down policy. Because it doesn't matter if you care about housing, if you have no idea how any of it works. So you've got to break down policy. So I've done that being a political risk analyst. It was every day we would get in there, and we were basically told, see what's in the news, and then try to forecast the next two years of that story. So every day, and we would have experts on the line, former academics, former national policymakers, and you'd call them up and be like, tell me what's going to happen on renewable energy. One of my best predictions was, this was back in 2013. If you remember, there was a government shutdown in Washington over Obamacare, and I predicted the exact day it would end. because there was also a concern about the debt ceiling. And I was like, I think they will end it the day of the debt ceiling. They'll just wrap it all together. So you have to understand the policy. I think you have to have to be able to build statewide coalitions because, you know, the state houses, most people do not. I mean, basically no one else represents our district. You know, I'd be the only one with one senator. So you have to be able to reach out to people from different areas, bring them together. And I've done that on the rank choice voting campaign, but the biggest one actually during this campaign has been interesting is You really have to be able to listen to people who are not like you because most of the you know You're representing a lot of people who are not you they're different communities ages backgrounds and living in England in grad school, you know my house we had South Africans Australian New Zealand's Canadians Brits Europeans Indian like you just got used to being around people of different backgrounds. And you just get comfortable with like, oh, I didn't know about that. Can you explain a little bit more? And I know obviously in Medford and Somerville, like it's not maybe that much of a difference, but there's differences. There's people with different backgrounds, different life experiences. And the most important thing I think for a representative is to know that you're not governed based on your own experience. You want to govern based on everyone else's experiences.
[John Petrella]: And that's, I love that because that's so true. Everyone else's experience. That is, that's a big thing as far as I'm concerned. That's huge. You know, the state legislature, you know, how do you feel it operates overall? I mean, do you see a need to reform the legislature to be more open, you know, maybe transparent and, you know, accountable to the people they represent.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Exactly. And the last one I think is the right is like the biggest one is accountability. Yes, we have the least competitive legislature in the country. And what you get in a competitive race, like we're doing it right now, you know, you're getting a chance to interview a candidate, I'm being held accountable, I'm telling you what I want to do. And when you have a competitive election, that forces people to go out and compete for votes and tell people like, hey, this is what I want to do. And two years later, if we have another competitive election, you get to say to me like, hey, why didn't you do what you promised to do? we're gonna you know that to me is the is the big thing because transparency matters but if you have a transparent legislature but no you know no one ever runs for office like what is it it doesn't make as much of a difference i feel like transparency is a component of the broader idea of accountability so yeah one of the things i did And I told people, I was like, this is going to be the most boring part of my campaign, is a 10-point plan for more competitive elections in Massachusetts. Everything from term limits to having a state office that helps orchestrate legislative debates. And I know that no one wants to hear a 10-point plan when you're knocking on doors. But I think it's really important because any one of those things would help us get to a sense where voters are in charge more.
[John Petrella]: Right. And we need to get there. We really do in this state. Voters have to be a little bit more accountable. I agree with that 100%. All right. So the open floor votes, that's what I call them. Do you support open floor votes on legislation? Honestly, a lot of the outcomes seem to be predetermined by leadership. I'm not an expert, but I do look into it. That's the way it seems. How do you feel about that? What do you think about that?
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think it's, I mean, I'd love to have more open floor votes. I'd love to have just more open debate. You know, because that's part of the problem is when all the debate is happening behind closed doors when you're negotiating stuff. It's not that anyone's being nefarious or anything. It's just that the voters don't know who's standing where. And if you have a vote that comes down and it's you know, 199 to 1. Well, you don't know how many of those people were really, like, on each side of the issue. And because, again, to get back to the accountability issue, like, if you're a voter and you think, I don't, I didn't like to see that, you want to know, was my representative truly in favor of it? Or were they actually against it, but they lost the battle behind closed doors? And it's information for the voters to know where their representatives stand, because ultimately, You know, what's ideally is that every representative is replaceable. And every rep goes up there and says, here's my vision. Here's where I want to take the country. And you're basically an option on the menu. And the voters get to say, actually, I don't like that option anymore. But if you don't know what the options are, because they're not taking open votes, and they're not giving you that information.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, exactly.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[John Petrella]: I mean, that's the way it seems. They're not taking open votes anymore. I mean, it seems like they haven't in a while, Chris.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: And I think it gets back to if you don't need to, you know, I think one of the reasons why you would do open votes is that you'd say like, I need to show to my voters what my stance is, you know, and I need to prove to them why that is. And so if you like, if you don't face that kind of competition, yeah, you don't need to do that. And you're like, well, why am I gonna take a stand? Some people might like it, some people might not like it if I don't need to, but if it's like, oh man, I'm getting really crushed on this issue on social media, I need to tell, I'm telling people I'm for it, but I really need to show that I'm for it. And so that's what I think. It's like that popular pressure of, I need to win my next reelection, it's gonna be tough. I need to show voters where I stand. And I think that's how you can get it a little bit more.
[John Petrella]: I like that. You know, before we go on to the next question, and I just want to make sure, you know, people want to, you know, I want to get in touch with you. I want to ask you a question. I want to send send something to you. Do you have a website? I mean, what's the best way before we go any further to actually reach you? Like I know, you know, people watch the show. So do you have a. I'm waiting to get to you.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so it's at chrisoats.org and we got a contact form there. It's chris at chrisoats.org if you want the email and then the phone number. I should have it off the top of my head but it's on the website. Sorry, it's like the official campaign number so it's not the one I've.
[John Petrella]: Okay.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: But if they go to the website, okay, good. Yeah, it's 617-903-8155.
[John Petrella]: Okay. So just do me a favor, repeat that one more time. I'd like our audience to really... Absolutely.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: 617-903-8155. And the web page again? chrisoates.org, O-A-T-E-S.
[John Petrella]: Okay, perfect. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. Yeah, and I have a funny feeling you'll hear from some of the people that are watching the show today.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Please.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, no, it's good. All right, so now we'll move on. Do you support requiring all lobbying activities including procurement based activities. Should they be available reported to the public?
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
[John Petrella]: No question.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: No, no question. Anything that involves money with lobbying. And in fact, we have some pretty good disclosure stuff. And a couple of years ago, actually, I wanted to see, I wanted to explore it a little bit because the business I run, I mean, it's for legislative transcripts, and it's very hard to market legislative transcripts. So we would just do research into the policy process. And one of them was finding out who are the top lobbyists in the state by earnings. What are they lobbying on? What are the firms? And what was really interesting is that, and I think this gets to kind of the interesting part of Massachusetts, is there are a lot of lobbyists that earn more money than the speaker and the Senate president. And that's in part because there's It's not, it's not a well-paid job, public service.
[John Petrella]: So the speaker- No, I know, we understand, but still, so there's actually, say that again.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: So if you go to the Secretary of State's website, or the Secretary of the Commonwealth's website, you can see disclosure forms for lobbyists, what they're spending money on, what they're lobbying about, if they're donating to any candidates. So I tracked which legislators got the most money from lobbyists. I don't remember what those numbers were, it was a couple of years ago. But yeah, it's really, it's, that is a good thing, because it meant that me just, you know, this was before I was a candidate, could just go in and get a little bit of sense of that world. And, you know, most of the lobbyists that we have in Massachusetts, you know, there's nothing nefarious about it, again. They're being paid to, you know, advocate it. that it is really important that we know that. So that when we go to the polls to vote for someone, we know, hey, they actually got a lot of money from lobbyists. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it's a bad thing. But at the very least, we know. And again, that's why I think, as you said, transparency is so important. Openness is so important. Because that gives the voters the chance for accountability.
[John Petrella]: Yeah. And I agree. There's nothing nefarious about it. But still, if You know, I always think that if someone, you know, if a lobbyist, whatever, and I get so such and such amount of money, and then something comes before me. I mean. Yeah, I know.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: And I should say it's nothing necessarily nefarious. Of course, across the country, there have been cases.
[John Petrella]: Yes, that's right.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: I think it's the sort of thing that we as the voters, it's really important to have that information out there so that we can then better assess and especially for journalists to be able to dig into this.
[John Petrella]: Yes.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: You know, if you if you talk to any journalist, they'll tell you that when the lobbyist disclosure forms comes out or especially when the campaign finance forms come out, That's what they really look into, because that is where they get to see inside the process a little bit. And it's so important to have that scrutiny from the free press onto those in government, because that's what helps keep them accountable, in addition to, obviously, elections every two years.
[John Petrella]: Right. And I hear you loud and clear, and I don't think it's nefarious. And I think it's part of the process, in my opinion. However, like I say, sometimes you know, if I'm up there and I'm going to vote on something and you're handing me a check for whatever, it's, you know.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. I mean, for me, you know, I've, I'm not taking any, any PAC money. I know that pledge. And I think that's just because it's so important to be able to have people trust that it's, you know, my judgment is only for what's good with the district. It's not, you know, I don't have, I'm not going to have a second job because I don't want any, I mean, I don't have the time for a second job, but I also don't want there to be any concerns about conflict of interest. And this goes to lobbyists, too. I want people to know that if I'm taking a vote on a bill, it's because they came to me with an idea, but they didn't come to me with money. And I think most of the folks in this world, I think, agree with that. It's really important that If there's any appearance of a conflict of interest, you disclose it, you have the ethics form, and you make sure that, you know, in any case, you just go to the House General Counsel and say, like, hey, what do I have to do? I just want to make sure that we're all in the up and up, because there's really zero, in my mind, you want to have zero gray area. You want to have zero accusations against you, because it's so important that voters can trust the judgment of the person they vote for.
[John Petrella]: And it's comforting to know. I know there's a group of you that decided, no doc, money, no this, no that, and you didn't take it. I think that's commendable. I really do. I think that's good.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was a very easy thing. I was actually at Powderhouse Park. And a couple of the officers from the Somerville Democrats came and explained it. And I was like, yeah, that sounds great. Let's do it.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, I like that. I really do. I think it's nice. All right, so this is a question, boy oh boy, it turns up the heat. It's always talked about. There's 5,000 different things about it. But can you sort of give us your opinion on affordable housing? I mean, it's a tough subject. It's a tough subject.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. So I'd say the first, there's a few different parts of it, but the two big ones, I think, are that we don't have enough homes in Massachusetts. So this isn't necessarily an issue of Somerville and Medford. We've built a lot. But it's the suburban areas around 128 to 495 that a lot of them are single family zoning. There was all the fighting over the MBTA Communities Act. So the governor says that we need 220,000 units by 2035. We're working our way through that. So that's part of it is the supply. The other thing is just it costs a lot to build in Massachusetts. The permitting process is very long. We could streamline it. We could try to add more modular housing, which can help. So that can really help. And then hopefully, if you do that, if you are adding the supply, if you're building the units you need at a lower cost, then you can get the revenue to subsidize the homes for those who can't afford the market rate homes. Because that's normal, like every country in the world, you're going to have that. But you want those subsidies, you want there to be more of them, and you want them to go further. And so that's why, again, solving that scarcity problem and making it faster to build, it helps, you know, it just helps everyone. It's one of those win-win situations.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, we do. We need to build more and we need to build them Maybe a little bit smaller. Nothing wrong with that, right?
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's a ballot question this year called the starter homes question where they're going to talk about minimum lot size. And that's a good example of it. It's a small detail. And again, that was really going to be impactful for some of the areas a bit further out in the greater Boston region. But it's a detail where if you tweak it, more homes get built, more homes get built at a lower price. And, you know, especially, you know, there's a young family that just needs a little bit more space than a studio apartment that they're already in, gets a small home. You know, the kind of home that my mom grew up in, my grandparents bought after World War II. We don't make enough of those because it's too hard to build.
[John Petrella]: But, you know, there's got to be a way to make them, you know, affordable, let's call it, you know, bringing the building costs down or something. I mean, you mentioned some things earlier, you know, just a few minutes ago about, you know, like the affordability part of it. You know, there's got to be a way to bring the cost down a little bit. I mean,
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: There definitely is, yeah. Permitting and kind of streamlining that. So one example I was talking to, there's actually a guy on Reddit who's building an ADU in Summerville, an accessory dwelling in Summerville, and he's talking about the whole process. And it's a great example of just, we have different building standards for accessory dwelling units in different cities. And we're still working our way through that process of how to streamline that and getting the financing right. And he was mentioning, I believe it was that there was a certain permit to get the foundation poured, and then you need to do a different permit once the foundation was poured. And again, it's one of those things, you just have to work through the details. And as you work through it and as you focus on it, and you're focusing on following up and implementing things, we can do that. And so it's, again, it's not like, we need to dramatically revolutionize all of Massachusetts. We're not knocking down all of our homes and building up skyscrapers. But you do those tweaks, and you do enough of those tweaks, and it makes a big difference.
[John Petrella]: Yeah. Sounds good. Here's a question I love. How do you feel? You mentioned it earlier, and I liked your answer. How do you feel about term limits? And when I say term limits, I'm talking the speaker, uh you know the majority leader and the you know the senate committee chairs put it that way because they i mean that's where the power is and it's you know do you believe we should have term limits uh
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I actually came around. Yeah, this and just in general, I've come around on term limits during this campaign, because before I wasn't a fan, because you lose institutional knowledge, and there's always the worry that your last term, people are just thinking about what's their next job. However, during this campaign, I've really seen how hard it is to run, especially as an outsider who isn't already in office. And there's no way I would have run if Christine Barber, our current representative, was still running again. I mean, I agree with her on a lot of things, but even assuming I didn't agree with her, I wouldn't have run because it's so hard to challenge an incumbent. And even if I was diametrically opposed, with a four-year-old at home, I'm not going to give up a whole summer, ask my friends and family to donate to the campaign just to lose by 60 points. And so that's why, to me, I've come around on term limits because it forces open seats and it forces competition so what I proposed and this is just one idea is that we have you're allowed 12 years or six terms in the house. And six terms or 12 years in the Senate. And so that means that if you're a senator and you represent an average of four house members, right every, every cycle or every other cycle, one of the representatives in your district is being term limited out, and they're incentivized to challenge you. Because they're going out of office anyway, why not give it a run for the Senate? And you just create that churn and that constant competition. And so there are people who are against term limits. That's fine. We can have a debate. But this is one of those things that just being a candidate, I've seen, oh, actually, competition is so important. Forcing candidates to go out and knock on thousands of doors is really important. And you don't really get that if you just have easy reelection. So I get it. It's one of those things. It's not an all or nothing thing. It's a 51-49 type decision.
[John Petrella]: I hear you.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: But I've shifted towards that we should have it, just because it helps unlock some competition.
[John Petrella]: And it's nice to know you're able to shift. Because some people get up there, and it's like, You know, that's it. So it's good to know that you're flexible. I think that's great.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Well, when new information comes in, you got to be able to process it.
[John Petrella]: Yes. I like that. I respect that. OK. So this will be the last question. And now this question affects me now. I hate to admit it, but what am I going to do? I'm a senior citizen now. So a lot of senior citizens do not have stability. Stay where they are. They've been in the same home for 40, 50. There's just so much going on, Chris. know, is there a way to get stability? I know a lot of things are being done for senior citizens, but it just seems to me like, you know, there could be a little more. How do you feel about that?
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think this is, I mean, obviously there's, I've talked to a lot of seniors and there's specific things like the buses, making sure they're funded, energy costs, helping to bring down energy costs by adding clean energy onto our grid. But one of the big ones, and this is such a technical thing, but it has huge implications, is I really think we need to be shifting more of the financing of government away from cities and towards the state. So, you know, for example, public schools, you know, are funded by a combination of city and state money. But cities and towns are mostly funded by property taxes. About 58% of municipal funding is property taxes. Almost nothing is property tax at the state level. About half of our tax revenue at the state is income tax. So obviously if you're a senior and you're on a fixed income, You know, income tax doesn't affect you as much as maybe your, your house is going up in value. Right. We have a housing shortage. And if there's a prop two and a half override, which might be necessary, but the downside of a proper two and a half override is that your property taxes do go up, they go up. And so if we could shift. the funding of more government operations shifted more towards the state where those tax sources are maybe not as dependent just on property tax, a bit more diversified, but it's more about like a diversified stock portfolio. Not that I have one or anything, but like, you know, you hear people say, you gotta diversify your stocks. But, you know, so the state can do that and the state can, I think, be a bit more flexible, whereas cities, are much more concentrated on property revenue. And I feel like what we've done in the past 20 years is we've asked cities to take on a lot more of the burden, and we haven't, at the state level, properly funded them. So I would, it wouldn't be an all or nothing thing, but it would be to shift a little bit more education towards the state, and then also to try to give more state aid towards cities so that they wouldn't be so dependent on property tax. That's obviously easier said than done because every city is going to want more money from the state and you got to get somewhere. But that's why I think economic growth is, you know, economic growth statewide is the thing that underpins everything in government. Because if we could have an economy that is really growing, and it's delivering those tax revenues to the state, then a lot of problems get easier because you have some of the money to solve them. And if we don't do it, if we keep losing residents to other states with lower costs of living and cheaper homes, then all of a sudden, you know, the state doesn't have the money to help out and the cities don't have the money to help out. And that's why we keep, you know, we have towns across the Commonwealth doing Prop 2.5 override after Prop 2.5 override. And I think more economic growth that helps, you know, fill the coffers of the state and the state can send some of that to the cities, it helps out a little bit. Not gonna say it's gonna solve everyone's problem, but it does help. And to me, that's kind of how I see government is like, can we do some incremental growth, incremental benefits every single month, every single year, just to make life a little bit better all the time?
[John Petrella]: All good answers, Chris. I like that. Like I say, it is, it would be nice, to shift the burden, so to speak, from the, you know, maybe the cities to the state and, you know, get the money and spend it right. I think that's another important thing we need to do. But, you know, it's that time again. I could talk to you for another hour, Chris, believe me. But before we go, can you one more time, your website, the phone number, just so I really want people to be able to get in touch with you if they need BB. I think that's important, that's all.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely. So the website's chrisoates.org, O-A-T-E-S. Email is chris, at chrisoates.org. And the phone number is 617-903-8155.
[John Petrella]: All right, Chris, I wanna, I really mean this. Thank you so much for joining us. It's nice to get, you know, this was a good experience. Nice to get to know what you're all about, you know, how you feel about things, how you think. So I really, you know, we wanna thank you for joining us on Method Happenings. We wish you the best of luck. We know it's a, you really put yourself out there when you run for any office. You know, good luck running, you know, for the 34th Middlesex District. And hopefully we'll have you on the show again. But thank you so much, Chris.
[XXXXXX00148_SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much. It's been great talking to you.
[John Petrella]: All right. Have a great one. Thanks, Chris. Good luck. I want to thank Chris Oates for joining us. Great show. I also want to take a minute to thank everyone who has been watching the show. And thank you for all your feedback. If you would like to appear on the show, please contact us at methodhappenings02155 at gmail.com, and we will get back to you. And thank you for getting in touch with us, and we will try and get everyone on the show. You will be able to watch replays of this program on Method Community Media Access Channel. Also, check out our website, methodhappenings.com. It's a great website. Please take a look. And you can either view or listen to the podcast of this program. You can find all of our shows on YouTube. Just go to youtube.com, search for Method Happenings, we'll come up. Please like and subscribe to our channels and videos. You can also find us on Facebook at Method Happenings. We also have our own subreddit, which you can find us at reddit.com slash r slash Method Happenings. And that's it for today. For the Method Happenings team, Paul, Marco, Bruce, James, and Joseph, I'm John Petrella, and remember Method, stay informed. Thank you.
|
total time: 9.96 minutes total words: 1504 |
|||