Pages
Stay In Touch
More
© 2021 The Somerville Times. All rights reserved.
By Stephanie Hirsch
Alderman At-Large
(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)
After reading Alderman Connolly’s column last week, I wanted to share my view of Somerville after seven months of service as an elected official.
First, here’s what I think Alderman Connolly gets right – I believe there are divisions in our community. And, too often, groups divide along lines of background, class, and generation.
He’s also right about our quality-of-life challenges, especially traffic. We can try our best to lessen them, but major infrastructure investments are causing disruption everywhere. If all goes as planned, they’ll eventually also yield more revenue and other benefits. In the meantime — and that meantime looks pretty long — they are driving people crazy. And sitting in traffic – in a hot car or on a crowded bus – makes even small disagreements seem big, and the big ones seem insurmountable.
But back to the divisions … As Alderman Connolly mentions, the last election changed our Board. Shivering on the street corner on election day last November, holding my own sign, I listened to the conversations of other sign-holders around me: “When I saw turnout at 8 AM, I knew it was going to be an upset.”
Somerville has one of largest shares of young people in the country (Ranking 48th out of 3,878 Census places in the US of 10K+ in population). And last fall, they turned out to vote. Over half the voters were people who had never voted in a municipal election before, and most of those voters were age 18 to 34.
As a result, we saw a political sea change. In the last election the five departing aldermen represented the Irish, Italian, and Portuguese long-time Somerville residents. The newcomers more closely match the city’s mix of younger people, renters, post-docs, and transplants. Since young people make up 45 percent (and growing) of the population, they will likely continue to be our city’s biggest voting bloc. Change is in the air.
Is the change a promise or a threat? What will we do with new leadership? People seem to have different theories of change.
One theory of change is that with an activist Board and population, we should move fast and take bold approaches at a time when we need radical change, when it’s a race against time to save life as we know it. If there’s dissent and if people feel left out or squeezed out of the city, persevere. Somerville can test game-changing solutions and that’s worth short-term conflict. New ideas – once tested – will eventually become part of the mainstream, and we’re in a good position to pioneer change. As one person told me, “Viva la culture wars.”
And here’s another theory of change…Somerville still has an extraordinary diversity. We are different in ideology, background, and income. We live close enough to overhear our neighbors’ summertime conversations or smell what they’re cooking for dinner. In a country that’s increasingly divided by income and ideology, Somerville can test how to create a big tent of social change. We can look for the ideas that have the most overlap in values. We can work to build empathy and make sure all stories get told. When we just can’t agree, we can split the difference as best we can, with appreciation for our neighbor’s sacrifice.
Though I agree there’s division, I’ll push back on Alderman Connolly’s argument on its cause. He blames division on efforts to find affordability solutions, saying that they’ll hurt long-time residents. He echoes many of the arguments of the Small Property Owners Association. SPOA sends out very regular emails that (I believe) are misleading and unsettling. I believe the opposite of what SPOA is saying – more housing assistance will help seniors and long-time owners, most of whom need help. Programs may be able to help seniors live at home longer, including through tax relief, and fund efforts to help seniors share their properties with their children. They may help long-time tenants, who can get displaced when an older owner needs to sell. New funding can help middle-income residents stay, including our municipal and school district employees. Sinking affordability strategies mainly benefits developers. Almost half of our properties are owned as investments, instead of as primary homes, and that pattern frustrates residents across all demographics.
It’s not the affordability efforts, I think, that divide us, but the cultural divisions and challenges of finding common ground. And to fix that, I’ll challenge myself to redouble efforts and take more responsibility, especially since—at least in this cycle of governance – we carry the baton.
I hope both theories of change will continue to inform our thinking – and I appreciate the different perspectives my colleagues and neighbors bring. For myself, I will keep trying to balance the two approaches, but will try to double down on the bridge building with these goals:
- Make sure every voice matters. As an elected official, I need to spend an equal amount of time with each demographic group and take to heart their worries, whether or not they’ll earn me the majority of votes. The Small Property Owners Association message is catching on because more work needs to be done to build a local consensus. In general, we need to keep making sure our initiatives benefit their biggest critics, and we need to build feedback into our solutions.
- Accept that people are different. I encourage us all to withhold judgement when the matter is trivial – it doesn’t really matter if one person is wearing a man bun or riding an adult scooter, and another is drinking bottled water or using snow space saver. One neighbor’s going to love Porchfest, and another one will hate it. Worrying about those differences gets in the way of making progress on the big stuff. And people’s actual behavior sometimes defies the political boxes we may want to put them in. For example, even as our share of bike-loving high-income households grows, the number of cars is increasing. Or, for example, usually school districts with the most high-income households (including those with many liberal democrats) have higher private school enrollment. As it turns out, middle-income households seem to be better at attending income-integrated public schools or sharing a car.
- Form friendships and practice forgiveness. We need to continue to encourage friendships across all different stakeholder groups. When we understand why someone believes what they do, it can increase empathy. Living in community means practicing forgiveness every day — even multiple times a day. I always remind myself that every demographic group has an equal share of types of people – of the naysayers, the bridge builders, and of the community champions. Here’s hoping we all have a chance to make a friend from a different demographic, to laugh over our Porchfest preferences, and to look for the common ground on the big issues.
- Look for the win-wins. When we as a community have more information, we are more likely to find agreement or find a solution that works for more people. Let’s use our best analytical tools to find solutions that work for the most people and to explain how they work.
- Keep an open mind. I believe we should allow alignments to shift to try to get at new (if hard) solutions, even if it means unease or impermanence among coalitions or platforms.
I appreciate Alderman Connolly’s pointing out the challenge, and I appreciate the many years of service and many ways he has shaped Somerville. But I believe the solution lies in working together even harder to find those common points, and I hope everyone – including opinion leaders like Jack – will be part of that solution.
I believe that holding onto our diversity in Somerville – including of age, background, and ideology – models a solution to what our nation needs. If we can take on some of the most radical ideas to help the most people, and avoid too much bloodshed from culture wars, then we will be even more of a balm for troubled times.
If you found this article of interest, please consider sharing it.
Blah… Blah… Blah!! Old regime was much better.
If this “new” BOA actually accomplished something other than dividing the community, we might take you serious. You and your fellow colleagues have proven without a doubt to be a lot of hot air with no real plan for delivering results. I mean for real, do you think passing multiple Home Rule Petitions to die at the state house is accomplishing anything? This BOA has wasted the last year dividing the community on the Transfer Tax (which was left for dead on Beacon Hill) and now you’re going to spend the remainder of this year continuing to divide the community on the Right of First Refusal. Good luck, you’re going to need it.
Tell it to groups like Antifa.
Might as well tell it to your Nazi pals too.
Anyone who really cares about affordable housing and the actual people of somerville will do everything they can to put an end to Our Revolution. So ironic that Our Revolutionaries ARE the transient gentrifiers that are driving up prices and driving out real long term residents. They will never solve issues they say they care about because they and their buddies are the problem. Our revolution is a bunch of overeducated underemployed semi wealthy layabouts. The pseudo-socialist ideology they promote accomplishes nothing except attracting more of the same type of people, like flies to rotting meat. Our city is being taken over by those who don’t care about the impact of what they are doing because they won’t be here in a few years when the impact is felt.
Make no mistake about who Our Revolution is revolting against; it is you, the regular people of the City who have anchored our neighborhoods and institutions for decades. After spending endless years in college they view their success as an entitlement, and hate that they could be governed by and have to pay rent to regular working class people who they think are lower class than them.
Stephanie seems nice but you know you have accomplished nothing if 9 months after being elected the only thing you have to talk about is asking people to be nice and complacent as if they shouldn’t be mad about leaders accomplishing nothing except providing cover for the gentrification of their city.
Stephanie says that the only reason that the long term residents of Somerville opposed their transfer tax is because they were duped by SPOA like we are too dumb to think for ourselves. How insulting. The people stood up and opposed it because it was bad and harmful policy. Instead of making excuses she and everyone else involved in that mess should apologize for wasting half a year.
I was gonna reply but I’m so distracted by your use of the word “layabouts” that I just can’t focus. I haven’t heard that word used in years. It’s excellent, and I for one would like to see it used more often.
Intentions are nice, results matter. So far, I see nothing tangible from “our revolution”, apart from a lot of wasted time. I’ve been an activist for about thirty years now, and I have not seen such an inert “movement” since Occupy sucked all of the air out of progressive thought ten years ago.
Come on, people. You got the votes, now what are you going to do with them?
So, when will the board finally pass the new zoning that it has been debating and modifying ad nauseam?
For the rest of the discussion, I will agree that it is amusing to watch each round of gentrifiers scream about how they are getting pushed out by the next round while taking no responsibility for those that they displaced.
If you actually have affordable rent now, pray the landlord doesn’t die or sell because the new owner will likely push the rent past your ability to pay.
At least I have not heard much lately from those trying to get rid of the no more than four rule. Anyone who thinks this will keep rents down is kidding themselves. This is just absentee landlords looking to maximize their profits. If they were renting a unit to four people at $1k per bedroom, the might rent it as a five bedroom at $800 each for a year before they up it to $1k each again. With income not going up much there is only so much someone can pay, so getting more people to pay them that amount is the only way to up profits.
If you want to do something meaningful, then pass the zoning overhaul and a new condo conversion ordinance. Those are the two biggest bangs for your buck. The failure to update/normalize the zoning is solely a function of aldermen putting their perceived power in front of housing issues.
Serious question.
Why don’t people just live where they can afford to based on their income?
Buy somewhere you can afford and build equity. I am honestly baffled by ultra progressive/My Revolution Somerville’s position on housing – and I say that as a liberal who voted for Obama twice and would never vote Republican in a national election.
JPM, I get where you are coming from, and largely agree. I get it, and i have lived it, move where you can afford.
The counter to this is that “we” like to say that want a diverse community to continue to exist in Somerville. The reality on the ground is that this is becoming increasingly impossible and the change has been very very fast. I have been coming to Somerville my whole life to see family, and moved here 15 years ago, buying my first home 12 years ago. I, like many people who moved here in the last 15 years, could not afford to buy here today. Honestly, it kind of sucks because I want my friends and peers to be able to live here and be my neighbors.
The impact of that is lots of people who want to move here for the same reasons we did can’t. Do I think a building boom in the city will make a real difference? no, not at all. The housing shortage is regional, and is driven by the great local economy and the drive to live in urban environments.
I think Candidus is 100% wrong about the people who want to live here and an antagonism to be governed by and pay rent to due to class. Rather, I think there is a desire to want to become a permanent part of the community through ownership and a realization that they have a voice and power to change policy. I don’t agree with many of the tactics, but they are a part of the community and have a voice that long time residents and more recent folks like me need to listen to.
What the nutty progressives (cough, cough, …commies) have to get thru their thick heads is this ain’t their town. Never was and never will be. Bottom line: Nobody wants them here except to pillage the imbeciles for excessive rent.
I got 6 units and a while back I decided that I would only rent to progressives as I know they’re too wimpy to complain and they will PAY… anything. I shoot for the moon with rent and these fools flock through the door to live some twisted bohemian dream here. I just laugh as the next coat of paint or repair I ever do to any rental unit will be the first. Read the Tenant law – make sure the heat works, give them trash barrels and that’s it.
I really get a kick out of some the Our Revolution old coots too. I got one renting from me now. All these liberal/useless degrees and they spout off all sorts of stupidity about how long they have been here and how they can barely afford the rents. Dummies, why didn’t ya buy when you slithered into town way back when and you would have a killing.
This BOA is good for comic relief only. I wouldn’t piss on a one of ’em if they were on fire. Has Will Mbah figured out yet what an Alderman is supposed to do? Talk about lost in the supermarket. They make 40K now?? That needs to be cut.
Well. This worse than useless heap is a zillion laffs. Regale us with tales of your poisoning the neighborhood cats, why don’t you.
I’m probably a glutton for punishment to chime in on this comment section, but…. The main issues I have heard from long-time Somerville residents were, roughly in this order: rising taxes/fees/fines, frustration at developers doing gut rehabs on their blocks, decline of neighborhood ties, long-time tenants having to move when their landlord (often a family member or family friend) needs to sell, traffic congestion, and rats. I think a lot of people more-or-less agree on much of this list, whatever their backgrounds. Affordability programs, including language in the zoning rewrite and efforts that limit the impact of out-of-town developers, help address those top three issues. People across backgrounds are discouraged and angry about issues ranging from rats to national politics. But if we can figure it out, there’s a lot we can get done locally. And if we do, that’ll be a big accomplishment, because finding agreement across differences is a big problem everywhere, especially now. Anyway, you can and should judge me on whether or not I deliver results that address your worries. Also, I promise to redouble my efforts and commitment to do what I can to help this be an inclusive community where each person feels they belong and feels that their voice matters.
I do have to agree with JPM – you make the decision to live where you can afford to live – I wanted to buy in Cambridge 30 years ago but couldn’t afford it so I ended up in Somerville. It’s not a Somerville problem it’s a Boston area problem. There are two major points regarding affordable housing in Somerville. Somerville is already the most densely populated community in the Commonwealth , if we want green spaces and we want additional housing we can only build up, and we should not be building rental units we should be building affordable condo units for purchase y first time home owners. This would free up rental units and increase the number of property owners. Rentals are a drain on the cities resources, renters may think they contribute to the cities real estate taxes through their rent payments , but that trickle down is a stretch, condos produce real estate taxes which help the city with financial resources.
“Affordability programs, including language in the zoning rewrite and efforts that limit the impact of out-of-town developers, help address those top three issues.”
Now if only the board would pass the new zoning.
But I do not see it happening. The few multi term Aldermen left are against and seem to have shut it down despite all their changes and concerns being addressed already.
They wasted tens of thousands of man hours of the residents who went to all the Somervision meetings and wasted thousands of hours of the city employees who were also at those meeting and all the late night sessions with the Aldermen.
This money, time and energy are now just lost.
Aldermen Hirsch: Write to the voters once you’ve accomplished something. Your article is just a bunch feel-good nonsense. We’re not falling for it.
Instead of wasting half a year on the Transfer Fee, which did nothing but further divide our community (and it never ever had a chance of passing at the State House), this BOA should have come out of the gate last January focusing on the zoning overhaul. You know, something where you could actually make a real impact on people’s lives through change – a huge miss by the new board. What a novel idea! But nope, this BOA would rather pander, ponder, stammer their way to zero results. Bravo, to the newly elected BOA for accomplishing zilch with your first go around. Rather impressive if you ask me. I mean they’ve accomplished zero, nada, nothing… A big fat 0-ffer on their first report card, or should I say “incomplete” since this board tends to be of the “participation award” mindset, instead of results driven.
Now for their second act they’re going to force the Right of First Refusal down our throats in an attempt to “show us.” Good luck as you further divide the community in an attempt to advance Our Revolution’s Socialist ideology versus Your Community needs. The smugness and entitlement that is the composition of this BOA is flat out gross. These new members will be judged by their results, not just their feel good rhetoric. Last November’s election made it very clear, it’s Our Revolution vs. Our Community! We’ll see if these new BOA members continue to be bound to Our Revolution for the next year plus. Campaign season will be here before you know it.
Why would it matter if developers are from in or out of town? Just adopt sensible regulations that don’t make all our homes non-conforming structures and that sets clear rules for development moving forward. As BMac noted, we’ve spent years churning through these issues and it’s time to act. No one is asking you to start from scratch. In fact it’s the opposite. There is a document in front of you ready for action. Make a few tweaks and ratify it.
There will always be future zoning amendments. For instance, I like the recent proposal to allow triple deckers in residential neighborhoods (even though it stands to change my neighborhood), but if that’s a bridge too far then we can cross it in the future.
Aldermen have been killing this with process for a few years now because they like how the current system allows them to pick winners. You’ve got to play politics to get anything done. Almost nothing can be done by right. This has to stop. Show us you’re the elected officials willing to put our interests in front of yours.
And we have a new by right that all the neighbors are screaming at Mark about.
It would have been prevented if he had supported and passed the Zoning overhaul.
We will continue to get this type of bad development until they pass the zoning.
Dear Alderman: Please do something with the zoning overhaul and quit playing in your socialist sandbox where nothing is getting done.
I reviewed the agenda for tomorrow night’s BOA meeting and this is one of the resolutions put forward by Ald. Hirsch. You have got to be kidding me with this nonsense. LOL.
45. Resolution (ID # 19215)
By Ald. Hirsch
That the Administration consider reducing the use of t-shirts for give-aways, given the large number that end up not getting worn.
Well said Mr Greenwell.
They needed a raise for this?
Alderman Hirsch is spending time worrying about t-shirt give-aways?? Is she serious? These people need to FOCUS.
Housing prices started this big upswing around 2008. As did stocks. The fed reserve ~ tripled the money supply from 08-16. Didn’t everyone’s income go up three times? Audit the fed.
Property transfer tax is a bad idea. Its discriminatory towards one group with little representation.
There is no description of what the additional funds will be used for or how many new govt jobs this would create.
At the meeting one city representative said that for new affordable housing that 30 percent will go to out of towners.
At the meeting no one could answer a question. Is the idea to create more owner occupants or more rentals?