 I'm James Milan, and this is a legislative update with our state representative, Sean Garbley, part of our Talk of the Town series, and Sean, first of all, welcome, and thanks for being here. I can see you're in your office. Thank you, James. Thanks for having me, and thank you to ACMI for doing these updates with the legislative delegation. Absolutely. It's one of our many pleasures, kind of combined pleasures, and what we feel are obligations to the community as well. But as I mentioned, it looks like you are in your office at the State House now, and folks should know that both you and I would have preferred for you to be in ACMI Studios. We were aiming towards that on various occasions over the last month or so. But in the end, our conflicting schedules, and you're a busy man, has meant that this is what we will have to do for today, and we will be hopeful and confident that in our next legislative update sometime in the spring, we will indeed have you in the ACMI studio. Thank you for understanding, James, and every intention of being up at Park Ave today, but unfortunately, well, part of the duties the speaker has asked me to do in the house is I preside over the informal session. So we're still in technically informal session, we're in a short recess right now, but I need to stay until that has concluded, which is the reason I can't be with you in Arlington today because I'm still at the State House. So, but I appreciate your understanding. And we are going to hope that we can get our full conversation in before, in fact, to get called back to your duties. So let's go ahead and start, you know, with these legislative updates, obviously, we are always interested to hear what is going on with the various bills and and other measures that you are that you are working towards at all times, and we will. But I think that we cannot start the conversation any other place, unfortunately, these days then with COVID, as it is currently again in another yet another surge as the Omicron variant has really just taken the country, the region, even the town of Arlington and surrounding communities by storm. So first, your your your thoughts on where things stand and where state policy stands around COVID and Omicron variant particular? Well, certainly, you know, having this conversation remote, right, has just this never happened before, you know, two years ago, we've always done this in the studio or at town hall. And that's because this pandemic certainly has changed just our way of life, right? People are regularly looking at, you know, tiny boxes on a screen. They're not in person as much. Now our young people have returned to school, right? Many people have returned to their jobs, which makes the surgeons of the Omicron variant that much scarier for a lot of people. That's why we're encouraging people to get vaccinated. If you're not vaccinated, get boosted. If you are vaccinated, but not yet boosted, wear a appropriate mask whenever you can. Especially when you're with other people, whether that's in your car, you know, out in Arlington or at your place of employment and to constantly, you know, wash your hands with warm, you know, with warm water and soap to whenever you can. You know, based on my conversations with the Department of Public Health and health officials that I talked to, you know, about the Omicron variant, this variant is, it's different than variants in the past. You know, what's dangerous in many ways about this pandemic, right? Is that a lot of folks who develop symptoms, it attacked their lungs, right? It attacked here. My understanding from health officials is that the Omicron variant seems to attack your nose and that's good in some ways because hopefully hospitalizations will be down, especially among the vaccinated, especially, you know, not attacking your lung area and making that congested. But it's also scary because if it does attack your nose, if you will, it is much more contagious than previous variants. And so that is something to really keep in mind. The spread of this variant has been massive across our state, across our country, across our town. The numbers show that, but the amount of hospitalizations among the vaccinated have been quite minimal compared to the past, you know, the first year of the coronavirus pandemic. So, you know, where John Arlington is doing an outstanding job in vaccinating our young people, you know, we were top in the state. Most recently among all cities and towns and the the COVID response, emergency response committee actually called me and wanted to know, you know, what is, you know, the Department of Public Health, Arlington Health and Human Services, what are they doing? What's their secret sauce, huh? What's their secret sauce that other communities aren't doing. So I called, you know, Christine Bungiorno, who runs Natasha over at Permanent of Public Health, they run a great program and they actually joined me on a phone call with the chair and his staff of the committee to give them their perspective, their ideas, their thinking, what they needed to do and what they should be doing. And actually the committee invited them to come and testify to share best strategies for handling the Omicron variant and making sure young people get vaccinated and all people get vaccinated and boosted. You know, we've run clinics in the town of Arlington at Town Hall at Arlington High that just have been really, really successful. And to see that Arlington has been seen as the model in a lot of these areas is comforting to me and should be comforting to the people of Arlington. And so I'm just grateful to Christine Bungiorno and Natasha and the rest of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Public Health. Yeah, that is great news that you've just shared. I was not aware of that. I've been speaking with Christine Bungiorno very regularly over these last couple of years with COVID-19 updates, et cetera. And it's good to know we knew that the numbers looked good here in Arlington, that the rollout of vaccination clinics and for our youth in particular was impressive. But you've put it in context of the larger state numbers, et cetera. And that's wonderful news to hear it really is and kudos to them. One of the concerns that I share with Christine and other health officials is the fact that in Arlington we have a mask mandate that's dictated around public health measures. And I think it's a great thing. But we are one town out of 351 across the Commonwealth. And most cities and towns, our area they do, but most cities and towns in Massachusetts don't have a mask mandate at this time. And that's very concerning to a lot of us. And I would call on Governor Baker, as I have in the past, to restore that mask mandate. It is not difficult when you go to Whole Foods or Stop and Shop to just put on a mask. If you go to CVS, Walgreens, Trader Joe's, put on a mask. You go to Starbucks, Cafe Nero, Robbins Library, wherever you're going, put on a mask. And that's not just to protect yourself, but that's to protect those around you. And again, as I'm sure you're aware, the degree of compliance with that here in this town is very close to 100%. And at each of the venues you mentioned by name and all the others as well that you intend to cover, again, it's great to feel like that's the community we live in. At the same time, your point is well taken that we are about one. And there are no borders between us. And so we really have to hope that in one way or the other, either because people choose to take on this practice or because the governor or somebody else makes sure that that is the case. I will, before we move on, sorry, go ahead. The mask mandate really should be statewide. And I think it's important that Governor Baker redo that or to put it into motion to make that happen. Point well taken. And as we move on, I just have to note that you went through the litany of things that people should be doing from vaccines to boosters to washing hands to the mask. And some of that is new because the vaccines were not available initially and the booster's not, et cetera. But so much of it is so familiar for two years now, and yet we need to still be saying this thing. So that's worth noting in and of itself. But let's go ahead and move on because I mentioned before that there is always legislation itself to talk about in these legislative updates and that's the primary focus of them. So I do know that you have three bills that have either passed or at least passed the house. And so I just would invite you to share the content of those bills with our audience. Well, James, you've been interviewing me for many years now and I think you know how difficult it is to get a bill passed. And I remember some of your questions and some of your own activism in trying to get other pieces of legislation passed being frustrated that certain bills just didn't seem to go over the hump and get to the governor's desk for his signature. And we share that frustration as legislators, right? When we file a bill, many people will tell us or these senses that it can take anywhere from five to 10 years to get a bill passed. That's a long time, especially when a lot of legislators don't serve five to 10 years, right? This session has been one of the most productive for me and for my colleagues. And I'm very happy to, you know, collaborating with members of the house, members of the Senate that I've been able to get, well, three of my bills passed in the house and then two of my bills passed in both branches of the house and the Senate and two of them signed by Governor Baker. I still have one still waiting engrossment in the Senate, but I am hopeful that it will happen soon. So what are they? The first bill I'm very, very proud of is what we call, especially during COVID and during the pandemic, emergency-paid sick time. So here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, nobody can be denied sick time if they have to not go to work because of a bunch of things. One is if they get the Omicron or if they get COVID themselves, if their loved ones get the variant, if their kids get the variants, anything that would concern them of going to work, they can use emergency-paid sick time. And there's millions of dollars in the budget that we put into this account. So what's critically important about emergency-paid sick time is that the time is adequate and to make sure that it's funded. And we did both. So we gave a week of emergency-paid sick time, which matches with the CDC recommendation, but also it is funded. And we've extended the emergency-paid sick time program here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts until April. And that really is important, especially with the contagion of how contagious the Omicron variant is. And so it's just really, really, I think it's great legislation. I think it's a model for the rest of the country that we really need to protect our workforce and nobody who is sick or has COVID should feel that they have to go to work or they'll be fired, right? That is a real concern for a lot of people. And so that's why this bill getting passed by the House, the Senate and signed by Governor Baker was so important. And it's definitely something that I'm very proud to have played a real role in the House and in the legislature and getting it passed. Yeah, really just one quick comment about that. And as you've already mentioned, the people who are perhaps gonna benefit the most from this legislation are, in fact, those who are among the most vulnerable, which I know is always a population that you are looking to provide support for. Those who feel like they have no choice but to go to work, even if they feel sick or they have a family member who is, et cetera, those are the very folks that, again, you've been championing their interests for the time that I've been talking to you over these years. And clearly this should be a real concrete benefit to them. So congratulations for that one. And what's the second bill? So the second bill is known as the Nutrition Act here in Massachusetts. And we actually just celebrated a few weeks ago. I joined Governor Baker, Lieutenant Governor Polito and several of my colleagues socially distanced as he signed the bill into law. And what the law mandates is and what Project Bred has estimated, that's an advocacy organization. If you've ever done the Walk for Hunger every sprain in Massachusetts, they've estimated that this bill that I filed now signed into law will help feed an additional 10,000 students across the Commonwealth who are low income or live in what's categorized as poor school districts to make sure that they have a nutritious lunch and don't go without having lunch. I know James, you've asked constantly throughout the time of being interviewed by you around the passion of yours and that's certainly education and the achievement gap and what we need to do in Massachusetts to continue to make sure students achieve and to close the achievement gap in what we would call low performing districts. And we've always talked about the socioeconomic reasons of why young people fail. And certainly one of the reasons young people fail is because they don't have breakfast the morning of, they don't have dinner the night before. No students should be starving in the classroom when they have come to learn, right? I think it's a moral obligation that we have to these students when they're there and their families when they're there ready to learn, they should be able to get a nutritious breakfast and lunch. And I know some people might say chicken nuggets and pizza is not nutritious. We're working on that, but every young person should be able to have lunch so they're not starving throughout the day. And this bill is a huge step in that direction. It's also something that's very important to me because in the legislation, we ban the practice of what's known as meal debt shaming that has been too often used in school districts, not in Arlington, but too often used in school districts across Massachusetts. And what that means is, so a student goes to the line with all their peers in front of them and behind them to purchase their lunch. And so the student gives them their card and whoever's there scans the card and finds out that there's no money on the card whether because the parents forgot to load the card with more money for that student's lunch or because of difficult times, especially during a pandemic, wasn't able to afford it this month. What has been done in so many districts is the person will take the lunch, put an X through it and then give that student another lunch that is deemed appropriate by that school district which is sickening because the students behind that student just witnessed what had happened that that student is too poor to afford a regular lunch. And that to me is morally demeaning to that student. It's literally shaming. And then another thing a lot of school districts do, again, not Arlington, but a lot of school districts have collection agencies literally on the budget where they'll run credit reports. They'll call the families and say, hey, you owe us money. You know, this is public education. This is a public school and that practice is just disgusting. And during the bill hearing, excuse me, James, during the bill signing where Governor Baker signed the bill into law, we had students there who had been shamed. Subject to this. Subject to this cruelty. And it was so wonderful that, you know, obviously it's too late for them because they've moved on, they've graduated, but that this practice will never happen again to another student and all 351 cities and towns across Massachusetts, it's great. You know, it's a great, it was a great feeling to them. And, you know, I know we do show and tell sometimes, James, but this is a copy of the student nutrition bill that was signed by Governor Baker. This is the emergency paid, the Massachusetts COVID-19 emergency paid. Put that right up close to the screen there. Can you see it? Yep, yep, we can see there and just scroll it right on up so we can see the signatures at the bottom. There you go. There you go. And that's what legislation looks like in the end. It takes, it's not, you know, an easy, quick process, but it is the process. And in those two cases, we've been able to get two very good things done that's going to help a lot of people in Massachusetts. And now we move on to the next bill. And so my hope is that- Yeah, if I understood you correctly, you said that two of them had now been signed by the governor and are have been made into law and that now one is still pending, I think, Senate approval, is that right? Correct. So there's a piece of legislation I filed in the house. I've been filing it for a few years now that's around birth certificate access for adoptees in the common law. So everybody, mostly everybody have their birth certificate. It's your ID. It's your identity. It's who you are. Nobody can take it away from you. It's your document that proves you are who you are, right? In Massachusetts, if you were born before 1978 or after 2008, you have your original birth certificate. But if you were born within that 33 year period, you know, 1978 give or take and 2008, 33, 34 years, you under law in Massachusetts, you can't get your original birth certificate. It was just mind boggling to me. That's your identity and you can't get it. And I hear from adoptees across the state who want this bill so bad. So current because of mass law, right? We have three types of people. We have people who are not adopted, who have their original birth certificate. We have people who were adopted, who are adopted, right? But they were adopted outside of that 34 year period where they can get their original birth certificate. And then we have another type of adoptee who was born within that 33, 34 year gap that can't get access to their original birth certificate. So here in the Commonwealth, we have two different types of adoptees. Those who can and those who can't gain access to their original birth certificate and it's just not fair. Yeah, and it seems like for totally arbitrary reasons as well, as you say it, there's just a particular period of time. If you are unlucky enough to fall in that period of time, you don't have exactly what everybody else does have. That seems simply wrong. Right, some people had argued that it was due to privacy of the birth mother, right? The privacy issues. And I understand that argument. However, I disagree with it because it's fundamentally flawed because it is not the birth mother's birth certificate, right? She has her birth certificate. This is the adoptees birth certificate. Every person born in Massachusetts have their document that says they are who they are. And that's why that's why this is so important. And so you also can't, you shouldn't have two types of people within the adoption community if you feel that way, right? And so legislation has been passing across the country to give adoptees access to their original birth certificate. Connecticut just passed it recently. New York just passed it recently. And we're very close in Massachusetts. Last session it also passed the House but unfortunately couldn't get through the final hurdle in the Senate because of the pandemic there were a lot of things going on so we weren't able to get it passed but the House just passed it a couple of months ago. Again, this session and we're hoping that before the end of this session the State Senate will pass it in Governor Baker, one of his final acts as governor. Maybe he will sign this into law as well to make sure there's equity and fairness in this practice of giving out birth certificates. Yeah, no, Sean, as you said, people are aware that it can take years, years and years to get something from conception or initial proposal all the way across the finish line to become actual law. So again, congratulations for being able to share with us that successful journey for at least these three bills or two out of the three and fingers crossed the other one also makes it across that finish line. Let me ask you, you had mentioned specifically when you were talking about the emergency sick leave legislation that it is important that it was funded or it is funded. And that reminds me of the fact that a conversation that I have had with both State Senator Cindy Friedman and your fellow State Rep. Dave Rogers in recent months has to do with the windfall, the federal money windfall that the state has been working its way through a portion of in order to fund an awful lot of different programs. So just wanted to get your thoughts on both what, what a couple of highlights you've felt for you personally and your particular interests and values and causes are in that, in the way that that money was able to be put into play here in Massachusetts. So absolutely, James. And obviously that incredibly important legislation that passed at the federal level that has provided much relief to the town of Arlington and across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I do want to just want to point out the emergency paid sick time was funded by state dollars in the budget last year, in the budget this year and we appropriated 17 million. And that's really important because it's actually funded that will allow those to take advantage who them or their families are sick will be able to take advantage of this important program. So the ARPA money, obviously a game changer for the town of Arlington, a game changer for the state of Massachusetts, right? We were given a little over $5 billion and we spent I think a little over $3 billion in specific areas from the environment to housing to infrastructure, well, specifically around water infrastructure, which is really gonna be just a game change for Arlington but across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We also appropriated about $500 million for something they call premium pay for low income workers who really experienced troubled times of losing their employment or more importantly, working well, the pandemic was going on and putting their lives and their family's lives on the line and that was appropriated at $500 million. So that was really, really important. We were able to work the Senator myself and Representative Rogers were able to work to secure a lot of specific appropriation items for Arlington, specifically around affordable housing, a domestic violence initiative for the Arlington Housing Authority that's specifically used to house those who are experiencing domestic violence, money for the Millbrook restoration that's really, really important and then a lot of money from that I appropriated as an amendment to the ARPA bill and I know the town got received a lot of money in their version of ARPA for our parks across Arlington, which is just really, really important. An audit was done years ago that really showed the deteriorated nature of a lot of our parks in Arlington. So it's really important to invest in those areas especially if we head into the pandemic continuing into the spring, not to say that people don't use parks in the winter but obviously they're very important to work for the life in Arlington. So to me that's really, really important as well as money across the state for housing, first-time homeowners or home buyers, serious amounts of money into our housing authorities across Massachusetts, including here in Arlington and then again, as the chair of the Global Warming and Climate Change Committee, serious amounts of investment in water infrastructure in addressing sewage overflows, whether it's in the ALY for up at the Merrimack Valley, this is serious amounts of money that hopefully will be able to be implemented, appropriated and address some of these issues. Now I use the term water infrastructure because this money was not able to be used for infrastructure that we know of as roads, bridges and a lot of that is because the federal government, thanks to Joe Biden and a lot of the federal partners passed an infrastructure bill that we're still waiting for the regs from the treasury and how we can use that money but serious amounts of money that we'll be able to use right away for our roads, bridges and other type of infrastructure, try to electrify our buses, our trains and so that'll be up for an incredibly important debate, hopefully later in the winter or sometime in the spring, early summer on how that money should be spent on infrastructure but I would hear a lot from Arlingtonians who asked me, why can't we use the ARPA money for buses, trains, our roads, physical infrastructure and that's because the money was specifically used for things like water infrastructure, housing, the environments, workforce development areas like that. Yeah, you know, it strikes me as I was listening to you speak to that multiplicity of different kind of issues in which as you put it, serious money is now being allocated to support progress in those areas. I'm realizing that that in combination with the fact that you were here to talk about several of the bills that have successfully gone through the whole process and are now in law, it's a grim time out there in the world. We're all very aware of that. We spend a lot of time with dark clouds seemingly looming. It's very nice to have some of these conversations with you and some of your colleagues in which there's some real good news to share with Arlington residents with, you know, residents of the state of Massachusetts where life can, we can imagine and the work can begin on life actually getting better for not just a few, but hopefully many as a result of your work and, you know, and just in federal largesse, which is a powerful combination. Right, so this funding, we did about 200, two and a half billion dollars in the latest round of ARPA. There is $2 billion left that the legislature will appropriate hopefully soon that we'll be able to look at some of the areas that were not funded to the level that, you know, we thought they should have been, whether it's parks and open spaces, tourism, arts, the other important items, more money investment and sewage overflows, but hopefully we'll be able to look at that what has not been appropriately funded and use some of the remaining, it's a little over $2 billion for those purposes. Great, I am very well aware of the fact that you may be coming up against your deadline at any moment here. Before we let you go, I'm wondering if there's any, maybe one or two, if there are things you'd like to mention in terms of stuff that's in the works now, but somewhere back in that process before the finish line, hopefully rounding a final curve or something, but... Well, again, James, thank you for having me, right? There's two types of bills, right? They're the bills I'm working on that I want to get past and there's other bills that other folks are working on the legislature as a whole is prioritizing. And so, those can be usually inclusive, right? But some of them can be different. So I feel very good in terms of the legislature will soon, I hope, pass the Healthy Youth Act, which is very important to me. It's around trying to get real education and sex education curriculum passed. That's done by the experts because right now in too many cities and towns, the health curriculum is kind of a hodgepodge of 1950s and 1960s thinking around sex education. And so it's really important finally, I think we're close of passing this bill. And it's basically, if you're going to teach sex education in the health curriculum, that it's appropriate and that it is science-based and fact-based and I'm very hopeful and believe that we can get this passed this session. I think it's very, very close. So that's why I raised that one. Another one, I don't have a lot of specifics for you because the legislation hasn't been released, but I think we're very close to really having a very good debate in the house on offshore wind legislation, you think of vineyard wind that is happening. And I think that's really going to be very an important industry for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that will make us kind of the role model across the country for our offshore wind and also offshore wind in Massachusetts or the vineyard project, but other projects possibly in the pipeline. Right now, our ambition will make up probably a third of President Biden's goals for offshore wind nationwide, which really kind of gives you a sense of how serious Massachusetts is taking this industry, as you may know, I toured the Anaholt Wind Farm in Denmark before the pandemic and that was a massive wind farm of over a hundred turbines right off of Orhouse in Denmark. I'm kind of the northern part of Eastern Denmark, Northeastern Denmark. And so really learned a lot from the Anaholt Wind Farm and really working to encourage that industry to grow in Massachusetts. So that offshore wind bill, I think will really set the table for future offshore wind projects and have Massachusetts kind of lead the rest of the country on offshore wind. So I'm hopeful that we'll be taking that up in the next month or so. I will also say something that's really important to me is everything from early voting, mail-in voting, same day voting to grow our democracy, to make sure it doesn't get diminished or fought by kind of wacko voices and to make sure that we make sure that our democracy is strong and that it survives. And so one of the things that we need to do is to pass a very strong voting rights bill. And I feel very strongly that we'll be passing that soon to make sure that mail-in voting, which was so successful and so well-liked among so many voters across Massachusetts will not be a thing of the past, but will stay and hopefully thrive and make democracy that much more effective and closer to the people. So those are kind of three bills that I believe the legislature will take up soon. Two bills that I'll just mention that I hope the legislature will take up soon or these are mine, one is the 100% clean act that just had our hearing before the TUE committee the other day. And that's really about trying to transition away from dirty fossil fuels and make sure Massachusetts transitions to clean energy in all sectors from our electricity to heating, home heating, transportation, by 2035 and 2045 in all sectors. To me, that's what we need to do to meet the challenge of climate change and that we have to meet that. But also as we transition that we keep in mind and actually have solutions to deal with those who may lose their jobs shifting from fossil fuels to clean energy and to make sure that those individuals are the ones who are first in line for the jobs of tomorrow in the clean green sector that we're hoping to grow and that transitioning is not cheap, right? And to make sure that as we transition especially in home heating that the state comes up with a way to make sure that those who are low income and living paycheck to paycheck there's a lot of us out there especially during this pandemic that they're the ones that are going to get assistance to help them transition easier than those who can afford it. So to me, that's really how you can transition to clean energy easier in the Commonwealth than if there weren't these supports. And then I will also mention my higher education bill that is very close to getting passed. I think I talk about it every year with you, Jane. That is giving students with autism and Down syndrome the chance to go to one of our 29 public higher education institutions in the Commonwealth. All the research is very clear that students with disabilities, autism or Down syndrome if they're given the opportunity to go to college their success rate in terms of their independence their employment is really 40 or even 50 times better than their peers who aren't given the opportunities of being able to go to college and learn those independence skills. So I'm really hopeful that between now and July 31st or just the last day of our session we'll be able to get both of those bills passed. Great, well, we look forward to speaking to you before that time. Sometime in the spring we hope and so maybe maybe we won't be celebrating the passage just yet at that point, but hopefully looking, it will look, you will be as optimistic or more so at that point. So yeah, appreciate these last couple of these last few minutes of and what you spoke about because basically you're talking about with voting rights, the survival of our democracy and with much of the rest of what you mentioned the survival of our planet. So these are two important things. Yeah, rather important things. And again, somewhere in the pipeline because it just takes that much pushing and pulling and negotiating and you know, et cetera just to get these things to where we are actually looking at that piece of paper that you held up before. So we will hope to do that again sometime soon with you but we really appreciate you taking the time today. It's been a very chock full and great content. We appreciate it. Thanks James and thank you and thanks to ACMI for making this available. All right, time to go do your duty now. I have been of course speaking with our state reps Sean Garbley from his office at the state house where he is presiding over this informal session of the house. So we will let him get back to that with appreciation for Sean's time and appreciation for yours out there. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm James Milan. This has been a legislative update with Sean Garbley and Talk of the Town. Thanks for joining us.