[00:00:00] Speaker A: State Representative Jackie Chan of Quincy is in his office at the State House on Beacon Hill in the middle of August. Jackie, what are you doing there?
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Contrary to popular belief, I do have a job.
Let's do it. To do. It's good to see you, Joe. As we move into the middle of August and I indeed in the State House today. If you're watching us on YouTube or on cable access right now, as I like to say, it's good to get out of the house.
As much as we all love zoom based meetings, it can get a little stifling. Be at home.
And I do have some in person meetings in Boston as opposed to doing in person meetings in District.
The last couple of days I was legit driving from place to place seeing folks for local meetings. And during the summertime, as I think some of you may appreciate, people like to have meetings closer to home or the place of business rather than coming into Boston. Although there's a quieter driver in the summer to see me, especially when you're just coming to Boston, see me as opposed to try to get other things done at home. So the delegation tries to be as convenient as possible for folks whenever we can because they know that John Keenan and Bruce Ayers and speakers the same way. They don't want to make sure that, you know, we can able to see people.
And given the fact that we're out of session right now, creates more opportunity for us to see people. That's more convenient in Quincy.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Although the big question is, do you have air conditioning in your office? Because otherwise I'm not coming to meet you there.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: Okay. The air conditioning was turned on late to save money so we were kind of cooking into the month of June.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Oh gosh.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: The staff does not have air conditioning in their space outside of my office. I do have a of water based heating cooling system, one fan and I would have to open the door. Dead serious. From my office to the front office with fans to push cold air into the rest of the suite.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: Oh, your poor staff.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: That is very true staff.
And it shows you how old this building is because we don't have a conventional, conventional H Vac.
You see some H Vac type stuff, but that's actually more of a ventilation issue, not a heating cooling issue to kind of, you know, let naturally move air in and out of the location.
So we cooling system took longer to turn on and last winter it actually took longer to turn on the heating system as well. Again as part of cost savings.
For those who may not be aware, we are having a Hiring freeze in the House, except under specific circumstances where you only have one staff person on. You can replace if you only have one staff person.
And you know, speakers already informed us they were doing cost cutting measures on office supplies and other things as well, reflecting the fact that we are trying to reduce our administrative budgets as best we can in anticipation of perhaps federal cuts coming October one. So we're really into penny pitching mode over here.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: Wow. Well, I didn't realize that, you know, it's. And it's. Seeing as we're talking, seeing as we're talking about energy. As you predicted, August 1st electricity rates went up for sure.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: Absolutely. Because it's based on looking back six months and you take the bid of today.
And because of the global energy markets, which we talk many times right now about, and the fact that the Houthis have hit and killed six people, I think yesterday on tankers trying to get through that side of the Persian.
Well, that side of Saudi Arabia really. Because Saudi Arabia straddles both sides.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Right.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: Of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.
You know, that's setting shocks as well. And if you're on basic service, which is the default rate on your electric bill and natural grid, you are subject to the six month review process on bid for low price.
And unfortunately, if the timing is poor, you're stuck with unfortunately, a higher rate for six months.
If you're not on municipal aggregation in Quincy, I do encourage people to do so. It's only good for I think another year and 14ish months or something like that.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: Oh, interesting.
[00:04:24] Speaker B: Yeah. It's only, I think it's like a 27 month contract.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: But it's not like a three year contract. But I mean regardless, it's still going to be lower the basic rate.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:04:33] Speaker B: You can do it on the website, but there's also several websites you can just Google up sign up. You do need your national grid account number to do so as well as a verification that you are accepting this proposal.
I've had to do that.
My utility bill changed names, which means I had to close my accounts at home, watching my mother's accounts at home and had to open brand new accounts of. Which did not put me automatically on municipal aggregation.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: Right.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: Oh, I actually had to put myself onto the city's municipal aggregation for any.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: Yeah, you have to opt into it. Right.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: Yeah. I had to find the website and fill out the formstore. So that's how come I know you need your account number because I.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Right, right, right, right. Yeah. And municipal aggregation, it's not in every community yet, right?
[00:05:22] Speaker B: No, it's something community has to initiate at the local level to form some kind of committee that's charged with finding the lowest rate available energy market and negotiate a fixed contract of time. It is an automatic opt in. It is not an optional opt in. You have to choose to opt out. So contracts work because they can't guarantee a certain customer size. You can't get the price.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: Oh, I see. Okay, gotcha.
[00:05:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I know it seems weird because you're being forced into something, but these contracts can't exist if you're not forced into it. It's not.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: Right.
[00:05:55] Speaker B: And then you have to get approved from dpu.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: So there's DPU actually has a whole process of municipality going through this process. And then once this process completed your level DPU has to pay it. Once they okay it, the contract is finalized. And then National Grid, in this case we're national Grid, you know, it's notified and it proceeds to do the integration on the billing. So your bill will show the mis aggregated rate.
You get three choices. By the way, you can pay more of a full. Well, not full, but more renewable. You can pay a little less for some renewable and you can pay much more less for no renewal.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: Yep, yep. As I recall here in Quincy folks were opted into the middle range and then you could get, you could change either way you wanted to.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: Yeah. So you can choose how much you would like to pay. So that's an individual consumer decision.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: We discussed multiple times if CPI number came out today.
You know, people are trying to find a way to save as much money as possible as they can right now.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And it can be significant. Especially if you have a, you know, a larger household.
It could rack up the savings pretty quickly.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: And right now because of the heat, especially last six weeks since July 4th especially has been brutal. And heat and whether it be running fans or air conditioning, you, you, you are using a lot of power right now.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: Yes, for sure. Maybe even more than the winter. Yeah. So it's worth looking into for sure. At least here in Quincy and your community, if you have municipal aggregation. If not, encourage your community leaders to look into it.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So you're not listening. If you listen to us, not in Quincy, you want to definitely contact your local officials to see if they're interested in moving forward in municipal aggregation. Contract.
They need to do the local research and the right bid process, pursuing your DPU regulations.
It is work.
It's not just pick anybody because you want to get the best rate, but Be mindful that you know you're locked into a contract for a fixed period of time and or you can go out to the open market yourself and find your own energy supplier that's in the open market that actually compete against other energy suppliers.
And obviously I tell folks definitely have the informal view the entire contract, you know, at a fixed rate for a certain number of years. But I'll just remind folks that be sure to ask if there's an auto renew.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: Good point. Yes.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: So that you know when the term of contract is up and you find yourself forced back on the basic rate because the country is up or you continue to auto renew, which means you're locked in for another period of time that you may or may not be locked in depending if you're happy or not.
So just like your cell phone companies and other types of billing you do continuously use. However, unlike those types of billing, comparison by energy is a fixed contract time.
So again, everyone's circumstances different and different how they want to spend the money on electricity or energy. Electricity. But that's your individual decision. But I do advise some consumer awareness and it's always good to ask more questions.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I know. Just earlier this week the governor re emphasized passage of her proposed energy bill. I think she put it out last year. I think it's, it's. I think it's still on committee.
[00:09:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it's in conference committee currently.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: We'll always wait to see how this plays out as you move through the remainder of the year and we'll see if when we're called back to take votes or not. I'm not really sure how this second works.
[00:09:35] Speaker A: Don't travel too far from home. Right. Yeah.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: Well, I'm called so I'm not actually clear. I'm sure, sure we had no on call in August and pretty much confidence, especially the September 1st primary is rolling around fast.
[00:09:46] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: So there'll be no on call this month. But I really do not know what's going to happen and not looking for sympathy or concern for everyone. It's just stating a fact. I do not know how this is
[00:09:56] Speaker A: going to play out. Yeah, yeah, I understand. Yeah.
Also I saw this week the state put out guidelines on changes to potential changes to Medicaid when the big beautiful bill takes effect.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: Yeah, folks in Medicaid already started the reapplication process the beginning of the year. I believe it's every six months. Right now they're doing reauthorizations at the federal level. This is not us. This is beautiful bill. And Republicans in Congress.
And I do understand the need for rechecks, but rechecking folks in a staggered manner, ready to do rather than doing everyone at the same time, can be overwhelming for staff reviewing. And if you're overwhelmed, it increases the odds of errors.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: So I mean, it's always been somewhat of a staggered system regarding reveal.
So. But the big beautiful bill in this presidential administration has created a situation. You might potentially have more errors because again, I think everyone listening is a human being. Unless you're AI, which may be true in the case, it's probably an AI listening. You know, you, you all understand if you've got too much going on, the odds of errors go up.
[00:11:06] Speaker A: Something falls for the cracks.
[00:11:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's just, just nature of being human. It's right. Perfect. We're imperfect folks. Right.
So we'll see how that works out. And you know, the changing Medicaid guidelines, you know, the changing, you know, prescription drugs, some for the better, some for worse, they just announced vaccine changes. Again, regarding guidelines for that. Again, they're guidelines. That doesn't mean it's mandatory. I think people forget that. Guidelines, guidelines, not mandatory. It means that medical professionals provide you the guidelines, but also can provide you additional recommendations of which what to do and then as a, as a parent or as an adult, you can, you know, follow the guidelines and, or the recommendations of your medical provider. So I think people need to be aware of that. People assume guidelines mean mandatory regulations.
Guidelines are what they sound like, the guidelines.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's a good point. Yeah.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: So, you know, please be aware of that. And you know, Medicaid is going to have more changes of which the state governments operate on behalf of the federal government.
And you know, whether or not we're able to fully staff those changes is a good question.
And whether we're funded to staff them.
Federal government contributes to an employee cost for their programs. Your state taxiders pay a portion of those programs in terms of staffing and federal government pays a portion as well on staffing federal programs.
We and the municipal governments are the same way. We like to keep our tax dollars segregated.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:38] Speaker B: Federal money goes from the federal tax dollars, State money go to federal tax, state money goes to state programs and the local goes to local.
So you know, obviously I've talked about in the past that people want us to provide replacement money, not supplement replacement money for federal programs.
You know, your state tax dollars are meant to try to do state programs or special programs that state do to supplement federal programs, actually replace a federal program. Using state dollars. Well, it's not our program, but it is our problem.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. So you have to determine, first of all, do you fund it? Second of all, how do you fund it?
[00:13:15] Speaker B: And also, if you start funding it, the federal government would just walk away.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: That's right. It's like, oh, they've taken that over now. We don't have to pay for that anymore. Right?
[00:13:22] Speaker B: That's correct. That's a legit concern.
And I think people sometimes lose sight of that concern too, because that means your state tax dollars are not being utilized for state. State programs. And state administration instead is paying for a federal program that should be. That should be paid by your federal tax owners.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: Right, right. Speaking of federal programs, I understand you had a meeting with FEMA regarding grants to the city of Quincy.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you. To Senator Ed Markey's office, working with Senator Warren as well as Congressman Lynch's offices to set up a meeting with the FEMA regional director and his staff, along with the City of Quincy's engineer acting. Well, incoming DPW commissioner, as well as their engineers. And mima. MIMA actually came too. It was actually quite a full room.
And this regarding the over $500,000. So it's I think 595, but it's well over $500,000 on a seawall project along Manitan Avenue on the way to the island, as we know, Basically we had four major storms from essentially 2012, 2018 batter our seawalls, especially along Adamshire and Hell's Neck. And the area around the willows is pretty beat up. And we qualified for federal dollars in the past, which FEMA announced to the state and the municipalities.
There was, I think, seven in total, that there were no going to get any more funding for these pending projects. And FEMA came down to have a conversation with the federal state delegation as well as the city.
And it was actually very productive meeting. I'll be very frank. It was very productive. A lot of engineering talk. I'm not an engineer, so I wasn't clear exactly what the engineering talk was about.
And of course, a lot of bureaucracy and the city government as well as MEMA did a great job on the bureaucratic conversation and what they need to do. And I'm pretty comfortable now that the city working with MEMA and FEMA will secure this funding meeting.
A number of different deadlines in a document and permitting deadlines that FEMA's looking for.
The response of FEMA is largely the fact that a lot of these cases open from 2018 as they go through the records. It's 2026.
They would like to start clearing their plate a little bit on these open things from eight years ago, which is not unreasonable. But they're also super reasonable on helping us out on securing this funding to complete those parts of seawall and the city and MEMA and FEMA is going to follow conversation to ensure that, you know, everybody knows what's being looked for and get the job done. Hopefully. Well, actually it needs to be. Not hopefully needs to be done by December 31, 2027.
So this is along the Manit Avenue to Nut island portion of Seawall that actually is being paid for by state, federal and city money, but it's not really being commingled in certain sections.
The FEMA money needs to be paid for a section of the wall itself. And I'll leave it to the city and FEMA and MIMA to figure out how to make sure that the different forms of funding is appropriately allocated to certain sections of the seawall.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I understand. They know best where to put the priorities.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. Don't ask me about how this entire accounting and engineering and how all this works. I think like the residents, I would like to see a seawall repair and replacement.
I will not pretend to understand the details. I think people, they're just more concerned about the results. But I think people should appreciate a lot of the work that the city, the state and working with the federal delegation and the federal government here on finding a solution that, you know, will yield a positive result in the end.
[00:17:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, no. I mean, 2018, it was devastating that the flooding, you know, folks had to be evacuated in their high water vehicles because of the, the deluge that came in. So it's necessary for sure.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: It is absolutely necessary. So even over here, we had the Snozilla years.
[00:17:36] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: And then, you know, you go back far enough, we had those massive floods in 2010, 2012 too. So, I mean, there's a lot of major storms hitting us through the 2010s, so again, I'm, I'm very confident and it's great seeing, you know, municipal, state and federal officials working together to find a solution that honestly benefits residents here.
[00:18:00] Speaker A: Oh, that's great news. Excellent.
You are also at City hall this week. Tacky with the mayor.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Senator Keane and I presented the mayor a replica copy of the Declaration Independence.
It is actually replica of the original parchment paper as well as the printing as the original. It obviously doesn't have the signatures because we don't have a signature. Page.
It turns out this is somewhat historically interesting because Massachusetts at the time of 1776 was the only state to provide a replica copy to all cities and towns at the time to read in their town squares the Declaration Independent as mandated by the provincial government of Massachusetts at the time.
So.
Yeah, I didn't realize that. I didn't realize we're the only state that printed replica copies for the principalities and mandated the reading of it. Yeah, Public forum, you know, calling it town square, but public forum.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: Put a residence to hear. Interesting. Yeah. This is like the first real type of mass distribution of social media, I suppose.
[00:19:07] Speaker A: Yeah. If you, if you look at it that way. That's true. Yeah. And do they do it every year?
[00:19:13] Speaker B: No, no, it's just letting people know that we've signed the Declaration of Independence.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: Oh, all right. Okay. Okay.
[00:19:19] Speaker B: How else would you know?
[00:19:22] Speaker A: Yeah, you couldn't just text somebody, right?
[00:19:24] Speaker B: That's exactly it. I mean, people, you know, don't always appreciate the fact that travel time back then could take, you know, many, many weeks get from Philadelphia to Boston on you, even if it's just a single rider.
But imagine going from like Philadelphia down to like South Carolina.
And you don't have any modern roadways, no contiguously modern roads. Continuous modern roads is really result of, you know, the Eisenhower administration's interstate highways. Right. Everything was non continuous. And people remember Route 9 was the only way to get out of west to western Massachusetts many years before the Mass Pike.
So, you know, the sign of the independence. Well, in the immediate area of a new. It took a long time and even then I had to reach every community somehow. And you know, you would have to, you know, read a document, you know, announcing to your local community to show up. This time there's announcement to be made.
[00:20:23] Speaker A: Yeah. The town crier would greet it. Right?
[00:20:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I think people don't really appreciate today the amount of necessity of effort, time and information delay. People would need to even know a declaration sign. So Massachusetts wanted to make sure that everybody was able to hear the words of the Declaration because literacy is a little bit of a thing, you know, depending on who you are.
You know, everyone needs to hear the words of what was done in Philadelphia verbatim.
So it's 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. You know, the state did a full replica, you know, down to the parchment and the ink of the Declaration of Independence for each city in town to memorialize somewhere.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: Yeah, that's neat.
[00:21:13] Speaker B: Yeah. So all 351 communities got one and. Yeah, they were given to state delegations for them to present to local communities.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: Yeah. So is. Do you know if it's on display at City Hall? Can folks go see it?
[00:21:24] Speaker B: The mayor is.
The mayor and his folks are picking a spot in City hall or something. Oh, good.
[00:21:28] Speaker A: Okay. All right.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: So I done my part. I delivered Senate, delivered a document.
[00:21:36] Speaker A: Did the state do it for the bicentennials, you know, in 1976?
[00:21:40] Speaker B: I. I do not know.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: I was a kid.
I was alive, but I was a kid, so I couldn't tell you.
But it's.
I know. It's. It's. It's a very cool thing. I do actually have some bicentennial coins.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: I think it was a. Was that. It was a dollar coin, if I correctly.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: There was a. Yeah, dollar coin and a two dollar bill.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: Yeah. I do have some old dollar coins from 1776.
[00:22:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: So I don't think it has any real silver value.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: Oh, no, it was just kind of a token thing.
[00:22:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. But it is currency.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: Yes. Oh, it is. Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. It's more of a collector's thing. Yeah.
[00:22:22] Speaker B: Yeah. I remember having those as a child. I still have them. They're sitting in a little. Like a little piggyback at home, so.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm sure everybody's got something like that somewhere. Yeah, that's fun. But it's fun, you know, It's a lot of fun.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, no, it's fun. These memorabilia is as part of your life and, you know, it's good reflection as well.
So. No, I. I think it was a fun thing to do. It was a great thing to present. And every community should or will be having one of these someplace. And how each community wants to display, it's up to that one. I didn't realize of who it was until we got the email from the chair of the Joint Community Tourism explaining this whole story of, well, why we do this.
[00:23:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I've seen the original at the National Archives in Washington. It's. It's pretty impressive.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: Oh, I haven't done that.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I recommend it. Yeah.
[00:23:12] Speaker B: Yeah. At some point, I got to make a D.C. trip. I haven't been there since I was like 12 or 13.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
Very different, I'm sure. Yes.
Another long standing tradition here in Quincy. Coming up in. It's August Moon Festival time.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Somebody may be hearing this a little bit late, but August Moon Festival is September. Yes. August 16th.
[00:23:35] Speaker A: Sorry.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: To August 16th. We do August Moon Festival during the month of August. Even though the Lunar Calendar puts the eighth month into the month of September here. But for the sake of honestly easy, we just do the August Moose festival in August, not using the lunar calendar for that.
It's one of the longest running August moons in the state. Not as old as Chinatown, but probably among the oldest.
And it's definitely one of the largest events in South Shore. 11 to 3 in front of the high school and Cottington street. And taking up the road kickoff and Entertainment starts at 12. There'll be plenty of food vendors, social service programs, and I will be there myself with my tacky Chan fans and jawprinters to give away to folks.
And I've pretty much, except for the COVID years, I've been there every year passing out campaign material, fans of jar openers as well as, you know, talking constituent issues. And, you know, we do pick up some work at the event. We sure have people express concerns or pleasure, displeasure.
Very polite. People have always been very polite despite their pleasure or displeasure. I always felt very polite.
And sometimes we get a constituent case or two and we will pick it up right then at the booth. So my objective is to give away everything and then I get to go home.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: Okay, so help Tacky out and go get some free stuff. Yeah.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: Take one. Take five.
[00:25:07] Speaker A: It's the 39th annual here in Quincy this year.
[00:25:11] Speaker B: It is.
Some of you may not be aware, before Queen Asian Resources, before Corey's existence, you know, it was actually run by the Walls Lutheran Church.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: Parking lot in the very first year. And then Impact Quincy, which is part of Bay State Community Services, ran the event. And then I actually started running it when it was the Quincy Asian American association, which is a just a neighborhood group.
And then eventually, when Queen Jason Resources was founded, actually 25 years ago this November, this our incorporation papers. 25 years this November, they adopted it. So for 25 years out of 39, it's been under Queen Jason Resources, but under 39 years, it's had four different sponsors organizing it or four organizations organizing, of which I think I chaired maybe 12 of them.
[00:26:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: Unorganizing it. So it's gone a long way from a parking lot to being a true street fair.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: For sure. Yeah. And it's, you know, there's all kinds of live performances and of course, many vendors as well.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: And it's also an opportunity, cultural knowledge and exchange. Every year I talk about the fact it's a story about a rabbit, a moon and a princess or a lover, depending on the story. And, you know, each a part of China has A slightly variation about the August moon itself. It is a harvest moon, which is why in Luna calendar being September, partially celebrating the harvest as well, but, you know, partially. It's like, like lunar New Year and Memorial Day. Another holidays that are secular. There's. There's always a folktale that goes with it.
[00:26:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Growing up, do you remember going to August Moons?
[00:27:03] Speaker B: We went to the one in Chinatown quite a bit.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: As a child when I was like, you know, you know, holding your dad age, you know, as a seven year old, you know, we went to quite a few August movies in China.
And it was also a very different Chinatown. Right. It was much more residential, people just came downstairs kind of thing.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:27:24] Speaker B: Smaller businesses, a lot less restaurants, believe it or not, more retail Chinatown.
[00:27:28] Speaker A: Oh, interesting.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: Because they were serving the residents there. Retail was serving residents being a destination.
And. Yeah, no, we did quite a few of those as a kid.
And then I got involved with really August Moon Festival here when, you know, when I got out of college.
[00:27:46] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: And started being more of a greater participant and, you know, spending more time at these different festivals to. To meet people and understand what's going on around me.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: Right.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: So that's kind of. And again, like I said, it's 39 years old. So, you know, I've been at this.
30.
Wow. 32 years or 31 years doing this kind of stuff, whether volunteer or in government or politics or whatever. So, you know, it's a. It's an older event than I am, but it was for me, the original formation was during my college year. So obviously. Oh, all right. Preoccupied by other things.
[00:28:23] Speaker A: And I know other communities. I think Braintree has one now. And some other communities are starting theirs as well.
[00:28:28] Speaker B: Yes. Actually, it's predominantly Chinese community.
Harvest Moon is not uniquely August Moon. Harvest Moon's not uniquely Chinese.
Most of them are organized by Chinese organizations, but again, it's a lunar calendar. It's not uniquely just a Chinese issue.
And even in China, the story varies slightly on the folklore behind this, of
[00:28:52] Speaker A: course, as most traditions.
[00:28:54] Speaker B: Right, yeah, exactly.
[00:28:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
So that's the big event in the district going forward. What are you looking forward to?
[00:29:03] Speaker B: Well, I'm hoping for a quiet second half of the month of August, to be frank with you.
And again, remind folks, Primary day is September 1st. Very unusual day for primary day. Mailing ballots available Florida. Quincy's son flat out says they're available.
And I, you know, I was. When I was visiting the mayor of Senator Keenan yesterday, the clerk's office has the early voting booth available as well. As mail in ballots. So there's plenty of ways for folks to vote and participate on September 1st. The only thing stopping you from participating voting is you.
[00:29:38] Speaker A: That's right. Yeah. It couldn't be any easier. There's, as you mentioned, mail in, there's early voting, there's absentee balloting, and then there's go to the polls like you normally did on September 1st.
[00:29:49] Speaker B: And I said before, I'm going to have some new firsts in my personal life, but I will be uploading September 1st on Beech Middle School.
[00:29:57] Speaker A: Very good. How do we get ahold of you in the meantime? Jackie?
[00:30:00] Speaker B: 617-7223-706177-22370. The phone number, it's an automated system, so be aware. It's not my suite. I'm aware people have commented on it. I do not control the suite. So as a result, you have to wait for the phone tree a little while to get to my name.
Some reason people think I'm in Congress and everyone gets their own phone line. This isn't room 42. As you can tell, I'm here.
So we are staffed.
Tacky Shannon.
Tacky. T A C K E Y C H A N at my house trophy. I do see all my emails. We do prioritize. I talk about this all the time. Follow how we prioritize regarding constituent needs. A state representative, Jackie Chan, Facebook, of course. Finding Instagram, you can see pictures of the mayor, Senator Keenan, myself as we do this kind of like sharing daisy chain thing.
Org is the resource page. Ma Legislature Gov is the state legislators webpage. Again, I encourage people to use that as it's a great resource. And of course me and Joe be here every week or two weeks. And I was on state view of Mark Crosby yesterday. So I was part of my district work. I stopped in with Mark Crosby, ended up doing a speed round of bills in under 28 minutes.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: Oh, I'll have to watch that. That sounds like fun. Okay.
[00:31:19] Speaker B: Yeah, we're gonna actually, I think we're gonna make a contest. I suggest that we're gonna do like a. Like a buzzer scenario.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great idea. Okay.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: See how much you can blurt out in 30 seconds.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: A lot. You'd be surprised how much.
[00:31:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll be talking very fast, but that's right. Maybe we'll do like see how much I can say in 30 seconds on something.
But also again, a bad statistics. So right off the bat I got all my local 8 numbers wrong.
So that's an error. Right off the top. I flubbed a Mark Crosby show right away yesterday.
[00:31:49] Speaker A: Try again next time.
[00:31:51] Speaker B: So, yeah, he'll be back, obviously. But yeah, no, QATV is a great resource. We talk about this
[email protected].
you know, email Joe, email Mark, email anybody. If you're interested on other topics that does not involve politics and government, happy to talk about anything you'd like to hear.
[00:32:09] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. Love to hear from folks. No question. All right. Thank you so much, Techie. Happy August, Moon. Stay cool.
[00:32:15] Speaker B: You too.
