"School Committee? Redistricting? What's the deal?"

Public Hearing is back with the second episode of our Civic Engagement in Worcester mini-series. In this episode, we continue our conversation with Doug Arbetter and Danaah McCallum discussing Worcester Politics. We also talk about the recent changes for how the school committee is elected and address some of the confusion that many community members have expressed since the city’s ruling in November, as well as, the importance of teaching youth about their local government and how they can make a difference in their communities. 

One of the first ways that you can get involved in your local politics is by registering to vote! You can register to be a Worcester voter here. Not sure if you are registered yet? You can check your registration status here.  

 Public Hearing is a podcast from Action! by Design about our home city of Worcester, Massachusetts and the people we should be listening to—residents, artists, activists, community leaders, storytellers, and those most impacted by issues facing our city. Our mission is to cultivate community through equity, inclusion, and design, and that work starts at home.

Transcript for this episode

Joshua Croke (00:00):

Hello Worcester and the world. This is Public Hearing, a podcast and radio show from Action! by Design, about engaging communities to address social problems in a way that centers, equity, justice and the pursuit of joy-filled futures for everyone. I am your host and founder of Action! by Design Joshua Croke. I am back with Danaah McCallum and Doug Arbetter to continue our conversation about being involved in local politics and local government here in the city of Worcester. We left off last time. Doug was starting to detail the logistics of boards and commissions. And I cut him short because of our time. So we are going to pick back up the conversation around boards and commission. And so Doug, I'm gonna pass you the mic and let's keep talking about all things Worcester.

Doug Arbetter (00:47):

All right. So yeah, circle back a bit. I stopped in the last episode talking about how you would go about to join one of these boards and commissions. And so again, you would go to the website, the city of Worcester website, you would submit your application, which is your resume, your letter of interest. You can pick up to like two or three boards you're interested in or wanna be considered for. Even though you can only serve on one at one time. And then after you submit your application, you'll be invited to the citizen advisory council meeting. And that that board is responsible for the first round of basically reviewing applicants. And so that's a relatively large board. They can ask you questions about your experience, your interest things like that. You do have to be a resident of what for the previous one year.

Doug Arbetter (01:47):

And then, so if they are in agreement that, so if you apply to more than one, they may, you know, have a holistic conversation about which one you may like be interested in for, and they might approve you for one and not for the other, or they may approve you for both and leave it up to the manager to decide what to place you on. So basically if you get approved by the citizen's advisory council, you move forward and meet with representatives from the administration. Usually like there's an HR person, who's responsible for boards and commissions. They'll ask you some questions, more details about your experience in interest. And then what they'll do is if they think you're the person they will, you will then actually have a meeting with Ed Augustus. And he just likes to ask a few questions, know your background, stuff like that. And then depending as I mentioned in the previous episode, depending on what type of it is he will either put your name on the agenda to be confirmed by the city council, if it's advisory or he may just put your name on the city council, letting them know as like an announcement that you've been appointed to some executive or regulatory board.

Danaah McCallum (03:02):

And I would just add the one caveat to that is for the board of election commissioners in particular, those nominations actually come from, you have actually two representatives from the from the democratic two democratic representatives, two Republican, and then one unenrolled. And so how, how it typically has worked is the democratic city committee has put forth individuals to be considered or a couple of individuals to be considered. And then the city man, as Doug had mentioned actually makes that determination. So I, I don't believe when I became a member of the board of election commissioners. I don't believe I had to go through 

Doug Arbetter (03:50):

I think you're the only one who,

Danaah McCallum (03:51):

Cause they were no, no, it was somebody else. There was someone else who was, I was, what I was saying is I don't think I had to go through the citizen, the reason council for this, for this particular boarding boarding commission. So that's just one, one caveat of one thing I would add for that position.

Joshua Croke (04:09):

Great. Yeah. And that, I guess that makes sense to have like different partisan participation on the elections

Doug Arbetter (04:16):

Commission is the unenrolled member, always the chair of the

Danaah McCallum (04:19):

Board of election? No. Okay. No, it just happened. It it's, it, it apparently it's by vote of the, of the board. Okay. So

Joshua Croke (04:27):

Interesting. And so you, in our last episode, you were talking about some of the boards and the commissions that folks can join. What are some of the ones that kind of stand out to you or ones that folks who might be interested in getting involved might have interest in learning more about? Yeah, so

Doug Arbetter (04:46):

We have the human rights commission is actually a very active board. They feel complaints from wor residents that may be related to discrimination based on race, based on sexual orientation. They were involved in conversations related to police conduct a bit over the past few years as I mentioned in the last episode, the board of health is an executive board. And they can set public health policy for, or the city zoning board of appeals, planning, planning board. They are Worcester residents and they have to yay or NA proposals from developers to build and to start projects in this city. So there are some pretty, I mean, it, it's, it's kind of, it's amazing when you think about it, like how much, you know, power we're able to give to just unelected residents who wanna serve the city. Right.

Danaah McCallum (05:50):

Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I, part of what we did on the, you know, as a member of the, what I did as a board, a member of the board of election commissioners, I mean, we approve changes in, not that I'm proud of our record on everything, but you know, we make changes to polling locations. The board of election commissioners will be involved in voting on the proposed changes the school committee in terms of, you know, adding the extra district and so forth. So and you know, we aren't necessarily people who have a whole lot of experience with with, with, you know, setting policy around voting, but as a member of the community, you have the opportunity to be involved in something, as Doug said, that's really significant. And I know Doug didn't mention his board as being the board, the, the community development advisory committee as being sort of important. I mean, it's an advisory committee, but I still see it as one of the more important boards because that board is actually making dis making recommendations regarding how the city should use it's the funding that it's receiving for a whole host of services. And so to be involved in something that has the ability to impact the community so significantly, I would say that that's, that, that is certainly up there in terms of boards for people to consider being involved.

Doug Arbetter (07:16):

Yeah. I mean, we get, I mean the city of west basically gets like four, I think, around 4 million from HUD. And one point like six of it is allotted to public services. And so the council is responsible for reviewing those applications for that like $1.6 million pot of money. And, you know, we use that money to support organizations like ACE, African community education the there's like a whole host of them. But we also use that money to, we can a lot certain amount of money for like capital improvements. So like we've helped fix the elevators for say like the YMCA or the YWCA stuff like that. So it's, you know, really important community work that we get to support. And we also get to what I like about is we get to see the results of like that money and, and being able to see how many folks these organizations like friendly house, like get to help because of like this federal funding that we can help distribute to them. Right.

Joshua Croke (08:28):

Right. Ande you mentioned the decisions that are being made surrounding the redistricting for the school committee. So for listeners who are, might be unfamiliar they're well, was a lawsuit filed to the city over the structure of the school committee, because the position was that the at large structure of our school committee didn't allow for proper adequate representation of the diversity of Worcester's community to be represented in that body. And so the lawsuit was filed, the city did not fight the lawsuit and said, we're gonna commit to changing the structure of a school committee and went through a process to engage community in talking about the possible forms that the new structure could take. Which that was something that I was involved in a handful of conversations. And it was still something that I thought was pretty confusing thinking about, yeah.

Joshua Croke (09:34):

Thinking like, okay, what does it look like if we move from at large, do we just mirror the formation of the city counseling go to five district seats and six at large seats, but then the, in order for the school committee to actually have representation from the districts, there was a requirement that one of the districts in the city be minority majority, which currently the five Lister districts do not have. So there needed to be a sixth district added for the school committee. And so now the decision that's been made to change the structure of the school committee is that there are going to be six district seats and two at large seats for a total of eight school committee members. In addition to the mayor who serves as the chair of the school committee, did I get all of that? Right.

Danaah McCallum (10:38):

I, I think you actually have a pretty solid understanding of it. I mean, I was, I think I've personally been, you know, sort of wrecking my brain, trying to wrap my head around it. Because although the elections commission was actually named in the lawsuit, the elections commission wasn't involved in any of the executive sessions to sort of determine what was going to happen in terms of what the city would agree to. So, I mean, you got sued technically I did, I technically got sued. But so I, so I, I do think your understanding of it is correct. And I do, I mean, I think, I think it's going to, I think it's a, I just wanna say for the record, I think it's a positive thing for, for the city to have, have some equal representation. I think it's important, obviously that members of the community have a right to elect people or have the opportunity.

Danaah McCallum (11:27):

I would say to elect people who they believe would strongly represent their values and so forth. And that's just not the case right now. I do think it's going to be challenging. And there is that part of me that says absolutely not, they should not have followed the same structure as the city council, but perhaps the city council might look into following the same structure as, as the school committee to sort of limit confusion. I don't think that would happen, but I think, you know, if you, if you are, if they're proposing a at least one majority minority minority district, then I think the same should be true of city council. Right?

Joshua Croke (12:10):

Yeah. And the thing that I think is going to be wildly confusing for folks is that their, the neighbor a street over might be voting for a different school district counselor versus their city counselor, right. District. Right. But

Doug Arbetter (12:26):

Like, they'll have the same city counselor, but different school committee

Joshua Croke (12:29):

Representatives. Right. Which is confusing. And one of the other arguments I heard heard that kind of opposed or challenged the district seats for schools was that maybe this will create an imbalance of folks advocating for school quality only for the schools within their district. And they're being like, but again, like there's like 18 million van vantage points that come into these conversations. And I think one of the challenges that the city faces and something that I as a resident have been frustrated about before is like the level in which the community is engaged and given space to learn and become educated around these things. It's like, if you can, it's attend one of the four or five, you know, information sessions you're kind of on your own to figure this out. And even those information sessions can be kind of confusing cuz I I've attended multiple. And as someone involved in a lot of these conversations, particularly around the school committee, because of my work in the education space, it it's, it's a lot. Right. Right. And so how do we think about and acknowledge the challenge that folks feel related to getting involved in voting and like participating in that process because it is kind of confusing and us adding this new layer of kind of confusion with the different districts that are going to exist. Just yeah.

Doug Arbetter (14:00):

So something that I don't know the answer to and I I'd like to find out. So remember how I mentioned that like the city council can't direct or order administration employees, and I'm pretty sure it's similar for the school committee. They go through the super intend. So I'm interested, you know, you know, we will this new system where we have district representation, cuz obviously like if you have an issue with your schools, you're gonna go to your representative on the school committee. But if your issue is with your school's principal, the school committee member I don't leave as of right now would be able to just like email the principal and be like, figure this out for my constituent. I think really their rec when, if it's an issue at that level, I mean the school committee's members' recommendation may just be, you have, you know, I can help you make an appointment with the quadrant manager or something like that. But like beyond solely just having like a, someone who's representing like electorally, I don't know how it improves. And I'm curious to find out how it improves actually advocacy on behalf off of that district or like, or improves access for constituents when they have issues with the schools

Joshua Croke (15:19):

And another component of this, which we haven't talked about yet, which I'd love either of you to, to talk a little bit about is of the folks who are registered to vote in the city and who is to vote. We have, you know, some information about that and it's really strongly geographically centered right? In the, the west side of Worcesters the highest majority of folks who are voting and what the demographics of that those communities look like as opposed to the city as a whole. So can we talk a little bit of, about kind of the demographics of Worcester's voter population compared or contrasted to the folks who are here, you know, in our community.

Danaah McCallum (16:05):

So so I don't have I'm so I'm I, the reason I hesitated is because I have specific statistics, Doug might, since he's a statistician, but what I can say is anecdotally, at least where I live which is in the, the main south area of well, which is considered the main south area of Worcester. Boulder turnout is extremely low in comparison to say, for example, the west side of this city. So in, in ward eight, for example, you have in the 2018 election, you have eight and eight one, you had 1600 registered voters and only 119 votes cast for, for this particular election. And then in eight two their 1,680 registered voters in 124 votes cast. So that, to me says that, you know, folks in that ward, which is located in district four, that those folks really are not getting out, getting out to vote.

Danaah McCallum (17:08):

And so I don't know if there's a correlation between so sort of voter education. Is it a feeling of like hopelessness because it doesn't matter who I vote for. Nothing's going to change in my community. It's hard to sort of get to the, to the root cause of why people are not getting out to vote. Are they not coming out to vote because there's no contested elections or whatever the case may be. And I'm sure. Well, I was gonna say, and I'm sure you have a different, I lived on the west side of the city and my voting when I did live on the west side of the city, the line would be out, out the door sometimes on the west side of the cities. Yeah. So I,

Doug Arbetter (17:43):

I also live on the west side. I live in district five and so between, and so the west side is kind of split between district five and district one. So you have like TA square Morlin street area, west TA and then kind of over like the south upper Southbury street area you know, going towards like Bancroft and then kind of beyond, and then those districts also extend to like the Burnco area and then the Webster square area, but both of them shared the west side which has the highest has always had the highest voter turnout. You're probably seeing like around 30% voter turnout in those precincts in board in, in district five and district one and the folks who make up those voters are predominantly white. And predominantly over the age of 50 when I ran for district five in 2017 and, you know, we worked through the data to kind of figure out my target group and to build whose doors I was knocking on. I think it was my, my voter target population was, you know, something like 80% percent white and then like 60% over the age of 50. Right. And so like, and these, and these are the districts that turn out. Right. And so that kind of highlights like the inequities that we have with like our, our at large positions specifically because you can really get concentrated and it has happened. And it often is at large positions are folks who are from the west side of Worcester,

Danaah McCallum (19:44):

Which was, which was one of the problems more specifically even around the, the school committee. I, I think were all of them from either district district one or,

Joshua Croke (19:57):

Or five, five the last council, for sure. Yeah.

Doug Arbetter (20:01):

Yeah. I mean, I think Tracy's district five. I think Molly is

Danaah McCallum (20:05):

District. And I think even now I think the, the majority are yeah,

Doug Arbetter (20:09):

Yeah, yeah. West siders. So so that's the problem, you know? 

Joshua Croke (20:15):

And part of that is like the political strategy of running for an at large seat is go to where the voters are and don't spend your time trying to activate new voters. Right. That's

Doug Arbetter (20:27):

Precisely, well, that's the thing it's like, and, and you're locked into that because it's like, obviously like as a young candidate and someone who wanted to have to expand and, and diversify, like the folks who are the pool of voters, but like, I, like, I have a certain amount of money I raised in a certain amount of time. And like, if I want to try to win this election, I happen to knock on the doors of the people I know who are gonna vote, but so it really can't come. And this is the problem is that like candidates like candidates, shouldn't like, they should do what they can to get new folks to vote. But like, we need non, like a non-profit or we need like a 5 0 1 [inaudible] four, or even just like the city to really just like invest in getting new folks, registered, to vote, learning about our elections, learning about the process and interested in coming out to support people. Yeah, yeah. And running.

Danaah McCallum (21:23):

Right. And I would say too, I mean, I think again, sort of as the city has, and the state has sort of approved more, you know, early vote early vote by mail. I think, you know, you have started to see the numbers come up some that's for sure. So people have more ha people having more opportunity to actually vote other than one day in, in November or September coming out to vote. I think that that has been incredibly helpful. I think some of the other things that the city could look towards implementing was say, for example, same day voter registration. So people being a, I know it, you know, people might think it could be a logistical nightmare, but there are other places where they, where they have pulled off. And I do think that the city could pull off something like same day voter registration. I mean, when I've worked in the elections office, the number of people who are calling to say like, oh my gosh, I thought I was registered to vote, but I'm, but I'm really not. We take a lot of calls to that effect. So I think that that's something that the city should consider at some point. Right. Sure. Right.

Doug Arbetter (22:29):

We should be as whether it's like, whatever, if it's like their history class or whatever, like if you're a high school student, you turn 18, like schools should be like, you just turn 18, like you can register to vote here. And like, and or they should even talk about the elections, like, and like learn about the process, like at the high school level. And like, we should be, absolutely kids should be getting extra credit to vote, like to say they went and voted didn't Senator Chandler

Joshua Croke (23:03):

Put forward, like legislation that would've dropped the voting age to 16. That, but that was not like accept did,

Danaah McCallum (23:09):

But, so I don't know if she put forth legislation, but I know at least in the city of Worcester, there was some discussion about that a few, a few years back. Yeah. And I don't think it ever it ever went anywhere, but what, what better way to get, you know, get young people sort of engaged at an earlier age. Right. and I just think as a whole as a society, I think we've sort of dropped the ball on civic engagement in sort of helping young folks understand, you know, understand the process. I mean, I, I, I meet a bunch of adults who don't know who the two who the, you know, two United States senators are here in Massachusetts. So so I think it's a, a problem

Doug Arbetter (23:50):

As a whole. And we could also, like, I, I mean, I just, like, I'm, I'm just tired of having, like, we're just constantly having elections cuz we're odd year than the states even year. And it's just like back and forth. It's like, we just need to like jump on the even year thing. And then because people aren't just gonna vote, like if they know that like, you know, our city elections are moving, they might, you know, and we're providing information. They actually might research. They wanna know the people they're gonna vote for.

Joshua Croke (24:16):

Right. So, so touch on that a little bit for listeners who might be unfamiliar that we're in, on the, off here and like what that means. Right. So

Doug Arbetter (24:23):

Like the, the Western election cycles happen on the odd year. So it's like that first Tuesday in November on the odd year. And where our statewide elections happen on the even year. And I mean the discrepancy between the like voter turnout is obvious in its speced. And I think you, it's a mixture of a lot of things that we've already talked about. You know, I just think like our local elections, aren't inviting to new people. And two people are exhausted from like the previous election year. I mean, like if you, like, we all know like how, like we put our soul in like, and just like our whole mindset into like presidential elections and like when that election happens, like the last thing I want to think about is like who I have to vote for, for like school committee. Like I'm tired and people are exhausted. They like, I mean, it's like we have elections every year. Like people are tired and like if they're on the same year, we can kind of combat that. I think

Joshua Croke (25:41):

That's great. Yeah. So next week, cuz we're already, almost at time again. We wanna talk a little bit about, you know, so what can or should I be doing as a resident, right. And we talked a little bit about that today. We talked a little bit about that last week. Just, you know, as prior to that episode for listeners listening to this episode, I think one of the things that we've, you know, uncovered and I, and discuss is like getting people out to vote is so critical and it can't be solely the responsibility of candidates who are running because we know that that strategy fails and does not work. Right. So, and you know, I'm thinking about my role in involvement with like the coalition of greater Worcester And there is an interest in folks getting out to vote.

Joshua Croke (26:33):

And that's a population that we know has like lower voter turnout numbers, like many other like marginalized groups. Right. And so like if we're talking about like the power of local elections and like what can change and like what the city council and what the school committee can advocate for in, you know, adjusting and changing we need folks to get out and vote and recognize the importance of local elections. So thank you again and Doug, thank you. Thank you. You are listening to the public hearing podcast, our podcast and radio show that airs Wednesdays at 6:00 PM on WICN 90.5 FM. Worcester's only NPR affiliate station and can be heard wherever you listen to podcast. I'm still your host, Joshua Croke. If you have ideas for the show or would like to become a supporter or have an idea for a mini season, like these ones that we have been doing our last one was about early childhood education and care check it out. Reach out to our team@publichearing.co. Our audio producer is Giuliano D’Orazio, who also made our show music also, thanks to Molly Gammon and Anh Dao, who also supports the production of this show? Public Hearing is created and produced by Action! by Design more, learn more about our work @actionbydesign.co and as always. Thanks for listening.