Candidate’s Night

[Start 0:00:00]

Doug: The purpose of the candidate’s night here is to have an open discussion and to get input from you, guys, share your horror stories, share your experience, your advice, your perspective, also hear from our candidates what they think they ought to do, and I should say that we’re all here friends tonight because we have a variety of races and we actually don't have any direct opponents here.

I want to start by introducing folks. I apologize for not having [unintelligible 0:00:32] piece for everyone. I want to read the two [unintelligible 0:00:35] piece I have, and then we’re going to candidates who I don't have [unintelligible 0:00:38] for to introduce themselves briefly. If you guys would like, you can come up when I read for you right now.

We’ll start with Allison Werder, running for the House Second Hampden District. Allison Werder is a Longmeadow resident and a former president of MassLive media. She’s a board member of the Western New England University, Valley Venture Mentors, Center for Human Development and a founding partner of WIT, Women Innovators and Trailblazers, an Angel Fund being developed to support female-led startups in Western Mass. She has an undergraduate degree from Notre Dame and an MBA from Georgetown.

Allison is currently Republican candidate for State Representative in Second Hampden District, which includes Longmeadow, three quarters of East Longmeadow, Hampden, and Monson. She’s running on a platform focused underneath for hard work from our elected officials, additional accountability, action, and results from the legislature for Western Massachusetts in particular. Allison believes we work too hard for our families here in Western Mass and not have our elected officials working hard for us.

We also have with us Don Flannery running for House Second Hampden District. Don began his real estate career in 1965, renovated an unfinished shell in Wilbraham into an office and apartment, and rented the colonial realty. He started his own office, Flannery & Company in 1969. He expanded his business to Springfield by houses and condominiums. He flips some and holds others as income properties.

Don has managed property for others. He’s built a garrison colonial. He’s been a longtime voice at town meetings and letters to editor protecting property rights. He seeks election as a state representative to be a fiduciary of the people. We should know he’s not a landlord any longer. He sold his income property and put all this money into development of 34 houses, [unintelligible 0:02:23] finish it and all lost his money. I say his money. He didn’t declare bankruptcy and it was his money that was lost, and he asked me to tell you this so that you’ll know he takes his fiduciary responsibility seriously.

We also have with us Amaad Rivera, running for Senate Hampden District. Amaad, would you like to grab the mike and introduce yourself very briefly?

Amaad: There you go. My name is Amaad River, running for Hampden District that includes Springfield, West Springfield, and parts of Chicopee. I’m a lifelong resident of the actual district, grew up, went to elementary in Belcher Street Elementary in Chicopee, spent most of my life in Springfield, and met the love of my life, ended up marrying in West Springfield in Ireland in September. It was planned before the election, which is why I might get in trouble.

I am the former policy advisor of US Senator Ed Markey. I also served as a Springfield City councilor. I am a proud graduate of Springfield public schools, went on to Bentley University for undergrad, did my graduate work at UMass Amherst, did my PhD work at Brandeis University.

I’m running on a platform that we talked about, reducing costs on healthcare for our aging seniors, our millennials, and our small businesses, ensuring that we reduce gun violence while respecting the Second Amendment, ensuring that we stand up for Western Massachusetts on Beacon Hill now and making sure that we hold our elected officials accountable for standing up for the resources we need for the communities that deserve it right here in Western Massachusetts.

Doug: Thank you very much, Amaad. Last but not least, we have Tanya Neslusan running for First Hampden. Tanya?

Tanya: Hi! I’m Tanya Neslusan, First Hampden State Representative, which is essentially Sturbridge through Palmer and Ware, and all the towns in between. There’s seven tows total. I’m running on a platform of increasing some of the financial viability of Central and Western Mass, primarily through investments in transportation and infrastructure.

I also want to take a hard look at some of the foreclosed properties and what we can do to turn those around a little faster. Also, I’m looking at healthcare and minimum wage, and bringing more jobs in so that we can increase the earning potential of people out in this half of the state to make it a more viable region overall. Thank you.

Interviewer: Thank you very much. We have prepared a list of questions, which are designed not to be leading, but we have to apologize. We all have our biases, right? They might be a little leading, but we want to have a discussion about different topic areas, and we’re going to have this discussion alternately moderated by me and Atty. Peter Vickery, our legislative affairs counsel.

[0:05:15]

We’d like to run the mike around so if you wouldn’t mind, if you want to share something, just raise your hand like you’ve never been, and I’ll bring it to you, so everybody would hear. We don't have to repeat the question.

Peter, would you like to lead us off, the first question?

Peter: Sure.

Doug: Yes, and–

Peter: I’d [unintelligible 0:05:28] the mike.

Interviewer: Yes, let me know if you’d like to alternate or if you’d like to run through a couple in a row, I don’t mind, whatever you want to do.

Peter: Okay. Thank you. I’m Peter Vickery. As Doug mentioned, I’m legislative affairs director for MassLandlords, so those of you who win and maybe all of you, I’m going to get to know all of you really well. Here’s the first question.

“Tenant advocates in Metro Boston state that there’s a housing crisis. Do you believe this is a Boston only issue or is Pioneer Valley housing also increasingly affordable? What if anything should the Commonwealth as a whole be doing differently so that housing crisis prices and rent remain affordable?”

Why don’t we start from nearest to farthest and keep your answers to 2 minutes each? That means we’ll get through everybody.

Tanya: Okay, I think that there is a housing crisis throughout the state. I can’t speak specifically to the Pioneer Valley as I’m a little bit further east. I will say that what I see in my region is a lack of rental properties that are available. I’ve seen a lot of new construction on houses that people have built, moved into, stayed for 5 years, they get foreclosed on, and then they sit there. Those families end up living to different parts of the state, sometimes out of state, looking for affordable housing.

I think one of the things that we need to do is kind of balance out the build of rental properties and to make it easier for people to renovate specially some of those foreclosed homes into rental properties, multifamily rental units, and that sort of thing in order to capitalize on the increase in the need for affordable housing while at the same time minimizing the impact of all the vacant houses.

Peter: Thank you.

Allison: This is working? Okay, first me say I am by no means a housing expert. I’m a business person, so I’m looking forward to learning from the people in this room on this issue. Excuse my early ignorance, but I hope to learn a lot more as we go along.

But the question is whether this is a Pioneer Valley versus a Boston issue. I mean my numbers that I have seen have certainly said it’s a different issue. Boston has much more of a problem with the increased cost of living. I saw stat the other day saying that in Boston, it’s approaching half of a person’s income is going towards their housing whereas stats in the Pioneer Valley still have it about a quarter. While it maybe an issue, it’s not nearly quite I think the issue that they’re seeing. It’s not increasing at the rate we’re seeing in Boston.

If I were to see what I see in my district, and again that’s Longmeadow, East Longmeadow, Hampden, and Monson, is that the types of housing that are available are a problem. Somewhere like Longmeadow, we have aging population and they’re staying in their homes longer, which is creating a housing shortage for the new families that want to move in. Are there solutions around senior housing? We don't have that. I mean East Longmeadow has more developed land, and I know. I’ve talked to Chris Carr who says their waiting list miles long to get into this housing.

I think what I’ve seen is sure there are always issues to be able to afford the housing that you want, but do we have the housing that people need? As millennials go into urban areas, as people get older and want easier living, as people start their homes, they want to starter homes to open up the for new families. What I would like to see in my district is it’s not the quantity of housing. It’s who has the housing that they need at the time that they need it.

Peter: Thank you. Mr. Rivera.

Amaad: Yes, a little bit more about my background. I’m actually was the former housing policy director for the Mass Commission Against Discrimination where I worked with Jamie Williamson, the former commissioner, and I still have some good friends there, so I’m pretty passionate about housing policy. I don't know if that makes me a great state senator or just a nerd; I haven’t completely figured that out.

But one of the things that I do think that we are having is we do have a affordability crisis. I do agree with you that affordability looks slightly different than it does in Boston than it’s here. What we’re looking at here is that we also a median income in my district where we’re approaching closer to $30,000 a year.

Most people, as you know, are housing insecure in the fact in the fact that most people are spending upwards of 75 percent of their income on housing. That still looks similar in Western Massachusetts, but the volume and the percentage of it looks different because of the amount of money that’s being spent.

[0:10:06]

What we do not have is the diversity in the housing stock and delivery of that stock, and we have no place for people to transition from starter homes, couple in, moving from, as they grow in jobs, in seniority, to age and prosperity, we don’t really see that rainbow of work in Western Massachusetts, particularly in the Hampden District.

Even though we have the potential to tap into that, we don’t see as much mixed development, we don’t see as much housing that integrates small businesses into multifamily units. We don’t see expansion of units and talk about in-law apartments as a population who is young at heart might be graying. We want to make sure that we include those things and make sure those things happen. We haven’t seen a strong, sustained plan.

One of the reasons I’m running is that too often the Massachusetts Legislature has been dinged for not getting enough done, and we just recently had a story in the Boston Globe. This is a paraphrase, “They’ve been very busy doing very little.” I think it’s time for us to start having strong conversations, bringing different people to the table, and actually getting things done.

I think housing is a place where despite boundaries and identities and perspectives, there’s actually a lot of things that we agree on—that’s environment, expansion, diversifying stock, and making sure that we address the aging housing stock in Western Massachusetts that despite needing to move to more environmentally-friendly place, we need the resources and the policies to make sure that we are respecting landlords and those that own them as they transition into the 21st century. And so, I’m more than happy to work with others and folks that work on those public policies. Thank you.

Peter: Thank you. [unintelligible 0:11:41].

Don: My name is Don Flannery. I was one of you. I belonged to this rental housing association, RHAGS. I was a landlord. I managed property, and I don't know how many people realize this, but Heisler, Feldman, & McCormick used to be Heisler, Feldman, & Fields. Rob Fields, he became a magistrate, and then he became a housing court judge. He went from representing tenants in front of the bench to representing tenants behind the bench. You don’t stand a chance.

There are more tenants than there are landlords and there are more state representatives that want the tenants’ vote. They don’t care so much about the landlords’ vote. Tony [unintelligible 0:12:40] told me, and he was the longest-serving state representative in the country. He told me, “You want to be a state representative? You’re not going to be able to change a damn thing. There are three people that run the state: the speaker of the house, the president of the senate, and the governor, and no Republican can get anything done without Democratic votes.”

The Democrats win all the time. They do what the speaker wants if they want leadership positions because if they get leadership position, they get extra money in their pocket every month, so I’m not running as a Democrat, although I was always a Democrat until about 5 or 6 years ago, and I saw how the party was going.

The party is representing illegal aliens, aliens that come here in a chained migration where their relatives and their relatives’ relatives can come over here at the age of 60, never worked here in their life, never contributed anything to taxes, but they live on the taxpayers’ dollar, so they’re representing them, and they’re representing themselves. They come first, not you. If I get elected as an independent, I’ll be the fiduciary for the voters, putting their interest above mine.

Dina Fein, when she first became a judge in the housing court, I asked her. She was sitting at a table with me and I asked her, “Don’t you think it would be a good prerequisite for a judge to first own some low-income property, so she had some practical experience?” You know what her answer was? Her answer was, “Well, before I become a superior court judge, maybe I should be a criminal first.” Now that to me, she’s equating landlords with criminals. I don't think that’s right.

Peter: Mr. Flannery, you’re about 3 minutes, 10 seconds long.

Don: Okay, as far as housing goes…

Peter: Yes.

Audience: [laughter]

Don: I don't believe the government is the one to decide if we need more housing. I think the investor is the one that decides whether it’s profitable for him to invest in residential property. I don't think the government should be building housing for people either and going in competition with the private sector.

[0:15:25]

Back when Eddie Borland was a congressman, that was before there was Section 8, they were talking about building more housing like the Riverfront Housing Project down on the river, down the north end, and some of the housing projects around. I said, “No. I think you should be maybe subsidizing the rent so they can rent from private people,” like you people and like me.

Peter: I’m going to ask you to just press the pulse—

Don: Pardon me.

Peter: I’m going to ask you to press the pulse button to give audience—

Don: No!

Peter: There are plenty more ad time, but we’re going to keep this moving.

Don: Okay, just one more thing.

Peter: You’re at 4 minutes now, so I’m going to give the audience to ask questions and I will get back to you.

Don: Okay.

Doug: Questions or comments about the housing crisis?

Don (Audience): Just a question for the gentleman representing West Springfield, and I apologize for [unintelligible 0:16:15].

Don: Amaad.

Peter: Amaad.

Amaad: I’m not representative yet, but I will.

Audience: [laughter]

Don (Audience): You talk about the housing crisis and the increase in rent, but what I’ve seen over the last three years i