Category: Clamsplainer

Your The Clam Voting Guide – 2019 Beverly City Elections

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Greetings from the Garden City, once home to the Summer White House, Birthplace of the US NAVY (suck it Headers), site of the first cotton mill in the US, and home to 40,000+ residents.

Entering Beverly

Because Beverly AMIRITE???

The Beverly City Council is comprised of 6 ward councilors, and 3 at-large councilors. Unique in the state, the highest vote getter in the Beverly Councilor At-Large race automatically becomes the City Council President. Of these 9 seats, there are only two competitive races, for Ward 3 City Councilor, and for Ward 5.

Beverly rarely has contested races, and 2019 is no exception. 5 out of 6 school committee seats are uncontested (with 2 new candidates that will be elected in Wards 3 and Wards 5). The mayoral election is uncontested. All 3 At large seats are uncontested (or, there are only 3 candidates for the 3 seats, the City Council presidency IS up for vote). 4 out of 6 Ward races are uncontested.

This makes endorsements in contested races pretty easy.

 

CONTESTED SCHOOL COMMITTEE (endorsements in Bold):

For Ward 4 School Committee, the incumbent John Mullady (tl/dr ENDORSED) is running against Jeffery Silva. There is so much good to say about John’s tenure so far on the school committee, he researched and presented the Sanctuary declaration. He lobbied at the state level for the recently passed school funding bill. He has been (until now, another teacher is running in Ward 5) the only professional educator on the School committee for some time.

Let’s turn to today’s (10/30/2019) Salem News coverage of the debate last night, to understand the difference between these two candidates, in their own words:

“Mullady said he decided to run for School Committee after seeing the impact of budget decisions made by “people outside of education.”

“I felt I would use my experience in the classroom,” he said. “I know the consequences of cutting a budget for the sake of meeting the bottom line.”

“Education is my passion,” Mullady added. “I made a lot of sacrifices for myself and my family to pursue a career in education. I don’t have a personal agenda that I’m trying to push. I’m trying to work with all the other (School Committee) members and I’d like to keep that going.”

Silva said he is running because he discovered that he enjoyed volunteer working through his experiences as a coach in youth soccer and lacrosse. He also said he has served as a role model working with high school and college interns at his company.”

 

Contested City Council

Ward 3 City Councilor:

The seat has finally been vacated by long time councilor, generally good guy, and Salem resident, Jim Latter.

Ward 3 is at the heart of the city, and includes the Cummings Center, both the Middle School AND the High School, and Beverly Hospital.

Kris Silverstein, who currently serves as the school committee representative from Ward 3, and as the School Committee Chair, is running for the seat against business owner, and active community member, Stacy Ames (TL/DR ENDORSED). Ames is new to politics, but not new to city engagement, and her primary results speak to how much effort she HAS put into this election, and how hard she is willing to work for the residents of Ward 3. Given that Kris has served as an elected official for this ward for over a decade, her primary results between the 2 precincts say an awful lot about how residents in the entirety of the ward feel about her service. Ames won the primary (with 4 candidates) with 227 of the 598 votes cast. In precinct 1, Ames received 115, to Silverstein’s 31 votes. Silverstein won precinct 2 by 60 votes, but, she LOST precinct 1 by 84 votes to Ames (and, notably, but 10 votes to perennial candidate for everything, Rick Marciano*).

Kris oversaw a controversial and disappointing Superintendent search (NOT because of the eventual hire, but because it was poorly run, and gave only lip service to transparency, which was revealed through a freedom of information act cache of communications sought by a parent who was deeply troubled by the process). That same cache revealed how often she acquiesced to requests from the Mayor (who, HAS a VOTING SEAT on the School Committee). Beverly, in addition to having the lowest spending per pupil in our area for our schools, is also in the very small percentage of communities in the Commonwealth that charges a fee for Full Day Kindergarten. There has been regular, widespread community advocacy to eliminate this fee, and, with annual city budget surpluses in the millions, to increase funding to our schools. Communications show that the Mayor asked Kris NOT to allow a vote on eliminating the Kindergarten fee. Communications show, despite the advocacy efforts of dozens of parents who spoke at a School Committee Meeting, Silverstein honoring the Mayor’s request that she not the city council to consider the need for more funding in the city budget in the schools, going so far as to personally write each with that request.

Silverstein is running as “an independent” voice, but we believe her record has not shown that. The educational outcomes of kids in Ward 3 are different than the educational outcomes of kids in our wealthier wards, and, as School Committee Chair and longest serving member, she has not demonstrated a skill set in advocating well or standing up for her youngest constituents. There is little to suggest she would or could do so for the rest.

Ward 5 City Council:

Ward 5 City Councilor.: Incumbent Don Martin vs Kathleen Feldman (TL/DR ENDORSED). Fun fact. Councilor Martin cannot be reached via email, or phone, per the city website! He is also a conservative who voted to reject protections for trans citizens in Beverly. We feel he pushes traffic-generating retail commercial development harder than housing – and we’re housing fans here. He is also not very energetic about solar power (hee hee).

Kathleen Feldman is a force to be reckoned with, a leader at the North Beverly PTO, she has made a point to knock on more doors this campaign cycle than Martin has in his many years of service.

This is pretty simple, do you vote for the guy who does not affirm equal civil rights for all citizens, and, CAN’T ACTUALLY BE REACHED; or the woman who will meet you for coffee tomorrow if you need her, and, if you need her, you can reach her RIGHT NOW?

Fortune Cookie

SHE’S EVEN PROMOTED BY FORTUNE COOKIES HOW CAN YOU NOT VOTE FOR HER

City Councilor at Large:

As mentioned earlier, the top vote getter in this race will become the City Council President. 2 out of the 3 candidates HAVE served in this capacity before (Paul Guanci and Tim Flaherty). Flaherty voted against protecting the civil rights of transgender people in Beverly in a city council meeting prior to the state wide vote to rescind those rights (Ballot measure 3 in 2018, which, was soundly defeated). Guanci does not like to be called a Republican in local elections (which are officially non-partisan), but his Twitter feed shows that he isn’t a “Bill Weld” acceptable kind of Republican, he is a “Send the Squad back to their home countries” liking Republican. We can do better.

The Clam will be voting for Julie Flowers, seeking her second term, she has been a progressive voice on the city council and in her short tenure has advanced protections for trans people in Beverly, and, got the “bag ban” ordinance implemented. Given the unique nature of the Beverly City Council President race (and since all three candidates will be seated), we recommend ONLY voting for Julie (this is called “bullet voting”), and leaving the other two spots blank, OR writing in your favorite local volunteer.

Endorsed in uncontested races:

Ward One SC: Rachael Abel

Ward Two City Council: Estelle Rand

Ward Three School Committee: Kimberley J. Coelho

Ward 4 City Council: Scott Houseman

Ward 5 School Committee: Kaarin L. Robinson

Ward 6 School Committee : Lorinda Visnick

Races where we really can’t find anything decent to say about the uncontested incumbent, and recommend a write in, or, mobilizing around an opponent and printings stickers. Or starting to fundraise now for 2021:

Mayor

Ward 2 School Committee

2 out of 3 At Large Seats

Your The Clam Voting Guide – 2019 Gloucester City Elections

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Good day, my dudes (gender neutral).

The Clam is back with a vengeance – (ok, we’re back from a sadbender that lasted all summer while we figured out how to move this site forward for you all), and we’ve still been following things even though we weren’t writing posts. And guess what? Even without our dear leader Jim Dowd who is now mostly space dust and the property of science at large, it turns out the rest of us still have several heavy sacks full of opinions to unload on you all.

And you know, there’s an election coming up. In fact, there’s a shitload of them. In going with the ecumenical multi-city nature of Clam Nation, we’ve decided to expand our horizons for local politics over the bridge, and make Clamdorsements in a few different cities this time but starting with our beloved Gloucester. So if you’re in Beverly or Salem, stay tuned.

If you’re new to our writing or forgot (I wouldn’t blame you), our endorsements aren’t decided by one person – they’re all based on group discussion and shared writing, so there’s a lot more to these than the bylines. But I got the job of collecting it for a post. I wish I could take credit for all the jokes, though. We have people who are way too inside baseball in each town so we’re mostly working around them and just letting it rip. So with that said, here we go back on the track!

Gloucester’s got a lot of uncontested wards this year and the mayor is running unopposed, so that takes a lot of off our plate. Honestly, it’s a pretty quiet year, except for School Committee and At-Large, where there’s a lot of variation that needs to be considered. And this year, we’ve decided that 5 at-large candidates are worthy of our vote for different reasons, so picking just 4 will be difficult.

On the City Council side of things, we had some good change two years ago. We’ve got some great things going for us these days – the beautiful new West Parish school, the absolutely beautiful Biotech lab on the waterfront- but we can do so much more to make this a better city for everyone. Gloucester itself is changing, but it’s also the greater world beyond the bridge that’s changing and Gloucester’s boats are just rising with the tide. This was meant to be figurative but I guess it’s also literal. We’re going to need a new water treatment plant, at least 2 new schools, and a plan to deal with 2030. This city struggles today because of a lack of action that kicked the can down the road in the past, and we need councilors who understand how to best manage that without shying away from a hard discussion and a hard decision.

For your Councilors at Large:

Jen Holmgren

Obviously, she’s going to be our top choice. She’s a good friend of ours, but don’t hold that against her. She’s better than all of us, no lie. Jen has a seemingly endless well of empathy and compassion for everyone in this town, which isn’t surprising, since she’s a nurse. She works tirelessly for issues like affordable and working class housing, in a city where we are so far behind in providing that for our community and a vast swath of our population is indifferent to it. Jen is level-headed and truly researches a topic before rendering a reasonable decision. She’s not afraid to say “I need to look into that further and get back to you.” She’s incredibly bright and dedicated, and she’s had a great first term. She unfortunately has been targeted by a few of the really vocal anti-Espressos folks since she voted yes on that project (a shitstorm we were too busy working, having lives, and baby-raising to really address correctly but holy crap that was ridiculous), and that’s pretty unfair considering she’s working for a lot of the interests the no-vote people hold dear.

Chris DiMercurio-Sicuranza

Chris is new to electoral politics, but an old hand. He was really active in Salem when he lived there, and when he fell in love with his husband Frank and moved to Gloucester it was a total win for us. His time working in the Mayor’s office really helped him. He’s smart, a great communicator, and he’s passionate, progressive and pragmatic as can be. You’ll love him once you elect him.

And boy does he have a lot of plans. He sent us a huge list of things he’s planning on addressing: optimization around city services like app-based parking for Main Street and at beaches; Blue economy gains through Community Dev and Econ. Dev to increase support for marine based education (GMGI), research and potential new industries (like Sea Machines, autonomous sea vessels); more cross-collaboration of special events and studying traffic, merchant and tourism data with one centralized source that can help us see patterns by working together and sharing resources – also gaining revenue for all the above. Coastal resiliency, affordable housing, Gloucester 400th and DMO/Discover Gloucester are also critical, too. Getting younger people involved especially on boards on commissions but setting up better web/social media pages across all depts. to make public more aware and easier to follow.

As for schools, he also explained: definitely more in favor of the MSBA supported new school as we need the resources for social workers, special education, theater, arts, etc. all of which will be jeopardized if we put funding toward repairing older and antiquated schools. I want a true facilities manager who can be responsible with realistic budgets for the short term and long term though in any scenario as falling tiles and moldy conditions are not only unsafe, they are disgraceful conditions for our students, teachers, administrators, parents and makes top talent within schools want to leave or not take jobs here.

John McCarthy

John’s best known for being the Chief of Police, and he’s worked his whole life for the city, starting on the waterfront as a kid. Unlike some of the police issues we’ve seen across the country  he set the tone for a compassionate police force and was at the forefront of community policing before that was even a thing. He has been a strong supporter of Action, Inc for years, and he also actively participated in Gloucester s high-risk task force, a coalition of city officials and nonprofit staff members, about 50 people, that meet monthly to discuss strategies on how best to serve our most vulnerable people, including repeat offenders. He is compassionate and understanding toward people who may not immediately elicit empathy from others. And that goes a long way. And as a department head, he understands how the city budget works. In all honestly, this is incredibly important for our elected officials especially over the next few years when some big decisions need to be made. He’s an all-around family man, and we’ve never had a negative interaction with the guy. We hope he gets in, as he checks a lot of boxes for a lot of people and seems like he’ll do a great job of listening.

Melissa Cox

Melissa is involved in so much of this city, and when you have a question or emergency, she’s on top of it no matter what. She excels at being totally accessible. She saved KT’s wedding 2 years ago after she spaced on PICKING UP HER ENTIRE MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE from the clerk’s office. She panicked and messaged Melissa, who immediately contacted somebody on a Saturday to meet her to literally unlock City Hall and help her out. That’s the kind of thing Melissa does without blinking. She’s always had Leslie Knope vibes. However, we don’t always 100% line up with our goals for Gloucester’s future. Her priorities aren’t necessarily bad – she’s warning us we need to cover a new sewer plant first, and seemingly a school second – so we’re worried that a new school isn’t something she’s going to fight for, but she’s also a rational human being who doesn’t immediately respond with passion or emotion. She’ll take a look at an issue from all sides and make an informed decision.

EDIT: She did let us know she’s behind the consolidation and exclusion, just wasn’t 100% happy with the whole process and final choice, which is fair!

A dramatization of when someone dumps a couch on Kondelin Road

Joe Ciolino (alternate)

In the past we haven’t really pushed voting for Joe. He’s voted in ways we liked and disliked, but he hadn’t really moved us in one direction or the other. He’s always pushed downtown business because that’s what he’s personally involved in, which is great for downtown Main St, but can leave retail businesses outside of the Block Party area feeling a little overlooked. Also, he recently mentioned at the GOP meet and greet that he still hands out plastic bags at his store which is against the laws the city council itself created. So he’s either disrespectful or blowing smoke, neither of which are a good look. He’s also stated the reason we have tourists is because we still have a fishing industry, and we need to be protecting that. It’s a common sense idea that is almost low hanging fruit to pander to, because literally no one seeking office is going to say “I don’t care about the fishing industry” if they enjoy having unbroken bones. People come here for beaches, but they also come here for the Wicked Tuna boats and because George Clooney made a movie about the Crow’s Nest and they wanna see that stuff in person. But you know, you keep having your dumb bags blow into the harbor and there aren’t gonna be a ton of fish left here.

It’s 2019 and people still come here assuming this is factually correct. Taking their money is in all of our best interests.

However, we really like that one of his priorities is getting a new school built because we are very pro GET THIS DONE NOW WHILE WE HAVE FUNDING FROM THE STATE. Recently he said he thinks a 71 year old school built before cities were mandated to take all students and you couldn’t send them to institutions anymore will need replacing, which is so true but unfortunately not believed by everyone which is exhausting but that’s Gloucester for you. So maybe if you are dead set against voting for one of the above because they looked at your puppy wrong you can go this way instead.

That’s it. That’s what we have for now. There are other candidates that didn’t make the cut for a myriad of reasons, and we don’t have a strong opinion on the only contested ward to make an impassioned plea (Though we do like Joe Giacalone).

We will throw another post up shortly about the school committee race, for which we will have several other opinions.

Your Helpful 2018 Ballot Question Clamsplainer: Question 3

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TLDR: Vote YES because we are not monsters

In 2016, after much drama, the MA Legislature passed a law giving the same basic protections to transgender individuals that are provided to most other groups. It’s a really short law (https://malegislature.gov/Bills/189/Senate/S2407/) and it basically says that if you’re a place that has segregated facilities based on sex, that people who have the appropriate gender identity can use them. Like, humans can use bathrooms and stuff. This is not hard.

That’s it. So let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you’re a transgender female (born male, but perhaps at a midway point in the transition). Let’s also say, inelegantly, but we’re trying to be as clear AF here, you still have your junk. You can still pee standing up.

This law allows said transgender person to go and use a women’s bathroom, where they can then go sit in a stall like the rest of the ladies would. Or in the case of the opposite, a person born female who is transitioning genders, they could go into a men’s bathroom (where they would also likely use a stall).

I oversimplify, of course, because we are the Clam, and we like to break things down this basically, and often we’ve had a couple of beers when we’re writing these things. Gender is, we now know, far more fluid that this simple example, and trans people are on a continuum. It’s about far, far more than where your junk is.

Well, there’s a certain ultra conservative minority out there who thinks that being transgender is an abomination unto the Flying Spaghetti Monster or something. And they are seizing on the natural fear and squickishness most of us feel about bodily issues and sexuality to raise FUD on this. They call it “the bathroom bill” to minimalize it, and they try and raise the specter of hairy, bearded, clearly male people wearing dresses so they can hang out in women’s bathrooms and commit unspeakable violations.

Image result for worst website in the world

You can go through the actual Bible to see how wrong these people are or, you know, take your cues from their website design skills. Heck, it may not even be up at any given time.

I’m a politician, so I’m not going to say what I want to about that premise, but it’s total B*$%&@#(!!. Period. Men are not going to use this to make criminal behavior legal. It’s also not going to affect very many people at all – but those it affects gain a massively positive benefit. It basically legalizes them in public.

On a personal side, I know a number of people who are transgender. On both sides. You wouldn’t know it looking at most of them. Heck, you probably wouldn’t know it about any of them unless they told you. One of my friends was born female and began to transition a couple of years ago. He now looks more badass than I do, and has a better beard. I may be a bit jealous. His wife is someone he met and married when he was physically female, and she is a wonderful person who has stood with her wife (and now husband) throughout – because sexual orientation may be one thing, but plumbing is just plumbing. Love is bigger than that.

This message of tolerance brought to you by the good people at Love Plumbing & HVAC, LLC

So in other words, I’m proudly voting “yes” on Question 3 in order to preserve the protections that a small class of people in this Commonwealth need in order for them to safely survive in our increasingly crazy-ass society. If you are so heartless as to want people who look like women but don’t yet have 100% of the plumbing (or, conversely, people who look like badass men but need to pee sitting down – and forcing them into the ladies’ room) hooked up to have to use a men’s bathroom, well, first of all you’re not someone I want to know. Secondly, take a good look in the mirror. And then vote “yes”. Because the only way this ballot question could be clearer is if there was a checkbox for “Duh”.

Your Helpful Ballot Question Clamsplainer: Question 2

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Written by Friend of the Clam Larry Oaks or “Lawrence Okenclam,” as he is now known across the lands.

Question 2: This is an easy one:

Vote Yes if you know the Gorton’s fisherman isn’t a real life fisherman with the same inalienable rights as you and me.

Image result for gortons fisherman

He is hipster AF though

Read more if you’re bored or whatever:

It wasn’t so long ago in this country that corporations had to navigate a set of rules put in place to promote fair elections. Of course companies went ahead anyway and funneled obscene amounts of money into the coffers of the candidate of their choice – after all the rules didn’t go anywhere near far enough toward limiting the influence of private wealth on our elections – but at least there were rules! Remember those days? Good times!

And what might you ask does any of this have to do with the Gortons fisherman?

Eight years ago the already weak campaign finance rules in place all changed. And not for the better.

In the now infamous 2010 Supreme Court case Citizens V. United Election Commission the Court through a narrow 5-4 decision (thanks Antonin Scalia) struck down any remaining limits on corporate political spending and in the process placed the rights of corporations and special interests on equal footing with those of actual human beings.

In effect, the court decided that corporations are people. Not pretend people, drinking in Williamsburgh with dudes named “Tigh” but real, actual people.

Corporations are people? As if!

Image result for corporate personhood

Meet 2020 Presidential Candidate Rod McBuildingface

Look, we all know corporations aren’t anything like actual people, right people? After all you can’t grab a brew with Archer, Daniels and Midland – you wouldn’t spill your secrets to Johnson & Johnson and who the hell would wanna spend an afternoon at Good Harbor Beach with Proctor and Gamble?

Listen, those may sound like real people but they’re definitely not.

A “yes” vote on Question 2 means you’ll be joining us over at the Clam in supporting the creation of a Citizens Commission to investigate and report on the effects that Citizens United and similar court cases have had on our political discourse.

We Clammers see this one as a no-brainer. It doesn’t matter (or at least it shouldn’t) what political view you happen to hold. Who isn’t for fair elections? Who doesn’t believe in equal representation? Who doesn’t think campaign finance reform is needed?

Who thinks corporations are people?

Oh, right. A lot of greedy politicians, that’s who!

So be sure to vote “Yes” on question 2. Let’s form a group of real life people and have them report back to ‘we the people’ on how to begin getting the money out of politics.

And in the meantime remember people, Stanley Morgan is your friend, your neighbor and a real life person. Morgan Stanley is a bank. And the Gorton’s fisherman? He isn’t a real fisherman.