Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, State Representative Tacky Chan is back with us for another Tacky Talk podcast. How are you, Tacky?
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Hey, Joe. Happy December and I hope you and your family had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
[00:00:11] Speaker A: Very nice, thank you. Yes, stayed local, visited with my sisters. How about yourself?
[00:00:15] Speaker B: We stayed local.
You may be aware, I was in charge of cooking Thanksgiving, so thankfully did not have a show that week.
But after four days of slaving away, we had a very large and wonderful meal and people went home fat and happy. So, you know, there's no fights over the food and people were happy to go home after being fed. That's all that matters.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: And of course, you know, the city once again did it up big time with all the different holiday events.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: Yeah, the lighting's up at City Hall. I keep thinking of thinking someone new lighting with someone actually old lighting. It's one of those things that kind of like, mentally like I could have swore that was new or not new, but city again. The city looks beautiful. People's homes. I live in Wallston, as you guys know, near beach. Moral school homes are being lit up, particularly along Feno Street.
Lovely decoration by the neighbors.
And you know, obviously a number of the church fairs have gone off during this time period and we're starting to reach what I call the slower part of the holiday season.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: Yeah, it was too bad it had to rain on on the parade, unfortunately, but didn't slow it down.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Well, you didn't see me. And those who saw me at the parade and watched on Kiwi TV may have noted I was having some walking difficulties during the week of cooking. I had tripped over a sandal and resulted in twisting my small toe on the right side and the thing went giant purple. But, you know, dinner had to get made.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: The show must go on. That's right.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Yeah. So there was a degree of pain and suffering with the meal assembly. And of course that didn't help because I was on my feet.
And as a result, the parade walk was probably ill advised for me.
But for those who are concerned, I did get out of walls and I only live about 10 minute walk or less from Fennel Street. So I decided at that point, you know, the throbbing was enough to tell me it's time to go home.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's more than halfway through, so that's pretty good.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I kind of figured. So if you miss me going into Wallston past the Fennel street section, well, you all know where I was. I'm slowly trying to get back to my house.
It was also a good Opportunity to say hello to some of the new city councilors and some of the new scoop many people and also chat with some folks that are now finished their term of service in the city and congratulate them and thank them for their service.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Yep. And there's still more events. We've got the General's Bridge park tree lighting coming up this weekend.
There's a number of neighborh tree lighting still to take place. I know Quincy Point has one. There'll be one in West Quincy later this month. So still plenty going on.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: Yeah, it's just more contained. So we're done with the like the big mega events, so to speak. And at home, in my case, in my district, the tree lightning events in particular I'm interested in is always the Adam Shore one inside the Rotary circle on the water side of Adam Shore. That's about a 5pm tree lighting. It's a neighborhood event only, so in case you're wondering, it is strictly contained with the folks that live there. And of course the.
How's Neck doing the council tree lighting at the fire station on C Street where they use the lobster traps.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: Yes, that's right.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: And give a lot of credit to Dave De Bona, the president of the council, who put this idea together during COVID the second half of COVID and it turned out to be a wonderful idea. So, you know, great job, Dave. And you know, all the lobstermen and the community council members for putting the time in and tracking down and donating the lobster for the cooler season. I'm sure to be all reacquired by the end of January as they prepare for the new lobster season.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: That's right. They're real traps. They really. They really are real. So they need them.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: Yep, they are there. There is no lobster for you, however.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: But.
[00:04:16] Speaker B: So.
[00:04:16] Speaker A: And oh, Safford park is a big tree lighting we should mention too, in Wollaston Hill. So there's always something going on in the city.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: Yeah. And there's a Shay Circle or Shay park down Ward 4 off of Willard or Water. It's Water street at that point transforms to water. So, you know, you got that going on down. I think it's Water and west is the intersection. It could be wrong.
Yeah. So there's a lot of these. And of course, Quantum has its own tree lighting as well.
So if you're any of those neighborhoods, you know, obviously you probably do know about them already.
But you know, there's. There's again an opportunity for people to bring families and, and the fire department generally is in Charge of bringing Santa.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: That's right, yes. We want him to be safe, of course. And you want to be able to see him. So he's going to be up high.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: Yep, absolutely.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Tonight's the Quincy Symphony Orchestra actually holiday concert up at Quincy High School that we'll have live here on QATV too.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that's actually one of the things that's underrated in Quincy. Most people don't realize we actually do have a symphony orchestra. We just don't have a home for them.
As aware cities are very premium for space and you know, it's thankful that we have some schools that have very modern theater components. For example Quincy High School is easy example Central Middle School, the old, the Southwest School, the old Sterling location.
It has a very modern theater area. So that provides usage for groups like Quincy Symphony.
But I think a lot of people don't realize that the city actually has its own orchestra.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: I think you're right. And a choral society as well. Very well established too.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a city of a lot of big city amenities. I mean we're a big city for the purpose of Massachusetts, but it was small city compared to other major cities.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: You do have a lot of amenities that residents can enjoy if they so choose.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: So I see you in your State House office. Tacky. So what's going on at the State House?
[00:06:11] Speaker B: We have some conversations today with National Grid actually as you guys are know, we do have a street lighting problem on Queen Shore Drive in Furnishable Parkway where they were down by car accidents or not functioning at the moment or weather related events, particularly Furnishburg Parkway. There are missing street lights. The majority are car accidents or a weather related issue. So there's been an ongoing issue for myself, John Keane and Bruce Ayers for years now on addressing it. And one of the things that you may not realize is that along the state roads in Quincy they are not owned by the state. Those street lights are actually owned by National Grid and it's a response to National Grid to make sure up and running as well as any replacements.
We have been informed at the end of the Baker administration that the there'll be a transfer of ownership, which means transfer responsibility as well of those streetlights, even the ones that are missing from National Grid to dcr. And of course it's now been two years since that commitment was made and nothing has happened.
So the three of us have been on DCR's case and national Grid's case to get this addressed and this has been a huge priority for us, largely because it's a public safety matter.
By far none. And there was some opportunity that could have been done when DCR repaved the section from Adam street down to Newport. And then Natural Grid because of the underlying underlying wire work on the transmission line could have also created some opportunity for them to do some repair and replacement along the way when they did the repaving from Newport all over the Southern Artery.
So there's some missed opportunities here by the ACR National Grid. And I need to understand exactly what are they doing?
Is there or will there be any kind of.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: Transfer? Not transfer. I mean we reached a height of frustration at our level.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: So is the holdup that nobody knows who owns them right now or who has jurisdiction over them?
[00:08:12] Speaker B: No, we know it's jurisdiction over and it's a prioritization issue.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: So Natural Grid being a British owned company that really has about more than 50% of the state's electrical utility system that has been divesting ownership of their street lights, whether to be city or town or to a state Andy, or to a private entity, depending on where the location of street lights are.
And it's really about getting them prioritized and that's one of the things they need to pay attention to. And you know, frankly it's gone on so long at this point. Clearly it's nowhere near the priority list of things for them to do.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Is it that they don't. The street lights don't exist or they just don't work?
[00:08:52] Speaker B: Both. You got someone crasher drive that you've seen don't exist. And you also see some base there that has no pole along Frenchburg Parkway is a little less obvious on some of them because the base is also gone or reduced immensely in size. And you can see orange cones up and where they were.
I'm aware that National Grid is out there last year testing the electrical systems along the underground systems along Frederick Parkway. But you know, I'm still waiting for a street light.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: Seems implausible in this day and age.
We can't get a street light fixed or installed.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: We are at the height of just displeasure. I'll just be very polite about that. Okay.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: We won't ask you to expand on that.
Let folks use their imaginations.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: You're more than welcome to pick your own words, but that's right.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: Myself is. Is really frustrating over here.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. That's unfortunate.
Keep us updated please here on the podcast, Jackie.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: I'll let you know when you find some progress.
[00:09:53] Speaker A: Okay. We'll let folks know what else is going on? Any legislation to talk about?
[00:09:57] Speaker B: Honestly? Not really. I mean, we did some stuff at end of cycle we kind of did chat about before we went on Thanksgiving break.
Formal sessions done went to informal sessions. Right now, one of our colleagues passed away, Ann Margaret Ferrante from Gloucester. She passed away from pancreatic cancer after a long battle. I'm very sad. I was actually up in Gloucester for the wake and obviously I'm in the state of now because I work and speaker and the leadership team as well as all the legislators who are able to go when both House and Senate are being bussed up actually surely for the funeral itself and a correlation afterwards.
So one of the challenges, of course, if you bring even half legislators in both branches would be like 100 cars. So busing people up is much more sensible.
[00:10:52] Speaker A: Sure. And she was fairly young as well, so condolences to her family, certainly.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: Yeah, she was a fighter. She fought not just for her own health, but throughout this illness. She fought hard for the people in her district and causes that are important to her. And she picked up the diagnosis prior to Covid.
And you know, this has been a very long, long battle.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: Yeah, it's one area, pancreatic cancer, still one area that is having a high mortality rate. The researchers are working on some genetic testing and cures, but it's nowhere near there yet.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: Yeah, and I had a friend who old family friend who also did pass away of this actually during the midst of the legalization marijuana debate about a year after we had asked legalization of marijuana, medical marijuana already existed. Those one of the, you know, live case samples in my life about, you know, the impact of medical marijuana, the differential between a recreational versus medical and you know, policymakers sometimes does really draw on real life examples to try to better understand what is good public policy, whether it be our friends and colleagues inside the state. I was, you know, not just elected, but also the staff and our personal lives, but also outside of work. We all do know folks and you know, I do get emails and I've read quite a few regarding folks that, you know, have lost loved ones or, you know, needing medical care and discussing and asking about different types of public policy based on their own life experiences. I think sometimes, far too often, they think this is an intellectual exercise. It isn't. This is a people business and the best testimonies are one from people who actually live through it.
Whether or not it's convincing enough for a policymaker to move forward in that recommendation, that's a different conversation. But we do like and want to hear from folks that have real experience on hand. And we do get those documents, emails in our offices and that's information we consider to be extremely sensitive and we don't share with anybody your personal life information that you provide to us.
Obviously beyond things like, you know, we sometimes have to do HIPAA forms regarding certain constituent cases and other details in case depending on what agency you're looking for assistance from.
But you know, we do get people's stories and we don't share that stuff.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: Sure, absolutely.
I see the federal government has finally released the LIHEAP Heat Energy Assistance funding for the states.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll see how long that lasts.
The general rule is that we do not supplement LIHEAP until after we exhaust the federal funding first.
Obviously one of the challenges is figuring out what the weather is going to be in New England. If it's unusually cold, the state will have to provide supplemental money. If the weather isn't bad, then obviously we won't. The actual problem is that heating oil. I haven't looked at heating oil prices lately.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: I have. It's over $4 a gallon right now.
[00:14:03] Speaker B: Oh, it's brutal.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know why, but it is. Yeah.
[00:14:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So one of the drawbacks of the light he program, even on the federal level, it's a fixed amount. They really don't give you a lot more money for it.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: Price of oil keeps going up and you know we. None of this stuff is inflation adjusted. They just give you X amount.
So we're going to have to probably do some supplementals. Again it's somewhat weather dependent but if the price of oil continues to go up or even at 4 over 4 bucks, you're getting less for your buck on the federal program.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: Right, Exactly. I know that the state stepped in with some leftover funds from last year just to get through the, the delay because of the government shutdown.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: Yes. And we'll see, we'll see how it plays out this year. A lot of the. As we talk over and over again, the federal impacts of the one big beautiful bill will be more apparent the first of next year.
Folks that are concerned about social services like SNAP and many others. You know, I've been telling folks that Governor Share is a preview of what's going to see next fiscal cycle.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: This is the preview of what you're going to see.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. The big impact will be on health insurance. Right?
[00:15:14] Speaker B: Yeah. There's going to be a reapplication process on Medicaid beginning next year. It looks like it's going to be one giant everyone go at once reapplication process, which will overwhelm masshealth, which is going to create delays on Reveal, as you guys can imagine, just if everybody applies at one time, there's no way you can do a review process that quickly.
And we're talking about hundreds of thousands of people.
[00:15:39] Speaker A: Yep, exactly. What's going on in unemployment these days. Jackie, have you heard anything?
[00:15:44] Speaker B: Well, the unemployment new applicants this week's number was actually not too bad. It's actually very low. But one of the interesting figures because of course the Fed numbers all screwed up because of the shutdown. Everything's delayed and it's going to be, you know, kind of a funny asterisk on the annual chart because we're not doing October numbers anymore. But ADP's private sector, not everybody use ADP as their payroll provider with employees, but definitely shows a lot of weakness in economy and they're showing that the area that's weakest right now is small businesses. And small businesses represent half of this country's GDP and half of all employment.
So smaller businesses either have not hired stagnated or have reduced the payroll size. And the ADP has noticed that that segment of their customer base is, is, is having some real financial difficulties when, when you're laying people off. So you know, we talked about this before. Things like tariffs and other stuff impacts most heavily smaller businesses with lesser purchasing power and the inability to pivot the price structure against larger business competitors such as Walmart pick on one big company.
But I mean they can hold out longer on price structure adjustments based on things like tariffs, while smaller business can. And one of the problems I think that people have not quite caught on yet is that when you listen to the Trump administration talk about tariffs, they talk about really the impact it has on like a Costco, a BJ's, Walmart type scenario. But there's actually zero conversation about the impact of small businesses, which was, I'm still concerned about and as I said before, is a huge section of our economy driving our GDP and our employment.
So you know, obviously I think it's going to be a huge trickle effect down. I think small, large chain restaurants have felt this. I think small chain restaurants or even small family business or small family business chains are going to have a huge impact. We already see this in beef in particular. You saw this in coffee.
You know, I don't drink coffee, but all my friends have been telling about it.
You're seeing this in a lot of produce as well. Fresh Produce, they eat stuff that comes from self of the border and the tariffs, you know, take some time to filter in and at some point you're going to see this. And I think one of the ways is advertising. You see Star Market Shaws and, and Stopper Shop, all advertising. We've lowered our prices.
[00:18:10] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:18:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm not sure if they actually did lower the prices. That's a whole thing. I couldn't, I can't tell you.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: But I mean actually one select items maybe. Yeah, yeah.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: That's directly promoting hundreds of lower prices. I mean lower prices from where?
[00:18:23] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: Kind of shows their coupon app system isn't that robust that people are participating on their coupon apps. You guys know I love my coupons. So I don't think people are fully participating in their programs as well. So you know, if they're making that kind of promotion is obviously they're trying to encourage more people to come shop and people are being very, very discretionary.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: Yeah, well they're sensitive to it obviously if they're talking about it in their ads because they're, they're paying a lot of money to have those ads broadcast.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: And the Trump administration has decided to change the tariff structure for imports of some countries, particularly south of the border in Latin America on things like produce and meat and coffee.
People feel the pinch. And we did talk about the November elections on the New Jersey and Virginia which has an odd situation where they don't do even number of state elections and odd numbers but also down ticket seats in places like Georgia and other areas where Democrats are basically ragged a message on price, price, price and it resonates with people in the pocketbooks again. This is how Donald Trump also got elected. He ran, you know, the Pocketbook campaign.
Right now they're trying to pivot to immigration and make it look like, you know, that's more important. But polling is consistently showing even back in the last presidential campaign that prices are the thing that's driving people and they are putting it squarely on the federal government's responsibility to address pricing problems in our day to day lives.
[00:19:50] Speaker A: Right, Yeah, I know there's discussion about two thousand dollar refunds from the revenue generated by the tariffs, but I don't know if that's something that's solidified yet.
[00:20:01] Speaker B: Well, that's all gimmicky at this point. Right. I mean come a little trying to buy your vote.
You know, it's really.
Those are always short term gaps against a long term problem.
And like any good politician the goes to distract you from the real problem by talking about anything else.
Unfortunately, it is not working. And if you play clips of the Trump administration's commentary regarding higher prices and the Biden administration, they're actually said as saying identical things now that it's, it's, you know, economy is great, you know, inflation is not as real as I think it is.
And of course, obviously one big confrontation now is that the Trump administration will continue to bash the Biden administration, which quite frankly, as my experience with many governors and mayors observation over the years does not work over time. People are not interested in other people's stuff. People are only interested in what you're doing for them today. And even the staunchest supporters will be critical, at least in that one aspect. While they may support the president in totality, you'll be blind if you didn't at least recognize that at some point the buck stops with the person that's actually in the chair.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: Yeah. And you know, interestingly, inflation, you know, maybe in check, quote, unquote, compare, you can do not whatever you want with numbers. But wages have kind of stagnated.
[00:21:25] Speaker B: Well, yeah, right. We talked about this. When the height of inflation, you had an interesting problem. We had wage inflation, moving of product inflation. And now wages have moved like 0.2%. Right. It's kept low, but inflation is a 3%. PCE is slightly higher than CPI.
And we hit that sticky spot. You hear this commentators on Time and Economy. Sticky, sticky, sticky, sticky. Inflation. And yeah, that's essentially what's happened. And wages are not exceeding inflation now.
And wages is kind of, inflation is kind of stuck and wages kind of stuck. And the fear of course is that you might have stagflation if we have, you know, inflation continuing and employment not happening.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: Right.
[00:22:08] Speaker B: And that's the big fear. And you know, I love, I can't listen to Ludwig anymore. Oh my God. I mean, he keeps talking about Americans doing these very low skill labor jobs all the time they're trying to bring back on shore. But we don't have the education nor the manpower. There isn't enough people to do these jobs. You know, believe it or not, obviously in this region, you know, we have a usually high number of educated folks compared to the rest of the country. But even in other parts of the country, which you may consider lower skilled, there's physically not enough people.
And it's an aging country too, because obviously the birth rate is not as terrible as like Japan or Korea, but it's under two per family by a little bit. But that's a problematic. And they're anti immigration, which means where's this workforce going to come from? I would love to see these billionaires and man heirs like Ludwig himself go down and put screws in a phone.
Maybe those jobs are something that we need to do. I mean, it's a bit of a problem, of course, the negative treatment. You saw the Hyundai situation in Georgia has started to perhaps chill foreign investment from private companies and also not have their folks come visit.
And I said before, my family from Canada was hesitant to come down to my cousin's wedding largely because they don't trust immigration services to not detain them.
[00:23:31] Speaker A: Or let them go back.
[00:23:32] Speaker B: Right, yeah, yeah. That's a chilling effect on people coming, visiting. And Massachusetts is very dependent on European, Canadian and Chinese tourists.
But if you're a border community on Mexico border or the Canadian border, those cross synergy economies is pretty important. I didn't actually realize how much it was until visited San Diego some years back for a conference and I was talking to folks near us how that border crossing between Tijuana and San Diego was one of the biggest ones on the Eastern hemisphere and travel very synergetic economy. And you know, other parts of the country where you don't have the synergetic economy, well, you don't understand it, you don't care about it and frankly, you can say whatever you want.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: Right.
[00:24:19] Speaker B: But it's matters to those that do have different experience that you know that has a synergy with the border community on Canada or Mexico.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: Yeah, it's almost like you need, you know, kind of hybrid versions of immigration policy depending on that state's situation.
[00:24:41] Speaker B: Well, again, it's like the driver's license. One of the things that NAFTA created and took years to implement was to create some universal commercial driver's licenses to allow more freedom movement of goods and services, particularly goods between US and Mexican, Canadian US businesses and truckers go back and forth more easily. Not have to change the driver licenses around a commercial on a commercial level. I mean your domestic driver's license is fine and some of you, you know, have Global entry and TSA precheck, but there's also an additional program called Nexus, I believe, which I don't need. Obviously that allows you to do the accelerated, accelerated pre check. Well, essentially pre check coming in out of ground to the U.S. entry to the U.S. as a U.S. citizen and exit to Mexico or Canada.
So you know, that we've, you know, I think and, but not all that stuff is equivalent, equivalent to Canadians and Mexicans a benefit for Americans So again, like I say, it's until you actually go visit some places and you know, see up front and hear some people talk and do some observations, it shows how little we really know about something, particularly when it comes to things like the economy, because you only know what you and I both know on the main streets of Quincy. Right. But if you actually just spend a little time in like a border community, no matter the size, you know, you learn about how these big P balls that you may or may not support, you know, does have an impact on someone, it isn't you, right?
[00:26:11] Speaker A: Yeah, no, exactly. It's a different lived situation in those, in those areas for sure.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: We should probably discuss a little bit, I guess, about the state budget.
[00:26:24] Speaker B: Techie consensus numbers should be coming out some point this month. Okay. I've not seen notice from House and Senate Ways and Means doing their joint meeting with administrative Ministry of Finance from the various think tank groups. Regardless of political ideology, they all come with their own analysis as well as professional economists, as well as the treasury and Department of Revenue. So I'm not sure what the council's revenue is going to look like. I mean, I already commented administration finance, the secretary there believes that we're short $650 million because of certain tax breaks created through the big beautiful bill that we're coupled with.
We've not been able to fully anticipate yet, but I suspect there's a lot of numbers being run by people who actually understand better than I do about the negative impacts associated with government withdrawal funding on infrastructure and grant programs locally.
And as I said before, I mean, the tourism money is very important.
And the FIFA cup, am I saying that correctly? Yep. Is coming this summertime. And you know, what is the potential benefit of that stuff? We love tourist money because you come in the paper stuff, you go home.
[00:27:36] Speaker A: Yeah. You don't use any services. Right. You just leave your money, your money.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: We love tourists.
Every country loves tourists that has a part of their economy, economic plan revolving around it. So there's a lot of huge question marks. And again, we're not the only state. Every state is facing the same problem.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: Right.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: And cut back on government programs and services, particularly in some states that are more dependent on government service programs for their economy, such as snap.
Talk about that many times now on this program, you know, could, could negative impact again, small businesses and food markets.
Yep, yep.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: So it's going to be a, it's going to be a wait and see. It's, it's, you know, folks are cautious, I'm sure And being very wary and methodical about how they spend their money.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: You saw that with Black Friday economic numbers.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:28:27] Speaker B: It wasn't devastating, but it wasn't as strong. And you don't see the, you know, stories anymore about people, you know, hundreds of people in line of Best Buy or Macy's.
[00:28:37] Speaker A: Not really, no.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: Yeah, People, you know, go from Thanksgiving in to sleep in a tent.
[00:28:42] Speaker A: Yeah, no, Target tried something, I think, but it kind of backfired on them. So, yeah, I don't think you're going to see a lot of that anymore.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: No. Black Friday is becoming a month of Friday, month of the whole month of November has become competing prices in stores, but also on online and post. Covid especially has really changed the retail industry on how they compete and the ones that would have the most challenge competing with the smallest businesses.
[00:29:07] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I don't think a day goes by that I don't see an Amazon truck on my street.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right.
I see them a lot actually.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. Several times a day sometimes.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, it has a negative impact in, you know, the local stores, including things like your local big supermarkets and you know, has a negative impact on, you know, your small retailers as well. So, you know, I encourage people obviously buy local small business. Saturday was last Saturday.
That being said, you know, I do understand our pocketbooks are stretched tight and you know, even I try to not buy stuff that isn't on sale or it's not a need now.
[00:29:48] Speaker A: Yep. And don't forget our local social service agencies, Interfaith, Salvation army, qcap, they all do good work for our own people right here in the city.
[00:29:58] Speaker B: And again, I will not tell you who, if you are able to give a couple bucks to, but you know, encourage people to try to give a couple bucks if you can to whomever organization you value.
You know, those every single penny helps. And we do encourage people to donate to a service organization regarding food pantries rather than buy food and donate. They can actually have better purchasing power as a not for profit in relationship with local food markets. So they can get maximum value out of every penny for the food pantries and also deal things like expiration dates and things like that. Yeah, obviously we like to have fresh food. And I was at Interfaith Social Services.
[00:30:38] Speaker B: The week before Thanksgiving regarding their providing food for folks going into Thanksgiving would be turkey meal kits or coming in for specific items. And I was helping you some translation services for some Asian seniors. They were all the Asian seniors looking to pick up some food product and it was pre registered. You had to be pre registered.
You had, had your letter showing that, you know, you're able to prevent identification. That showed that you were the person that received this benefit. So you know, I was watching, doing a lot of controls, making sure that there was nobody there that was fraudulently trying to include assistance. So you know, spend a bit part of the morning.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: Nice, nice. Yeah. They distributed almost 2,000 meals just for Thanksgiving. So. Wow, that's. That's pretty impressive.
[00:31:31] Speaker B: Yeah. The need is real and everyone's got different needs. And emphasize again, SNAP program is 16,303 participants.
That's 16,303 households. How many people per household? I can tell you, but I'll tell you, it's probably, I estimate maybe well past 20% of the city population.
[00:31:53] Speaker A: I would agree with you. Yeah.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: Yeah. That's food insecurity in some format, whether it be high or low level insecurity.
Over 20% in cities. So one out of five people, give or take. And you know, that could be your next door neighbor.
[00:32:05] Speaker A: That's exactly right. Yep. Yeah, for sure. For sure.
So I know we talked a little bit about this last time. 44 potential ballot questions next year.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: Techy.
Yeah, well, we do a shakes out after January 1st, right. Yeah, obviously.
[00:32:20] Speaker A: Potential. I said potential.
[00:32:21] Speaker B: Potential. That's why there's a certification process. That's why you have to get the same insurance.
I'm not going to get to talk about buying signatures or whether they're disclosing these battle questions. Right. There is no requirement to be honest and it is not illegal to pay people to collect signatures.
[00:32:37] Speaker A: So they, a lot of them do it.
[00:32:39] Speaker B: Yeah. So I'm not, you know, you guys can make those judgments because I have folks that there has not been complete honesty regarding what people are signing.
[00:32:47] Speaker A: Oh really?
[00:32:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, again they get paid by the same chair, so it is actually you.
[00:32:53] Speaker A: Can ask, I mean it's not bad for you to ask. Are you being paid to collect these signatures when you're approached by somebody and.
[00:33:02] Speaker B: You also can be allowed to read the document if they don't want to show you the document. Clearly you shouldn't sign the document.
[00:33:08] Speaker A: Right.
[00:33:08] Speaker B: But it'll get out there. And Obviously we've had 44 isn't unusual. We've had 20, 30, 40 initiatives taken up because only 10 people to initiate the process.
[00:33:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: But the actual process of collection is, is much more time consuming.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: Oh yeah. Oh, they need almost 75,000 certified signatures.
[00:33:27] Speaker B: Yeah. It's based on a percentage of Number of people that came on and voted in the last election.
[00:33:31] Speaker A: I see.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: Okay, so it's like point five percent, something like that. Yes.
Percentage pretty small, but you know. Yeah, it is a large number. Raw number. And it'll start to widow out once we get to the month.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:45] Speaker B: I think also how many pass the AG offices reveal? Because if it's unconstitutional.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: Right. It gets nixed at that level as well, Right. Yep.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And you can sue the AG disputing it, or you can be someone that's against the ballot question suing the AG also.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:34:04] Speaker B: So there's still a lot of potential activity coming up.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: Yeah. It's interesting, but the comments from the House speaker and the Senate President were interesting.
Aside from the questions themselves, just. Just the sheer number of them seems to have raised some concerns.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: Again, low barrier of entry. You just need 10 signatures to get started. Start the process.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:25] Speaker B: I mean, it's not like you can't find nine other friends.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: Right.
[00:34:30] Speaker B: Anyone can do it. Again, the second half is actually incentures. And obviously if it's a paid situation, clearly. And it's clearly a special interest group involved that can afford to pay for. Because he's charging. You know, I don't think it's $2 a signature. And I suspect it's probably more than $2 a signature.
You know, the dollar. The alarm gets pretty high and there's a lot of questionable behavior when the person collecting, you know, per signature has. Has. Has a salary on the line.
[00:34:57] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: Speaking about questions, one that did pass, of course, was the elimination of MCAS as a graduation requirement. I think the state just earlier this week came out with some, I guess, replacement guidance that they're looking at.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a dese listening tour that just finished up yesterday. Found out that the last one was in Newton.
And you know, various folks from around the state have been trying to get these listing tours and the input provided will be part of the final regulatory process on this, which probably is going to. I don't know if it's going to impact this graduation cycle, the next graduation cycle. Because it's a little late to impact this graduation cycle.
[00:35:35] Speaker A: Yeah, it's just. I mean, it's half through the season pretty much right now. Yeah.
[00:35:39] Speaker B: Yeah. So we'll see how that all plays out. And given the fact the department education is kind of on the federal level is not going to exist much longer.
[00:35:46] Speaker A: Looks that way. You're right.
[00:35:48] Speaker B: You know, a lot of question marks regarding a lot of that funding as well. Because one reason we do have MCAs and every state has some variation of MCAS is compliance federal regulation to receive federal assistance on school money.
And yeah. So we'll see how all, you know, every. Well, despite the ballot question, it's I still head scratching about, you know, this man's like U.S. department of Education, you know, and how it impacts federal assistance that forces you to use an MCAS type exam in your state.
[00:36:20] Speaker A: Right.
[00:36:21] Speaker B: Federal funds. So I, you know, there's this new crinkle there. And you know, not just that we, you know, aren't going to use MCAS for graduation purposes, but the test itself is relevant for federal funding. It's my, my general understanding.
So I'm not sure how every state's going to respond if that federal funding doesn't exist anymore or is reduced or they create new criteria that was never anticipated with those criteria. I have no idea as you get to. Because I'm talking how this is going to play out.
[00:36:49] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean it's a lot of money we're talking about here for sure. You know, especially for cities like Quincy, it's multimillion dollar budgets for their school systems.
[00:36:59] Speaker B: And if you are in a state that pays no income taxes, you're like so super duper depending on this federal money. Like you're basically a welfare state.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
New Hampshire is an example close by.
[00:37:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. People don't realize that you're living in a state that basically takes welfare from federal government if you have no ability to generate your own money.
[00:37:17] Speaker A: Right.
[00:37:18] Speaker B: And given the federal cutbacks and social services and other potential grant programs and I know, oh, they play fair between red and blue states. That's on the media.
No, it, there's going to be a widespread impact. And you know, I really do believe that, you know, folks who figure out in those states that lower service levels, states, which states have higher services and try to make their way to states of higher services like Massachusetts, California mostly the coastline states as well as the larger Midwest states.
I do think that there's going to be some migration.
[00:37:51] Speaker A: I agree, I agree. And they're going to have to look at me. They may not have income tax, but I bet you the property taxes are huge.
[00:37:58] Speaker B: Yeah. And New Hampshire example of that. Right, right.
They're going to get you on the other side, which is the property taxes and that goes to the municipality. But some of the places may not have income taxes but have county taxes. We don't.
You got that factor there. And you know, some of the big functions on state functions, the county Functions like health care systems can be run by counties in which the federal government may put back money.
[00:38:21] Speaker A: Right, right. All unquestioned unknowns right now.
[00:38:25] Speaker B: Yeah, but they're moving so fast and doing things so quickly and they're not really methodically doing it in the sense that, you know, let's look at intended under the consequences. You know, it's already much, you know, populist stuff. So I'll give you another quick example. Right. There's a discussion reducing the emissions, sorry, fuel efficiency regarding gas.
[00:38:46] Speaker A: I heard that this morning.
[00:38:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So they're talking about that. But I mean, one of the objectives is to try to keep fuel prices low.
If you have more efficient cars on gas consumption, you use less gas, which then keeps demand low.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: That's right. Supply and demand. It's very simple. Yeah.
[00:39:03] Speaker B: If you reduce, if you increase gas consumption cars by reducing the standards on efficiency, it's going to cause gas prices go up, which is. Causes inflation. And the president's talking about how proud he is and keeping gas prices low, which of course, none of us has figured out what that's actually going on because we've not really seen a significant drop to the levels of COVID when gas prices were super low.
[00:39:27] Speaker A: No, no, they're still in the, you know, high twos, low threes for per gallon.
[00:39:31] Speaker B: And that was fours if you're in Boston, right?
[00:39:33] Speaker A: That's right. Yeah.
[00:39:35] Speaker B: So, yeah, this is kind of, like I said, this lack of, kind of policy thinking about holistically looking at, well, you know, this is a popular idea. We're going to try to save money. People buying cars. I don't think car prices would drop because of changing fuel efficient standards on future vehicles to start with. And secondly, isn't that counterintuitive to desire to reduce gas prices?
[00:40:01] Speaker A: No. Right. You'll have to buy more gas, which will increase demand, which will increase the price.
[00:40:05] Speaker B: Right, yeah. And I'm going to air quote this. These are business people, right?
[00:40:10] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah.
[00:40:11] Speaker B: I mean, come on. If really your business people, you can't figure that out on your own. I mean, I, I think anybody, any regular human being can figure this out. We're giving it like a little bit of thought, but they, they, again, it's not a policy, folks that think in the bigger picture, it's all stimulated by populism. You know, whatever catches your attention to distract you from something else or makes you feel like, you know, you're getting a benefit out of it and just, they're going to keep throwing it out there. But I would Be thinking that they're creating counterintuitive policies. Hmm.
[00:40:42] Speaker A: I'm gonna have a little shorter chat today. Tacky but always time to let you know how to get folks get folks get a hold of you.
[00:40:50] Speaker B: Well, obviously I am in the State House, So I think work 42 at the state House. We are staffed. If you're in the area doing a tour the State House, I strongly encourage it. You know, please, you know, during the winter break, if you feel going to be in Boston, definitely stop by the State House during the weekdays for a tour of the building and obviously pop your head and say hi with whomever's working the staff here in office or myself. 6177-2223-7061-7722-2370 is my phone number here at the State House.
I do not control the suite, the very patient automated system. We do have two reception people. Sometimes the phones get overwhelmed because they don't just do my office do like 10 offices for two people.
So please be patient with the reception folks. But if you don't just smash a button as like to say to my office and we'll tacky.chanmahouse gov t a c k e y.c h nmahealth.gov I do read your emails. We do prioritize constituent services. I picked up no less than four unemployment cases again this week.
[00:41:55] Speaker B: Very concerning the number one employment cases are coming to my office. But yeah, I picked up a few more of those this week. So we do prioritize those cases. First your office will get back to you.
State Representative Tacky Chan is the Facebook State representative Tacky Chan with a corresponding Instagram account.
We're having a little bit of a hiccup on that because we are having a staff change when one of my longtime staffers is moving on Maeve and those who interact with Maeve, you know how has had a positive impact with her and I thank her very much for her over nine and a half years of service with me. So, you know, we are getting some staff changing as we reshuffle responsibilities so their social media accounts can be a little bit quieter. Tacky Chan.org is the reference page. We do some information updated, some snap information update regarding food insecurity the staff had put up.
We don't use X anymore. Twitter's kind of gone away in exchange for Instagram so you can ignore that emulig.gov very much encourage people to sign up and can watch us and get information bills.
Qatvatv.org Email Joe, tell them what you want to ask me. Give some feedback. We would love to hear from you.
[00:43:07] Speaker A: Always great to talk techy. Appreciate the update. We'll catch up with you next week.
[00:43:10] Speaker B: Catch you next week.
