Below is the text of my SCATV Candidate Profile, which can be watched here: https://archive.org/details/Candidate_Profile_-_Stephanie_Hirsch
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Thank you to Somerville Media Center (also known as SCATV) for giving all of us candidates an opportunity to introduce ourselves. I’m really happy to be here. I think places like SCATV are so important to our community. They are a place where people meet and work together – like a community living room or a community workshop. People working together on projects here is one way they create community. But also, the shows get broadcast out to all of you. I remember hearing from sleepless new moms – they said they watched SCATV in the middle of the night while rocking their baby, and watching made them feel less alone. And I know some of you are homebound. SCATV connects people across Somerville, wherever you may be watching from and whatever your situation may be.
With my 10 minutes of fame, I’d love to tell you a bit about my background and what I hope to do if I get elected. I’ll do all the talking today. But when I meet you in person, I want to hear YOU talk and to hear YOUR ideas.
First about my background which I what made me who I am today. I grew up in north central Wisconsin. It’s a community that’s just about the same size as Somerville, but it’s the biggest city for miles around. All around it are farms and forest.
Eau Claire Wisconsin was a great place to grow up. It had a strong middle class. We all lived together on the same block, we played together in the street – kick the can, ditch, capture the flag - until our parents called us in. We all went to the same public schools. People looked out for each other and they looked out for the community. They invested in the schools, in our community organizations, like the YMCA or Little League. My parents were teachers, and there were people who made more money – the lawyers, doctors, orthodontists. But those were the people who donated to make a new wing of the library or the children’s museum. A lot of them probably voted republican, while others voted democrat – but that didn’t matter. We all agreed that each person in our community matters.
I’ve been door knocking since April and I have reached 3,000 doors so far. The life-long residents describe growing up Somerville of the 50s, 60s, and 70s just like the way I remember growing up in Eau Claire. When I was door knocking in the States/Aves, I met different members of families like the Cassessos, Lapianas, Deangelis, and Cantalupes. They loved their years growing up. Everyone was like family, and each kid belonged to everyone, just like in my hometown.
I took this value with me – that we are all responsible for every person in our community and that we all need to take care of our community organizations.
After college, I worked in two places where people really struggled, where there were not enough community resources to go around. First, I taught in an elementary school in North Philadelphia. By the school, one of every three houses looked bombed out. The sidewalk was littered with brightly colored crack vials. Then I worked in rural Georgia. Georgia had its own problems. In both places, the systems of education, health care, governance, and public safety did not work well. There was not a strong, core middle class. There were very few jobs. And, as a result, a lot of people’s lives did not work out well. Many girls got pregnant before age 20 and many boys had a criminal arrest. Systems had failed them and, as a result, they had so much trouble becoming successful providers and community contributors.
I saw how these failure of government affected people, and it broke my heart. I decided to spend my life trying to make government work better so people can have good lives. I studied statistics and business to try to figure out how to improve our local government. Using those skills, I went on to work for NYC, the Boston Police Department, and then for Somerville. In Somerville, I started programs like SomerStat, 311, ResiStat, and helped the schools achieve big gain.
We did a lot, but I want to do a lot more. If I get elected, I’m going to keep trying to improve how well government runs so that the lives of OUR city’s residents are happy and healthy. I want NO ONE to fall through the cracks in my community on my watch.
I’ve had a chance to listen to community hopes and the points of pain in Somerville all this spring and summer. I’ve reached 3,000 households so far and I’ve heard so many different worries. I’ve thought about those conversations a lot, and here’s what I plan to work on if I get elected:
Affordability: Affordability tops most people’s lists of worries. This means something different to different people. Someone may live on only $40,000 a year, so have trouble paying for water or tax bills, even as their property is worth almost $1 million. Young people may have two degrees and high earning potential, but they still struggle with student loan debt and can’t figure out any way to get into the market. Low-income renters face the most struggles. Here are three groups I hope to give special thought.
- First, I’m worried about families with children. Children are almost twice as likely as other residents to be living in poverty. Families generally make less money, have more expenses, have unique housing needs, have more dependence on municipal/district services, and face much more housing discrimination. Many families will need to move. I think we should create and preserve housing with families in mind.
- Next, I believe we need to focus on housing for seniors that allows them to stay in their own neighborhood.
- Finally, I think we need to have a special focus on middle income households. They less support, but do need some subsidy and technical assistance. Middle income families – including municipal employees -- are a key part of creating a strong community.
- Holding developers to do as much as they can to build affordable and family-friendly housing, including the smaller investor/developer currently not affected by law like inclusionary housing;
- Moving ahead with zoning and projects even though they remain a work in progress;
- Give owners easy access to a tax deferral program that allows them to forgo paying any taxes until they sell their property;
- Pass a transfer fee that’s thoughtfully designed that creates funding for subsidies;
- Create a right-of-first-refusal program that makes it easier for owner-occupant to compete with developers for the purchase of a home;
- Add units, both through accessory units and through taller building in transformative districts. Whenever possible, we should do this without adding cars; and
- Control budget expenses which may mean discipline in the funding of new initiatives, including capital projects that we desperately need.
Quality of life: In East Somerville, almost every household talked about rats. Many people throughout the city have also talked about cut-through traffic and feeling of being unsafe on and around streets. While these are also tough issue to fix, I promise to redouble efforts to find solutions. As we think about the big picture, we will need to continue to focus on the little things – the day-to-day issues that weigh on our peace of mind.
Community institutions: As I mentioned, I believe that having strong, integrated, accessible community institutions help people be happy and form friendships. I will work hard to add funding for recreation and support for community-based providers to do more out-of-school programming and activities for people of all ages. I’d like the city’s public buildings to be open from 6 AM until 10 PM, I’d like new community space in each of our squares. And, we need to make progress on improving/expanding our athletic field space.
Community: Community institutions help us meet together and form friendships. And I want to continue that focus in all I do. I believe the more we know and are about one another’s needs, the better able we will be to make hard decisions. I will work to form neighborhood groups, helping them set up ways to communicate and annual events, goal and metrics of neighborhood goals. And a special note, in door knocking, I have often heard division that are rooted in people’s own, unique struggles. Some people do not feel heard. As one of the most poignant examples, Somerville has experienced at least 40 deaths to opioid overdoses in 2015 and 2016, and those deaths were concentrated in a smaller demographic group within Somerville. It feels like we should be shouting these statistics from every the rooftop. When think about the concept of OneSomerville, I believe we need to have the most inclusive definition, looking at the pain and experience of EVERYONE so as to increase our understanding of one another.
Transparency: I will work to make the decisions of our local government as transparent as possible. On the School side, I believe we need more information shared about district budgeting and decision making. On the City side, I will dig into publicly available data on any issue residents care about. We can use data to set goals and metrics, and regularly report on them. One of my heroes, Maura Healey, promise to serve as the “People’s Lawyer”. And I promise to be the “People’s Bean counter.” Maybe you didn’t even know you wanted your own bean counter, but I plan to prove that it’s a powerful tool for change.
Other goals I have include using my political capital to help settle open contracts and support the work of environmental groups like Mothers out Front and Somerville Climate Action.
You may be thinking this all sounds hard, and I agree. Should we do it? I think – yes. Almost no place has figured out how to stay connected, integrated, and well run. Let’s us do that – even if it means sacrifice and compromise, hustling and bootstrapping our way to groundbreaking policies. Let’s us be the proving ground and the antidote to a country that’s being pulled apart by income inequality and division.
So, that’s a little about me, my background, and what I care about. But I am learning as I go – I’m learning from YOU. I have another 6,000 doors to knock, and I hope to meet you on your front step. When we meet, please tell me your hopes and worries, and we will figure out what to do about them together.
Thank again to SCATV for this opportunity.
