 Good evening, it's 2020 and we're back with our byline show. We're going to make a little change here. We're going to be on a little bit less frequently, but we're still going to have really interesting and engaging people from our community. And we're starting tonight with our newly elected school committee member, Ben. And as those of you who have been following the show for a while know, we're trying to keep track of what's going on as our new town government is sort of getting its legs under it. And so, Ben, you're going to be joining that government. Yes. What motivated you to run for a public office? Well, being a parent definitely motivated me a little bit, but just wanting to get involved and make a difference in the lives of kids. My father worked with kids and that was his mantra, was that if you want to change the future, you have to be present in the lives of kids today. It's a great philosophy and a great focus. So let's go back a little bit and talk about how you got to Amherst and hear a little bit about your professional life and so take the ball. All right, so I moved up here approximately 13 years ago for family reasons, we'll say. And so my son was born in 2009 and that pretty much kept me here for the next, we'll say 18 years at least, but yeah. So family brought you here and professionally, you've done some pretty interesting things along the way. Tell us a little about that because then I want to connect it to what you're doing today and where you are in politics. Right, so I was in the United States Army Corps of Engineers and after I left there I worked for about a decade in residential construction and from there I moved on to... I went back to school for journalism and communications and I worked in the news for a little bit in Channel 3 and Hartford WFSB and then I also reported traffic for a while, which was fun, I guess we could say. Did you get to go up and in helicopter? No, we had a Cezna airplane that we used. Oh, I love it, but you did get up into the air? Once. What? Once and got air sick, which was... That took care of that. Yeah, all set for that. Tried it, done it, no more. None of that. And then after moving up here I ended up working in maintenance for about six or seven years at the Center for Extended Care and then from there I entered the school system and was initially a custodian and I recently got promoted and now I'm the assistant director of facilities. Right. Honest work, do what you want, you know, up, down, but here, there, lots of training and education and you started your work in Amherst as a custodian at the schools and then what happened? Well then the assistant facilities director position opened up and the job posting was almost identical to my resume. I mean, probably have a little more experience, but yeah, so I ended up applying and it was a long, tedious process. Okay, so you're now the assistant director of facilities. Director of facilities, okay. And so that puts you right in the middle of the school system. Absolutely. And which school were you working in when you were a custodian? Initially. You were there and everywhere? Kind of, yeah. Initially I did a split between Wildwood and Fort River Elementary and then as of last fall I was anchored at Wildwood. At Wildwood, okay. But now you're working across the system. Right. And so you got quite a set of insights around the condition of these various buildings and stuff like that. And so with that knowledge and what Dad put into your head about caring about kids, then the public service came into the picture and what motivated you at that point to actually run as opposed to, because you're serving the children in your job every day, making sure they have a safe environment in which to learn and grow. But then you decided to take the plunge into politics. So that's a kind of big leap. Right, right. Most people might either think about it or say, no way, Jose, never. But you made the jump. Right. Both of my parents kind of had a lot of experience in the public eye. My father worked for the state of Connecticut and actually the juvenile judicial system. And my mother worked for the city of Hartford. And so I'm not entirely sure that I knew that there was another option then to get directly involved. So it kind of felt like I was ready to do it, ready to take on the responsibilities. And you saw the opportunity and the need forming new school committee. And so remind us, how many members on the school committee, the regional school committee? So the five members of the Amherst School Committee are automatically on board with the regional. And then each town from the region sends another member. Very good. And so you actually are serving on two boards at the same time. And from Amherst, how many people were on the ballot and how did that all line up? There was a total of seven for five seats. Okay. And are you the only new person coming into the board? Yep. Okay. So you're entering an organization that's been functioning and these guys have been on there for a while. But you are going to bring your own voice and your own perspective. And is it fair to assume because of the work you do in the schools, you're going to do some significant focus on the capital side of what's going on in the school committee. Absolutely. And in the school system. Excuse me. Right. Clearly focusing on the environment, the quality of the environment that our kids are learning in. Okay. It's very important to me. So we went through this process in town of a study because we have two elementary schools that were trying to figure out where they were going. We had maybe a false start and then we regrouped, put another study committee together. They came out with a report. What's your take on that from the perspective of somebody who's seen the building from the studs. Right. From the studs out and from the wall board in. Right. So I actually participated in the Fort River Feasibility Study as well. Okay. So a decent perspective on that. In your role. Right. Well, right. Okay. As an employee of the district at the time. Right. Okay. I would say I definitely got a lot of insight as to what our needs are and we have a great deal of need as far as improvement and at least two of the school buildings in our district. And you're talking about elementary schools. Right, right. Yeah. Wildwood and Fort. Because our junior high and our middle school and our high school, a lot of work's been done over time and they're in decent shape, would you say? I would say we still have to deal with the roof at the middle school. Okay. That's a high. That's a structural issue if you don't fix the roof. Right. The next thing is the walls and the floors go. Absolutely. And then air quality and these sorts of things are affected by the moist environment. Okay. But the real big focus in the community and in the system around capital has been looking at these two schools. Right. And recently the state gave the town the green light. Yep. Said you did a good job in the study. You got a plan. We see that there's a consensus in the community to figure out what we're going to do about our elementary schools. But the decisions haven't been made yet. Right. There's a direction that's sort of been laid out. Yep. You want to give us your perspective on that. Right. So the two most... And now you're speaking as a school committee member, right? Right, right. Okay. So the two most viable options that we have right now are I would say an aggressive renovation. We're not talking about just paint and these sorts of things. Those improvements are going to be ongoing until we actually get to our end goal. Because they've got to be done. Right. Otherwise the buildings are going to not be functional. Right. They need to be inhabitable. So we've got to make some investment in them no matter what the final decisions are down the road. Definitely. Okay. But then there's this continuum from doing as little as you can get away with to doing more. Yep. And so how do we balance that? Right. And that's going to be the big challenge over the next couple of years is figuring out a complete consensus on that. There are a lot of folks from the previous project that had failed that are definitely in support of a brand new school which is... That would be the furthest... Okay, so when we did the feasibility study there were options A through E. So that would be option A. Okay. Right. And E would be just bringing the buildings up to current building codes which would leave a lot of other issues falling by the wayside. So the most cost-effective is somewhere between a completely new school and an aggressive renovation project. So if you got to an aggressive renovation project you would have a school that was safe and functional but it would be a 50, 60-year-old set of buildings. Sort of. Somewhere in that range? Right. You essentially from the outside looking in would see kind of a new building. It would be kind of akin to the project done in 2002 at Crocker Farm. Yeah. Okay. New building on an old, not foundation building. So the question is how much do we invest in these properties and will they get us far enough to feel comfortable that these schools are going to work into the future. And there is a core of people in town who say that's a good way to go and then there's a core of people who say good money after bad because you're going to spend a substantial portion of what you would otherwise be spending for the new school and you're going to end up with a product that is still not going to be up to current standards educationally even though it might be structurally. Is that a fair way to summarize that? Absolutely. Because if we were to go with the lowest of options for lack of a better word, option E which is just bringing the building up to current codes and standards. The issues that we have with the quad system in the two elementary schools where we have sound traveling from classroom to classroom, that would still exist. A lot of the issues that we have would still be there. We would just be meeting current building codes. Right. So that's the fundamental debate. And then if the decision is new school then the question is one school, two schools. And the question is where if it's one school and all that. Any thoughts about that or it's too early in your work to be able to start thinking that out loud? The one aspect that I could definitely speak to is what we call the one school option would actually leave us with two elementary schools. So Cracker Farm would still exist as an elementary school. And then the big question would be whether it's the Wildwood site or the Fort River site that we build on. Would be the better of the two for a single new school to accommodate all of the children and those two. So that's a decision point as well. Right. So when we were invited into the MSBA process we submitted two statements of interest. One for each of the schools. And the one that was accepted was the Fort River one. So there's a little, I guess less ambiguity there. So the real question is... That's a little bit clearer now that we're heading in that direction if we go with the one new school scenario. If that's the one where we go. Okay. So I guess the real question would be what would we do with the remaining building? Does it continue to function as a school? That's one of the questions we would need to answer. Yeah. Or be turned over to another public use. Right. Or be sold off for private use. That's another option. Okay. So you can't be a Johnny One note here. Right. So you're going to bring a lot of expertise and experience and vision around the physical facilities, the capital agenda. Absolutely. But you're going to be responsible as a member of the school committee to hear and think about and vote on lots of other stuff. So can you give me some insight and share with the folks who are watching us about two or three things that you think are most critical on your mind that you think need attention and that you're going to be trying to pay more specific attention to and develop some expertise and create a meaningful voice on most things? I would definitely say equity is another big issue for me. The superintendent's equity task force, that's a subcommittee I'm interested in being involved with. I can't stress the importance enough across the board of having equity as far as access to education and parity amongst our educators as well. I feel like that affects equity and how that trickles down. So you're using the word equity and you've used it probably six times. Give us your definition or idea of when you think about equity, what are you thinking about? I'm thinking in terms of mostly access to education. So we can't equalize everyone across the board. Everyone has different, is coming into the fold with different needs and from different backgrounds and these sorts of things. So basically meeting everyone's needs or attempting to meet everyone's needs, to me it's definitely a goal. But meeting everyone's needs across the board is best we can in serving every community with kind of the same focus. Within the school system. Because we do have several different communities. So when I think about this a little bit I think about social equity. I think about educational equity. And I think about the fact that you've got a budget and one way to define equity is everybody gets ex-shekels and what if somebody needs a little more. Right. And there definitely are I guess folks within our communities that do need a little bit more. Folks that are serviced under our special education programs would probably need a little bit more economically. And because of the presence of the university this community has a really high level of folks coming in. Some of them for a very short time. Some of them might be in the middle of their education. Some might be just starting out. But their parents have come to the university to study or they may be new faculty or researchers who come to. So we have a kind of, it's a special community in that way. And in a sense that creates some challenges for the school system. Because they may be coming from places with very different cultural expectations. They may be coming with different language. And so it presents a special set of challenges for the school system. So it isn't just about race or poverty or class. It's about a very mixed community with a lot of different kinds of needs to make sure that each of the children there get the education that they need. Right, which is the, that's the important part. We all have access to the same, I guess the same resources within the educational environment. And again, it's not about dividing the pie equally simply because there are ten children here and ten children there. It's about what do these ten children need and what do these ten children need. They're all our children, they're in our community. So we need to make sure that they get the education that they need. Absolutely. Other threads or agenda, I know you're very new to it, but you did just come off of a campaign and people probably asked you some interesting questions along the way that only you can tell me and us what came up that like, oh wow, I never thought about that. Geez, I've been worrying about this and it's real. One of the biggest things that, I think pretty much everyone that I spoke to had some sort of a take or questions regarding finances. Like, how was our money spent? Where do we, where does every last dime go? And in my new position, that's been something that I've been having to research a lot of. So definitely budget and finances pretty big. But also one thing that came up that I didn't, which is odd, so I'm a basketball coach, I'm a youth basketball coach, right? Advocationally. As an avocation, a volunteer thing. Good, okay. So one thing that came up that I should have been on my radar, I imagine, earlier was issues within the athletics department, fields, which goes back to the structural part. Yeah, back to capital and infrastructure. So that's one of those things that I didn't anticipate thoroughly. I imagine, yeah, I definitely thought about the athletics program, but, you know, I didn't realize the amount of need that we have there as well. In the community at large, or at the schools in particular, or both? Kind of both, but more so at the schools. More at the schools. We just had a football team that was... Did fine. Right, did fantastic. Yeah, that was great. Our fields don't necessarily match the quality of the team. Exactly. So these sorts of issues, they're definitely on my radar now. Right. So you're on both the regional school committee and the elementary school committee. How are you thinking about that? Just two sets of meetings and go in and barrel through? Or do you have some kind of specific thoughts and focus about what you think you want to do on the elementary level and contribute versus the regional? You know, I think at the elementary level I probably have a much more clear picture of kind of where I want to be involved, how I fit into that and still learning a bit about the regional side of things, yeah. Because that's going to be interesting. You're working with people from other communities and so... Learning personalities. Although you'll be learning some new personalities at the elementary school committee as well, right? Have you worked with most of them before? Right, I've definitely socially interacted with most of them, but I've also on the feasibility study, the current chair, Eric Nakajima, I've worked with him on that and we've definitely interacted a lot as well. But in the meantime, I've been sitting down individually with each of the members to try to familiarize myself with something I probably have to do at the regional level as well. So I had the privilege when our new town counselors were first elected to participate in one of their very first, before they were even sworn in, gatherings to get to know each other and begin to learn and understand about the role of being a counselor because they certainly understood the charter because they had to do that work before they could be a successful candidate and get elected. But one of the things that jumped out at me which was really interesting because I have a lot of interest in background in the arts was I think five of the counselors had some form of background in the arts. And I was like, wow, and one was a dancer and they were musicians and theater. And so I was really surprised at how many of them had an arts background. So I'm curious whether you've had a chance to think about where things like art fit in or the arts fit into our educational system. You referenced sports. And so it would be interesting to hear a little bit about how you think about other things that go on outside of the classroom in terms of the importance and relative standing within the school system whether it's the arts or the sports or anything else social or political engagement because there's a lot of those clubs and things at the school. Yeah, definitely. I have a background is so what year is this? DJ for 30 years embarrassingly enough as long as that isn't very musically involved. You started at two apparently. Thank you so much. Or I don't see a single gray hair. Thank you. And also grew up playing instruments and my son's a saxophone player who's just now starting to play guitar as well. So clearly the arts are definitely important to me. I also have a niece who's a visual artist. So just the impact that the broader our education is individually the more complete and whole we are as human beings so these are definitely important aspects but also for political involvement for younger folks. I'm also on the Human Rights Commission and we currently need a high school student to jump in. But continuing these sorts of involvement. So you see the education that's going on in the classroom as obviously extremely important but not the exclusion of these other kinds of activities which help create a well rounded individual and a student who can interact with the world more than just as an employee more in their combination of civic and cultural and other ways to engage with the community. Absolutely. One of the best teachers I had in high school initially forced me she was also a town counselor I should have in the town I grew up in. And so she forced me initially to go to town council meetings with her and then so that was my junior year in high school. And that was something that I continued on later so I imagine there might have been a seed so that sounds like a seed to me and it's now flowering. Right. So in the minute or two we have left do you have any other key points that you'd like to raise that we haven't discussed that just give you an opportunity since you're on camera and nothing major I can think of no. So I want to wish you lots of luck. Thank you. Thanks for jumping in. Thank you for having me here. Thanks to the school committee and it's really important work. So thank you all for joining us and we look forward to seeing you very soon with some more guests. Thank you.