Update 7/27 – There was video posted of the forum; I am never able to get all of the comments from any candidate (and, I feel, I tend to write what I personally find interesting, which may not be what the reader would find most interesting) so I think the video may give a better flavor of the forum than these notes. Yenni posted a roundup of threads of the forum as well.
This is a forum for at-large city council and school committee candidates. I’ll type more (liveblog) when we get started.
(While we wait, I’ve been thinking about a better way to evaluate candidates than these sorts of political forums. What about a reality show with a mock city council made half of candidates and half of former elected officials? Three months and whoever gets Paul Clancy to agree with them the most wins.)
Council Candidates present: Bergman, Creamer, Hampton-Dance, King, Nguyen, Perrone, Petty, Toomey (are there enough seats for all council candidates???)
School Committee Candidates present: Mailman, O’Connell Novick
(There are various other candidates present but not on panels)
moderators are Lamar Brown-Noguera (Them/They) and Eric Roldan, LICSW (He/Him)
Candidate intros; I may skip unless it’s someone I think you may not be familiar with
Bergman wants to see everyone with a roof over their heads. Also homeownership
Petty is proud of what he’s accomplished – diverse accepting city
Hampton-Dance speaks softly and will now speak louder. Make residents stay here. Fresh eyes, fresh ideas. (That seemed awfully quick)
Perrone raised in multigeneration household by strong women, health equity, affordable housing, sustainable development, inclusive city, celebrating diversity
Nguyen – first Southeast Asian, first nonbinary councilor – they are the crowd favorite (so far)
King running to be your next mayor. Supported Yes on 3 for inclusive environments; in day job fought for foster kids to have equitable services
Creamer – community oriented focus
Toomey wants the same things you want: opportunity for housing for everyone, safe (or was it clean?) streets, good schools, etc
Novick: never more important to pay attention to who is being elected to school committee. (Come on, you know her, you love her.)
Mailman: what we do in MA, in every city and town, for schools, matters in terms of equity and inclusion.
Event rules: 3 minutes to answer questions, there will be time for audience questions or clarifying questions
Pride has been a movement, not just a party. The queers have always been informing you about how to stand up for yourself since Stonewall. Since anti-trans legislation happening across country, where are we in this fight?
School committee Q: comprehensive sex ed implemented; how as a candidate (or on SC) would encourage parents/students see 3Rs as a viable option?
Mailman: serves on Teaching, Learning, Student Supports – they review opt-in/opt-out; Molly McCullough is here and chairs that. Talk to parents & kids one on one to describe what the curriculum is. We are welcome to listen to suggestions to make people comfortable. They will need to see what the new numbers; they are watching on six month basis and doing whatever we can about better educating parents about what the curriculum is, not what they hear from unreliable sources.
Clarifying q from audience: why has it taken so long to move it through?
Mailman: the curriculum is implemented throughout the system; we are now watching the opt-in and opt-out numbers. We need to do a better job of parental education.
Clarifying question from audience (Kamara): curriculum is implemented, but parents need to know more.
Novick: thanks Bill Shaner for records request to show OML request that prevented this from happening.
Form to inform parents had part that they could sign/send back in to opt-out. Not required by law – but previous admin used it. We are no longer using this form and expecting a better opt-in.
Novick is asking Worcester to endorse new statewide comprehensive sex ed guidelines; on the agenda for August.
Clarifying q from audience: why the school committee is not having teachers educating parents after school on this?
Novick: what we have been doing at parents nights – when are family members actually available to come to those nights? Info not just available for when you go to school, but virtual options, translated in to many languages. Parents need to feel good about what their kids are learning.
Q from audience: if sc can organize a group for parents who may be questioning or queer? Is there something like that for WPS?
Novick: there are certain things we are required to have by law; we do not have a parent group like this yet. Our GSAs at the high schools need to better connect. Appreciates this idea.
Q about children’s identity at school, pronouns, sexual identity, not being discriminated against, etc.
Novick: one of 6 sc s in the commonwealth last year that asked state (in resolution) to take this into consideration because we will be a sanctuary state and needs to protect trans youth esp those moving here from elsewhere
MA policies about trans youth – protected class
Fed lawsuit against Ludlow schools because parents were not informed by school that kids were trans; this is legal obligation but we need to hold the line and continue to protect
Mailman: our teacher training is going to a different level this year. New diversity officer. Teacher training is critical; everyone is up to speed. Fortunate to have new super – these are the kinds of things she takes very seriously
Q to councilors about billboards the governor put up in other states. How to make this city a safe destination for queer families.
Toomey thought it was a great idea. We are all human beings and need to be treated with respect. Bring new ideas and businesses to our community.
Creamer: we need to hold our values accountable. We are an inclusive city, not easy to elect a non-binary person; in Worcester, a queer person is just another candidate. Continue acting on this – more than just commissions, give them a say and make sure listened to
King: elected officials – more than just rhetoric. One thing he has learned in city government is that you have to be intentional in your representation. He supported Yes on 3; as of last week, filed an order to ask for LGBTQ commission – those are direct actions to foster this. LGBTQIA aging population – this is a challenge; housing ditto. In his day job, has been very intentional about making sure gender affirming care provided to youth in care
Nguyen: I don’t enjoy being tokenized here. I don’t feel comfortable here, I don’t feel comfortable being called disgusting by the mayor, candidates who misgender me and say that we are a welcoming city. As your first nonbinary and Southeast Asian councilor, working on intersectional work – affordable housing – people need to be able to stay here. History says that Stonewall is about police accountability. Center the people that say what they mean and do what they mean.
Perrone: echos many of the things that are said. Goal as elected official is to be transparent with intersectional lens. Sanctuary city in every way shape and form – for undocumented, for gender affirming care, for those who are unhoused. How can we as city officials make sure that we are listening to queer constituents? Sees herself as being a leader and facilitator within the Latino community. We need to fiercely advocate for our young people; gender-neutral bathrooms to senior housing. We need to undo the harms of our ancestors and build a future for our youth.
Hampton-Dance: hearing action, taking action. Looking at council over the last few years. She knows wanting to be seen, wanting equity. Issue of funding. There are churches that people come to for refuge and set up in apartments. When it comes to council and Worcester, we need to provide funds for available services.
Petty has always been present in the lgbtqia community. Gentleman came here because of the church, young lady from Africa, left UMinn, some guy told her to come to Worcester. We needed to have a focus, evaluating city of Worcester at 100% (this is some sort of assessment). Film festival came here because we are accepted here. [This is a very rambling talk] He was on the council when we began gay marriage. People in Florida and Texas, come to the city of Worcester.
Bergman doesn’t think anything we say here will affect things; should use the social media to encourage people from parts south should come here. City doing much better with diversification in city workforce; in 1904 City of Worcester first elected a person of color and a Jewish person to the council. We have been fair in the past; we’re not always there – should continue our tradition.
Community q: King discussed policy. Would you consider LGBTQ+ community center? How would you support? Funding, etc.
Hampton-Dance: discusses support; 1 – funding, 2 – policy, 3 – support
King: will support any and all efforts. A lot of folks vying for different locations; money pot is only so big. But he is an ally – coming together, all ages and groups, is important. Willing to reach out to folks outside the city for additional supports.
Nguyen: need to shift our trust to invest in community groups. We have not done this in the past. With ARPA funding, some of them gave back because they wanted reimbursement process. Community with Clr King pushed the way we help/support grassroots orgs
Q: those less fortunate / chosen family concept. For SC: putting trust in local queer community to help foster safe spaces. How can SC work with existing queer institutions to provide support in schools? For CC:queer-owned businesses?
Mailman: current super has an office to engage with community. She has only been here a year.
Tracy has advocated for safe spaces in schools. There are people in the community who talk about the spaces to say kids are trying to get out of class. This is baloney. Strategic plan needs to have these folks at the table.
Novick: when Dr Monárrez started here, she came for festival season. She did specifically ask if WPS was represented at Pride. We have wraparound coordinators at schools now to introduce kids to resources in the community. Worcester has representation on the statewide GSA – that is our students representing at the state level and organizing at a larger level. How do we make sure students are supported in their efforts? Convo in budget this year – we support sports, what about our student affiliation groups?
(now on to the CC section – this is about support for LGBTQ businesses)
Toomey shows up. She goes to a lot of different businesses, some she didn’t even know were owned by LGBTQ people. Had a good convo with a trans person who could not believe Toomey was so nice to them. [I am not making this up, folks. The material writes itself] House Republicans voted down 3 LGBTQ support centers, one for MA, in a budget bill. There are funds available on state and fed level and would advocate for that.
Creamer is going to talk about the SC question because the mayor is on the SC. Need to listen to students and educators; current SC has done a great job with this. We are a city that prefers our mom-and-pop shops. We need people to know what it is to actually start a business. Resource needs to be provided by our city.
King: as mayor, will also be chair of the school committee. People want more than just people showing up, looking for action and initiative. The cc supported an LGBTQ commission, which can bring people together. Summit to bring stakeholders together to identify issues for the commission – he will ask for this next month. Let’s move forward and do tangible things on the municipal level. We need to invest in resources to support this community.
Nguyen: I work for a small business as a bartender. I know this issue firsthand because I work in a small biz. We see so many businesses open and close. Worked with small businesses during covid and saw the challenges. We need real people on the ground on council (is the only renter).
Perrone: how are we ensuring small businesses are incentivized to come to the city? Same attn to large scale investors should be paid to queer cultural groups. In terms of visibility, permit process very inaccessible. This is why we don’t have block parties. We do not need to make orgs jump through hoops – do it through grace and trust community orgs. Economic mobility – build back, need to have affordable housing.
Hampton-Dance: innovation, think outside the box. Put them in other places. I like to come up with solutions. Directory of all small businesses, have access to SBIA grant processes and someone to write the grants. Point of small business is to break generational cycles and create wealth.
Petty: small business is really a lifeline in the city. Right now, econ dev works with small businesses. Chamber has the same type of educations programs. On our website we have businesses that we suggest people buy goods from.
Bergman: as an attorney, he represents a lot of small business owners. Only 25% of small biz make it 15+ years; Worcester is no exception. Advocate for home ownership bc people can take a loan based on equity in their home. As long as we can do this in a respectful, non-tokenizing way. Polar Park has been good for small businesses in general. Go out and ask them – false narrative that it’s been bad. Block grants to go to LGBTQ
Community q: when mayor, how to make CM make things happen. There is a homelessness commission that has never been appointed. DEI commission resigned because of lack of action.
Petty: has always held the manager responsible. On homelessness, they meet on a regular basis. He talked about bringing people to his office with the manager.
King: These issues are deeply personal with him. His older brother experienced not being safe (being beaten) in the city. Despite what you have heard, cm does not have veto power.
Creamer: mayor should be chief advocacy officer. Doesn’t know if another commission is the answer. More than just another commission. Lived experience – always at the forefront of what he does.
Q on healthcare. Crisis pregnancy – how would you ensure that they are not misrepresenting as medical centers? (This is a long question)
Bergman: you can google his beliefs about choice. What can you prove and not prove about misrepresentation – he did a background check. One lawsuit against them. If they had deceptive practices proven, we can’t take that as proof. People need their day in court. He was heartened that the state is taking this up at the state level. We should be aware of our fiduciary responsibility of involving the city in a lawsuit. [A real lawyer’s answer…my favorite answer, I suspect]
Petty talks about this support for this, against any deceptive practices. We need to hold people accountable on all these issues.
Hampton-Dance. [Asks about what the heck the question is, in a nice way; this is a question about queer individuals and woman are protected against misrepresentation of medical issues.] If you do not provide those services, you should not say that you do. There are a lo tof agencies that do good work; everyone should get a sheet of what is and is not provided.
Perrone: crisis pregnancy centers and Problem Pregnancy are not health centers. They in their mission are deceptive. That we are waiting for more lawsuits…. [Note: Problem Pregnancy is not being sued] Workshop it on the council floor, create a task force…the things the city council has done for other issues This is harming queer young people in my community. If you voted on it, I want to see it delivered.
[Seriously, if you want to kill something, create a city task force, kids]
Nguyen: that’s not within your purview stuff, we are legislators, we are policymakers, we need to start acting like it. I was told on good faith to wait – in the year, there was a lawsuit. When do we decide to write policy and do what we were elected to do? Northampton, Somerville are moving on this even though they don’t have these centers.
King: we’ve heard about waiting. Healy called for a crackdown, millions to fight against these centers. We have folks who blocked public participation. We got threats about a draft ordinance, we’ve got nothing. If we can’t move as far as we would like, we need to move forward. Need new leadership. Human rights, civil rights, LGBT rights, sometimes a change in legislation is necessary. They overturned Roe, and we’re going to wait?
[Sorry, this is the part where I get punchy, kids]
Creamer: the reason why we are in this limbo is because the city of Worcester functions as a town. We need charter review. We need to elect a man that ensures that we have a charter review. Refer people to Planned Parenthood, Edward Kennedy Center, that provide good care. We can not be the second largest city in New England and not have a strong mayor.
Toomey: some of these facilities are not regulated. [Note: Problem Pregnancy is not licensed as a medical clinic by the state, but Clearway Clinic is] We need to ensure that they are and that there is oversight. That this item was held does not mean it’s down the tubes, just means we need more time to work together. Very often we use a hold because people want more information. No one on the council wants to support a facility with deceptive practices. Toomey acknowledges that crowd is not particularly happy with her response.
SC question: proper info in front of WPS students for healthcare.
Novick: having comprehensive medically accurate sex ed from kindergarten; you are much less likely to find yourself in a situation where you are fooled. We are working on that part. We have health centers in a number of high schools; what about access in centers – that would not fly under previous administration. We have opportunity under new admin to have marriage of education and providing services.
Mailman concurs wholeheartedly
Q from audience about state-level —some places have this in place but don’t have pregnancy. Why do we let Worc Police do bad things and pay settlements and then excuse to not do pregnancy center
Toomey not a fan of paying settlements, but thought is that it’s less expensive. If we did it locally, state and federal law supersede local law.
Bergman: proactive of what could happen. Some lawsuits settled happened before he was a city council. But to be proactive to avoid lawsuits ; as did everyone else he took an oath to enforce the constitution.
Nguyen says there’s no draft ordinance
Bergman, the Learned Hand of this forum, says this was supposed to mimic exact ordinances that are unconstitutional.
A member of the audience says that slavery was also constitutional.
Some guy is talking about how nonprofits aren’t covered by consumer protection laws. He doesn’t know why the city solicitor thinks it’s unconstitutional.
[Everyone’s a lawyer here – only a couple have actual JDs. Hint: this isn’t consumer protection, it’s that you can’t tell someone to refer someone to an abortion if it’s against their religion.]
Sorry, I didn’t get the q but I think it’s about recruiting people? Or maybe the police? I’ll record interesting answers
Bergman says the police should be here (as a community liaison thing) – various pushback from attendees.
There was supposed to be respect for candidates, but people in back of me are especially obnoxious.
Perrone: police is one of our largest budgets. Has no doubt that there are wonderful people who wear the blue suits. Would not support increasing the city budget.
Nguyen: just because they are LGBTQ doesn’t mean they are on my side. Our liaison said queer folks don’t want body cams. Our skinfolks may be used in the system to harm our people. Not all skinfolks are kinfolks.
King: talking about how community meetings do not represent or reflect the community. Accountability, transparency, consistency.
Creamer: current liaison for LGBT on police paid from overtime. Needs to be changed. We wanted district councilors to bring people to events – more commissions not the answer. Leadership requires something outside of the box.
Toomey: Worcester has openly trans officer. They spoke very strongly about body cams. Derrick Leto felt it was important to have the body cams. Encourages people to go to neighborhood watch meetings. They list them all. [She is challenged by an attendee]
[I find it interesting that the neighborhood councils of the charter have been replaced by police-led neighborhood crime watch meetings…]
SC q: how to protect kids when they are in their communities?
Mailman: community schools has been discussed; many years under previous admin where community was pushed out. Strategic planning that concerns everyone. Some efforts and will continue to do more
Novick: thinking about being young in public. Our society criminalizes being young in public. Assumption that you are up to no good. Unspoken messages from schools about this. School playgrounds are open to public from dawn to dusk – you are not violating and not trespassing; she worked on this a number of years ago. These conversations should not happen at the neighborhood crime watch meetings.
Q to councilor Toomey. Tokenizing of queer people. You have to be careful with that. WHM multi-year project on queer life. WPD members would not go on record. Those who would talked about being left alone, not supported for backup.
Toomey looks at being out as a choice. Does not advocate for what was discussed – would talk with the chief to ensure this does not happen.
Q about investigating racism or inequitable conduct. There is one investigator for the city, his info is nowhere on the city website. How to use/expand mechanisms?
Creamer: major disconnect between council and manager and commissions and manager. Blames Plan E and wants charter review. We must look at budget. One investigator for a city of 200k does not seem enough.
Perrone: the office needs more resources and support, to investigate complaints. We need mechanisms to report white supremacy; last time it happened it was forwarded to the WPD.
Petty shameful if that’s the case (investigator not on the website), that will be taken care of
King wants a civilian review board. Works with Black Families Together to do equity audits in various city departments. We have a Public Safety committee that provides oversight. But only occurs in appointed advisory commission
Q: Community on Queen Street getting the worst of it because of wet shelter. Foster kids for when they come out in the community, Safe places for foster kids – don’t send anyone to Queen Street.
Perrone: CC can work with the SC for wraparound coordinators who support foster kids.
King: trauma of oppressed and marginalized has many manifestations. Public health issue. Worked to expand HHS for a social work position, need more positions of that nature.
Q: where do people stand on civilian review board?
Toomey: we have one at the state level
Creamer: we need one at the local level, HRC has the shell of it, we absolutely need one
King: Tracy Novick always says we fund what we value. To rely on admin to do this, we will fail every single time.
Nguyen – yes,supports, not an expert on this matter. Community members should lead on this and have their vision.
Perrone: subpoena power, not an advisory commission, need staffing and infrastructure within the city to make civilian review board have agency
Hampton-Dance: person of little words and big action. Supports eview board with subpoena power.
Petty: does not support Let’s see if the reforms put in place will work.
Bergman feels state board has more power – would not support
Nicole, Worcester 