Issues & Analyses: Candidates In Contested Races Weigh In On Social Justice
Person standing over Stop Racism word cloud. Concept of stopping discrimination against blacks or people of color because their lives matter.
By Art and Maura Keene
While listening to the League of Women Voters–Amherst (LWVA) forum for at-large candidates for Town Council a couple of weeks ago, it struck us that the candidates had substantial thoughts in response to the questions that were posed, but did not have sufficient time to develop those ideas. And for us listeners, we were left with more ambiguity than clarity on the policy positions of the various candidates. So last week we began to offer some space in the Indy for the candidates for Town Council to lay out their positions on a few key issues facing the town and to allow the voters to see precisely where the candidates stand and how they differ from or agree with each other. (See also candidates responses on housing policy and on downtown economic development)
We sent these questions to candidates in contested races only. We suspect that those who are running unopposed would like to weigh in as well, and while our space and time were constrained this week, we welcome policy papers on specific issues from the unopposed. We recognize that candidates have been asked to fill out a lot of questionnaires going into this election and we think the voters are grateful that they were able to find the time to respond.
We sent this invitation to all 12 candidates in contested races for Town Council, and this week 11 responded. Candidates were asked to limit their responses to no more than 500 words but were encouraged to provide hyperlinks to supplemental materials. There will be one more opportunity to respond to policy questions from the Indy next week.
For the week of October 30 the focus will be budget priorities, and candidates will be asked: What are the most significant budget challenges facing the town in both the long run and the short run, and what do you think the Town Council needs to do to address them, and to do so equitably?
This Week’s Question focuses on Social Justice. The candidates were asked: What do you think are the greatest social justice challenges facing our community, and what can/should the Town Council do to address them?
The Candidates’ Responses
Candidates For At-Large Seats
Vira Douangmany Cage
Town hall lacks leadership in articulating a clear, viable vision & planning for the future. Town Hall has left it to private developers and speculators organized under the Business Improvement District (BID) and their nonprofit arm, the Downtown Amherst Foundation (DAF). DAF/BID work behind closed doors to come up with the maximum profitable scenario for themselves and their members, and they roll it out piecemeal to the public. This recipe leaves our town, our land and resources prone to the greed of developers, investors and speculators who have little regard for being held accountable to achieving a people’s agenda of climate, racial and economic progress for all.
My solutions
•Develop our own economic incubator strategy independent from the BID
•Offer free set-up or subsidize overhead costs for new entrepreneurs who want to do business in our community, prioritizing our own residents
•Acquire land & property, and lease out the space
Town Hall needs to take revolutionary steps to address social justice challenges. Town Hall must follow the lead and recommendations of people who are the most vulnerable and impacted by institutional and structural challenges impeding climate, racial and economic progress.
The Community Safety Working Group (CSWG) and their recommendations presented the best of Amherst. CSWG’s work was a shining light on community engagement from underrepresented communities. Town Hall missed an opportunity to support or match the urgency, energy and time called forth by the CSWG and the police murder of George Floyd in any meaningful and fundamental way.
The vision I have for Amherst comes in categories that I hope I get a chance to develop with our people if elected:
People Need Housing Security, Economic Security, free Healthcare & Medicine; People Need Clean Air, Water and Land for Recreation; Jobs & Education, Arts, Culture, & Music; People need to be free of oppression, to live without white supremacy & structural racism; People need wealth & capital.
Finally, I will say, people need to live in a community free of cops. We should have universal childcare in Amherst & housing for all.
Robert Greeney
Arrogant – sycophant – social justice is my rant – honor honor Hierophant –
Bow to Pope – HE is no dope – peasant people – have no hope –
Pay no heed – we have our creed – even if the other bleed –
Wait wait wait – plant this seed – earth and water do we feed –
Help her grow – the tree of social justice …….
She spreads her seeds to make more trees – creatures of the forest feed –
Leaders of the earth retire – no longer domination aspire –
Collaboration becomes our nation – we he she they –
Oppression now will stay away – collective governance – collective play
Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. (WorldWideWeb)
There are Five Principles of Social Justice, viz. Access, Equity, Diversity, Participation, and Human Rights. (WorldWideWeb)
Happily we live in a time when Social Justice is receiving our attention. Unhappily we are still living in a society where “the distribution of wealth, opportunities and privileges” is less than optimum. Social Justice is a vast and important issue for the world, our nation and our town. I will argue here that it should be, along with climate change, our highest priority. Honoring Social Justice will improve everyone’s life, even those that may lose power, privilege and wealth. It is well known from numerous studies that human satisfaction plateaus when basic human needs are met and opportunities are provided.
My campaign mantra has always been INCLUSION and PARTICIPATION. If you want to forward the agenda of Social Justice DO NOT elect LEADERS. We need collaborators, we need team players, we need cooperators. Recently the Town Council and the Planning Board rejected the request for a Moratorium, signed by 1,000 citizens, asking for the inclusion and participation of more voices and views. This is an egregious rejection of inclusion, participation and Social Justice. Like latent, invisible racism and classism, I am sure that no one on the Town Council was aware that their vote and that action was a form of domination of the many by the few and a rejection of the basic principles of Social Justice. Any proposal for a new or renovated school or library that does not garner widespread support, must be the product of a process that was not adequately inclusionary and participatory.
Research has shown that candidates who are narcissistic tend to have a winning advantage. Please, I am not criticizing any person running or elected, I am only trying to point out that our tendency to elect individual with an air of strong leadership and predetermined ideas of what WE need, gives us LEADERS that are tending to be exclusionary and not inviting divergent voices in the formation of priorities and policies. Thus after ten years of planning and hard work we have a library project proposal that has deeply divided our town and runs the risk of rejection.
The principles of Social Justice will be forwarded by Town Councilors who are open minded, listening a lot, and humble in their opinions and practice. Conventional wisdom warns us “you will not accomplish anything”. I challenge that conventional wisdom.
Mandi Jo Hanneke
Amherst faces many social justice challenges. A significant portion of our residents do not feel safe in the community. We have residents who do not have homes and many other residents who are cost burdened in the homes they do have. We are facing a climate crisis that will disproportionately affect our most vulnerable residents. Some of our residents do not have access to broadband internet or computers at home.
Fortunately, the Council has begun addressing these issues, and I have consistently supported the measures taken. I co-sponsored the Resolution in Support of CRESS and the Resolution in Support of H.R. 40 / S. 40 Bills in Congress (national reparations bills). I have been a consistent supporter of re-evaluating the meaning of community safety and how the Town approaches community safety. That work must continue with the new Council.
I voted to support Valley CDC’s 132 Northampton Road studio apartment project, purchase land on Belchertown Road for more affordable housing, and update our Inclusionary Zoning bylaw to require all projects adding 10 or more units to include affordable housing, all actions that will help us address our housing crisis and support residents whose housing costs are too high.
I sponsored the Resolution in Support of S. 868, An Act Empowering Cities and Towns to Impose a Fee on Certain Real Estate Transactions to Support Affordable Housing, and S. 1853, An Act Providing for Climate Change Adaptation Infrastructure and Affordable Housing Investments in the Commonwealth. This legislation, if enacted, will provide funds to our Affordable Housing Trust for their work in creating, supporting, and developing deed-restricted affordable housing, both rented and owned, in Amherst. It will also provide the opportunity for Amherst to receive grants from the state to retrofit existing housing stock to address climate sustainability and resiliency, another important part of equity and social justice.
I voted to support the Jones Library expansion and renovation project, which will provide necessary additional meeting space for the ESL tutoring program, a dedicated teen space, and additional computers for accessing the internet and computer programs. All of these additional benefits support equity and social justice, especially for those that are new in town, whose primary language is not English, who do not have the funds to hang out after school in a business, and who do not have access to broadband, or even a computer, in their home.
I co-sponsored with Councilors De Angelis and Schoen the Wage and Tip Theft Bylaw and the Responsible Employer and Tax Relief Agreement Bylaw, successfully enacting important wage protections for workers and tax-supported projects in Amherst. And, I am co-sponsoring with Councilor De Angelis a Surveillance Technology Oversight bylaw that would require transparency from the Town on the use of all technology that surveils the public.
These actions are only a first step. We must continue working together to address climate action, housing costs, and community safety in a holistic manner, so that we can make Amherst a better place for all.
Vincent O’Connor
Education. Vote No! on the Library Project! Demand that the Council place the Fort River School renovation/replacement at the top of the capital projects list. Plus, the Council should fund an independent study, by an outside evaluation group, of recent Elementary and Regional structural changes to determine whether those changes have created disparate impacts for students in various MCAS subgroups.
Housing. Please see my responses to the Amherst Affordable Housing Advocacy Coalition’s questions at https://www.amherstma.gov/3458/Affordable-Housing-Advocacy-Coalition. Additionally, to better understand the scope of our housing crisis, we must look at the colleges, University and municipal government — where students and employees live/how long they commute broken down by ethnicity and salary, etc. Only then can we begin to propose meaningful solutions to the University’s yearly expansion that this year has resulted in unprecedented twice-a-day bumper-to-bumper incoming and outgoing traffic from all directions.
Municipal Voting Rights. For well over two decades, we have petitioned the state legislature to allow us to grant municipal voting rights to our non-citizen permanent residents, so-called “green card” holders. These are people whose children go to our schools, who own homes and businesses, not visitors with student visas. Legislative committees have found no legal barrier to our request. The Council needs to insist that our legislators bring our latest request, sponsored by the Human Rights Commission, to an up-or-down vote.
Policing. To ease fears of the primarily white/non-resident police force, and, to address day-to-day incidents of biased misuse of police power, and, within the constraints of the present Police budget, the Council should direct the manager to: create a Public Safety Department consisting of the following coordinated components — a smaller than present Police Division; a fully-staffed CRESS Division independent of the Police Division; and, an independent Dispatch Service designed to serve both via 911 and a new CRESS number.
Public Health. Nothing beats the need for universal, single-payer health care which includes dental care, and eyeglasses and hearing aids not just exams — but ending the “War on Drugs” comes close. The Council must fund added staff time to involve and coordinate the efforts of councilors and other citizens of the community to participate in state, regional (universal, single-payer) and federal efforts to advance both issues.
Transportation. The #33 Puffer’s Pond bus formerly served Village Park and Olympia Oaks via East Pleasant Street. The #33 was re-routed thru the University in return for University funding. Presently, Village Park and Olympia Oaks residents going directly to the Survival Center, Big Y and Stop and Shop, must either walk a no-sidewalk long block on East Pleasant Street to Eastman Lane or negotiate a two-bus scenario. Restoring direct #33 bus access to Village Park and Olympia Oaks would require a 5-minute loop thru Olympia Drive.
Women Department Heads and Employees. Enough of the manager, who hires, supervises and evaluates department heads, investigating himself. The Council should fund an outside investigation to be supervised by and report to a special committee of the Council and thereafter to the full Council.
Andrew Steinberg
Social justice requires that Amherst, as a Town and as a community, treats all residents fairly and equally. Amherst’s quality of life is our most precious asset. We must assure that all present and future residents enjoy it. Based on the work of the Community Safety Working Group (CSWG), the conclusion is that the Town and community are falling short.
This is a national failure. It will not be solved solely by local action, as the climate and housing crises will not be solved solely by Amherst achieving the goals of the Energy and Climate Action Plan and the Housing Plan. No single Councilor, particularly one who is not BIPOC, can develop a plan to achieve social justice. I will suggest three steps the Council can take:
1. Implement the CRESS (Community Responders for Equity, Safety, and Service) program.
Police are essential in many situations. They have the authority and training to respond when a crime has been committed or there is a significant threat to safety. Sometimes the threat of arrest or an arrest are the only means to assure safety, security or peace. Police can also be threatening to many people, particularly members of the BIPOC community. We cannot ignore the history of policing and the abuse perpetrated by officers across this country. The CSWG helped us to evaluate our public safety programs.
There are many situations where responders with mental health or social work backgrounds may provide better response and be less threatening to people in crisis. The CSWG recommended the CRESS program to provide non-police response when needed. The next Council will work with the Town Manager to implement appropriate changes so that we have Community Responders and Police working together and providing the best and most appropriate service when needed.
2. Support the work of the recently created Community Safety and Social Justice Committee.
In addition to CRESS, the CSWG recommended establishing a Resident Oversight Board, an Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion including a Youth Center and a BIPOC Cultural Center, and to continue the CSWG. A Community Safety and Social Justice Committee has been created with a committee charge recommended by the CSWG. One of its charges is to implement the CSWG recommendations. The Council should establish its expectations and receive regular reports from the Community Safety and Social Justice Committee and Town Manager.
3. Support racial justice work in Amherst.
The Council can take other steps to support racial justice work essential to advancing social justice. They will make the Council more inclusive and increase BIPOC participation on boards and committees: (1) listen before making decisions; (2) be accessible; (3) recruit and include diversity on committees; (4) assure that timing and length of meetings are not barriers to participation; (5) have staff provide support as requested; (6) explain financial or legal barriers and collaboratively seek solutions; (7) acknowledge prior injustice; and (8) demonstrate respect. See http://www.andyforamherst.org/
Ellisha Walker
Amherst has a reputation of being a community at the forefront of change. A community that is progressive, equitable, and makes strides towards racial and social justice — but we have so much work left to do. Across our town, there are structures and practices in place that do not value the wisdom and expertise of our community. Instead, they often serve to protect those with power and privilege.
Knowledge and resources are inequitably distributed across Amherst and many community members often feel unheard and overlooked — even when they actively seek to provide input to decision makers. Efforts to value community voices and lived experience as data and expertise are often disconnected and lack consistency and accountability. In our community, power is often based on economic and social capital and we are stuck in a vicious cycle that undervalues BIPOC and low-income community members.
There are no mechanisms to report instances of injustice; there are no spaces where people can share experiences of injustices and trust that they will be heard and responded to with a sense of urgency. Community members who call out injustices are silenced and ostracized by the larger community. In particular, Black women face immense challenges when advocating for their needs in regards to social justice and are often written off as mentally unstable, angry, or aggressive and are told to change their tone and approach. This surveillance of the way in which oppressed communities process, express, and advocate for themselves and their needs is harmful and detrimental to all social justice efforts.
How can we increase equity and truly value the voices of marginalized community members without asking, listening, and responding to their needs as defined by them? Those most impacted by systems of oppression must be at the center of the discussion, planning, implementation, accountability, and decision-making processes during the advancement of social justice initiatives.
The role of those who support equity and social justice must be to support, value, and amplify the voices and needs of those most impacted by systems of oppression. Town officials must invest in equity-based solutions and apply this lens to their work across the board. This is a vital step in ensuring that our diverse town feels equitable and inclusive for all. The town council must eliminate barriers to equity and participation, expand access to knowledge and resources and establish mechanisms in which the community can report and transparently track progress. The council must invest in creating healing and processing spaces for those impacted by injustice. The council must allow the community to hold them accountable to their commitments. The council must allow solutions to our town’s inequities and social injustices to be created for the community, by the community. Because, as one South African apartheid activist said, “Nothing about us without us is for us”.
Candidates For District 3 Councilor
Dorothy Pam
There are many aspects of Social Justice that concern us. One that I feel strongly about is increasing independence and economic growth through expanding opportunities for first-time home ownership.The past still very much affects the present. Although many generations of African Americans made the “Great Migration” from the South to the North for freedom from brutality, lynching, and for economic independence, and a chance at the American Dream, they often found that if they managed to set up businesses or own land, it was burned or stolen from them and they were driven from their land.
The irony is that although many conditions were much better in the North in terms of jobs and education, the ability to own property, to buy and keep housing in desirable neighborhoods, was often challenged through redlining, and mortgage fraud. In the recent past, the sub-prime mortgage scandal disproportionately hurt African American families, preventing them from experiencing the good schools, clean air and water, and rising prospects they should enjoy. Home ownership has been the backbone of the middle class, but even today, African Americans lag far behind whites in being able to buy and keep a home.
Although it is not clear how the African Heritage Reparation Assembly will recommend that the new dedicated fund for reparations be spent, I am hoping that part of our efforts here in Amherst will be to complement theirs and provide more opportunities for affordable first-time home ownership by African American residents of Amherst. Yes, we must work on providing more affordable rentals, but the secret to real economic equality is through home ownership, and there is ample proof that the dominant white power structure has often stood in the way of that dream.
Many more opportunities for home ownership could be provided if the Town’s emphasis shifted from encouraging developers to build more high-rise rental units for the student market, and the affordable housing groups shifted from the nearly exclusive emphasis on creating more affordable rentals, to encouraging owner-occupied two-, three-, and four-family housing where the rental income from some units could help the owner pay the mortgage. Owner-occupied small multi-family housing is how many immigrants started their progress toward economic independence.
In addition, I join with Amherst Media in urging that the Town pursue efforts to increase access to affordable Internet in all town neighborhoods. Also, although the Town Council plays a small role in supporting and overseeing the public school system, I join with others in wholeheartedly supporting plans for a new, modern, energy efficient and safe school in the near future. I also urge the school committee to use all their creativity in keeping the schools open safely during COVID to prevent further harm to our young people. When the new Jones Library is finished, I look forward to seeing the Civil War stones permanently placed in a protected public space where all can see them.
George Ryan
When I think of Social Justice I think of many things: Housing, Education, Economic Development, Food Insecurity, and Resident Engagement.
- In the area of education we need a 21st Century elementary school to serve an elementary school population which for the first time in our history is majority non-white. We need universal pre-K. We need to continue to hire and retain teachers and administrators of color. We need a 21stt Century Library that will serve communities of need — immigrants, parents with young children, teens, the homeless. Like a 21st Century school a 21st Century library is a social justice issue.
- In housing we need to encourage a multiplicity of strategies to encourage housing production and thereby housing opportunity. We now have an inclusionary zoning bylaw. Any new multi-unit construction of more than 10 units must provide affordable units. Increasing housing production is not only key to addressing the acute housing shortage in Amherst it is a key Social Justice goal.
- In the area of public safety the Council has taken the first steps to create a civilian responder program to provide an alternative for certain kinds of calls traditionally handled by the APD. We need to establish a civilian oversight body to facilitate dialog between the APD and the BIPOC community.
- According to the BID 70% of our downtown business owners are minority, women, and/or LGBTQ+. Supporting economic development in our downtown to help our downtown business owners thrive in the post-COVID world and in the face of the challenge of malls and e-commerce is also social justice. Councilor Ross and I have sponsored a zoning amendment which would be the first step towards the creation of a destination parking garage on the site of the Town-owned lot behind CVS. Such a project would be a tremendous boon to our downtown business community. In addition I am strongly advocating for the use of ARPA funds to help our local businesses as they emerge out of COVID.
- In the area of food insecurity we need to support the Mobile Market and the Community Gardens. We need to address the related issue of transportation so that those who rely on public transit to be able to get them to the stores and malls where they shop. The Council has passed a Wage and Tip Theft Bylaw — we need to follow up and see if its provisions are in fact being followed.
- The Mobile Market also provides us with a workable model for how to give voice to those in our community often left out of the conversation. We need to explore how we can make use of translation services that will make our Council meetings accessible to those who are not native English speakers. We need to expand our efforts at outreach both at the Committee and Council levels to encourage greater participation and engagement from all members of our community.
Jennifer Taub
Having a place at the table (especially the table that is Town Council) is integral to beginning to address social justice challenges in Amherst. It is imperative that the Council, as well as Town governing boards and commissions, have far greater representation from Amherst’s BIPOC community. Equity and social justice are undermined when major constituencies are not in the room where decisions are made, policies formulated, and allocation of resources determined. A Council whose composition reflects the full spectrum of constituents and communities in Amherst is better positioned to craft policies that enable all residents to prosper and thrive.
Through a workshop or other training, as leaders in our town, it is critical that Councilors deepen their understanding of the “lived experiences” of constituents whose backgrounds and perspectives are different from their own. Understanding that one’s own experience isn’t everyone’s experience is a prerequisite to making sound, informed decisions that impact other people’s lives, homes, schools, and neighborhoods. As the Final Report of the Community Services Working Group made abundantly clear, different communities in Amherst can have very different experiences interacting with local government and other institutions in our town.
The next Council (as all Amherst residents) will benefit enormously from the final report and recommendations of the Community Services Working Group. The report (and substantial research that informs it) provides the Council with a blueprint to begin addressing and resolving some of the most pressing social justice challenges we face. For starters, implementing the Community Response for Equity, Safety and Service (CRESS) program will benefit every Amherst resident.
A fully resourced Department of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – and a Resident Oversight Board for the CRESS program – are important first steps Town Council can take to put in place a structure that makes advancing equity and social justice core to the ongoing work and mission of Amherst.
Proactively ensuring that the concerns and participation of Amherst’s BIPOC community fully inform policymaking, priority setting, and resource allocation is another important step Town Council can take to address a longstanding social equity challenge for our town.
Candidates For District 4 Councilor
Anika Lopes
We know there is a lack of affordable housing in town. That community members are struggling to make ends meet. And parents are weighed down during 30 minute breaks between second jobs with the reality of having to choose between rent or mortgage payments and opportunities that give their children a fair shot. If we accept social justice to mean that everyone’s rights are respected and protected and that when a society is just it protects human rights; the responsibility of the Town Council in regards to social justice challenges is to implement measures, within ability, that move Amherst in an equitable direction. When we move forward with lenses that respect human rights; racial and gender equality and LGBTQ rights; see lack of access to basic essentials like shelter, food and education, deconstruct barriers that limit community participation in community decision making; we welcome equitable balances that level the field and make room for everyone to have a fighting chance at the life they want.
Pam Rooney
Social justice starts with respect for each individual. Whatever the circumstances that bring someone to today, their paths and experiences are unique. Town government can support our residents at whatever life-stage they find themselves, first by reaching out to them – or being available to them; second, by listening to what is said; and third by letting their knowledge inform decision-making. Understanding needs, obstacles, and potentials allows us to craft policies and support measures that better benefit our residents.
If we are to be an inclusive community, then hear the recommendations that have been made by the Community Safety Working Group, take in the education offered by the Core Equity Team – and implement the necessary steps. Fund the appropriate measures so that we go beyond stated goals and actually achieve something of value, a dignity of life. Treat re-districting as a means to support under-represented communities – and I don’t mean college students in dormitories. Review polices, scrutinize hiring practices and work to equalize pervasive imbalances, even in such arenas as student suspension rates.
Clearer and easier access to many facets of life in Amherst should be possible – access to decision-making and process, to transportation, town services, health care, and schooling – all are fundamental rights we can provide in Amherst. A safe, respectful community where all feel heard and widening gaps are healed. Supporting better access to home ownership is also a role the Town can play, as a step toward development of more equitable personal wealth opportunities, or help our own teachers and town staff live in Amherst. I look forward to working with and learning from the Core Equity Team, and I look forward to helping implement the recommendations of the Community Safety Working Group.
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