 Thank you all for coming tonight to the Third Hampshire Candidates Forum. I'm Laura Sylvester from the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, and I'm excited to have candidates here be able to ask them questions about issues that are of importance to us. Just a few housekeeping notes. If you have cell phone on you, please silence it or turn it off so that we don't hear it beeping during the forum. There are two sets of bathrooms. There's bathrooms downstairs and bathrooms upstairs. We're very grateful to the Bank Center for letting us use their space. We're also happy to be co-sponsoring this event with CISA, the community involved in sustaining agriculture. And also thank you to Amherst Media for filming this. You will be able to watch this forum online on their website, which is amherstmedia.org. So Eric Nakajima and Mindy Dawn will face off in the Democratic primary election. The primary election is Tuesday, September 4th, which is the day after Labor Day. And since there are no Republicans running in this race and incumbent Representative Solomon Goldstein Rose is not seeking re-election, the primary will determine who will represent the district of the State House. The general election is Tuesday, November 6th, so please mark your calendars for both of those elections. I'd like to also thank our timekeepers, Michelle from the Food Bank, my colleague, and Noah from CISA. They're in the front row. Thank you to Stephanie, who's also from the Food Bank. She's back there. She's going to be roaming around collecting your questions. So when you have a question written on a card, the third round tonight is going to be for audience questions. So please do ask a question and hold up your card and Stephanie will come and collect it. I also want to thank MassWater's Choice and Better Angels for tabling. And finally, I want to say a special thank you to our moderator, Keith Barnacle. For the past 11 years, Keith has worked as a district aide for two of the most progressive members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Congressman John Holder and the House Appropriations Committee and ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee for Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Congressman James P. McGovern, ranking member of the Powerful House Rules Committee and House Committee on Agriculture. Keith is originally from the Blackstone Valley out in Central Mass and has called the Pioneer Valley here home for over 20 years. Keith lives and works in Northampton, Massachusetts. And he's going to explain the order of events, how the questions will work, et cetera. So without further ado, please welcome Keith Barnacle. I just want to just take a moment to thank the Banks Community Center for hosting this food bank and putting this together and our two candidates who are here tonight, Eric, Dr. Jemma and Mindy Dome, who are early towards the state primary in a couple of weeks from tomorrow. So I'm all the best. So I'm going to just take a couple minutes here to go through some of the introductions here before we get started. And I'd like to first again start by saying hello and welcome. It's nice to see a good decent crowd here tonight in the kind of dog days of summer and people are getting involved and engaged in this election, which is important as we really have a major, major shift across the Pioneer Valley with regards to our state elected officials. So I'm going to go over some of the details for the forum tonight. And first we're going to have three rounds or we're going to have total three rounds of questions tonight. Round one will consist of seven questions. Each candidate will have 90 seconds to answer. We're going to flip a coin to determine who starts and then have them alternate who answers first and subsequent rounds. So whoever starts in the beginning of the other candidate will start the next round. We have time keepers in the front row who will let you know when you have 30 seconds left. This is for the candidates. We have 30 seconds left for answering. And we'll hold up a red stop sign when the time is up. Please stop and take a moment to wrap up your thoughts as soon as you see that stop sign. Also please, candidates, feel free to not take the full 90 seconds. If you said what you need to say in less than 90 seconds, that's hard for politicians or candidates running for office. But if you said what you need to say in less time, please feel free to do so. Round two will be our lightning hot topic round using the 12 categories on the wheel. The wheel you'll find essentially oriented here in the up front. And each candidate will spin the wheel and have 60 seconds to talk about whatever category it lands on. We'll do this three times if a candidate gets the same topic as they did before. They can spin again for a new topic. Did the lights just go on? Yeah. Round three will be questions from the audience. We'll be collecting your questions during the hot topic round and we'll choose seven. Like the first round, each candidate will have 90 seconds to answer. Following that round, we'll have a brief closing remarks from the candidates and we'll send you off into the night knowing a little bit more about your two choices for state rep in this district. Before we get to questions, each candidate will have one minute to make their opening remarks and right now I'm going to flip a coin to determine that order. So who wants to call it? So I guess that's me. So that means, yeah, where do you get to choose which one you want? I'll spin the wheel. So we're going to start with the very first level. Thank you. Anybody go? Yes. Okay, sir. So thank you very much the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts to Keith, the season for everyone for coming tonight. I have been really enjoying the campaign, getting out and meeting people, listening to you. And out of that, it's really reinforced a lot of the things I've gotten to learn being on the school committee and the work I did prior to that, working for Governor Patrick. Losing our entire legislative delegation out here, in particular the Senate President and Representative Kulak, who is our Vice Chair of Ways and Means, is a huge gap to fill. And that's occurring in a time where we frankly are backsliding in terms of public education, public transit and other critical needs in our region. I'm running and excited to run because I think we need to change direction and I want to bring all of my experience to bear serving this district and working with you to move the state in a more progressive direction but also to make sure the needs of our district are well met. Thanks, Eric. Good evening, everybody. Thank you to the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts and to CISA for organizing tonight and for sponsoring it to banks, for hosting it to Amherst Media, for televising it for everybody for coming out and being engaged in a campaign when it really hot went summer. Until five years ago, I spent most of my life working in the HIV epidemic. As a program planner, a congressional aide, an activist, an advocate, and a coalition builder. And for me, working in the epidemic was more than just talking to people about retrovirus and how our immune systems work. It was about how we care for one another as a community. And that's what I'm going to bring to the State House. I want to bring that sense of compassion and caring. I also want to suggest tonight that we shift our thinking around safety net issues and then we start to not think of services that provide access to housing, food, health, education, and a secure retirement as safety net, but rather we consider them to be essential services and essential supports. Thank you. So we're going to move right on to the first round of questions. And this first round will last 21 minutes. And I have seven prepared questions to be asked during this round. Candidates will each have 90 seconds to answer. Whoever went... And the second of the opening statements will answer first in this round. So that would be you, Mindy, okay? So I'm going to start with these questions. If you need anything repeated or clarified, just let me know or go slower. First question. The Healthy Incentives Program, or HIP, allows SNAP recipients to maximize their benefits by offering a dollar-for-dollar reimbursement to participants that purchase fruits and vegetables at farmer's markets, CSAs, farm stands in mobile markets. In its first 15 months, HIP has provided access to locally grown produce for 40,000 households. However, those 40,000 households represent only 7% of all SNAP recipient households in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And even with the slightly increased funding for FY19, HIP will likely, again, run out of funding before the end of the fiscal year. What would you do to secure the sustainability of the HIP program? I am really going to fight like heck to make sure that the HIP program not only gets funded at the same level, but increased. This particular program is so interesting to me, because when it first started, it actually had a very bad rollout. The machines weren't all there at the same time. It was scrambled to make sure that people knew about the program. And still, even with a bad rollout, it blew through with the money before the first fiscal year was over. That's how much people love this program. It's a win-win-win program. It's good for farmers because it has SNAP recipients spending their SNAP dollars on local produce, either at farm stands or at farmer's markets or in CSA shams. So it's good for the economy. It's good for families because they get access to produce. They also get extra funds to be able to buy even more food. But I'm also a fan of one particular element of this program. I think it dispels the myth that low-income people don't know how to eat healthy. Across the board, we're always kind of hearing about how we have to teach people how to eat healthy. We have to teach people about the benefits of produce. And actually, that may not be the case. It may just be the case that produce is extremely expensive. And when we give folks the resources to be able to purchase the fresh produce, they do it and they do it in large numbers. So I'm a big advocate for this program. I'm looking forward to expanding it and making Massachusetts a leader in it in the country. Thanks, Mindy. The HIP program is a tremendous success story and something that is really remarkable in terms of supporting farmers in our region as well as families throughout our region throughout our state. It really is, as Mindy just said, a win-win-win program. And I was deeply disappointed that the legislature didn't fully fund the program at the end of the session. It's hard to imagine why, but this is something that has such extensive benefits throughout our region and state. What I would like to do when I'm elected is to fight for increased funding in a supplemental budget, which every year when the legislature is doing their budget and they always pass a budget at the end of June or the middle of July like this year, and then mid-year they'll pass a supplemental budget. I want to fight to make sure we expand funding in that supplemental budget to make sure we can meet the needs of all the families participating in the program. Great, thank you. I'm going to move on to question number two. Eric will take the first. An increasing number of senior citizens are being pushed into poverty as rents increase from the market forces in inflation. As a new state representative, what concrete steps will you take to increase housing protections for older Massachusetts residents who are at risk of homelessness and food insecurity from rents and other expenses that consume too much of a very fixed income? This is really an increasing problem and a dramatic and striking one. I don't know of people I had a chance to see in the Daily Hampshire Gazette this day, and then in the last week or two there's been stories about how an analysis of the number of foreclosures and bankruptcies among senior citizens has doubled over the last 20 years. So if it's a lived experience that you know from talking to your neighbors and other folks who are stressed out by their housing expenses and food costs and prescription costs, it's also something that's been well documented. This is a national epidemic that goes back to the decline in defined benefit pensions as well as insufficient increase in the value of people's social security benefits. So I think what we need to do is a few things. One, we need to advocate for full funding of the programs like Meals on Wheels. Things like actually HIPP would also help in getting access to healthy food. I support doing a property tax circuit breaker for seniors which is a program of bill right now for the legislature that would exempt seniors of moderate and low income from property taxes if their income is below a certain level. And I would support doing that as well. I think it's one of the reasons why particularly in our region we also need to rebalance state support for our municipal budgets because our property taxes in our communities in particular are way too high. It's a lot of stress on seniors. So in Massachusetts I think we rank something like second from the bottom in economic security for elders. I think we're above Mississippi. That's not really good. So hearing about the housing situation and how it compounds that is definitely a reality for many seniors. Food insecurity is also a reality. And what I found in my work at the Amherst Survival Center is that seniors also face unique stigma in reaching out for services and in accessing services. Whether it's their background, their age around surviving depression and using government funded services or whether or not other people are in fact connected to them and are able to witness some of their burdens and their struggles. We have to do more to incentivize with tax breaks, tax incentives that go directly to developers to develop more affordable housing for seniors. This afternoon I was happening to be a Clark House over this way and the seniors who live there were talking about the seniors they know not being able to get to affordable housing. So this is a reality for people who are living in this district and we need to do better as housing develops. We need to look not only for deeply affordable units for everybody but maybe we need to start looking at deeply affordable units for seniors. Thank you. Thank you. Right on to question number three. This is going to be the first for many states. Many western Massachusetts residents struggle both to find employment and to find employment that pays a living wage. Do you think the upcoming minimum wage increase to $15 over the next five years will solve this problem or exacerbate it? About finding good jobs. Yep, and the problem is Massachusetts residents struggling to find jobs and find jobs that pay a living wage. I'm sorry. Do you think the upcoming minimum wage increase to $15 an hour over the next five years will solve this problem or exacerbate it? About finding good jobs. Yep, and the problem is Massachusetts residents find jobs and find jobs that pay a living wage. Well, the main problem is that jobs don't pay a living wage and so we have to figure out a way to make sure that that looks and that the unintended consequences are addressed. That's the first thing. We can't expect businesses to succeed on the backs of poor people. That's just, that's not more. We have to recognize that minimum wage has to actually be a living wage. $15 in Massachusetts may not even be enough. Reports show that in fact in order to pay through bills whether it be groceries, rent, fuel in Massachusetts depending on which part of the state you're in that minimum wage maybe should be between $17 and $24 an hour. So $15 is just the first step. But I do understand that there are some significant consequences that can happen especially for small businesses and potentially nonprofits. And so what I would like to see happen on the state level is I'd like us to RFP and send out a proposal to the great minds in Massachusetts and do a study on what exactly are going to be the impacts of a $15 minimum wage and hire for small businesses and nonprofits with specific remedies that the state can take to be able to fill that gap. Because we can't expect poor people to continue to work for a less than a living wage because it's difficult to figure out how to allow people to be on a living wage. The lack of a living wage means that people have to make impossible trade-offs every day between eating dinner, stipuring their babies, paying rent, getting medication. That's not fair in the Commonwealth. So I think the so-called grand bargain that created paid family medical leave and a $15 minimum wage, those passed by the legislature this year, is a decent start compared to nothing. I mean the big dare was going to be, this summer was going to be the $15 minimum wage that was going to be down to the ballot but also there was going to be a rollback in the sales tax which was going to blow a hole in the side of her state budget. It was really going to be a serious problem. But it is true. $15 minimum wage is not a living wage for our area. Our area would be around $17 for this region. It's also not indexed for inflation, which is a significant problem. It doesn't do anything to solve the tip minimum wage. It also eliminates paid time and a half on Sundays and holidays, which if you're a worker who's making minimum wage, you're already incorporating into your livelihood your ability to make ends meet each week and each month. The ability to get paid time and a half on Sundays and holidays. So that's a huge loss actually. A huge loss that is not actually fully made up by the increase to $15. Also there are categories of workers that have been exempt like municipal workers, some childcare workers have been exempt as well. I think that's actually unconscionable. I think we should be including, we've raised the limited tip minimum wage and have it be $15 an hour for everyone, index it, fight to bring it to a higher level in general and also look at the impact on workers. I think it's really a problem. Moving on to question number four. Social determinants of health include conditions like socioeconomic status, race and gender. These and other social determinants play a role in issues like affordable housing, nutrition and health care. What would you do as a legislator to create policies and practices that promote equity where there are disparities? So one of the things that I was most excited about and the work I did with Governor Patrick Fiddley in his first term is I was the innovation advisor which can mean everything and nothing. But essentially what it means is I would second it to places where you'd bring together teams of people to think across departmental lines to solve complicated problems and challenges. And the most fun work I did was with the Department of Housing and Community Development and in particular the public housing unit in which the folks who are working, they're really wonderful colleagues, really just terrific and creative folks. We're thinking about ways of bringing together education, health care services, counseling and support services and do it in an integrative way in a community-based setting. Actually something that I've heard Mindy talk about before about the ambitions and the reality of the Survival Center about not looking at your organization as a service entity but looking at it as, in fact, what it really is, is actual living, breathing part of your community with members and families in your community. And that's what we started the launch in our public housing division. It's something that we also did in our Gateway Cities initiative. So one of the things that I would look to do as a legislature, legislator, is to develop, continue to do grant and C programs to incent collaboration that looks at holistically communities and supporting across agencies, community-based settings and support that really touch every facet of an individual's life. I think it's also important when we're developing strategies around community development support that we look at all the elements, transportation, housing, access to education and other services and an integrated and holistic way. So these discussions are interesting because we're adding on to what each other is saying. I think I would also approach it as really looking to support the Department of Public Health in Massachusetts. They have a long track record of addressing social determinants of health in very effective ways and in bringing people to lots of different kinds of folks who are affected by different issues to a single table to discuss not only the needs and the challenges but what kind of policies are going to address those. And they often, as a department, get slashed and look at it as a second-tier department and I would probably look to be able to foster that. I want to make sure there are enough resources in the Office of Health Equity so that they can be resourced for the Department of Public Health Services, whether it's the Bureau of Substance Abuse Services or the HIV AIDS Office. But I just want to also take a word as rep because it was from the wheel in terms of public transportation because when we think about social determinants of health, particularly in an area like ours, one huge social determinant is people's lack of transportation in terms of being able to get to hospitals, getting to medical appointments, getting to be able to go to jobs. And so we really need to see them when it's a health care issue. It also means expanding clusters for this region. We need more public transit that places doctors' offices and hospitals on those routes so that people can make their appointments. They're not late. They'll be seen by the provider that needs to see them and they can access them. We're going to move on to question five. There are already programs implemented to address food insecurity in the district, in the region, and in the state overall. What's working well? What would you do to fix or improve programs to make that better? And let me just add here, we have a congressman who is one of the national leaders on this level. I'd be curious to hear some of the ways that this could be moved on the state level. So what's working well? This is our question for me to answer objectively. My day job is I'm the executive director of the Amherst Survival Center, and I think our programs work pretty well. So I think that for the most part, food pantries and access to fresh produce is working pretty well. Food Bank is a great partner in that regard, and in fact, one of the new programs that was started in Amherst this past year is a mobile food pantry in Southland where the Amherst Survival Center partners with the Food Bank, and our part is really to provide all the volunteers and the publicity and the outreach, and the Food Bank comes with a big truck full of lots of fresh produce. And people walk away with about 30 pounds of food in their parking lot, walking directly to their apartments. That's a fantastic program, right? It's right in their back door. One of the things that we have to think about with food programs is that there's a difference between access and utilization. So people may have access to programs, but we have to think about why aren't they using those programs. And I'd like to see more effort reviewing why different populations struggle with the use. What kind of stigma are people facing? Is it language stigma? Is it lack of transportation? Why do some folks who obviously need food don't come forward for food? And examining that usage issue and that utilization issue will allow us to reach more people. So there are a lot of really exciting and innovative things going on to help reduce food insecurity in the area. And it's one of the things I think is really rewarding about living in this area. If you look at the Amherst Survival Center's work and the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts work, things like Not Bread Alone in our community here, but also new programs like the Baby Burk truck that UMass has had this summer where they have a grant where they're driving around and offering lunches to youth. Our public school system also has a summer food program for youth. So I think there are a number of really creative things. HIP itself, which we talked earlier in an earlier question, has been heavily utilized in area and fully exhausted in its funding. So I think to me, the creativity on the ground in our area and the quality of execution of the programs are outstanding. The question is how we can make sure that we have even more resources to support these programs. So we talked about expanding support and we talked about expanding the utilization of SNAP by better integrating access to sign up, if you sign up for mass health programs, improving the ability to gain access to SNAP benefits. So if we could close what's called the SNAP gap and get more people enrolled, then there are more people who could be able to utilize food benefits. And I also think we should look at where we have food deserts and think about ways of improving access to food. Thank you. We'll move on to the sixth question in this round. Massachusetts is one of only 10 states in the United States that has a full-time legislature. Each legislative session is two years long. At the beginning of each session, many thousands of bills are proposed and by the end of the session, two years later, only a relative handful have passed. It's just like Congress. According to the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, Massachusetts passes fewer bills to state except for New York, New Jersey, and Minnesota. In 2011, 17,600 bills were proposed. By the end of the session, two years later, only 945 had been enacted. That's just 5%. What are your thoughts on this slow process and what, if anything, do you think can be done to remedy it? Small small question. I've been involved up on Beacon Hill for years and for that reason, because you're keenly when you're working for an administration, you help draft legislation, you're keenly interested in what the budgetary level is for line items. Sometimes there are things that you're involved in directly, other times it's not, just things your colleagues are working on where you care about it and know it's a program that's making a difference. And one of the most frustrating things every year, every session I should say, is this race to the end of the session, where they're trying to pass everything they can. It's July, they're up till midnight and sometimes bills die because people want them to die, essentially die in darkness. Other times they die simply because they ran out of time to negotiate compromise. And I honestly think it's ridiculous. I think it's also profoundly problematic because you don't have appropriate hearings of thought fully on bills, people don't always know what's being debated. Issues that are really critically important, like in this session, we didn't get enough work done on clean energy, like lifting a cap and net metering, or finally getting on a track to fully funding education. Honestly there needs to be a bit of a revolution in the house and you say it can't happen because it hasn't happened recently, but if you go back 30 years ago or something, or 35 years ago there was actually a revolution in the house and like with the Senate, what Stan Rosenberg did, where the Senate president profound democratized the organization of committees, they did that back in the house about 25 to 30 years ago. I think the house, there needs to be pressure from new legislators like one of us to push that. I'll stop talking, I'm sorry. I completely agree with this. I actually think that the problem comes back to a lot of transparency in the house because not only are committees not publicized, agendas aren't publicized, votes aren't publicized, and that locks voters and constituents out so that there's no consistent pressure from voters as to what's going on because people don't know what's going on. So one of the things that I'm going to hopefully do if elected is I think that pressure has to start with the elected officials and this is one of the airways that I think coming in as a block with new representatives from this region is to our advantage. I believe there's some like there's a little superpower of being a newbie on the block and you get to not only watch and learn but you get to ask questions that maybe more and more people can't ask because you're not afraid necessarily looking like you don't know because you don't know, you're new. And so you can set sort of a high standard but I also think that as an elected official I'm going to do my best to publicize everything that isn't being publicized to the district and publicly and hopefully other elected officials will follow my lead. So if I'm invited to committees and agendas I'm going to publish that on a website and on social media. I'm going to publish my votes. I'm going to try to get the Gazette to publish votes for the whole region on a weekly basis and hopefully other elected officials will do that kind of pressure coming from the outside not from the top down, literally from the bottom up in the legislature. I think we'll open it up a little bit more and that will allow voters and residents to exercise a little bit more authority and influence for elected officials to move legislation. It's ridiculous that it's a year round position but they really only do business for a couple of months. Moving on to question 7 which is the last question in this round and one of my favorites if you are elected what committee post would you request and why? So there's a couple that I'm thinking about I had heard that Speaker DeLeo had set up a committee, likely after the women's march to monitor the impact of the Trump administration's policies on the state. Nothing's happened in that committee. He packed it with committee chairman and maybe that's why nothing happened because they were busy so I'm hoping to go and say let's resurrect that committee because I'd like to be on that committee. So that's one committee. I'd like to choose higher education coming from Amherst. It's not only speaks to our values and our neighbor but UMass is a major economic engine so it's sort of a value around education and value around access but also recognition of the economic benefit. And the third one is maybe a little bit surprising I'm thinking about the committee on revenue because if we're talking about progressive tax I think we need more progressives on the revenue and I know a little bit about raising revenue from a nonprofit perspective I'm not afraid to look at budgets and I'm not afraid to think about raising money and making a case for raising money so I'll be looking at that and on the House committee side if I had my choice of a fourth one I'd probably pick ethics because I think that would be a very fascinating committee I'd meet different representatives that I would meet on the other committees and the whole idea is to build coalitions meet people, learn about what motivates them, find those shared moments so you can build a relationship and so that would seem to sort of even out. Thank you. My top choices for committees would be the Joint Committee on Education and the Joint Committee on Public Higher Education I think we're backsliding in terms of our commitment to public education I strongly believe that we need to fully fund our public school districts we need to end local school district payments to charter schools and move that to a state line item which will not only free up our schools to build and invest more but it will also reduce the pressure on the budgets on the higher education I think we need to move to debt free public colleges and universities and the way to do that is to move back to something that was being done a couple of years ago which is a so called 50-50 plan where the legislature pays 50% of the cost of the cost of education for a student in exchange for freezing tuition and fees increases that UMass in particular so I'd like to start there but honestly I think in order to fully fund our schools in order to really have a progressive education reform movement it's going to take a real movement a real organized effort to do so so those are the two committees I'm most interested in I also am committed to continuing work on climate change and so whether that means being on the House Climate Change Committee or the House Climate Change Caucus I think we have an opportunity to not only expand and green our commonwealth but also do it in a way in which we can rebuild our infrastructure of transportation not investing in transportation properly for 20 or 30 years means we can now do it in the greenest way possible thank you so now we're going to move on to the second round of questions and I'm going to take a moment here to pause and say that if you have questions generated from yourselves Stephanie here in the back will be coming around to collect them so if you have an index card if you want to hold that up right now take the opportunity to do that Stephanie will come around and grab those as we head into the next round great a couple questions coming up that's great, fantastic so now we're going to move on to the lightning hot topic round for each candidate will spin the wheel this wheel and have 60 seconds to talk about whatever category it lands on we're going to do this three times if the candidate gets the same topic as they did earlier they can spin again for a new topic candidates you can talk about whatever thoughts these topics bring up for you the categories are committee chair first choice as in what would be your first choice if you were elected and were a committee chair next category is health equity EPA rulebacks favorite summer meal to make or eat theme song as in what is your theme song transgender rights ballot question school nutrition and meals local farms paid leave college student hunger transportation and Charlie Baker we're going to be starting with whichever candidate went to start the first round so that's me we're going to do one spin and then we'll go switch and there and there's a little broccoli that says vote a broccoli vote so the question is about paid leave and as people hopefully know paid family medical leave was passed this summer by the legislature it's something we talked about earlier this so-called grand bargain the great thing about it is I remember when I was looking into this trying to figure out how it was going to work was actually funded through a payroll tax so it's not something that's being left up to the employers to do but because of that it's a workers' compensation the level isn't really high enough so I think it's something that needs to be brought up to a real proper you know, sufficiency wage similar to what somebody is losing when they're off so I think that's critically important that probably is a minute right thank you you do so I think it's really important to do that the thing I just said I think it's important alright up next is Mindy Mindy is going to spin that wheel we believe in paid medical leave for several reasons first of all when folks particularly low income folks often risk losing their jobs when their kids are sick if they didn't have paid medical leave their employer says if you don't come to work today don't bother coming back and so when their kids have been sick they lost work so paid medical leave is one way to keep people engaged in the work force and allow them to continue to earn their money and I'm glad we have it I'd like to raise it and I'm also looking forward to raising that minimum wage for the groups that were excluded because how do we say that childcare workers shouldn't get $15 but other people can thank you so I got to spin it just hard enough or soft enough that we don't get paid looks like transportation looks like transportation well this is honestly one of the most important topics we have to deal with public transit is chronically underfunded in our region which is why we see fair increases and cutbacks on routes and I think we should be expanding routes as well as also designing complete streets expanding the availability and utilization of bicycles as well as walkable neighborhoods, pedestrian friendly neighborhoods and really this is soup to nuts it's all the way from walkable neighborhoods straight up to having high speed rail to Boston really good rail between here and New York and it's just through our area from Greenfield down to Springfield if you have an appropriate public transportation system or transportation system you can make it so that people can get to their appointments they can get to work they can live their lives and the funniest thing about this hopefully all of you get a chance to travel a little bit but my family in Japan have gotten there a bunch and believe it or not other countries that are not on Mars actually have transportation systems where you can do this and they're done reasonably affordably we can do it here we must do it here transgender rights valid question so I don't know if everyone knows there is a valid question on the November question 3 which would seek to protect transgender rights in Massachusetts a couple years ago when there was a whole bathroom situation in the Carolinas Massachusetts passed a law one of the first laws in the country to protect transgender rights in our state then folks got some folks got a little bit upset about they put this referendum on this is our opportunity to say back off we're protecting our transgender family members friends and neighbors and the way we do that is we vote yes on three so our race is over on September 4th which means on September 5th both of us will be free to in fact you know kind of knock on doors just for question 3 so hopefully you'll join the effort too until your friends and neighbors, colleagues and co-workers who live across the state about it but especially from this area we need to get out the vote because when it comes to statewide races western Massachusetts voters matter we're very engaged we vote in large numbers and we can make the difference on this question vote yes on three that's bad it sounds very nostalgic or something health equity well I think we talked a little bit by the way I completely agree with what you just said I'm serious no but I like the way you said that because you said both of us can knock doors after September 4th I'd be happy to because this is really important that is a really really important issue and one of the things also that is really critical about it is our area it's a statewide it's a statewide ballot initiative which means if we overperform so to speak and if more people turn out and vote and vote yes that means we can help negate votes in communities for folks where I know I saw health equity no it's really important though it's really important health equity I think for one thing we need to support community health centers like the one we have right here especially places where you have integrative transportation it's in a downtown you have a location to get to I think it's absolutely critically important I also think we need to do everything we can to improve access in general to health services including behavioral health so support I'll stop those are good things school nutrition and meals so Amherst has a new program for food service that I think has been in effect for a year but I'm sure Eric knows a little more about when they started on the school system which is a great program because it uses local produce in those meals and that's what we need to do we need to look throughout the state to try to support local school districts to use local produce in their meal preparation I also want to say although we do have summer meals in Amherst it's not as widespread as it should be it's not as it doesn't last the entire summer there are other communities in western Massachusetts that have a lot more sites than Amherst we could do probably a better job in making sure that summer meals were available for kids in the Amherst survival center we have a special program at the center where families who are using the food pantry they have school aged kids in months that have a school vacation including the summer they get extra food and often pantries do try to have those special programs in the summer particularly because of course hunger does not take a vacation alright thank you so that concludes the hot topic round in spinning the wheel we are now going to moving on to round three so round three like the first round each candidate will answer seven questions and have 90 seconds to answer answering the first question will be whichever candidate went last to start the second round Mindy so Mindy you're going first alright so we are going to read these questions here from the audience with the federal government threatening the SNAP program how do you think states should respond can we extend the farm to school can we extend the farm to community incentives yes I think we should be doing that I also think that the state needs to be taking a more active role in lobbying against those changes so too bad I didn't get the Charlie Baker on the wheel because in this case I think it's really important for the state to be a partner of our congressional delegation Congressman McGovern is waging an incredible battle against these limitations on SNAP we need to have his back and Massachusetts we need to be prepared for what's going to happen if those cuts come through what will it mean in terms of actual dollars can we make up the difference for folks we already know that people most people who are eligible for SNAP aren't even getting SNAP so when we start to see those numbers drop that means hunger is getting as absolute and uncommon we are a common wealth we have to make we have to do better we have to look for ways to close those funding gaps not just with these programs but with HIP which we talked about earlier as well as looking for more strategic partnerships with farmers across the state to think about other ways for us to be closing that gap we cannot let those limitations go with Massachusetts not saying anything we need to make sure that we're lobbying and that we're firmly behind Congressman McGovern I hope everyone's been following this this is a mean-spirited assonite bill coming out of the congress I mean talking to Congressman McGovern the other day he said the senate has been generally better but the house bill is extremely mean-spirited and really also based on a lot of the kind of pejorative prejudices people have had around folks who need help, temporary otherwise 70% of people on food stamps SNAP in Massachusetts are working so the idea that you can set some program up that says that you're going to restrict based on work requirements is based on fallacy but it's also the kind of thing that's intended to demonize people who need assistance and we have so one we have to do everything we can to fight what's happening in congress and bring our voice to that game and really oppose it vigorously and support our delegation in doing so the second thing we have to do is we do have to be prepared to step in with funding supplemental funding during the middle of the year as well as otherwise for the whole range of programs in support of food insecurity in the commonwealth there's no question about it that we need to do that but I also do think that fighting back against this right wing philosophy is part of it people who've heard me talk and heard me say before that I actually oppose this in years of neoliberal checkered out policies and I think speaking out against the message behind this is as important as also stopping the programs themselves on to the second question from the audience several years ago the massachusetts legislature banned the sale of soda french fries in other sugary or high fat foods from being sold in public schools have children gotten healthier as a result no I think there's our state is if you look nationally if you look at nationally our state tends to generally be on the healthier end compared to some states but there still is a chronic problem around not only nutrition for children and health but also in terms of activity and one of the things that we need to do re-mandate recess in active play and time and something about supporting schools too is that we need to support physical education as a part of curriculum and we also should I think stop having after school extracurriculars like athletics be something that's essentially means test even though you can get waivers for these things recently these things become sort of elite goods and I think what we really need to do is we need to promote acting healthy lifestyles in general at every age and I think that's really important it's also a critical part of what we did do and our food service program we have local gardens people will notice our elementary schools have gardens where kids will grow food but as our food service program we are working with local farms to bring in foods and create better food education and awareness around healthy eating for kids and I think that's really important so I'm not sure if Massachusetts kids are healthier right now as a result of the ban that we're putting to schools I know that when Michelle Obama left the White House America's kids were healthier from some of the efforts that she made in terms of trying to have kids eat healthy in school and also learn about how to grow food as a way to be more interested in eating produce I do think that there's a nutritional disparity that's happening in the commonwealth and in the country and it has to do with people's information and access to information around what is nutritious and what's not nutritious and those kind of programs need to happen in schools this is what I was saying earlier about school meals public schools are a great democratizer in terms of making sure that every student has access to not only vegetables but skills and resources but in this case to fresh produce and healthy food and we have to make sure that that happens in our schools so that kids can have access to it in conjunction with information I want to take a couple seconds in this one to talk about SNAP because the problem with this format for me is I want to keep talking about issues I want to point out to everybody that SNAP is a great economic engine for every dollar that's spent in SNAP a dollar 70 comes back to the community in terms of sales to retail what can we do about it in terms of having congressman who governs back besides thanking him we live in an area that a lot of people have family members and friends who live outside of this area who don't have such great members of congress we need to contact those folks that we know in other parts of the country and tell them they need to contact their elected officials and get them to protect SNAP Moving on to question 3 from the audience both Amherst and North Hampton have banned single use plastic bags this is a food security issue because plastic bags and other plastic litter endanger ecosystems and in turn food sources but many people have pushed back against these bans what is your position on this type of issue for example legislation at the state level and how would you communicate with and educate the public about this type of legislation I'm in favor of these bans because not only the environmental impact but there is a caveat to that which is a lot of folks don't have the money to go and buy tote bags or reusable bags so how do we make those available there is a great organization in our region that is working on this and they're called the Bag Share Project and they make reusable bags with organizations the Amherst Survival Center is a partner in this effort I believe not read alone was a partner in this effort several food pantries across west Massachusetts we invite them into the center they bring malt bags we have grommets and grommet making machines and volunteers we take those malt bags literally malt bags kind of hold them up with a template use grommets and there's a reusable bag and then we're able to give those to folks who otherwise would not be able to afford to buy a tote bag and it's an important way to make sure not only that we're being environmentally sound protecting our ecosystems but also we're able to reuse something that otherwise would go into the landfill one of the most shocking things that I think everyone has become more and more aware of and sensitized to over the last few years is the way in which plastic that's disposed of gets into our waterways gets into the feed system the food cycle of animals and you can see it when fish or birds will wash up dead on the shore and you'll find out that they have all sorts of plastic that they've choked on the reality is we've got to get these products these waste, these bags out of the ecological cycle and the way to do that is to stop using them so I'm in favor of doing so I also think that anything we can do to try to expand access to recyclable bags is a good idea to do and so I'd support that On to the next question I'm shocked this one came up here tonight but what is your position on reigned choice voting? I'm in favor of it I think it's Who do you think answered that question? I'm in favor of it I think it's quite simply it's a good idea in many levels but I think one of the things it allows you to do is it allows for really robust debate around issues and choices it removes sort of the isolation what people probably call the nature effect of the Green Party effect I'm saying that if you have somebody running you're throwing away your vote or you can't express your values or beliefs I think it's a good idea for that reason and essentially it's more democratic I mean I hope people know what it is if you have a few people running on a ballot you can put in your first and second choices and then if nobody gets past the post 50% initially then they start adding in the other votes until somebody gets over 50% with their second and third choices so I'm in favor of it I would support moving forward I support it also because I think it gives voters their vote counts and counting in a different way and in a more important way and I also support other voting reforms being discussed on the state level all of which are designed to increase voter turnout and increase voter engagement so I would support no excuse absentee voting I don't think we should have to be interrogated for absentee ballot as to why we need it I think we should just be able to get it and vote absentee I also want same day registration I want to assess what that means for town clerks and what sort of need for a half to be able to implement that I think the 20 day in advance deadline is harsh and it blocks out people and it disenfranchises people and you can see in an area like Amherst where people may be moving into the area in the later part of August very close to the election and I want to register for the primary and I also want us to look at weekend voting and not just Tuesday voting this year as you may know the election is the Tuesday after Labor Day which is a very bad day from election because it feels like Monday not a Tuesday and people will know that people will be distracted because of the holiday but I'm also concerned because it means that absentee ballots will not be available the day before as they usually are so people discover that they're not going to be allowed on election day they won't have Monday to get their absentee ballot if they haven't figured it out by Friday they won't have it and to me that's unnecessarily blocking people from voting we should be encouraging people to participate in the process at all levels including voting this next question is you both have had work experience in western Massachusetts in years past Eric in extending broadband and to rural communities Mindy in working with HIV AIDS please tell us how you now evaluate the success of those experiences well I feel that the so when I first moved to western Massachusetts which was in the late 1980s I was the regional coordinator of HIV testing for the department of public health in Massachusetts and at that time in 1987 out here there were some people finding out that they were infected with HIV but there weren't a lot of services to offer people once they found out that information so in addition to doing counseling and overseeing the counseling that was happening in the Fort County we had to get involved in developing services because as counselors were giving the information to people the patients were saying so what do I do where do I go is there support here for me is there a doctor who can take care of me and so we started to develop a network of services that for the most part still exists today AIDS Care in Hampshire County was started as a result of that the Berkshire American Request started programs as a result of that even UMass health services got involved things have changed in the world of HIV medicine and treatment though in the past 20, 25, maybe 30 years and so some of those programs no longer exist but they set the foundation for people to come together where both activists, physicians, hospital administrators, counselors drug and alcohol treatment providers licensed mental health counselors acupuncturists everybody could come to the table and say so what pieces of this pie are we going to split up and then how are we going to make sure that people know about it so I feel really good about that process and I think it set up HIV services for the initial one to two decades following that so I've had a lot of work actually in the region over the years and just to give you a little bit of background on it, when I was working for Governor Patrick as Assistant Secretary my job was to help try to extend participation in the innovation economy throughout the state so I did some work up in Lowell and Lawrence I did some work down in New Bedford and in Natural West in the Wisteria but I also did an awful lot of work in the Pioneer Valley so I'm really pleased to be saw an article recently in the Gazette about precision manufacturing training program that connects the Franklin Hampshire labor camp workforce board and Greenfield Community College and Franklin Technical School to help train unemployed or underemployed people in manufacturing jobs that was one of the things that we worked on getting an investment into down in Holyoke there's a new culinary school that is offering career pathways for people it's located down in the flats right in the neighborhood where there are lots of folks who can benefit from it and that was actually the last investment that I worked on as part of the Patrick administration I've also worked on the Life Sciences Building 95 million dollar building up at UMass where we worked on a plane with the University to integrate the available services and expertise of the faculty with area companies manufacturers and others who are in Central Massachusetts Western Massachusetts to try to help them be more competitive because a lot of them if they can get a little bit of assistance in figuring out process improvements could expand their competitiveness so that's I mean I feel great about it and also wonderful about the relationships I have up in down the valley that I can bring to bear as the representative great thank you this next question is what have you done in your personal life to counteract the Trump administration and the permission the president has seemed to give to a full-throated expression of racism in the United States well personally I have taken on a lot of work around undocumented immigrants this year it's something that as a son of an immigrant as somebody who is a person of color I feel keenly the sense of isolation that you can have in our society even in the absence of there being almost a full-scale war on demonizing immigrants in our country and so I've I don't want to talk about it but I've been active doing various things in our community in sanctuary elsewhere to try to support communities and be supportive wherever I can it's important, it's incredibly important about a month or so after Trump got elected there was this big form I don't know if the folks were there actually the congressman was there and about 800 people came together sort of feeling not just sad desolate, but wanting to do something and several things happened as a result of that meeting some groups were formed there was another group that was formed called 413 which I'm part of which actually just seeks to make sure that the community is aware of not only what the Trump administration is doing but events and activism that can accompany that and that's on a range of issues including on racism and on immigrant issues as well as what the administration is doing in the EPA and so one of the things that I've taken on with that is the social media piece and a big piece of that social media is making sure that people know about what's happening and also what we can do about it in terms of plugging into not only local organizations and local protests whether it's family separation rallies in Springfield or other kinds of rallies that are happening but also what organizations on a local and federal level and a national level are providing that kind of resource and support and so one of the ways that I've sort of channeled my personal piece is through that. The other way is I like to think in elections I do sometimes fantasy in the Congress you know what I think about so who are the members of Congress that I really like to be in the Congress and I try to think about if I can afford donations to a couple of them and I've done sort of the same kind of thing in terms of fighting back Trump because I look at all of the organizations that I want to make sure that I'm supportive and I do So here is the last question for the audience We're going to have time for a couple more We're going to have time for a couple more So stay tuned What endorsement are you most proud of and why? Well my kids endorse me so I'm kind of proud of that but I think I'm most proud of the daily Amsrug Gazette endorsement and I think it's because that endorsement really spoke really captured what I think I bring that's different and I know that Eric and I struggle with this in terms of this question that I always get and I think we always get it because we get it all together in interviews about how are you different and so our positions were often not that different but I felt that that endorsement underscored what I feel that I bring to the race that is different and so it helped me tell my story to voters in a way that I benefit from and that I appreciate So the number one thing that I'm most proud of in terms of endorsements and most moved by is all the people I meet while I'm knocking doors who I meet going door to door listen to, engage with and always tickled and pleased when they supported me because it's one of those things where it's a bizarre business where you lay yourself out and you hope you can work with people and help them and bring your best self to the work but there's also a short and only humbling because you're talking about taking on a responsibility that's really profound so that's honestly, sincerely that's what we've been at for so many months now and met so many people that that's really the deepest and most moving part really it's my hometown so and I've went to UMass and I've worked in town too so it means an awful lot to me the endorsement of the AFL-CIO and in particular the Service Employees Union International Union 509 and other unions a bunch of them have endorsed me mean a lot to me because many times these are folks who know the work I've done on Beacon Hill they I've met them and they know the work I've done and the passion I've I tend to be kind of buttoned down like my collar so my demeanor also sometimes seems a little dry but the reality is I have a deeply felt passion for the work that I do what I care about around social justice community development and really trying to make government work more effectively for each one of you and those unions that are supporting me know what I can do to bring my experience and my passion in my common sense which hopefully I've shown in the school a little bit to Beacon Hill that's what I want to do I have a couple questions that get under the wire do you support teaching students to cook and learn about food Amherst High School committee eliminated these food classes so do you support teaching students to cook and learn about food, caring food and how would you do that so first one of the reasons why I talk about the need to fully fund our schools and one of the reasons why I mentioned even more controversially earlier ending local school district funding for charter schools is because we don't have enough money three million dollars a year around a million and a half at the regional level a million and a half at the elementary school district goes out of our coffers to fund area charter schools and this past year because we had healthcare crisis healthcare insurance premium crisis excuse me, the health trust we had to cut another million dollars out of our regional school budget another half a million dollars out of our elementary school budget I can't think of anyone on the school committee who wanted to cut our culinary program so I support bringing it back but the reason I'm saying this though is because there's a serious urgency about this we can talk about what we believe and talk about what we want but the reality is that we don't really move on changing our funding for public education and investing in our schools, our public schools and if we don't move on progressive taxation over the next two sessions we're not going to have the money and what's going to happen is increasingly our local districts are going to be squeezed and squeezed there's an urgency to this and that's in my point is if we have it then I would be the first person to promote reopening the culinary program at the high school among other things that we need to do I support teaching children and adults how to cook and about food I've been instrumental in sort of establishing healthy cooking classes at the University of Iowa that happen on a quarterly basis as a way to get people to learn how to prepare all sorts of fresh produce especially zucchini this time here in a lot of ways and I think that learning about food and learning about fresh produce is the best way to be able to eat it and to be able to enjoy it and to be healthy from it and I, as a taxpayer and a resident in Amherst as well as a candidate I'm also in favor of stopping the way that we fund charter schools because these are the kinds of programs that actually end up being on the cutting board so to speak when the charter school funding leaves a budget because once we start depleting those coffers then it's programs like arts music, cooking all these programs that are looked at as secondary that end up having to be shaved and then families whose kids maybe really engage with school through those programs feel like this isn't for me they end up going out of the district to a charter school to get a death spiral for public allocation it has to stop not only does it have to stop because there's no accountability it has to stop because these are the programs that our kids should be able to have in their public high school they should be able to learn about nutrition they should be able to learn about how to cook so yes I support it and I support it in school thanks to community based organizations that do it on an after school basis the last question here is how would you better integrate the community with the area colleges we all know play a large role in our region are we answering this question to feed your new jobs so we can go and carry it on well you know my experience with how the community and community based organizations with the colleges is kind of unique given my position at the University of Iowa only because from that perch we see college students coming to really volunteer to the community and to be able to get back to the community and we see that on a regular basis as a community we see college students doing that whether it's big brothers, big sisters daffodil run which is all basically run by college students or big drives or turkey drives in Thanksgiving so I see that integration in terms of students and organizations I'm not sure if the question is specifically about students but I also feel that the University is doing starting to do a really good job of engaging with the community around potentially controversial issues and discussing them last year I went to several forums on food and security on that college campus and so that kind of integration works. I have to say that I also see it with the private colleges though where they are sort of looking to support the community and support community based organizations using their resources. Could we do better? Absolutely. I'm looking forward to playing along making that happen. So the area universities colleges and universities have done I think a wonderful job with service learning opportunities for many many years so if you go really almost any community in the area you'll see that there are public health studies going on there's work going on in our schools the university does a lot with students and with student class projects and things like that. I think the area when I was working for Governor Patrick and we were trying to do integrative regional economic development strategies and community development strategies we were trying to engage all the people in the community and really leverage all the resources we have. One of the things that we found though is that the colleges and universities didn't always know how they could align what they were doing effectively with what community organizations or municipalities wanted to do and so what we started to do was put teams together across different agencies, across different regions to try to identify both what the needs were as well as also how we could align the basic mission of an organization with a particular community we did that particularly successfully I think in Holyoke again as well as in Springfield to some extent where there's now a U.S. Springfield Center. Usually money helps try things so I hate to say almost everywhere we went we were successful. Even a little bit of seed money on the table would incent collaboration and creativity in a way that the absence of that people would be left to go to their their own corners and figure out what they were going to do so I would love to continue that work both here in Amherst and Pellum and Granby but also regionally collaborating with the legislators and thinking how we could bring resources to bear to try to incent collaboration that would engage the colleges and universities holistically in our communities better great thank you so now we're going to move on to final remarks each candidate will have one minute to make closing remarks and so so I don't know who goes first for this one well I went first at the beginning so who would go maybe I just made these choices sure well I really appreciate again the food bank for organizing this forum Cesar, Keith, everyone for all of you being here as I've said before and hopefully I don't know how many, looking around the room I know a number of people who I've had a chance to meet and speak with during the campaign we have two weeks to go and we're going to be out there I'm going to be out there personally knocking doors every single day if I haven't had a chance to speak with you yet I hope I do get a chance to to hear what you're thinking to get your thoughts, to answer your questions this is really one of the deepest honors a person can have as hard as it is it is enriching in a way that I could hardly describe the only thing I think that would be more enriching for me would be to win because I think the needs of our community but the needs of our community the needs of our region are so profound that I really I'm energized to go to Beacon Hill and significantly move the needle on things that I talked about like public education public higher education transportation, climate change I want to be your advocate I want to be your partner in doing it and I look forward to having your vote thank you so I'm just going to talk a little bit about this notion of what is a safety net because tonight's theme was around food justice and health equity often times it's talked about as safety net services and I want to challenge us to think differently about that I want us to envision that a safety net usually means that there's a tightrope walking that tightrope all by themselves and there are unexpected circumstances that can happen that can make them lose their balance and they fall and the safety net is there to break the fall I want us to reimagine that some of the services that we think right now are safety net services should be available to people without them having to fall that if we believe that in fact accessing health care food, education, housing a good job, good wages and a safe retirement are human rights then someone should not have to fall in order to have access to the services that allow them to live with dignity and the reason why I'm pointing it out in this particular debate is because we're talking about safety net services and I'd like us to move forward from this place and think about how can we in fact close that gap and allow people not to be alone on that tightrope not to feel like they fail and then not to feel embarrassed because they need those services thank you thank you so that concludes our discussion for this evening Laura from the food bank will be coming up with a few closing remarks I just wanted to again take this moment to thank the bank's community center the food bank of western master pulling this together Eric Nakajima and Mindy Dome candidates here for state rep as we move forward towards that primary vote on Tuesday the fourth the day after labor day and it's an exciting time for western mass politics especially on the state level acutely right now so I'm glad to see everybody here engaged and active and I hope you'll all be heading to the polls on the floor thank you so I'll turn it over to Laura thank you Key and thank you Eric and Mindy so much for being here for a very nuanced deeply thought clearly both have a wealth of experience and I think no matter who wins this election the district will be in really good hands so thank you everybody for coming out tonight and participating in democracy what we have is a democracy that does not work without our participation thank you so much Keith for moderating thank you to CISA and to my colleagues at the food bank for helping so we have two more forms coming up we've done six all together this is the fourth I know you all live in this district but if you're interested in races outside of the district the next one is this coming Wednesday night 22nd for the second Hampshire seat this is the one that rep Saibach currently holds he's retiring so there's three candidates buying for that seat and Carrie and John Hine and that's going to be at the South Hadley Public Library 6.30 to 8.30 p.m. again this Wednesday the 22nd and then the one after that is the Hamden Senate Forum this is the seat currently held by Senator James Welch who is the incumbent and he's being challenged by Amad Rivera this forum is going to be Wednesday August 29th from 6 to 7 p.m. at Focus Springfield Community Television there are very limited seats for that so you have to call the League of Women Voters in Springfield and make reservations if you're interested but it's also going to be streamed on Facebook and on Springfield TV and I'm sure it will be online as well so thank you again for coming out and remember to vote