[MUSIC PLAYING]
Person to testify--
Congressman Lynch.
Thank you for your attendance.
This is the fourth hearing on the Committee
on Redistricting, fourth of many that we
are going to have on this process on how we are going
to redistrict our congressional senate house and governor's
council districts.
This district is hearing that--
this hearing is specific to congressional district eight,
which is, as I said earlier, currently being represented
by Congressman Stephen Lynch.
I will be chairing the hearing.
We have a number of people who have signed up
to testify [INAUDIBLE] have signed up to testify.
But at this point in time, I'd like to turn it over
to my Senate co-chair, Senator Brownsberger for a few remarks
and introduction of his colleagues
that are here to join us as well.
Senator Brownsberger?
Thank you, Chairman [? Morin. ?] And I just
want to make sure everybody knows that we're joined here
also by my vice chair, Senator Goby,
and by Senator Fattman, who is on the phone.
And Congressman Lynch, honored to be with you
and look forward to your comments.
And I look forward to everybody else's comments
that might address not only the congressional district
but the senate districts and the house districts.
Thank you, Mr Chairman.
You're on mute, Mike.
Thank you, Senator.
I would like to introduce some of my house colleagues
that are here joining us on this Zoom hearing
that we're having--
my Vice Chair, the gentleman from Lawrence, Representative
Marcos Devers is here.
This is Marcos' second time on this committee.
I'd also like to introduce the lady from Provincetown,
Representative Sara Peake is here.
The gentleman from Chicopee, Representative Joe Wagner,
is here.
The gentle lady from Pittsfield, representative Tricia
Farley-Bouvier, is here.
The gentle lady from Dorchester, Representative Chynah Tyler,
has joined us.
The gentleman from the Cape Barnstable,
Representative Kip Digs, is here.
The Representative Kim Furguson from [INAUDIBLE],, and also
Representative Sean Dooley from Norfolk.
At this point in time, [? what I would like ?] to do
is I like to have one of the senior members of our committee
that lives in the eighth congressional district
to offer greetings.
And at this point in time, I'd like
to turn it over to representative Dan
Hunt from Dorchester.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon to the committee.
Good afternoon, Congressmen.
We'll welcome you to testify before us today.
You represent so well the embodiment of the two
communities that I represent--
Dorchester and Quincy-- but also the hard
working men and women of the South Shore
and the rest of the metro area.
As an ironworker who worked his way through law school,
you do us proud.
And it's fitting that your dedication
to election protection and election law
stems from actually running for election on 9/11
and ensuring that the Democratic process continued in
that we would stand in the face of terrorism.
But also on the other half of that,
your commitment to the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq,
visiting both countries and the surrounding area dozens
and dozens of times-- so we appreciate your efforts there.
I also serve on the Committee on Federal Stimulus and Oversight.
So we appreciate your and the delegation's efforts
to secure what will totally be at the end of 2026
upwards of $110 billion for the Commonwealth.
So we appreciate your efforts, the hard work for us every day,
and look forward to your testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Representative Hunt.
Before I introduce Congressman Lynch,
I'd just like to mention a couple of my colleagues
that have joined us--
Representative Jimmy O'Day from West Boylston
is here as well as Representative Frank Moran
from the great city of Lawerence.
At this point in time, I'd like to ask Senator Lynch to give us
some testimony, if he would.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Chairman Moran,
Chairman Brownsberger, yes.
Good to see you.
Glad that you're on the call as well.
To all my colleagues in government,
thank you for allowing me to appear before your committee.
And thank you for all your hard work.
I realize that it's not just the congressional districts
but our senate districts as well and house districts
that are in play here.
And I've been very impressed that--
I know that some of you have actually
engaged in drive-throughs in the districts
to better understand the dynamic between towns and neighborhoods
within cities.
So I appreciate all your diligence.
I've been told by the Chairman and by his staff
that, based on the numbers, I'm a little bit
overweight in terms of the population within my district,
even though the population within the district itself
[INAUDIBLE] up as well.
So we're a fast growing district.
The city of Boston obviously has great growth,
but so does Brockton and Quincy, the other two major cities
in my district.
So we have three cities and 21 towns in the 8th.
And I know from my colleagues who I served with and see
very frequently from the eighth district that it's a challenge.
It's a challenge with the districts this size
to get around and see everyone.
But I'm very happy to say that I've
got a more compact district than some of my colleagues,
especially in the western part of the state.
They've got a real challenge out there.
Thankfully, because I am overweight
in terms of population, I am willing and eager to be
helpful to my colleagues that might have to pick up
votes and pick up population.
So I know Mr. Keating is short down on the South Shore
and the Cape and the islands.
And I know that my colleague Ms. Pressley
is in a similar situation than I am and find myself
in terms of having too many people for the new district
boundaries.
I know Mr. Auchincloss as well needs to pick up votes.
So I have a great relationship with my colleagues
in the House.
We are a team.
We're blessed to have a coherent delegation in terms
of the House and the Senate.
So I really am more interested in hearing
from my constituents and my colleagues in government--
I know some of them will be on the call during the day--
but just to talk about how cohesive our district is
and how we've been able to partner,
especially with the pandemic, getting monies
out to not only the larger cities
but also at a very granular level working with our towns.
And I just consider it a great honor to have this position.
This is a much better dynamic than the last go around
on this, Mr. Chairman, as you remember
when we were trying to figure out how we might accommodate
losing a congressional seat.
So I appreciate the good work that's
being done by all of you.
As a former House member and State Senate member
of the great and general court, I think it has helped me--
I know it has helped me work with my House and Senate
colleagues at the state level in a big way.
I know the challenges that you face.
And these are not easy times, so I've tried to include my house
and Senate members every step of the way on national issues
as well as local issues to try to build those relationships.
So to the degree possible-- maybe I'm being selfish about
this but--
I am being selfish about this.
You build relationships, and you get to know communities.
And you build on that.
So obviously, if I'm going to lose population,
that's going to change to some degree.
But I just ask the wisdom of the Joint Redistricting Committee
to consider the community of interest
and the cohesiveness that exists right
now in the eighth congressional district.
And I just ask you to try to maintain as much
of that cohesiveness as you possibly
can during your very difficult task.
That's all I got.
And so Mr. Chairman, as you know,
we plan everything at the same time in Congress.
So I'm currently in another hearing
on the opioid crisis in the House Committee
on Oversight and Government Reform.
And so I'm going to have to jump in and out.
But I do have Jason [? Cardy ?] who
works with me on a regular basis and has
worked on these redistricting plans before.
He will be on the call throughout,
as well as some of my other colleagues
from the 8th congressional district.
And I understand this is being recorded as well.
So if I do have to jump off briefly to testify and answer
questions in that hearing--
you all are very familiar with this.
So I'll jump back and forth, but I hope--
well, look, no disrespect is meant to the importance
of this hearing.
It's just that we've all got a lot of things on our plate
right now.
And this happens to be one of them.
Congressman, we certainly understand that.
And we most certainly understand the importance
of dealing with the opioid issue.
We know that you have always been committed
to that issue over your career.
I am thrilled that you came to testify today.
As a former member of the House, as a former member
of the Senate, as somebody who came from this legislature,
it's always great to keep those relationships going
and work together on where we can work together.
And we always have you.
And I know the many, many reps and senators [INAUDIBLE]
district have nothing but great things to say about you.
I have no questions, but I would open up
to my colleagues on the committee
if they have any questions for the Congressman.
OK.
Hearing no questions, Congressman, good luck.
We know you'll be tuning in, but thank you for your testimony.
I'd like to [INAUDIBLE] the Commonwealth.
Thank you.
All right.
So next we're going to try and get
Katrina Huff [? Larman, ?] town councilor
from the town of Randolph, will be up next to testify.
But as we wait for her to come on,
I'd like to introduce a couple of my colleagues
that have recently joined us.
The gentleman from Mattapoisett, Representative Bill Strauss
is on the Zoom.
The gentleman from Haverhill, Andy Vargas, is also with us.
And the gentleman from Southwick,
gentlemen Nick Buldiga, is also joined us.
Thank you for joining us at this hearing.
If Katrina Huff is ready, we'd love to hear your testimony.
I can see you on my screen, Katrina.
Do you see me?
I can hear you now.
Even better.
OK.
Will I be seen or no?
We can see you and hear you know.
OK.
All right.
Excellent.
Oh, thank you.
I didn't expect to be called so soon.
I don't know what to think about this.
so hi, how are you today?
My name is [? Trina Huff ?] [? Larman. ?] I'm actually from
the 7th congressional district.
And I'm just here to inform you of some of our experiences
and also some growth that we would
like to see here in the 7th congressional district.
As you know, recently, we have changed
our congressional district to majority minority.
And I feel like we have been successful in gaining
a trusting voice in Congresswoman Ayanna
Pressley who seems to understand her constituents
and able to speak along with her professional experiences
and everything that comes with her on a professional level
and as a Black woman-- seems to understand
our district on a number of different levels.
Not that the previous Congressman
was not knowledgeable, but I would
say not as knowledgeable as a--
he was a terrific person who definitely
listened to his constituents.
But I definitely see the difference
with Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley
being present and representing us, representing
the town of Randolph.
And the lens that she wears that she
understands how to engage with the community
and see the need--
recently, she fought really hard for Randolph
to receive monies due to the COVID-19
because she understood that Randolph is a majority minority
community who have been hit really hard from COVID.
So just part of her understanding around that
and working towards helping our district in a way
that normally we have not received that attention.
Now, I would also like to just add
to how well recently our congressional district has
been running due to some of the district redistricting--
and I think that redistricting was in 2010.
And we've had Congresswoman Pressley
for two terms at this point.
Because we are seeing how wonderful this redistricting
has worked for us, we are just as
concerned and interested in looking
at our state districting and our representative districts
and as senate districting.
But I know that's what the 7th--
that's for our 7th district.
And I know you're talking about the eighth district,
but I just wanted to throw that in there as well.
Thank you, Councilor.
10 years ago, we were able to for the first time
create a truly majority minority district.
And as you eloquently put, Ayanna Pressley
is now the Congress lady from that district.
There were other areas around the map where
we created opportunity districts for many of the House
seats and Senate seats.
Some of them were successful.
And some of them weren't.
One of the gentlemen that's on this committee, Frank Moran,
is one of the people who, because
of the districts that we do in Lawrence, was able to win.
And he is from the Dominican Republic.
And you have other districts you draw like in Worcester.
We do a district out there that was majority minority.
And the person who represents it now isn't a minority.
But you can draw the district.
You can't predict who people are going to vote for.
And I think that's probably a good thing,
because if a candidate is good, they're good.
And if they connect with people, they connect with people.
And sometimes that comes in all sorts
of colors and personalities.
So thank you for your testimony.
I will offer now to any of the members of the committee
if they have any questions for Councilor.
Hearing no questions, thank you for your testimony.
I very much appreciate it.
And have a good day.
Thank you so much.
All right.
Next up to testify is District Counselor from Boston, Frank
Baker, is here to testify.
Frank, are you with us?
I am, Mr. Chair.
I'm more here to just listen to see which way we're
going to move forward in the redistricting
right from the feds all the way down
to when we have it in Boston.
I appreciate your leadership.
And like I said, I just want to figure out
where we're going to be going in the next year.
And I appreciate you guys at the State House.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor.
As always, we appreciate your brevity.
But I don't know who is next.
I think it might be Mayor Sullivan from Brockton.
Is he on the call?
Mayor Sullivan?
[INAUDIBLE]
OK.
Mayor Sullivan is not.
I'm going to call out all the people who
registered to testify.
So at least if they're on the call,
they can make it known to us.
I don't believe any of these electors
that registered to testify are here, but I have to call them.
Evidently, Mayor Sullivan is on the call.
OK.
I believe the Mayor of Brockton is on the call.
And he's on the call is Carrie Richards, so he
must be having--
borrowing somebody else's computer.
Mayor Sullivan, are you with us?
Chairman, I am here.
I'm so sorry.
I'm not a techie.
At the age of 51, I'm not sure what I'm doing,
but I want to thank you Chair Moran and Chair
[? Brownsberger. ?] I want to thank every member of the Joint
Committee.
It really is an honor and privilege
to be here with you today.
I want to thank what you do, your dedication
to the Commonwealth.
I am the mayor of Brockton.
My name is Bob Sullivan.
But I'm a lifelong Brocktonian.
And I just want to take a moment to give you my humble thoughts
as a Brocktonian but also to let you know, as the Mayor
of Brockton, I want to thank the three state reps that we have--
Lita Cronan, Jerry Cassidy, Michelle Du Bois,
and Senator Mike Brady.
Back in the 1990s, after Brian Donnelly left Congress,
Brockton was split in two--
Joe Moakley and Gerry [? Studds. ?]
And when you split a municipality--
the city of Brockton is the only city of Plymouth County--
it didn't work very well.
When Steve Lynch became our Congressman
and we were the 8th congressional district,
it has been flawless.
It has been awesome.
Steve Lynch has been a champion for our city of champions
here at Brockton.
We have lost 434 residents to the deadly virus
known as COVID.
First person that stepped up was Steve Lynch.
He came here.
He met with us.
What can you do?
Money and PPE.
So in my humble opinion, I'm going to ask respectfully
that all the members of the redistricting committee
please consider my thoughts right now.
If we split Brockton in two, I think
it's going to have a detrimental impact to the citizens,
the voters, the constituencies, the people that
are the taxpayers of the city of Brockton.
I really just want to thank Congressman Lynch
for his day-to-day operations of working diligently,
not just for the city of Brockton
but for the eighth district.
But in terms of the city of Brockton,
I really think it would be best served
if Congressman Lynch stays in that position to represent us.
His team has worked so flawlessly with our team,
again from getting US financial assistance
to helping those that were lost here in the city of Brockton.
So again, my thought is don't change anything here
in Brockton.
I think that the State Senate and the three state reps
are unbelievable advocates and public servants.
Governor's councilors as well, but Congressman Lynch
has done yeoman's work.
He truly is just unbelievable.
And I want to go on record saying
I would respectfully ask that the city of Brockton
not be changed.
You don't change what's not broken.
And Brockton's not broken.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mayor Sullivan.
Thank you very much.
And I think one of your colleagues from the House side
is here.
Michelle Du Bois is on watching.
Welcome, Michelle.
I have no questions.
I just wanted to put it out to the members of the committee.
Is there any questions for Mayor Sullivan
from members of the committee?
Hearing none, thank you, Mayor Sullivan.
And enjoy the rest of your day.
Thank you, everybody.
Excellent.
All right.
So that concludes all of the elected officials
that we have testified and signed on.
I'm going to move to the next list of people.
We got some panels--
I'd like to testify.
Oh, I'm sorry you didn't sign off on the thing,
but that's fine.
You can testify, Representative.
I thought I did.
Please forgive me.
It must have been an oversight with my aid.
No worries, no worries.
Representative, we always like to make
exceptions for our colleagues in the House.
So Representative Du Bois, please
join us and give us your testimony.
Thank you very much.
I just want to say I appreciate Chairman Moran and Chairman
Brownsberger and the committee's efforts in redistricting.
It's something that I'm very interested in locally,
having been a city councilor and through the redistricting.
So I just first want to say I think Congressman Lynch does
an excellent job.
He has been open, accessible, real champion
for the city of Brockton.
And I support everything that Mayor Sullivan
has so well said already about remaining
with Congressman Lynch.
I think that it is a wonderful match.
Having Brockton tied to Quincy is an economic advantage
for the city.
But just taking Congressman Lynch's comments
and interpreting them now, if there is a change,
I think Brockton has a lot more in common with Fall
River and New Bedford than Cape Cod and in a lot more common,
frankly, with Ayanna Pressley's district.
And so if that is going to happen,
I'd like to see Brockton stay with the metro areas
and areas that have people of color as a more of a majority
because Brockton is a majority minority non-white city.
And I would like that to be held up.
And I would like to have our district be in a district
where there are other communities such as Brockton
and they have a good representation.
So if there's going to be a change,
I really would be upset if Brockton got split in two.
I think that wouldn't be good for us.
We've seen in the past that wasn't good for us,
so I hope that that doesn't happen.
Also, I would really like Brockton's 10th Plymouth
district that I am so honored to represent
right now to get a minority majority designation.
And I've spoken with Chairman Moran
about this in our meeting.
And I appreciate your efforts and your dialogue around it.
But I just wanted to express that publicly.
I've campaigned on it.
And if we can do it, I think that would
be a really great thing for Brockton.
And then the last thing I just wanted to say
is I read an article about a hearing that recently happened
about taking away the local board's
authority around creating ward and districting because
of the timeline and needing six months
in order to live in the district or all this stuff.
And I just want to express how important it
is that those functions stay at the local level.
As an example, I live in 60.
But right across the street is 6A.
And I have a lot of constituents who
live right on the line between two different wards
in Brockton, be it Ward 6 and Ward 5 or so
and such and so on.
So just having the local community
have an input on those interior lines is important.
I'm having dialogue with citizens
about where people vote.
So right now, we have people that live in 5A voting in 5B.
Representative Cassidy has 5A, and I have 5B at the library.
And it causes some confusion.
And we have people, 160 units of extremely low income
family housing.
And they have a polling location right across the street.
But that isn't where they vote.
They vote very far away.
And a lot of them don't have cars.
And it diminishes their ability to vote.
And so I'm working at the local level
to get those changes made in the ward redistricting.
And if that gets put onto the state legislature,
I don't know if you'll actually save time because then you'll
have state representatives having
to make sure they know the lay of the land in their wards
and districts so they can get to the nuance.
So those are my comments.
I'm very sorry that I didn't sign up or there was a snafu.
And I appreciate everyone's efforts.
And thank you for having this hearing in my district.
Welcome to my district, virtually.
It is a beautiful place.
Thank you.
Excellent.
Thank you for your comments.
And I just want to--
we've been going through a lot with COVID.
We didn't want to wear masks.
We didn't want to do a lot of things.
But unfortunately, the COVID has caused our census numbers
to come in very late.
And we are under a rush to get it done before November 8.
So there is a movement-- and I am supporting it--
where we would do the we reprecincting
after doing the districts because it
just would take too long.
So if that's what you're referring to,
that's the position.
Chairman Moran, for my district, I
feel confident that I could communicate with you
and your committee would be diligent and fair
in the redistricting.
And I know that this type of nuance
as to where certain wards actually vote and making sure
that the low income folks have access to a local voting
right across the street or in their building-- seniors
instead of having to go out of the building
and walk by polling and then have to get in the car
and drive somewhere else.
That could be accomplished because I'm really
in the weeds on this stuff.
But I just worry if all 160 state representatives
are going to be able to--
find that a priority.
And no offense--
That will be left at the local level.
We have no intention of getting involved in that, so.
OK?
OK, thank you.
All right.
Thank you.
So next to testify, keeping with the Brockton theme,
Marie [? Jacques ?] [? Torssant. ?] Am I saying
that right?
Marie, are you with us?
She needs to unmute.
OK.
Marie, can you unmute?
Good afternoon.
I am Marie Jacques [? Tossant. ?]
I live in Brockton.
I am volunteer at [INAUDIBLE] Center.
[INAUDIBLE] Center is a Haitian organization.
I am so happy to be with you.
And thank you for having me.
In my community, we have low, low income.
We have so many programs because with the COVID-19,
we have so much issue in the Haitian community.
I would like you to [? work ?] with the Haitian community
because we have a lot of [? need ?] with vaccination
with COVID-19.
We want to the community--
we want [INAUDIBLE] in the community and talk more with
them because they are--
my community is hard.
I would like you to [? talk ?] a lot
about the Haitian community.
Thank you for having.
Thank you, Maria.
I appreciate your testimony.
Let me ask my colleagues if anybody
has any questions for Marie.
All right.
Hearing none, I appreciate your testimony.
Enjoy the rest of your day.
Next we have a Ruth St. Louis from Dorchester.
Ruth, are you with us?
Ruth, can you hear us?
I'm told she's coming in right now.
So give us a minute for Ruth to get up here.
OK.
Ruth, we need you to unmute.
Can you unmute for us?
I see you.
You're on my screen.
There we go.
Welcome, Ruth.
Hi.
Your name is on the list of people
that would like to testify on the congressional 8th
redistricting hearing.
Do you have anything to add?
No, I want to know if we have somebody
here can translate for me because I
don't speak very well.
I don't want to make a mistake.
Ruth, what's your native language?
Haitian Creole.
Haitian.
OK.
Now, we are intent on having a Haitian Creole hearing
specifically for your language.
So we have interpreters at that hearing.
So we will contact you when that hearing happens
to make sure that you'll have the appropriate interpreters
at that time.
Is that OK?
Yes.
No problem.
OK.
Thank you very much.
We appreciate you attending this.
Yes.
Give us one second here while I get the next person
ready to testify.
OK.
Looks like we have a panel next.
And I believe it's Matthew McCloskey and Hillary Sullivan.
And they are from progressive West Roxbury Roslindale.
Matthew and Hillary?
You're muted, Matthew.
Maybe you're not.
No, we're not hearing you.
Matt, I'm happy to jump in while you work on--
Hilary, we can hear you.
OK, great.
I'll hop in.
And hopefully Matt figure out his audio, but.
Hilary, welcome, welcome, welcome.
Thank you.
Thank you, Rep Moran and other members of the committee
for holding this hearing.
My name is Hilary Sullivan.
I'm a Roslindale resident within the city of Boston.
I serve on the Roslindale Village Main Street
Board, my local neighborhood board, and Roslindale West
Roxbury progressives group.
And I've been actively engaged in Roslindale for the last 12
years.
And we certainly have great support
from many elected officials, but I think we really--
I think what's challenging for us
is that, at the city, state, and federal level,
we just have so many different--
Roslindale is split in so many different ways.
So in the city, we've got three district city councilors
that cover Roslindale.
We have five state reps.
We have three state senators and then, of course,
federally have the two US reps.
So I've been working as a part of many people
to make Roslindale a more cohesive community.
We are a really diverse community.
And we're really working hard to make sure
that Roslindale is a healthy and vibrant community where
people of all backgrounds can come together to,
as we like to say, eat, shop, play, work, and live.
But certainly, what we know about Boston
and about many other communities is that there are also
some real challenges that we're facing,
from housing and food shortages to climate change
to racial reckoning.
And what we really feel like we need
is clear representation from single reps
that are going to be able to cover our entire neighborhood.
I think so often when we're advocating or asking
for support, it can be really hard to navigate
the complex web of who is our representative, including
at the US rep level.
And in my day job, I actually work with college students
to engage them in service and civic engagement initiatives.
And I see more students who are getting
involved in national elections.
But so often students just have absolutely no sense
of who their local and state and even US reps are.
And so as I work to help them understand
those representatives, having representation
that is clearer and more whole within neighborhoods
and within communities is really key to helping people
be able to engage their reps.
So when we think about bringing neighborhoods
like Jamaica Plain or like Roslindale
into one congressional district, I
think that really helps make our elected officials more
accessible to people.
It helps make it a little bit easier.
And it's a complex process, but it
helps make it a little bit easier for the average person
to be able to contact their elected officials.
And it certainly makes it easier for those of us who
are working to make our neighborhood better
when we are able to be in one single district.
So I would love to advocate for that
as you move forward in this process.
Thanks so much.
Thank you, Hilary.
Just a couple of things--
Roslindale as a whole is not big enough to have its own rep.
So it's going to have to be in a district with somebody else.
So that's one.
Two is, on the federal level, the way
we went about creating the two districts in Boston was,
if you were a majority minority precinct,
you went into then representative
Capuano district.
And if you were not, you went into Representative Lynch's
district.
I tell you that only because we did have a number of people
specifically in Roslindale and JP that
wanted to be included in the Capuano district
back then-- now the Ayanna Pressley district.
But that would run counter to one
of the principles of redistricting,
which is to drawing a healthy minority majority district.
And if we added--
if we added Roslindale or JP precincts that were white,
then we would in fact be watering down that number.
So I hope that sort of--
sometimes you don't understand the reasons
districts are drawn, but that's one of the principles.
Also one of the principles are keeping neighborhoods
and cities and towns whole.
So that would fall directly under what
you are trying to advocate for.
And I definitely appreciate your testimony.
And if we can make that happen, it's
certainly something on the House Committee
that I would love to do.
But I just wanted to let you know
why the two districts in Boston look the way they look.
And it was really a function of making the strongest majority
minority district we could 10 years ago,
quite frankly the first time we ever drew a true majority
minority district.
So anyways, that was just for clarification.
I wanted now to move to Matthew if we fix
the audio problem for Matthew.
I hope so.
Can you hear me now?
Yeah, I can hear.
Thank you.
Welcome, welcome.
Thank you.
So my testimony is going to be in many ways similar
to Hilary's.
But I wanted to quickly address one of your statements, which
we totally understand the drawing of the majority
minority district Roslindale as a cohesive unit according
to the last update was 49% white.
It isn't technically majority minority.
I'm sure you've seen the map.
We're a little thumb sticking up with Jamaica Plain
up in to Boston.
And as a result, it ends up being kind of left out.
But to introduce myself, my name is Matt McCloskey.
I'm a steering committee member of progressive West Roxbury
Roslindale, and like Hilary, a member of a number
of local groups as well.
I'm also a Roslindale resident and a parent.
I'm speaking primarily to ask that Roslindale be considered
as a cohesive unit.
I spoke to a number of people in preparing to speak.
And that was the leading concern from everybody.
People said, regardless of who the representation is,
as I said, it's very confusing that the dividing line
is where it is.
So Roslindale Village is the heart of the community.
It's a commercial center.
It's a transportation hub.
And the current district boundaries actually
use Washington Street, which is the central artery
of Roslindale the dividing line between district 7 and 8.
And it divides the community in a way that
looks very logical when you look at a map
because it's a long straight road.
However, it divides a really coherent community in two.
Washington Street itself is a primary connector
for 19,000 daily commuters by [? via 10 ?] bus lines.
And there's been a lot of conversation about what
should happen there.
And it's really hard to speak for representatives
because it is literally the dividing line
between two districts.
In fact, the Roslindale Village community--
excuse me, commuter rail station that
connects to the Roslindale Village bus stations
are literally in different districts
despite being a couple hundred feet apart.
Washington Street-- it's a long, straight street.
It's a major travel route, but it's not a highway.
It's a local business route.
It represents a lot of business on both sides.
And currently, it also divides the local community centers.
Both schools, senior centers are divided in half.
And as a result, as Hilary said, one of the issues we have is we
have a hard time getting the resources and the attention
from reps because in addition to,
as Hilary stated, five state reps, three state senators,
three different city councilors, and every one
of those districts is primarily situated outside of Roslindale.
[INAUDIBLE] will be testifying at those hearings as well.
And as you mentioned, [INAUDIBLE],,
we share a community group.
We are very active with a number of people
who are at local politics in Hyde Park
and in Jamaica Plain who are in two different districts.
And if you look at-- if you were to look at a map,
again, as I mentioned, Roslindale
is in fact a majority minority community, if only barely.
And if you look at the Eastern edge of Roslindale
is actually bounded by two cemeteries and a golf
course, which make a really clear dividing line
between communities of interest between Roslindale
and the communities that go beyond,
rather than drawing the dividing line right
down the middle of a community.
And hopefully, we're really hoping that
through this redistricting process--
we're excited to have the chance to really emphasize
the voice of the community which has really been sort of pulled
apart in every different direction
to really kind of bring it back together.
So thank you very much for the time.
Sorry for the technical issue.
Thank you, Matthew.
I appreciate it.
Two comments-- one is, 10 years ago, Roslindale
as a whole was not majority minority.
Now, it may very well [? bear ?] out that in the last 10 years,
that through natural--
they've matured to majority minority.
And the second thing is this is a frustration that we
had 10 years ago, and one that I think many
of the advocates share on this.
And this is a Boston issue.
A lot of this stuff with these lines
would be helpful if we underwent a reprecincting in Boston.
And it's one thing that we recommended
at the end of the redistricting 10 years ago.
Then Chairman Stan Rosenberg and myself
did a analysis of the whole process.
And one of the things we recommended,
along with counting our prisoners differently,
was that Boston reprecinct.
And unfortunately, it didn't.
So we're dealing with what we're dealing with.
But if we could get the advocates to stay together
in the next 10 years and make that happen,
that would be very helpful for whoever is
doing this 10 years from now.
And it won't be me, I can guarantee you that.
But listen, Matthew, I have no questions.
I have no questions for Hilary.
But let me offer it up to my members of the committee
if they have any questions for Hilary or Matthew.
Anybody?
Mr. Chairman?
Senator Brownsberger?
Yes, please.
Thank you.
Would you be able to, either now or just in a
follow up, just articulate within the existing ward
and precinct boundaries the neighborhood that you feel
needs to be united?
I could see Roslindale on the map, but I don't know--
I want to know what you consider to be Roslindale.
If you're saying something needs to be united and kept together,
if you could articulate the specific boundaries of that,
that would be helpful to us.
Would it be helpful now?
Or would you like me to follow up--
Yeah, hit us.
Yeah, hit us if you got it.
Absolutely.
So currently, Roslindale radiates out
from Roslindale Village.
If you were to take a look at a map right now--
I'm looking at a map.
OK.
So if you look at a map, Roslindale
is sort of divided on either side.
If you look on its Eastern boundaries of what
most people would consider to be the Roslindale community area,
the eastern end is pretty clearly divided
if you look at Forrest Hills Cemetery, the Mount Hope
Cemetery, the George White Golf Course, and the Stone Hills
Reservation.
And then obviously, there's some other dividers
between exactly where [? Mattapan ?] and Hyde Park
start in there.
But the grouping around the center of Roslindale
is really where we most strongly feel that's important.
And on the western boundary, it's
pretty equally divided where it cuts off with Brookline.
So the VFW Parkway consist of [INAUDIBLE]..
Because we're lucky enough to live near the Emerald Necklace,
there's actually some pretty clear green spaces
that divide a neighborhood as well as feels
like a coherent section where you feel like you're leaving
one area and moving to another.
And so that's what we would say.
Obviously, I'd be happy to work--
we're happy to talk to anyone about where
it's helpful to draw the actual lines.
But those [? two ?] would seem to make sense
in terms of keeping together what
we consider to be a community.
Does that help?
Yeah.
Forgive me.
It would actually be most helpful if you could take out
the city of Boston ward and precinct map
and reply to the committee saying,
I would like ward 19 precincts 7, 12, 11, 13--
those are the ones I'm looking at around Roslindale.
But I'd like to know how you divide that
and speaking the language of Boston wards
in precincts as they're currently drawn.
That is what I can actually work with.
I believe--
I would love to do that.
I will follow up with your office with that.
I believe Roslindale in this exchange [INAUDIBLE]
was ward 20 precincts 1, 2, 3, 4.
[INAUDIBLE]
1, 2, 3, and part of 4, was it?
You're saying wards and precinct, or ward precinct?
Ward 20 precincts 1, 2, 3, and part of 4.
I believe that's--
And a few 19s.
Yeah.
And actually, technically, I actually live in 28.
And [? 28's ?] 9 are generally also considered
to be a part of Roslindale.
Send us back what you consider the core in that vocabulary,
if you would.
Absolutely.
Appreciate it.
Any of the members of the committee have questions?
All right.
Hearing none, thank you very much for your testimony,
Matthew and Hilary.
Next up we have Michaela Robinson from Brockton.
Michaela?
Hello.
Thank you all for having me here today.
My name is Michaela Robinson.
Welcome.
Thank you.
Yes, I'm Michaela.
I am a resident of Brockton.
I'm also a proud union member of the United Auto Workers Local
2320 and just want to speak briefly today about
my experience in Brockton and the community I live in.
So I live in West Brockton near the Westgate Mall.
And my community is a mixture of single family homes, duplexes,
triple deckers, apartment complexes.
And there is a pretty good mix of people who both own
their homes or people who rent.
And my neighbors in particular reflect the diversity
of Brockton.
Brockton is a majority minority community.
I personally have neighbors who are black, Latinx, and white.
My fiance and I are both Asian.
There's a good amount of elderly couples living by.
I can think about my neighbor right
across the street who's been living there
for quite some time.
And there's also a lot of families
with children of all ages.
Some of them have lived in Brockton for their whole lives.
And then there's others who are newer immigrants
to this country or children of immigrants
who have moved to Brockton.
I myself have moved to Brockton from Dorchester.
And I think, as you can see from some
of the other Brockton residents who have spoken already,
there's a variety of languages spoken in our community
from Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Vietnamese,
and even other Asian languages as well.
So I think my interest here is making sure
that, as a resident of Brockton, we have representatives
who reflect our community.
And I know that we're in a district with some
of the surrounding suburbs.
And I'll just say that from my experience,
Brockton is pretty different from communities
such as Easton, which is predominantly white, slightly
older population.
Also, from just talking with folks,
it seems that Eastern is a little bit wealthier.
So I think there's some pretty significant differences
in our communities and would like
to see Brockton in a district with representatives
who do share the same interests that other residents
of Brockton share as well.
Thank you.
Thank you, Michaela.
I appreciate your testimony.
I have no questions, but let me ask members of the committee.
Does anybody have a question for Michaela?
OK.
Hearing none, thank you, Michaela, for your testimony.
We very much appreciate it.
I am going to take a gentleman out of turn here because he's
an elected official and we try to accommodate them where
we can because of schedules.
Jesse Gordon-- he is a Randolph town council district 2--
Randolph.
Jesse Gordon, are you with us?
Yes.
Can you hear me?
There we go.
Thank you, Jesse.
Welcome.
Thank you.
I'll comment on the 8th District.
But if you saw with my notes that I submitted,
I actually think the more relevant aspect
is the State Senate and State Rep
districting that I guess follows from the federal district
thing.
I would say I'm certainly very happy with our representation
with Representative Pressley.
I think that the mix in this district,
of which we're at the very southern end, is pretty good.
Our dominant groups are Vietnamese, Haitian.
And I guess a somewhat third is Spanish speaking.
And I think that those three groups are pretty heavily
represented throughout the district.
And we feel represented.
In other words, we feel that Representative Pressley
does come to Randolph on a regular basis.
We're very happy with that.
And keeping us in the district as a whole town represented
in the 8th would be great with me.
And I think I speak for a lot of Randolph with respect to that.
That's not quite true with the State Senate and State House
districts.
The State Senate district--
I understand that there's a movement
to have us combined with Brockton,
in other words have the State Senate district move
South instead of to the North.
As my fellow testifier from Brockton just spoke about now,
most of the communities surrounding Randolph
are predominantly white.
Randolph is majority minority, as is Brockton.
And I think that making a State Senate district centered
on the majority minority areas around here,
which mean Brockton the Randolph-- and Quincy perhaps,
too--
would be a real benefit to Randolph as well as
to Brockton.
My real focus is on the State House districts,
where we are in three different state rep districts.
And I think I speak for a lot of people in Randolph.
I feel that we are not very well represented in the State House
at all We have not had a state rep from Randolph
in a couple of decades now--
I think 25 years--
primarily because of what I consider cracking of Randolph
into three different districts.
The first district, the one that I live in,
is Representative Driscoll's district.
And we are overwhelmed in population
by the people of Milton.
The district was split with the Boston district, the north
part of Milton, which is predominantly African-American.
That part of Milton goes with Boston.
That's near Mattapan Square.
The rest of Milton, which is predominantly white,
is combined with North and Central Randolph.
And that is not a majority minority district,
even though the part of Milton that's
not in that district in Representative Dricoll's
district is majority minority and Randolph
is majority minority.
So that split, combining half of Milton with almost half
of Randolph, makes it not majority minority.
Similarly, the district-- just to give you the numbers.
I heard you ask for the numbers before.
That is the 7th Norfolk is Representative Bill Driscoll.
First Norfolk is the same situation where,
combined with Quincy--
this is now the East side of Randolph
is combined with Quincy.
This district, if you look at the map of it,
looks like it's contiguous.
In fact, it's not contiguous because there's the Blue Hill
State Park in between.
There's really two very distinct areas in question.
The part of Randolph is in the district,
which is several precincts, but not quite
enough so that we have a dominant voice in the district.
In other words, more than half the district is Quincy.
And it's not the minority part of Quincy.
It's the majority white part of Quincy near Marina Bay
and so on.
And because it's more Quincy than Randolph,
we're outnumbered in that district too,
and we can't get a representative elected
in that district either.
The contiguity problem, which I understand
is one of the major purposes of redistricting,
is not really true for the First Norfolk district.
Because there's a large part of the Blue Hill State Park
in the middle, there's really two sections
of the district which are isolated
from each other by a dozen miles.
To drive to Marina Bay from Randolph takes a half an hour.
There's no streets in between.
There's no population in between.
So it's really two distinct districts
that are not contiguous at all.
That is also true for the Seventh Norfolk
district, the one I live in.
But the separation is somewhat smaller.
The Randolph section of the district and the Milton
part of the district-- yes, they're contiguous.
It's mostly Blue Hills in between.
But for the Quincy district-- that's the First Norfolk--
it is entirely the Blue Hills in between.
So it's entirely discontiguous.
The third district is Fifth Norfolk.
That's Representative Mark Cussack from Braintree.
That's mostly Braintree.
And we're outnumbered there, too.
The point is that if we had a Randolph-centric state rep
district, we would be, number one, able
to elect a resident of Randolph as the state rep.
And number two, it would be a majority minority district,
which is, I believe, one of the primary purposes
of redistricting.
Thank you.
OK, thank you.
Jeff, I would just point out a couple of things for you.
To the South of Randolph is Brockton.
And that's the nearest place we can go on the map from a House
perspective to gain some minorities to make Randolph
a majority minority district.
Randolph, as it sits itself, is 32,000 people,
which would make it 11,000 short of being its own district.
So if you were going to do that, you
would have to go somewhere to add minorities to Randolph.
And wherever you went, it would have to be a majority minority.
And it's surrounded by Avon, which
is no help, Stoughton and Canton and Milton, which is no help,
and Braintree, which is no help.
So to find population to add to Randolph--
because again, it's only 32,000, and it would
need roughly 11,000 people--
there is none to make it a majority minority district.
You're right in the fact that Randolph is a majority minority
city.
The problem is it's only 32,000.
And it's slightly a majority minority city.
It's not overwhelmingly a majority minority.
So I only point that out to give you
a front row seat to the complications when you're
trying to do these things.
I can only speak to the House map.
It's not that that wasn't looked at all.
It's just that when we did every opportunity we could have
to draw minority majority districts 10 years ago,
we could only get to 20.
And the advocates were looking for 19.
We found another one and got to 20.
So we will look at it again.
I give you my word.
We will look at Randolph again.
And who knows what's happened in the last 10 years.
Maybe it's spiked in population more than we expect.
And if it does, we will take a serious look at it.
But I just wanted to at least give to you the methodology
that we used 10 years ago the reasons why
we can't make Randolph itself a majority minority district.
Understood.
All right?
May I comment on it?
Yeah.
Sure.
No problem, Jesse.
So you're right on the fact that all
of the immediately surrounding towns are majority white.
However, if you look at particular precincts,
that's not always true.
And by the way, I expect that the Randolph population
will increase to about 35,000.
So we're not quite 11,000 short.
It's more like 8,000 short, which
means a precinct or two is really what needs to be added.
In Milton in particular, there are majority minority precincts
in Milton.
In other words, if Milton were split
along the right lines, which means precinct one and two,
with Randolph, I think those are actually
majority minority precincts.
Depends on the census, of course.
But that's the most minority dense area of Milton.
So it is possible--
Let me tell you that those two majority minority
precincts you're talking about are in the 12th Suffolk
District, which is a majority minority district.
I know.
I understand.
So that would be taking them away from another minority--
and you'd have to travel to a significant amount of Milton
to get to those precincts, though.
That's the only problem.
You'd have to go through a fair amount of white precincts
before you got to the majority minority districts.
Yes.
Understood.
The other part of what you said that it wouldn't help-- yes,
it's true it wouldn't increase the majority minority
population of the district.
But it wouldn't hurt so much that we still
wouldn't be majority minority.
In other words, if we added the nearest precinct of Stoughton,
Avon, and maybe even Holbrook to add one or two precincts,
I think--
it depends exactly on what the census
numbers are-- we would end up still being majority minority.
Stoughton in particular, there is continuity reasons for that
because some of Stoughton on the Randolph side of Route 24.
That precinct is majority white, but it's not so majority white
that it would swamp the majority minority content of Randolph.
I think it's the same for Avon, that,
yes, they're majority white.
But they are not so overwhelmingly white
that that data would overwhelm the majority minority
if you added that to Randolph.
So it wouldn't help, but it wouldn't
hurt so much that we would lose majority minority status.
Well, Jesse, I get your point.
I hear where you're coming from.
We are absolutely going to be looking at those things
as we did 10 years ago.
And I appreciate you drawing them
to our attention in this testimony.
And unless my committee members have a question, which
I will offer right up right now-- if anybody
has any questions for Jesse?
Hey, Jesse.
I just want to say it's nice to see you.
Nice to see you, Representative Brownsberger.
My former rep from North Cambridge.
All right.
Well, hearing no questions, thank
you, Jesse, for your testimony.
Thank you very much.
Give me one second and I'm going to line up the next person.
Hold on one sec.
OK.
So we have another elected that has joined us
in Kelly Cobb from the Braintree School Committee.
If you're with us, would you make yourself known
and testify?
Oh, hi.
Thank you so much I just signed in about,
but I didn't realize I was signing up to testify.
No worries.
If you'd like to testify, go ahead.
If not, then we'll just move on.
I'm just going to listen today.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you, Kelly.
We appreciate it.
Thank you.
OK.
So next, it looks like we have a panel
of people that are from-- it looks like the JP Progressives.
And that's the Jamaica Plain, for those of you
who are not Boston people.
We have Martha [INAUDIBLE],, Michael [INAUDIBLE],,
Cindy Lou, and Melissa Beltran.
And they're on here as the JP Progressive Organizations.
Rep Moran, do you also have Zeba [INAUDIBLE] listed?
I do, but she hadn't checked in.
So maybe if she's here, she can also join us.
I am here.
Excellent.
There you go.
There you have it.
So why don't I go to do in order that I have it?
So why don't you go first, Zeba?
Great.
Thank you very much.
Can you see me and hear me?
Yes, right?
Oh, I can you see you, yep.
OK, great.
So I'd just like to start by thanking the redistricting
committee chairs, Rep Moran and Senator Williams Brownsberger
and the rest of the committee for holding this hearing
and just for engaging the community.
It's impressive, I have to say, to hear your knowledge
at the precinct level.
My name is Zeba [? Kramer. ?] I'm
the Co-chair of the Elections Committee for Jamaica Plain
Progressives.
We're a chapter of progressive Mass.
I'm also the local Democratic ward committee.
JP Progressive's an all volunteer grassroots community
organization.
We've been organizing for progressive candidates
on issues in our neighborhood, in the city of Boston,
and the state since 2009.
We have over 5,000 members and about 200 active volunteers.
And we're participating today also as a member of the Joint
Democracy Coalition, which has done an amazing job organizing
all of us.
We believe that our members, in a sense,
can constitute a community of interest
from across the neighborhoods of Jamaica Plain
and some of the bordering areas.
I don't know the ward and precinct yet,
but we can get this back to you.
But the neighborhoods are Hyde Square,
Jackson Square, Pondside, Woodbourne, Eggleston
Square, Brookside, [? Sumner Hill, ?]
Moss Hill, Jamaica Hills, JP South, Stony Brook, Park Side,
Forest Hills, and Woodbourne.
We also have some members from surrounding neighborhoods
that share our issue priorities and shared elected officials,
including in areas of Roslindale and parts of Mission Hill.
So as many of you know, Jamaica Plain
is incredibly diverse, racially and economically.
But we have very aligned voting patterns.
The Latinx community is particularly clearly strong.
It has a large cultural influence in Jamaica Plain,
as you'll hear from others.
It makes up about 21% of the population.
That's been consistent for the past 10 years
in spite of pretty intense gentrification and skyrocketing
rents.
In terms of other demographics, the black community
is also fairly strongly represented-- about 15%,
but that's declined slightly.
And the Asian population has increased slightly
to just over 8%.
So we are majority white, but we are host to the Latinx
community particularly with a really strong influence
in our neighborhood, and I would say,
defining the culture of our neighborhood.
So we are also a neighborhood with a lot of transients,
again because of gentrification.
We've grown about 5,000 people to 40,000 people in the last 10
years.
And so we're about 40,000.
Where we're seeing a lot of pressure is in the home values.
So since 2011, our home values have jumped
from about 365,000 to 678,000--
our average home value, so over a $300,000 increase.
The other big issue is and noticeable changes
that are happening is the growth in wealth inequality.
So the percentage of the population
in the income bracket over 75,000 has grown by 12%.
Now, this is putting a lot of pressure
on especially the Latinx community and low [? income ?]
renters communities that want to stay in this district.
And we want to keep that breakdown.
We're about 45-55 breakdown in terms of renters to homeowners.
And it's creating situations like we're
dealing with this week-- we have an expiring use building
with affordability restrictions are expiring,
where about 100 elderly residents in the Forbes
building are at risk of losing their apartments.
There's a rally this weekend.
And I think that rally shows how we are a community of interest.
In spite of all these changes in income and housing
and gentrification, we still remain a cohesive community
of activists.
So back in the day in the late '60s,
that community came together to prevent the highway that
led ultimately to the creation of the Southwest Corridor Park.
Later, and more recently 2016, that
organizing an activist spirit led
to the creation of Boston's official Latin Quarter,
covering Center Street from Jackson Square to Hyde Square.
And just to give you a sense of that strip there,
65% of more than 125 businesses along that street
are owned by immigrants, mostly Latinx.
And many of the most iconic businesses in our neighborhood
are Latinx owned.
So from the Oriental Cafe to Cacao, our new chocolate
and nut place from Dominican chocolate--
it's a locally owned business-- and even our cannabis
dispensary, our new cannabis dispensary.
So there really is a strong spirit in our community.
There's also alignment around the issues
that we're activating around.
So we do surveys every year of our 5,000 members.
And the top issues across the board, across demographics
are affordable housing, police reform, education equity,
health, and equality.
So our community shows up for each other
not only in the political side but also in times of need.
During COVID, a spontaneous mutual aid effort
was launched to enable peer-to-peer support
in our neighborhood, created a community fridge,
and a peer-to-peer network of over 400 families
that were being supported through just
grassroots mobilization.
I think that really shows how we operate.
The food justice programs at the First Baptist church
and the first church in JP are operating
one of the largest food access programs residents in JP
and extending all of the way to Roslindale, Hyde
Park, a little bit of Roxbury and Mattapan.
I do food delivery every Wednesday night.
And I am shuttling between Hyde Park and Jamaica Plain.
So for an activist community who is
eager to have regular engagement with our elected officials,
the fact that Jamaica Plain is currently
represented by two different state house
districts and two different congressional districts
is frustrating.
I'm responsible for data management
in our little grassroots group.
And I can tell you that I spent hours trying
to categorize which member is belonging to which districts
so that we can target our advocacy of our very
engaged community.
So in closing, as Congressman Lynch said,
the 8th District is overweight a little.
And in the process of redrawing boundaries,
I'd like to just iterate that we'd like
Jamaica Plain to be kept whole.
Our Center Street Corridor and some of the neighborhoods
that I mentioned are really important.
And we are one community.
And we want to be paired with communities that are like us
and that share our values and our priority
issues and want to prevent gentrification,
and it will elect representatives
that prioritize these issues.
We would love to be in a district that includes cities
like Hyde Park, where a lot of our displaced residents
are moving.
Brockton and Randolph-- we're also seeing a lot of movement
to those communities.
So I just wanted to share that.
And I thank you again for welcoming our testimony today.
Thank you very much for your testimony.
I'm going to call everybody on the panel.
And then I'm going to open it up for questions and discussion.
Martha [INAUDIBLE].
I'm sorry I'm butchering your last name there.
Are you with us?
Martha [INAUDIBLE].
[INAUDIBLE]
Thank you so much for allowing me to present my testimony.
I also am a member of the Jamaica Plain Progressives.
I have lived in Jamaica Plain up by Franklin Park for 37 years.
And I'm a past President of the Franklin Park
Coalition, an advocacy group.
I'm testifying today to request that the wonderful parks
and green spaces, which are mostly in district seven
but also in district eight, continue
to be in the same district.
Our green spaces are becoming ever more important places
to congregate, play, share, protest, and celebrate.
Franklin Park, Boston's largest park,
designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, is in district seven
and surrounded by four communities--
Jamaica Plain, Mattapan, Dorchester, and Roxbury, also
all in district seven.
Residents from all these neighborhoods
play cricket, soccer, softball, baseball.
Many local schools from all sides
of the park and their teams come to practice and play
in White Stadium and on the [INAUDIBLE]..
Birders, walkers, meanders, seekers of solitude
wander the pass of the woodlands in Franklin Park.
A year ago, after George Floyd's murder,
thousands of multiracial multilingual demonstrators
poured into Franklin Park, a welcoming space already known
to many of those who needed to express their grief
and outrage.
We are lucky in Jamaica Plain to have
multiple additional green spaces--
Jamaica Pond, the Emerald Necklace, the Arboretum,
and Forest Hills Cemetery.
However, there are many challenges
to adequately maintaining and restoring these common areas.
Advocacy was critical in restoring
Jamaica Pond, the Emerald Necklace, and Franklin Park.
The coalition of which I am past president
still struggles to get adequate resources
to maintain the park, nevermind restore many
of its historical features.
All these beautiful areas lie within the boundaries
of district seven, except the arboretum,
which is split between district 7 and 8.
As many of you already know, the arboretum,
while belonging to the city, is managed
by Harvard University using its own financial resources.
Compared with its sister parks, it
is by far the most curated, cleaned, and restored.
I want to strongly suggest that these beautiful green refuges,
more critical to health and well-being than ever as global
warming exacts its punishing toll,
stay in the same district, along with their surrounding
neighborhoods, which, especially in the case of Franklin Park,
have learned to advocate together for adequate resources
for beautification and maintenance.
Please do not divide the arboretum into two districts.
Harvard University is a powerful partner and advocate,
making the arboretum a showcase and model
to which park advocates can point,
illustrating what needs to happen in all
the parks in the district.
I appreciate your time in allowing me to talk about one
of my very favorite topics.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Martha.
I would like to introduce Michael [? Fishben ?] next.
But before I do, one of my colleagues has joined us--
Representative Paul Frost from Auburn.
He is the ranking minority member
on the Committee on Redistricting.
Welcome, Paul.
Michael Fishbine, what say you?
I say first and foremost, thank you, committee
Chairs Brownsberger and Moran, members of the committee,
for including us in this process.
My name's Mike Fishbine.
Proud to be joining with my colleagues
to represent JP Progressives.
I've been living in Jamaica Plain since 2005.
And I commuted to work downtown and to the Longwood
medical area from Forest Hills station on the orange line
and by bus for many years.
We believe that a community of interest
exists across JP and into our neighboring areas,
in addition to the ways you've already heard
and will hear, also around our shared use of transportation
resources.
Forest Hills station, which sits at the busy convergence
of Washington Street, Hyde Park Ave, the Arbor Way, and South
Street in JP, is a major transportation hub
for all of JP and our neighbors.
It is the southern terminus of the orange line
and a connection point for 17 bus lines and the commuter
rail.
Forest Hills buses travel Southwest through Roslindale
and West Roxbury, directly South to Hyde Park
and Southeast to Dorchester and Mattapan, and from there
to Milton, Randolph, and Stoughton.
Forest Hills gathers commuters from these areas
with those from all over JP to travel
north into Roxbury and beyond.
For JP in particular, the 39 bus from Forest Hills
which travels South Street, Center Street, and South
Huntington Ave. on its way to Huntington Avenue and Back Bay
station, connects residents from every part of JP on the way
to and from the downtown areas of our city.
In addition to buses and trains, Forest Hills station
is a hub for JP cyclists.
The popularity of bicycle travel in and around JP
prompted the addition of a large bike cage
at Forest Hills for the many residents who bike
to the T or bike to the bus.
There are also blue bike stations and Curtis Hall,
Green Street Station, Stony Brook Station,
Eggleston Square, Jackson Square Station, and Hyde Square,
as well as two stations in Franklin Park.
Recently, when updated car and bike lane lines
coincided with very bad traffic on the Arbor Way around Murray
Circle, which is the Arbor Way's intersection with Center
Street and JP's busiest rotary, the website Jamaica Plain News
reported on the enthusiastic support for those updates
from JP's bicycle advocates.
The Southwest corridor park bike lanes are always in use.
And bikes are always present at JP gatherings
like Thursdays on the Lawn at the [INAUDIBLE]
House, which had become a summertime staple pre-pandemic.
We ask that Jamaica Plain be kept whole when
drawing district boundaries.
JP residents should be able to work together
to advocate regarding the transportation resources we
all share.
And JP as a whole should be able to partner with our neighbor
communities to maintain and improve
the vital transportation services that connect us.
Thank you again to the whole committee for your work
and for welcoming our testimony.
Thank you, Michael.
Much appreciated.
Next we have Cindy Lou from Jamaica Plain.
Oh, let me make one announcement, please.
There are people who are listening.
And if you would like to testify--
if you would like to testify today, you can do so.
But we need you to go to MA--
so Mass-- legislature.gov.
MAlegislature.gov.
There is a link there for redistricting.
And if you hit that link and follow the directions
for hearing and events, you can testify
and we can get you on today.
When you testify, please use your name.
Don't use your telephone number.
So if anybody who's listening would like to testify,
MAlegislature.gov, hit the redistricting link,
and follow the directions for hearings and events.
And you'll be able to testify and we
can get you on here today.
And if anyone is having any trouble with that,
please either let us know in the chat or call my office.
722-2000-- Representative Moran's office.
And we'll try and work you through it.
OK.
Next, Cindy Lou.
What do you have to say to us?
And welcome.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify today.
And thank you for making it so accessible and easy
for us to hop on.
So I am an artist.
I've lived in Jamaica Plain for almost 15 years.
And one of the reasons I was drawn to this neighborhood
is the really vibrant arts community.
There have been wonderful art installations
in Franklin Park and organizations
like Spontaneous Celebrations and the Elliott School
have really united JP through the arts for decades.
And artists across all of JP are connected to one another
through organizations like the JP Artists Association
as well as the JP Arts Council, which puts on the JP Open
Studios every year.
But as you may know, in the past 10 to 15 years,
artists and arts organizations have really
been increasingly displaced from JP through gentrification.
And for example, the [INAUDIBLE] Street Studios
used to be able to provide affordable
workspace for more than 50 artists, which was amazing.
But they were all kicked out when
the building got bought out by a developer
more than 10 years ago.
And then more recently, artists at the Brookside Studios
were evicted when the building was sold to a developer.
And now with the pandemic, this has
created a lot more pressures.
JP used to be home to the Urbano Project at the Brewery Complex.
And they provided a lot of opportunities
for underrepresented artists, particularly artists
and youth of color, in part through their studio
and exhibition space.
They were really an important part of the art scene in JP.
But last year, with all the financial pressures
and high cost of rents, [INAUDIBLE]
had to move out of the brewery and shift
to an online format, which I think was just
an enormous loss for JP.
Other places that we last lost were the [? Avery ?] Gallery
on South Street.
These are just a few examples, but this
is a story that's really happened over and over again
with artists and arts organizations being priced out
of the neighborhood.
I live in JP, and I would have loved
to have had studio space in my own neighborhood.
But it really just isn't affordable.
So I currently have studio space in Hyde Park
along with the community of other artists
who predominantly live in JP, Roslindale, Hyde Park,
and other surrounding communities extending down
to Brockton.
And a lot of my studiomates used to live in JP
but then had to move out when they couldn't afford it
anymore.
And so as artists keep getting pushed further and further out,
we're still connected across these neighborhoods, as with
my studio collective.
But also during the pandemic, another collective
of women artists in JP, Roslindale, and Hyde
Park were able to raise money through [INAUDIBLE]
[? online ?] for the Poor People's Campaign.
They also organize to distribute food
to families in these neighborhoods.
So I think that if we really want to keep a vibrant arts
community in the Boston area, artists
need to keep a common voice across these neighborhoods
and towns.
And so I would like to see us make sure
that JP is kept together and not split,
including the neighborhood abutting Franklin Park, which
is such a great space for outdoor exhibits,
and also recognizing the existing connections
and common interests between artists communities stretching
from JP through Roslindale, Hyde Park, and down to Brockton.
Thank you.
Thank you, Cindy.
You can always come over to my neighborhood in Allston
and join our arts community.
We have plenty of artists over where I am.
So I'm sure they'd love to have you in Lower Austin, so.
But anyways, last on this panel would be Melissa Beltran.
Melissa is from Roxbury, and she is also a member
of the JP Progressives.
Melissa, what do you have to say for us?
Hi.
Thank you.
First off, I would like to thank the redistricting committee
chair Senator William Brownsberger and Representative
Mike Moran and the other members of the committee
for holding this hearing and for giving us an opportunity
to shape the future of our district.
My name is Melissa Beltran.
I grew up in a Dominican community in Jamaica Plain,
specifically in the Stony Brook neighborhood
between Washington Street and the Southwest corridor.
I am also a first generation college
student and youth activist.
And I'm passionate about making sure education
and affordable housing is accessible to people
in my community.
And that is why I am here to talk to you today.
My mom has been a Jamaica Plain renter
since coming to this country in the '80s,
following in the footsteps of the tens [? of ?] thousands
of other Hispanic immigrants who settled in the neighborhood
for over the past 60 years.
For a time, she lived near Green Street and [? Lamartine. ?]
She later moved to a Stop and Shop
on Center Street, which is another hub
for the Dominican community in Jamaica Plain.
I also went to the ABCD Daycare Center Street,
which coincidentally became my first summer
job as a 14-year-old.
And later, I attended the John F. Kennedy Elementary School
also in the neighborhood.
My family shop at the [? High Low ?] grocery
store on Center Street, which was more than a grocery store.
It was a meeting place for members
of my community with affordable Hispanic foods, which
is now a Whole Foods.
The neighborhood has been rapidly gentrifying
over the past 10 years.
Rent has been skyrocketing.
Even people with vouchers can't afford
to rent in the neighborhood anymore.
Jamaica Plain has become so expensive,
from the local corner store to the daily bus ride.
Personally, our rent went from 750 to $1,200 to $1,800
for a three bedroom over the time we have lived here.
We are able to stay because of the Section 8 vouchers,
but we are not able to financially prosper
because of the constraints of the regulations
around affordable housing.
My childhood friends and family members
are moving out of the neighborhood,
mostly to Brockton, where they are
able to purchase homes for the same price
as subsidized housing in Jamaica Plain.
Data from the census shows that in 2011,
34% of foreign-born renters were paying more than 30%
of their income on rent.
And today, that has skyrocketed to 56%.
Families like mine need to be kept together
and need representatives who understand these pressures.
And we need neighbors who will join together
to advocate to keep our communities
in the neighborhood.
We have a lot of young people who are graduating from RCC.
I am an RCC alumni.
And other community colleges are going into four year degrees
and wants to come back to the neighborhood.
But they can't afford to.
We need to be in a district with other people
who are prioritizing housing affordability
and who are represented by elected officials who
will fight to keep our community together in Boston.
And lastly, in closing, my request to the committee
is to keep JP whole so that the different hubs
of the Hispanic community can be kept together.
These hubs are along Washington Street and Eggleston,
along Center street from Jackson Square to Hyde Square.
And we want to remain part of a complete Jamaica Plain
whose strong advocacy community gives us a fighting chance
to save the small number of us who remain in this community.
And again, I just want to thank the co-chairs and my partners.
And I hope you will keep Jamaica Plain together
in a way that prioritizes my community
and prevents continued displacement.
Thank you very much, Melissa.
And thank you to the members of this panel.
I would just like to make one brief statement,
and then I will open it up to my committee
members for questions.
I just want to be very clear in the methodology we
used 10 years ago to draw the districts that
are the 7th and 8th.
The primary concern we had was drawing the strongest majority
minority district we could draw.
That was the overriding concern we had.
When we did that, the lines ended up
where the lines ended up.
What you're talking about-- a lot of you
guys are talking about communities of interest.
I can only tell you 10 years ago that drawing a strong majority
minority district trumped communities of interest.
I can't speak for myself or Senator Brownsberger
this time around, but I would imagine
we take a serious look at that majority minority number again.
And it could in fact trump a community of interest.
I just tell you that as a way for you
to understand how we look at this.
And I think most of you testifying
would agree that drawing a majority minority district that
is strong and that provides people with a voice who
may have been disenfranchised in years past
is an important thing.
And where it rubs up against things like community
of interest, obviously it's kind of frustrating for us
to do that.
But 10 years ago, it was the feeling
that the community of interest portion of a [? principal ?]
redistricting was more important than a--
sorry, the majority minority issue [INAUDIBLE]
was more important than community of interest.
So I say that just so you have an idea of why
we did what we did and what may, in fact, draw
us to do a similar thing again depending
upon when the numbers come in.
So that being said, I have no questions.
I'd love to open it up to my colleagues
and see if they have any questions.
Any members of the committee have any questions?
Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownsberger.
Thank you.
I appreciate the testimony.
And I appreciate the organization of it,
which I heard as activism, transportation.
Actually, I stepped away for a minute
during your testimony, Cindy Lou.
I apologize.
So I'm not sure I picked up--
there was a unifying theme there.
[INAUDIBLE] tenant theme.
It was around arts.
It was arts.
I thought [INAUDIBLE] beginning there.
OK.
So I guess it would be helpful if you wanted to--
in the open space dimension, if you wanted to,
like I asked the earlier testimony about Roslindale,
when you say JP, tell me wards and precincts.
I know where JP.
I know where JP is.
But I want to know what you mean by-- exactly what you
think of as JP.
And I'm going to guess-- and evoked several different themes
and said, these are all reasons to keep JP together.
But those themes are potentially different as to how they might
group districts.
So maybe if you can think about, well,
on the transportation dimension, this
is what we think of as the larger JP.
On the open space dimension, we think this.
On the arts dimension, we think this.
On the Hispanic dimension or the tenant dimension,
we think this.
Give us something a little more specific
with geographical boundaries.
That would help us make the most of the very good points
that you've made.
And I would also add, similar to the Roslindale,
when using redistricting, it would be helpful
if you delineated that or told us those boundaries in terms
of wards and precincts.
That would be very helpful.
I know ward 19 is what-- most of JP is in ward 19.
But I'd be curious to see what you think because knowingly
or unknowingly, those boundaries change over time.
So it would be helpful to us if you could do that.
And we have time, so whoever wants to champion that and send
it to us either in written testimony through our website
or maybe at another hearing if you chose
to come to another hearing, maybe the hearing
which will include the 7th district, which would be some
overlap there.
I think we'll have to follow up with a more detailed map,
but it's definitely parts of-- it's most of 19, parts of 10,
a lot of 11.
I think it's 20.
Once we start getting south, my numbers
get a little bit wobbly.
But we'll follow up.
I would say from the hubs, it's really--
Center Street, South Street is critical.
A lot of Washington [? Street ?] is critical.
When you think about housing developments,
when you think about the Latinx community,
when you think about the diversity of JP--
getting back to, I think we are 100%
in line with the goal of minority majority minority
districts.
And I think we think a lot of JP-- the majority of JP,
maybe all of JP would have get really
specific on the precinct's vote in support of those interests.
And that is what we're trying to get at with the activism.
And then we think about the green spaces,
they follow those similar corridors
that we might add the Jamaica Way as another piece of that.
So we'll get back to you, but I just wanted to highlight that.
And my colleagues can also jump in.
Listen, thank you to this panel.
And having no questions and no more testimony,
we'll dismiss you of your duty here today.
Thank you very much.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
Rep Moran, we had one member that had signed up
that was supposed to be on another panel--
Muhammad Dar.
Hold on a second.
But it was a panel on CD8.
Beth [? Hoyne ?] had set it up, [? who's ?] also here.
If he can testify, that'd be great.
All right.
I believe Amanda in my office just put her in.
So if she wanted to testify right now and--
can you give me her name again, please?
It's Muhammad Dar.
How do you spell the last name?
D-A-R. And the first name is Muhammad.
So they are on a panel--
they're on a panel that's after the next person, so.
Oh.
Got it.
OK, I thought you were--
They're on a panel that includes [INAUDIBLE] ACLU [INAUDIBLE]
voters and the Asian-American Resource Workshop.
So they'll be coming after the person who
is testifying next, OK?
That's great.
Thank you.
So next to testify is the gentleman
from the New Democracy Coalition--
Kevin Peterson.
OK.
Can you hear me?
I cannot hear you.
Hold on.
Are you there?
I got you.
Yeah.
[INAUDIBLE]
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
Chairman Michael Moran, chairman William Brownsberger
and members of the joint redistricting committee,
thank you for convening this hearing on this afternoon.
I'm submitting this brief and focused testimony in hope
that I'll have an opportunity to speak at least once
more during this process of bringing greater
democracy to the Commonwealth, especially as democracy
pertains to the plight of historically disenfranchised
groups across the state.
Redistricting is the DNA that propels public life
in our Commonwealth and our nation.
It is ground zero at which where we
build fundamental commitments towards common life
and our common civic ambitions.
[INAUDIBLE] Doctor Kevin C Peterson.
I'm founder of the New Democracy Coalition
and Organization that focuses in the area
of civic literacy, civic policy, and electoral justice.
I've also had the privilege of leading the Mass Black
Empowerment Coalition, which played
a major role in the Massachusetts redistricting
process 10 years ago.
I'd be the first to admit that the process, while not
flawless, allowed us to achieve something extraordinary.
I'm pleased to say that under the leadership of the Mass
Black Empowerment Coalition and the New Democracy Coalition,
we achieved doubling the number of so-called majority minority
seats in the House.
We were also pleased to work closely
with Chairman Moran and former Senator Stan Roosevelt
and key members of the Joint Committee,
including members of the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus
of Massachusetts.
With their help and faithful guidance,
we created the first majority minority congressional seat
in the state, a historic event.
Our coalition has not publicly taken as much credit
as we should have regarding this,
but we were pleased to have engaged
in powerful and fruitful strategic partnerships
and work in coalition with the Joint Redistricting Committee.
I'm proud to say that I possess and cherish the signing pen
that Governor Deval Patrick gave me
at the assigned to historic redistricting legislation
into law a decade ago.
After having achieved all the successes in partnerships
with the Joint Redistricting Committee and other leadership
across the state, I had had no interest
in returning to the redistrict process this cycle.
Yet as I surveyed the work accomplished 10 years ago,
I conclude that more needs to be done.
Chairman, 10 years ago, the New Democracy Coalition,
the Mass Black Empowerment Coalition
specifically urged the Joint Redistricting Committee
to create a district from which an African-American Senate
candidate could be elected in Boston.
While the committee created two African-American influenced
Senate district seats in Boston, the goal
of achieving a district that successfully elected
an African-American has not been achieved
despite growing [? BAP ?] demography that would likely
produce such a reality.
In essence, the districts created
that would have been favorable to
an African-American candidate in the Senate
has not been realized.
As the Senate map currently stands in 2021,
the Black community of Boston is cracked.
It is divided.
It is splintered.
Its electoral strength and cohesion is weakened.
Given this, there are no African-Americans
in the Massachusetts Senate.
This is untenable.
This is unacceptable.
This represents the uncompleted work
that requires our full collective attention.
We must resolve to rectify this electoral imbalance in order
to achieve the good outcomes we seek in the redistricting
process, voting equity for all.
As you know, there are at least three Senate seats
held by non African-Americans where,
indeed, African-Americans can be elected and have
more sway in power in the process of governance
in the Commonwealth.
These current Senate district seats
can be reimagined and reorganized and repurposed
in such ways as to create the following district
seats in Boston--
one, a singular, strong, and consolidated African-American
Senate district.
Two, two strong majority minority districts
where an African-American, a Latinx, an Asian,
or Cape Verdean person can be elected into the state Senate.
And three, an opportunity to create yet
another strong majority minority Senate
seat in Springfield, Mass.
along with the continuous electoral and ethnic
communities of interest there.
Additionally, we still have work to do regarding
prison-based gerrymandering.
We must end prison-based gerrymandering
so that the incarcerated are counted
as citizens in their home communities and not in jail.
Through prison-based gerrymandering,
communities like Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan,
and Boston, and in cities like Springfield-- those communities
are robbed of precious financial resources aided
by the federal government.
As I conclude, members of the Joint Committee,
I proffer that, at the minimum, we
must return an African-American to the Massachusetts Senate
so that specific needs within discrete communities
are met with urgency and knowing.
We must also ensure that the growing democracy of the state
is considered as we craft district
lines during this process.
On some level, in the wake of the George Floyd murder saga,
redistricting Massachusetts must be a kind of racial reckoning.
And this is as much a commitment to our democracy
locally as it is our embrace of the goal of fostering
human flourishing, fairness, and freedom.
With this as the context, the Mass Black Empowerment
Coalition and the New Democracy Coalition
calls for a special redistricting hearing--
or hearings-- in Boston and Springfield
to specifically engage these concerns.
We ask that these hearings be held in the fall of 2021
so that groups have time to organize
during the course of the summer.
We ask that this hearing be held in person, or perhaps outdoor.
I look forward to a response from you committee members
on this matter.
Please consider these comments as portion of more extensive
remarks to follow.
Thank you kindly for your listening.
Thank you, Kevin.
Much appreciated.
And it's not lost on me the work that your organization did
10 years ago, along with many organizations
that I think maybe saw a transparency that maybe they
hadn't seen before in this process.
That's right.
And I'm very proud of--
when I look at some of the results from that.
You have Ayanna Pressley serving in Congress.
You have a gentleman named Randy [? Wong ?] up in Lowell,
first Southeast Asian to serve in the legislature
anywhere in this country.
That's right.
You have Frank Moran from the Dominican Republic.
So what do they say, progress is incremental?
And it's wise and smart that you should
be involved in this because we did make some strides.
But there are still strides that we need to make.
And I know you have my commitment as a Senator,
Brownsberger as well, to do as best we can in the areas
that you're concerned about.
So I have no additional questions for Kevin.
But if any of my colleagues or members of the committee
have any questions for Kevin, I'd invite them to do so now.
Let me jump in, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownsberger.
Hey.
No, I'm glad to hear from you.
I'm glad that you're joining into the process now.
I am very conscious of the issues you're raising.
I'd like to connect with you in a lot more depth
right away because we haven't really engaged before.
And we have been listening to a lot of folks,
but you and I haven't talked yet.
So I want to open that line of communication very directly.
Why don't we make sure that we just do that?
Do you mind putting your cell phone in the chat or just
[INAUDIBLE]
I do not mind.
I can do that now.
Are you able to chat?
Does that work for you?
Or is there a Q&A or something?
It is working, so I'm putting my phone number in now.
All right.
And by the way, I put my mind on the web, too.
So I'll just say it.
It's OK.
[INAUDIBLE] OK, good.
I got you.
And Senator, I look forward to speaking with you post-haste.
We did raise this issue around a clear majority minority Senate
district 10 years ago.
And unfortunately, it did not happen.
We settled for the African-American influence
seats that currently exist.
It has not materialized an African-American Senator.
As you may know, we elected the first African-American Senator
in the Commonwealth over three decades ago with Bill Owens.
And [? Royal ?] Boland followed, and then Senator Dianne
Wilkerson.
The community now feels an absence of that representation
on Beacon Hill.
And so we would like for the redistricting--
the seat to be reconsolidated, reimagined
so that those purposes are achieved.
We are so grateful of the work that was done 10 years ago.
We're proud of the progressive mindedness of the redistricting
committee then and now, and look forward to addressing these
dire issues that will reflect in-- it is our hope--
the creation of these new Senate seats, but also
our interest in re-addressing the issue
of prison-based gerrymandering.
It is not clear to us that this issue has been finalized.
Unfortunately, so many young men and women from communities
of color, poor communities, the inner city urban communities
are forced to go to spend time in jail.
That's unfortunate.
That unfortunate situation is compounded
when those individuals are counted
as citizens in communities in which they do not really live.
If they are arrested and convicted from Roxbury,
say, they are counted perhaps in Arlington or Abbington
or wherever that jail or place of correction is.
That needs to be corrected so that apportionment is achieved.
So I know we made some appeal to the census
around this the last time.
I would like to follow up using the voice of the Joint
Committee to rectify this issue.
Also, I look forward to the engaging with you soon,
Senator, and members of the Joint Committee.
We're going to do that.
OK.
Thank you, [? KP, ?] for your testimony.
Looks like we have two panels left.
And I made a mistake.
And I apologize to Muhammad Dar.
I said that that panel will be next,
but my staff told me that the Quincy panel was next.
So if you could just sit tight, there's only two panels left.
So we got Mary Lou, Philip Chong, and David [? Zhu. ?]
Mary is from the Asian Community Development Corporation
in Quincy.
And looks like Phillip is from the Quincy Asian Resources
Incorporated, also of Quincy.
So are they on the line?
Can we get them to testify in order?
We'll have Mary-- sorry, not Mary.
May first.
May?
You're correct.
[INAUDIBLE] to the mic.
Yeah.
Love your swing.
Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.
So we just installed this in our organizations property
in [INAUDIBLE].
But [INAUDIBLE] temporary for 18 months.
So we were [INAUDIBLE] we want to see the park.
[INAUDIBLE] we did it.
So happy.
My name is May Liu.
I'm the [? person ?] and engagement coordinator in Asian
[? community ?] [? development ?]
[? corporation. ?] And also I'm the [INAUDIBLE] as well.
So I live in Quincy.
[INAUDIBLE] metro in Boston to help
people with language barriers to apply [? when ?]
assistance in Quincy.
So you can see the demographic is very different right now--
so many Asian Chinese move in.
So they speak Mandarin and Cantonese.
And actually, [INAUDIBLE] they don't know much about English.
And so they need really help.
And I help them to apply for the rental assistance.
And most of them actually come from Quincy.
So my jobs are helping to [INAUDIBLE] greater Boston
area.
But my clients most have come from Quincy.
And the pandemic has affected their lives.
[INAUDIBLE] and also most of them-- they lost jobs.
Their life have become more difficult and challenging.
And also, my organization work with Quincy Asian--
I don't know [INAUDIBLE] engagement for the past five
years.
And also, we did a voter registration drive.
We're holding voter education workshop.
But actually, the people didn't know who they can vote for.
So we [INAUDIBLE] created this forum candidates [INAUDIBLE]..
And then after the [INAUDIBLE] who they can vote for.
And I think [INAUDIBLE] in our [INAUDIBLE] is very important.
We need [INAUDIBLE] that we [INAUDIBLE]
help our community to understand their needs.
Especially during the pandemic, most [INAUDIBLE] a lot.
And then most of them [INAUDIBLE]
on their unemployment benefits.
But actually, there [INAUDIBLE] not that much [? money. ?]
Some people [INAUDIBLE] under 200 a week.
Yeah, so right now, it's very hard for them
to go for the jobs because outside, the economy
is not that good.
And also they shouldn't [? just ?] stay home,
have online [? class ?] car so they have to stay home,
and they can't go to work that much.
So I hope [INAUDIBLE] understand our situation.
And then we try to use this opportunity that we [INAUDIBLE]
to [INAUDIBLE] can be heard and also can understand more
about our [? communities ?] and then
can really do something for us.
Thank you, May.
Thank you very much.
Again, I'm going to ask every member of this panel to speak.
And then at the end, we'll have comments and questions.
So if Philip Chong-- if you could go next, Philip.
[INAUDIBLE] redistricting hearing, so.
Thank you, Chair.
I'm just going to leave that there and pretend
I'm still in the hearing.
Hey, Tricia!
Go ahead, Philip.
Thank you, Chair.
I think that was--
I'm good.
Thank you to all the Congressmen, Senators,
Vice Chair, Committee.
My name is Philip Chong, President CEO
of Quincy Asian Resources.
We call ourselves the acronym, QARI.
A little background about QARI.
QARI's work has been providing work
around immigrant social services to the Asian community
in Quincy and [INAUDIBLE] South Shore area
for the last 20 years.
With over 30% of the Asian population in Quincy,
our mission's dedicated to providing
services and programs that are culturally and linguistically
competent.
We build trust with our clients with an open door
policy which they can come to us with any questions and help.
And many newcomers to the city will first
come to us for support such as their children's school
registration, finding doctors, public housing applications,
elder services, or finding jobs.
Like many of us, they came to this country
to pursue the American dream.
They are hard-working and care about their family,
their children, and their children's education.
I'm immigrant and Asian-American myself--
Chinese-American.
I came to this country when I was 16 years old.
I'm 45 years old.
So I've been in this country--
oh, challenge me on the math right now--
almost 30 years.
I grew up in Hong Kong before the handover.
So I'm bilingual in Chinese, Cantonese, and [INAUDIBLE]..
When I first came to this country,
I landed in Boston and Boston and different towns--
Brookline and Quincy and the South Shore area.
But speaking of other languages, about 30 years ago,
when I came here, the dominant speaking language,
the dialect was Cantonese.
But as we have seen for the last 20 years,
we've seen the change.
The dominant language for the dialect especially
in Quincy and South Shore area is Mandarin.
Most of our clients that we serve, from youth services,
from elder services, family and community support, workforce,
adult education, a lot of them--
for Asian, and then a lot of the majority are Chinese.
And many of them-- mostly, they speak Mandarin.
And as previous testimony was speaking, we know that--
we seen the migration.
We see a change in terms of the population.
And one of the reasons that-- the driving
force for the increase of the population,
especially the Asian community outside Boston,
is definitely unaffordable in terms
of pricing of the housing.
But at the same time, many of our community of our clients--
they're looking for pursuing the American dream, have
their own single housing, pursuing for the education.
So we've seen that migration.
And Quincy definitely is a very ideal location.
And we have seen that growing for the last 30 years.
And then for the last 20 years, it's tremendous growth
and then have drawn to Quincy become
the largest Asian population per capita in Massachusetts.
Besides Quincy, we also serve Braintree.
We also serve Weymouth.
And I would say that for the last 10 years,
from the data perspective, Quincy also
become quite unaffordable for lots of newcomers, especially
working-class immigrants.
And many of them looking outward of Braintree, Weymouth.
And then another town that we serve is Randolph.
Randolph right now have close to 50% of the Asian population.
And in Randolph, we partner with the town and also
the Randolph public school.
We serve the youth programs, adult education in English
and citizenship, workforce, [INAUDIBLE]
security, and elder services.
One thing that I will ask the Chair and the panel
to really consider the unity of the representation
of our legislators.
We have been working very closely
with the legislators with Senator Keenan, Congressman
Lynch.
They've been very supportive and approachable.
And they always there to hear our feedback.
And they listen to us.
They understand the pain points.
And we see that the importance of the unity
of the representation from the Senate and Congress level.
And what I want to--
what I want to say is the importance
of the diversity of the community what
we were presenting-- at the same time
the support from the legislator from the government side.
Thank you so much for having me.
Appreciate your time today.
Thank you, Philip.
I appreciate your time.
Next, and the last person on this panel,
is David [? Zhu ?] from Quincy.
Yes.
Hi.
Thank you.
And good afternoon, everyone.
My name is David [? Zhu. ?] I'm from Quincy.
I'm also the board member of Quincy Asian Resource
with Philip Chong.
And he just briefly introduced our organization.
So I'll just give you some background based
on my experience about Quincy.
So I'm the first generation immigrant.
I settle in Quincy in 1983.
And during that time, in 1983, Quincy probably
around 300 Asian-Americans living in Quincy.
So today, Quincy has over 30%--
over 30,000 Asian-- living in Quincy.
And doing the 1980 and '90, and primarily speaking
of the Chinese in Quincy are Cantonese.
And we're now 20 years, and it's been changed.
So we are now primarily language speaking among Asian community
is Mandarin.
And also, [INAUDIBLE] first immigrant move into Quincy
because the location.
Quincy is very convenient [? in ?] BTA.
And Quincy have many organizations provide service
to the new immigrants.
But after people living in Quincy for a few years,
after they settle down, they are [? spending ?] moving out
of Quincy.
And they go to Braintree, Weymouth, Randolph.
So over the last 10 years, we can see another changing.
In Braintree, Weymouth, and Randolph,
the Asian population [INAUDIBLE] increase.
As Philip mentioned earlier, it go to 10%,
15% [INAUDIBLE] surrounding Quincy--
the towns-- because people want to get away from city.
And they want to away from the city.
And also, the housing is more affordable.
So Quincy is a very unique area.
And it's very diverse.
And so I want to thank you for providing opportunity for us
here to testify.
And we hope that you can--
the Asian population in Quincy is growing.
And hopefully, people can listen for our needs
for these communities.
Thank you.
Thank you, David.
I appreciate your testimony.
Your delegation from the House, Representative Hunt,
Representative [INAUDIBLE],, Representative Jackie Chan,
and let's not forget the Speaker of the House, Ron Mariana,
are from Quincy.
So I feel like you've got good representation
from the House in Quincy.
But we are very interested to look, at least on the House
side, on the growth in the Asian population,
not just in Quincy but other places.
There seems to be some interesting stuff going on
with that specific population.
And it's something that we're going
to take a serious look at in House districts.
And where we can bring that voice out and make it larger,
we intend to, and make sure that you have your right
to have a voice.
And that's essentially what it comes down to.
So I have no questions, just that comment.
I would ask my colleagues on the committee
if they have any questions for this panel?
[INAUDIBLE]
Representative Hunt.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just want to say, as someone that represents parts of Quincy
and the Field Corner in our community,
I am extremely proud of the Asian-American community.
There are a lot of Vietnamese population
and Chinese [INAUDIBLE] population in Fields Corner,
and especially Chinese in Quincy.
And I see that Senator Nick Collins has joined us.
And we worked together to create the Little Saigon business
district in Fields Corner.
That was a great success.
But as you said, Mr. Chairman, I know that the entire delegation
embraces and supports fully the Asian-American community
and our proud of the culture that they bring to our city
to enrich it so much.
So thank you.
Thank you, Representative Hunt.
Any other members of the committee have any questions?
OK.
I want to thank this panel for their testimony.
And Dan Hunt just noticed, and I did as well,
that Senator Collins has joined us.
I don't know if Senator Collins would like to testify.
Senator Collins?
Thank you.
Yes, thank you, Chairman Moran.
Welcome.
Thank you.
And Chair Brownsberger, I want to echo
the comments of my colleague, Rep Hunt, who spoke before.
And as you said, Mr. Chairman, to other colleagues
in the House, we'll proudly represent the Asian community
throughout Massachusetts.
And our Congressman Stephen Lynch, who I think
is getting somewhere around 70% in the districts who I think--
he's representing us well and the diversity
of the district in Washington.
He mentioned earlier, I feel like you probably [INAUDIBLE]
town council and representative and State
Senator can say that they have a good working
relationship with-- he and his office
is very hands on in helping us try
to solve local issues with his support and vice versa,
educating him on issues that are coming from the grassroots up.
And this community did great work
10 years ago under your leadership, Chairman Moran.
And we know we've given you our best in the Senate
and feel like this is a great opportunity
to have a discussion.
And it's also exciting, given the work
that most of the members of this committee
did with a lot of the people who have testified today
on our efforts for the census.
So while we're debating some challenging issues
and dynamics, I think it's through a hopeful
lens and a positive lens that we've grown
and we've protected our seats in Congress.
And I have seen growth in certain areas,
particularly in the immigrant community.
So that means good things for our state and our economy.
So thanks letting me join you today.
And keep up the great work.
And looking forward to future discussions.
Thank you, Senator Collins, very much for your testimony.
I think now we are going to move to our last panel.
On it is Elizabeth Foster Nolan, Rahsaan Hall, Muhammad Dar,
and Carolyn Chow.
That would be the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts.
Rahsaan is with the ACLU of Massachusetts.
Muhammad Dar is with Jamaica Plain Progressives.
And Carolyn Chow is with the Asian-American Resource
Workshop.
So that will be the next panel.
We welcome you to join us for your testimony.
Hello.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Great.
My name is Elizabeth Foster Nolan.
And I am actually today testifying
as a resident of Weymouth.
I've lived in Weymouth for over 20 years,
but I am a member at large of the League of Women Voters.
I would like to thank the Joint Committee and Senator
Brownsberger and Representative Moran for holding this hearing
and for their commitment to engaging the communities
in this process, which I know is a difficult process and not
easy.
But it is wonderful to see the transparency
and the thoughtfulness that is going into this.
I was involved in our town's 2020 census.
And what it brought to light for me, working in the town,
was how the town has changed over the last 10 years
in terms of our population and in terms of specifically
the various populations that I was actually
surprised in terms of our top three
populations for our schools and what languages we needed
to use to get the census out there
and to get the communities involved
in Weymouth to make sure we could get a good count
in Weymouth.
And the three languages that we ended up
identifying through our schools were Arabic, Portuguese,
and Spanish.
And we provided all of our census information
in three languages.
And I think it's very important for this 8th Congressional
District that the communities of interest are kept together.
And I think Quincy and Weymouth, as has been discussed earlier--
they do have some commonalities with people
moving from the Quincy area into Weymouth.
So I think making sure that those areas are kept together
in terms of the district--
I think Quincy and Weymouth have worked well together in terms
of working on issues here.
And I think it's a strong relationship between those two
towns.
And I would encourage keeping those two towns together.
And I also just want to emphasize
that I want to make sure there's continued
outreach in other languages.
And I know you are planning other hearings
in other languages.
And I just would like to encourage that advertisement,
the outreach to the communities so
that you can hear from the communities of interest
in their native languages and have translation available.
I think that is key.
I commend you for doing that.
And I just would like to make sure
that we continue to have communities of interest
together so that we can have fair and equitable
representation in the congressional district, which
obviously then rolls out as you are
looking at the state Rep and the state Senate for Massachusetts.
And we have been fortunate in Weymouth
to have great representation.
We are split a bit between Representative Murphy
and Representative Mariano.
But both of them still are very good for the town of Weymouth.
And Senator O'Connor-- his district.
He has been excellent, as has Congressman Lynch working
with Weymouth.
And again, he has worked well with Weymouth and Quincy
on some local issues.
Not surprisingly, we're connected, unfortunately,
by the compressor station.
But it has shown a good working relationship
between the two towns.
So I thank you for the transparency
that you are providing to people and appreciate the opportunity
to testify today.
And thank all the committee members
and wish you well in your endeavor,
as it is not an enviable position to be in.
But I do appreciate that you are really
looking at this very closely and trying
to do the best for the citizens of Massachusetts.
Thank you.
Thank you, Elizabeth.
And you touched on it, but we are
committed to some way of figuring out
how to accommodate as many language issues
as we possibly can in the best way we can.
So we're working through that.
And you guys are helping us work through that.
And we appreciate that, so.
Next would be Rahsaan Hall from the ACLU.
Rahsaan?
Thank you, Chair Moran and Chair Brownsberger and to the members
of this committee, for holding this hearing
and for all the work that you have done up
to this point and the work that you will continue to do.
My name's Rahsaan Hall.
I am the Director of the Racial Justice Program
for the ACLU of Massachusetts.
And I'm also a proud Brockton resident.
The ACLU, as I'm sure you all know,
is a member of the Drawing Democracy coalition.
And the emphasis of the coalition
is to increase political power in communities of color
and low income communities.
And to that end, the concern with congressional district
eight in that it houses Brockton, which is a majority
minority city, has the distinction of being
the blackest city in the Commonwealth,
followed closely only by Randolph.
And when we begin to talk about communities of interest,
I'm reminded of a Boston Globe article
that I saw last year that talked about the correlation
or the connection that these two municipalities had.
And unfortunately, it was the high rates of COVID infection.
And what it explored and what is known
by a lot of people in part is because that there
are pockets in enclaves in both of these cities
that have significant concentrations of people who
are low income but also people who
are service workers, people who are working in the health
industry.
And those connections there are significant.
They're significant across racial lines.
They are also significant across ethnic lines.
There is a strong and vibrant Haitian community
here in Brockton, as you've heard some people testify to,
as well as Randolph--
a growing Asian-American community
here in Brockton and a significantly larger one
in Randolph.
And another thing that these municipalities have in common--
and this is interesting for me because 10 years ago,
when I was a part of the Drawing Democracy coalition
but working at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights,
I remember Former Chairman Rosenberg asked me about a map
and whether or not Brockton should be included
in the congressional district seven map
and what the connections were.
And I testify against that.
Things have changed in those 10 years.
And there are a significant number
of people who are living in Brockton and Randolph
and Stoughton and Avon and Holbrook who
have been priced out of the city of Boston
but have those ties to not only Boston
but within those municipalities as well.
And so not that you could make congressional district
eight a majority minority district
as it is currently comprised, but I
think there is a unique opportunity with some
of the parts of congressional district seven that
have significant concentrations of people of color
to create a [INAUDIBLE] district where
Brockton and Randolph, that share many
of these similarities, would be able to have
representation and elect a candidate of choice
for these two majority minority cities
that are surrounded by some other cities that
have growing Black population.
So I thank you for, again, the work up
to this point and the continuing work.
And look forward to continuing to engage and take
the deeper dives into some of these issues.
And as a passing shot, I'll just say,
even though I'm not primarily concerned about it right now,
I do think that there's a unique opportunity in the State Senate
district as well to connect Brockton and Randolph.
Thank you, Rahsaan.
I appreciate your testimony.
Next up is Muhammad Dar.
Hello, everyone.
I want to say a big thank you to the Redistricting Committee
Chair, Senator Brownsberger, and Representative Moran,
and all the other members of this committee for holding
this hearing, listening to our voices,
and allowing us this space today.
My name is Muhammad Dar.
I'm a physician living in Jamaica Plain.
I serve our veterans throughout the three sites of the Boston
VA system in CDA--
in Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury, and Brockton.
I also do work on health policy at One Ashburton nearby
to your offices.
And across this pandemic, I've been up and down the state,
whether working on response at West Roxbury VA, the Holyoke
Soldiers' Home, or working on increasing vaccination
rates across the state.
And I've seen how the pandemic has affected the communities
within CDA and others.
You heard from my colleagues in the Jamaica Plain group
about how the strong community there exists.
And more so, with how diverse it is,
they still have a strong commonality that run within it.
You also heard from them about the diaspora of communities,
of how, as others are priced out of communities like Jamaica
Plain, they expand into communities
like West Roxbury, Roslindale, Hyde Park, Randolph,
and Brockton.
Though there is that movement going on, and much of it
has happened in the last 10 years, threads of connection
remain strong.
And I want to talk to you about how
so many of those communities are tied together in health.
It is no secret that health care has consolidated here
in Boston and in Massachusetts itself.
More community hospitals and sites have closed.
And what remains has been laid out
in patterns that reflect socioeconomic biases
in the market.
New centers go up in affluent neighborhoods--
concierge centers, new urgent care centers.
But meanwhile, it's the community health centers
that hold together the needs of those communities that
would be otherwise ignored.
And these health centers represent--
and moreover serve--
communities of interest.
For the current CDA populations in Milton, Jamaica Plain,
and others, those needs are served
by centers like Brookside Community Health Center, Martha
Elliot Health Center, Southern Jamaica Plain Health
Center, and others.
These sites are full of mission-driven providers who
seek to serve their communities, address disparities, and do so
with love.
And yet two of the three centers I just spoke to you of
are but a few blocks outside of the district,
despite the incredible anchors that they provide
to the communities within the district
and just abutting it as well.
This demonstrates a bifurcation that
exists not only in my community of Jamaica Plain but in others.
JP is incredibly diverse, and yet it's
united in its advocacy.
And yet, as you heard from the group,
it is currently split in half across two
congressional districts.
And yet the community that spreads from us
and outward to West Roxbury in one direction is in CDA,
and [INAUDIBLE] other stretching in another direction
towards Hyde Park or Randolph are [INAUDIBLE] CD7.
Brockton is thankfully united, but further split
from the towns just north of it.
Very well understand the reasoning 10 years ago
to create the districts in the way they are.
But we do think changes happened in the next 10 years.
And we are asking that these cut outs
separate communities who advocate
together, organize together.
In this pandemic, do food banks together, vaccination drives,
parades and artistry events, communities
that seek culturally informed health care together.
To give a real salient example of how these issues intersect,
some of how you know how nearly two decades ago the federal
government sought to potentially close some of the three Boston
VA sites in the mid-2000s, those same sites that I care
for patients today--
Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury, and Brockton,
which is classified as part of the Boston VA network.
Now, these three sites are distinct.
And they don't overlap in services.
You may go see your doc in clinic
at any of the three sites.
But one specifically provides mental and long term health
care and urgent care 24/7.
Another is a clinical specialty site.
Another one is the core hospital.
But they are one network.
They take care of that entire region.
And because they were in a unified district,
they had a unified defense to keep the sites open
and keep all of those services here in Massachusetts.
Today, they take care of our veterans
as distinct sites with distinct functions working together
as a unified network.
And so these towns and communities I've spoken to--
all of Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury, Randolph, Milton,
Hyde Park, all of Brockton-- and the communities around
Brookside Health Center--
Martha Elliot, Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center--
they deserve to be together.
They speak one voice.
And when we split that voice, it loses its dignity.
And these communities deserve that.
Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you, Muhammad.
Before I introduce Carol Chow, there is one more panel
before we get to individual testimony.
And that's the Brockton interfaith community.
So if you're out there listening,
you will be called after this panel was done.
Last on this panel is Carolyn Chow from the Asian-American
Research Workshop.
Carolyn?
Thank you so much.
And thank you all for having this event
and for allowing us to testify.
I am calling from Dorchester, from Representative Hunt's
and Senator Collins' districts.
And I wanted to just build on what has been shares
thus far by Rahsaan and other folks from Quincy
and share also what we're seeing in the Vietnamese community.
So the Asian-American Research Workshop--
we're a pan-Asian community organizing group
focused on issues of housing, deportation, immigration
reform, and criminalization.
And we see a diverse group of Asian-American communities.
But we particularly have been doing
work in the Vietnamese community here in Fields Corner
and across the area.
And through our COVID response work and so much else,
we're really seeing the spread as gentrification impacts
Dorchester, impacts precincts like mine,
[? 16-6, ?] that folks are moving out of the city and out
of Dorchester.
And folks are moving to Quincy and to Randolph.
And I think as Dorchester folks, we
know we love living in such a diverse neighborhood.
And we see Brockton as well, as Rahsaan was talking about,
as a hub of many other immigrant communities, and more and more
Vietnamese immigrants as well.
And so I don't have a lot more to add that folks haven't said,
but I think that there is a real possibility in CD8 to bring
some of these immigrant communities
and communities of color together
and for us to make sure language access
and accessibility are at the forefront of the conversation,
and I think also to explore the line in Dorchester
and see how the numbers are looking.
But when we do food delivery to 125 families,
maybe 75 are in Dorchester.
But almost all of the other ones are
in Quincy, Braintree, Weymouth, Randolph, and Brockton.
And so I think that's just important to note
as we move forward and to share what we're seeing
in the Vietnamese community.
So thank you so much.
And I won't take any more of your time.
Thank you, Carolyn.
Much appreciated.
I heard the many issues that this panel touched on,
from communities of interest to language issues
to the Asian community in particular.
So all those have been heard.
And I can assure you we're going to be considering all of those
as we move forward.
I have no questions for the panel,
but let me open it up to my co-chair
and members of the committee if they have any questions?
OK.
Hearing none, I want to thank you all for your testimony.
Very much appreciated.
And enjoy the rest of your day.
Next, we have the last panel.
My staff has told me this is absolutely the last panel.
But it's people from the Brockton interfaith community--
Annabelle Santiago, Cindy Williams,
Gene [? Watton, ?] and [? Eugene ?] Cavanaugh.
Welcome to all of you.
And why don't we start from the top.
Annabelle Sanchez, would you--
sorry.
Annabelle Santiago-- sorry.
Would you please testify in front of the committee?
Representative Moran, if we can start with Cindy Williams?
All right.
Sure.
Cindy Williams.
Who would go next then after Cindy?
Just so I'm--
It will be me and then [? Eugenie ?] Cavanaugh Gene
has not joined us today.
Gene, OK.
So the three of you.
OK.
So Gene is not here.
That's right.
My office is better than I am because they told
me that and I didn't listen.
So Cindy Williams, please join us.
And welcome.
And tell us what you're thinking.
Good afternoon.
Can everybody see me and hear me?
Yes, we can.
OK.
Thank you.
I'd like to start off by thanking the Redistricting
Committee Chair, Senator William Brownsberger and Representative
Mike Moran, as well as the other members of the committee,
for hosting this public hearing and for their continued
commitment to engage with the grassroots organizations
and residents throughout this process.
My name is Cynthia Williams.
My husband and I, along with our two daughters,
have lived in Brockton for 21 years now.
I am an active member of Restoration Community Church.
And my association as a community leader
is with Brockton interfaith community.
I'm here this afternoon with other Brockton residents
and Brockton interfaith leaders to speak with you briefly
on the heart of Brockton.
Brockton is a suburb of Boston with a population of about
93,000 plus.
And out of that number, the racial makeup of the city
is about 27.3% white, [? 50.9% ?]
African-American, 2% Native American.
And 2.2% is from two or more races.
And the Hispanic or Latino of any race make up 11.9%.
With that diversity comes a lot of culture and flavor
to the city.
The issue that I see is that many of the residents
are finding it more difficult to live and raise their children
in the Brockton area.
In spite of many obstacles, the people of Brockton
are hardworking, family-centered,
and resilient in perseverance.
Brockton was dubbed "The City of Champions"
because of the great fighters like Rocky Marciano--
I know I just butchered you that name;
forgive me-- and Marvin Hagler.
I mentioned those great fighters to give you
a sense of the type of people who live in Brockton.
We may seem downtrodden, but we are fighters at heart.
And today, we asked you to consider expanding the Senate
district to reflect the heart of our city
by uniting us with Randolph, Stoughton, who
has similar values.
Again, I want to thank you, Senator William Brownsberger
and Representative Mike Moran, and the other committee
members for your time.
And as I stand here with my Brocktonian neighbors
and my interfaith community leaders,
it is our hope that you will expand
the Senate history to reflect the fighting heart of our city.
Thank you.
Thank you, Cindy.
We love The City of Champions.
And I don't see Brockton as being downtrodden at all.
Some do, though.
I'm a big fan of the city, so.
Next would be Annabelle Santiago.
Thank you Committee Chairs, both Senator Brockton
and Representative Moran, as well as
the other members of the committee
for hosting this hearing and your commitment
to engage with grassroots organizations like Brockton
interfaith through this process.
I'm Annabelle Santiago, the lead community organizer
with Brockton interfaith community.
We're also a member of the Drawing Democracy Coalition.
I've been a Brockton resident for a little over two years now
and have organized in the community for the past four
years.
My goal in this redistricting process
is to unite Brockton together with
the neighboring communities that reflect the makeup of Brockton
as a majority Black immigrant city for the many reasons
many of our coalition partners and Cindy and Eugene
will outline later.
I'd like to focus my testimony today on our current state
Senate district.
Our current Senate district, the 2nd Plymouth and Bristol
district, currently groups together
Brockton with Whitman, Hanover, Hanson, Halifax, Clinton,
and parts of East Bridgewater and Easton.
There are specific differences between the city of Brockton
and the towns currently included in our district.
Statistical Atlas reports that 60.4% of Brockton is nonwhite.
And when you compare that to all of the towns in the district
where the white populations make up 90% to 98%
of the population in those towns--
27% of Brockton residents are foreign born.
There are more single family households and renters
in Brockton than in these towns.
We have a lower income population.
If you look at the lowest income for--
the average income in one of the census
tracts in the middle of the city,
it reports an average of 14,000 average income.
That's the lowest in the city.
And then if you look at the lowest tract
outside of the city, report's on average--
50,000.
The point of all of this is to outline the fact
that our people in Brockton live different lives
from the rest of the district and come from substantially
different backgrounds.
We vote differently from the rest of the district.
And you can take, for example, our last Senate race.
The city of Brockton voted in the challenger,
who was a resident of Brockton, while the rest of the district
voted for the incumbent.
If the challenger would have won,
he would have been one of the few minorities in the state
Senate, representing a majority people of color city.
And with Brockton having different lived experiences
and backgrounds and interests than the rest of the district,
it makes it really hard for whoever is representing us
at the state Senate level to represent both our interests,
given our makeup, and the interests of the more affluent,
suburban, white towns that surround us.
So I believe Brockton should be united together
with other cities that reflect the makeup of the city,
like Randolph, for the many reasons that our coalition
members have outlined today.
And I'll finish up there.
I want to thank the commissioners
for their consideration of uniting
our communities together in the Senate district.
Thank you.
Thank you, Annabelle.
Last on this panel Eugene Cavanaugh.
Eugene?
Hi, everyone.
My name is Eugenie Cavanaugh.
And I just want to say thank you again
to the Redistricting Committee, Senator William
[? Brownsberger, ?] and as well as Representative Mike
Moran and others of the members of the committee.
As an American born citizen and born to Haitian parents,
I have served 13 years in the US Army.
After seven years of living in Brockton with my two children,
I sit on the Board of Brockton Interfaith
as well as fought in the 2018 education funding crisis.
I've had the opportunity to advocate
with city life for the housing eviction reform
during the pandemic as well as the [INAUDIBLE] coalition
after the fact of George Floyd's death.
As well as education, my education background
is in human service as well as social work.
As a profession veteran community leader
and soon to be a homeowner here in Brockton, but most
importantly as a mother, I want to reiterate
with people from the Brockton interfaith
have stated, that nowhere in our district Brockton values
aligns with the district that we are in.
And as a majority of people of color living in Brockton,
our representation by people who refuses to properly invest
into Brockton's future.
Yet Brockton is being taxed without
the proper representation of our values.
Rather, Brockton is being forced to value communities
in our district with more of a richer academic structure
and institution like our neighbors Easton, Avon,
and the Bridgewaters.
As we hear the echoes No Child Left Behind,
our district has placed our education system
fighting for resources and programs in hopes
of our children can't compete with our [? partnering ?]
surrounding communities economically,
jobs that our Brockton residents will not
obtain due to the lack of not only education but housing
and employment opportunities as well as investment
opportunities.
These opportunities have been prioritized
to other communities in our district and leaving Brockton.
Brockton has reimagined a community far greater
than our history of textiles and shoe factory.
The reimagining that Brockton has [? gained ?] to within
the redistricting is when tax representation who prioritized
investing in our futures, history, our culture,
our education, as well as a robust [? and ?] creating jobs
here in Brockton, creating safe places for youth who don't play
sports as well as vibrant places to eat.
Currently, when we look at other [INAUDIBLE]
surrounding communities, what we see is disenfranchised
within our Brockton roads, disenfranchised
within our health care system, which is highly congested.
We do have a transportation system,
but we here at Brockton-- because this is a small city,
we need more of a thriving transportation system
as well as a more vibrant affordable housing.
Though Brockton is a small city, our City of Champions
consists of a majority of people of color diverse, documented
as well as the undocumented.
Veterans who fought for this land use to dream big--
and our parents voting towards their investment
into a district lacking representation
for people of color.
What we are asking today came with such ease
because when we see Brockton being gentrified,
in order for Brockton to be valued and represented,
we just simply ask this question boldly not to you all
representing us but to those making those decisions in the
representing us here now that our city refuses to be taxed
in a district who represents the wealthier whiter communities
and refuse to properly represent people of color
and disenfranchising low income people who are undocumented
as well as documented.
So to those representing here today,
I just want to say thank you in taking the time
to hear us, our comments, our concerns, and our interests,
as well as our values because Brockton
has values that are not shared with those surrounding
communities.
But we do have shared values as well as
with Quincy's and Randolph.
So when making this decision, we didn't come to come in here
today with ease.
It was a tough decision.
But it was the right decision in coming and having this asked as
well as a demand for you all that we really
want Brockton to be represented with folks that
do look like Brockton folks, people that will advocate
for us that know what we are going through through
lived experiences, through their educational background,
through them visiting Brockton as well because our community
does not represent who we are right now as currently
as we are holding it.
And we are asking that we have a more diverse community
in representing us.
Thank you.
Thank you, Eugenie.
Thank you everybody else on this Brockton interfaith community
panel.
Your message has been heard loud and clear.
I have no questions, but I do want to pass it off
to some of my colleagues to see if they have any questions
or comments.
I just want to jump in and say--
Senator Brownsberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just want to say, I hear you loud and clear.
And we'll look real closely at that
and see if we can actually put that together.
Thank you, Senator.
OK.
Thank you.
And thank everyone for that on that panel.
And enjoy the rest of your day.
We are going to move on now.
It looks like we have four people who
have testified not on panels.
I don't know if they have testified in error
or if they actually want to testify.
So I'm just going to call their names out.
[INAUDIBLE]?
All right.
Let me go to Sean O'Neill.
Sean O'Neill?
Sean O'Neill, would you like to participate?
All right.
My staff just told me that [INAUDIBLE] Mr. Spinola is in.
You got it.
It's [? Yolanda ?] [? Espanola. ?] Thank you
so much.
Yolanda.
All right.
Sorry about that.
I got the last one right.
I couldn't get the first one.
Welcome, welcome.
Thank you for signing up.
And thank you for wanting to testify.
What say you?
Yeah.
I just want to echo some of the same sentiments
that the Brockton interfaith community spoke
about earlier around making sure that Brockton
is a part of an area that represents our interests
and that we can be able to have representation that reflects
the people of Brockton.
And I think us being able to be a part of a district that
will allow us to have more commonalities with folks will
allow us to amplify some of our main interests
and some of our main issues that we are dealing with.
So I love the idea of being a part of a larger district,
being a part of Stoughton and Randolph
and being able to amplify some of those main ideas.
So I just want to amplify some of the stuff
that [? Vic ?] has said.
And I think it will be an awesome opportunity
for the Commonwealth in general if Brockton's interests are
able to be amplified in the state House.
Thank you.
Thank you, [? Yolano. ?] Much appreciated.
I have no questions, but does any member of the committee
have any questions?
Thank you very much.
And thank you for your patience in waiting.
Next up is Sean O'Neill.
Sean O'Neill, would you like to testify?
OK.
They're telling me that Sean is coming on, so.
Sean, are you there?
I do see Lenny--
I do see Lenny Row is here.
So I'm going to call Lenny, and we'll
circle back to Sean afterwards.
Lenny, would you like to testify?
I see Lenny [INAUDIBLE].
Lenny was wanting to testify.
I do see Margaret Cooper.
Would Margaret Cooper like to testify?
Margaret, are you wanting to testify?
Or are you here just to observe?
Lenny, I'm told you-- and I need to tell you to unmute, Lenny.
Are you here?
All right.
Margaret Cooper-- you'd be the last one.
Margaret, are you here?
I don't see you.
Yes.
Can you hear me?
I can hear you, Margaret.
Welcome, welcome.
OK.
I'm here just to listen to find out what kind of issues
are being brought up at the redistricting hearing
because I'm in CD9 and I'm trying
to let people know that the hearing is going to be held.
Excellent, Margaret.
That's very good of you.
We haven't scheduled the CD9, which
is Representative Keating-- we haven't
scheduled that hearing yet.
You're good to show up and let people know what's going on.
But if you want to contact the office
or let us know how we can help you advertise and get that out
to as many people as possible, that'd be great.
But I appreciate you stopping in to say hi.
OK, thank you.
All right.
Bye.
So I think unless we can get Sean on or Lenny on,
I think that would be it.
And we will have had everybody testify.
I'm going to give Sean and Lenny a going once, going twice.
OK.
So it looks like neither one of them want to testify.
That would be it for this hearing.
Thank you to all the participants.
Thank you to my committee members.
Thank you to my co-chair and my staff for navigating us
through this Zoom [? test ?] hearing.
Unless does anybody have anything else to say,
I would like to make a motion to adjourn.
So moved.
Can I get a second?
Second.
Excellent.
Thank you all for your attendance
and your participation.
And we'll be talking to you all soon.
Have a good rest of the day.
Bye.
See you.
Bye, all.
Bye bye.
Bye.
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