On Tuesday, Nov. 5, Medford voters have a historic opportunity to invest in our public schools and city government by voting yes on ballot Questions 6, 7 and 8. These questions include a debt exclusion to build a new Fire Headquarters and two overrides that will invest in our schools and fund the Department of Public Works to carry out street repairs.
I’m a third-generation Medford resident and a proud product of the Medford Public Schools. I am incredibly grateful for the education I received, especially the humanities and arts programs made available to me. My grandmother moved here when she was fifteen, and my mother graduated from Medford High School in 1988. As a teacher, my mom brought extra work home every night and constantly saw problems that could be fixed with adequate funding. As I watch my younger sibling go through high school, it is even more clear to me that future generations deserve well-funded schools. I want to invest in the city that invested in me.
It is no secret that our neighbors and our city face hard choices. Some of us are worried about the increased cost of property taxes (expected to be $37 per month for the average single-family home) on our budgets. However, I also know that the people we elected to local office are asking residents to make this difficult choice because they understand it’s critical to put our schools and city in the best position possible.
I can’t help but think of the other hard choices Medford will face if these questions don’t pass.
What happens to the teachers and staff who would likely lose their jobs without this funding? How many more residents will pop a car tire on a giant pothole or trip on a sidewalk and end up with another bill they can’t afford? What about the many families who are worried they’ll have to leave Medford if our public schools can’t meet their kids’ basic needs?
Voting yes on 6, 7 and 8 won’t fix every problem in our city, but it is a long-term solution that will have a transformational impact on our schools and streets.
Opposing voices and campaigners have failed to present any real solutions to the funding issues facing our city. The best they’ve done is propose half-baked ideas to irresponsibly drain the city’s financial reserves — delaying and deepening the underfunding crisis and leaving residents with subpar city services and public schools without the resources Medford children and families need to thrive.
Combined with the work the City Council and city staff continue to do around zoning, planning and development, voting yes on 6, 7 and 8 means Medford will finally be on the path towards significant, sustainable revenue growth that will allow us to finally become the strong, vibrant and well-funded community everyone in our city agrees we can and should be.
What I’m most hopeful for is what voting yes on Questions 7 and 8 would mean for our schools.
By voting yes on Question 7, voters would prevent devastating layoffs and cuts of 35 to 45 people who work in our schools while investing more in basic building maintenance and technology — preserving what we already have for our students.
A yes vote on Question 8 gives our schools the opportunity to work in partnership with our educator unions to provide fair wages for current teachers and paraprofessionals, bring on more teachers and staff, increase professional development for educators, increase long-ignored stipends for coaches and advisors and expand programs for all of our students, including supports for our most vulnerable kids.
I have worked on many campaigns, but the energy from the Invest in Medford campaign is something I haven’t seen before. Some parents have been pushing for more school funding for years after watching resources dry up and seeing their neighbors struggle to find extra help for their kids, consider leaving the city or look at private or charter schools. But the volunteers that make up the muscle of this campaign are not just parents with kids, but elderly folks on fixed incomes, homeowners without kids and younger residents trying to put down or deepen their roots in our city. All of our stories are represented in the shared goal of investing in our community.
Medford can’t afford to be stuck in a cycle of inaction any longer. Yes, we’re asking residents to make a hard personal choice to invest more in our community, but it is a request grounded in hope and building a better future for our city, not the fear and misinformation being spread by the opponents of these questions.
As residents who care deeply about Medford, the time to act is now. That is why I join thousands of our neighbors in asking you to vote yes on Questions 6, 7 and 8 on Nov. 5.
Jessica Taddeo is a political communications consultant, community organizer and volunteer with the Invest in Medford Campaign. She can be reached at jmtaddeo4@gmail.com. You can learn more about Invest in Medford at investinmedford.com and contact the campaign at investinmedford@gmail.com.
