Episode 177: Mayorals? For Spring? Groundbreaking.

4/14/21-- This week, there is a lot of #bospoli news to discuss, and it begins with the Boston Police Department. Acting Mayor Kim Janey on Tuesday named the executive director of Boston’s first Office of Police Accountability and Transparency. This comes as the department is reeling from two major scandals. Jenn and Stephanie discuss where things stand now, and what the future may hold the BPD.

Next, Steve Koczela has new data from a poll conducted by The MassINC Polling Group and sponsored by WBUR and The Dorchester Reporter. The poll asked Boston residents who they're voting for in the mayoral election, what issues are most important to them, and what they'd like to be done about the lack of affordable housing in the city.

Finally, we are joined by Nicole Calabrese, the leader of a ballot committee urging Wakefield residents to vote "no" on the question of whether to keep Wakefield Public Schools' current logo. The logo, which depicts an Indigenous person, has drawn debate for years. And recently, the rhetoric surrounding it has gotten so vitriolic as to polarize the town. Calabrese explains how things got so bad and what will happen next.

Full transcript here:

Stephanie Murray: [00:00:03] Welcome back to The Horse Race, your weekly look at policy, politics and elections in Massachusetts. I'm Stephanie Murray here with Jennifer Smith and Steve Koczela. And there are vaccine clinics popping up all over the state, including apparently in Steve's house. [00:00:18][14.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:00:19] That's right. We are all getting vaccinated. We've, you know, Jenn and I have been and Stephanie will be soon. And as Stephanie alluded to, we've actually got some big news to announce right here on The Horse Race, which is that my three year old daughter opened up a vaccination clinic for her Octonauts in our living room. So even the toys are now being vaccinated. [00:00:37][18.4]

Stephanie Murray: [00:00:38] Steve, for the childless among us, could you explain what an Octonaut is? Is this a new virus? [00:00:42][3.8]

Steve Koczela: [00:00:45] Octonauts are little cartoon characters that explore underwater and my my kids all love them and have a bunch of toys. And Anna decided because yesterday was the day that Audrey, my wife, got her first vaccine, that she needed to be sure that all of her toys were also safe from the coronavirus. So she vaccinated all her Octonauts. It did raise some questions when other categories of toys were going to be eligible for the vaccine. We don't yet have updates on that, but we'll be rolling out a phase diagram, I assume sometime soon. [00:01:13][28.7]

Stephanie Murray: [00:01:14] I know those calico critters are pretty far down. [00:01:16][2.3]

Jennifer Smith: [00:01:17] That is the cutest and the weirdest thing I've heard this week. Like, that's that's so nice. I got to get out here and start, like, vaccinating, I don't know, my Suffolk Downs baseball hat collection. [00:01:27][10.3]

Steve Koczela: [00:01:30] You have a collection of Suffolk Downs like commemorative hats? That's going to make Jessica Pacquette so happy. [00:01:35][5.3]

Jennifer Smith: [00:01:38] Yeah, well, it's from the the deeply beloved Before Times Live Pod at Suffolk Downs. And they just had tons of hats and there were like three left over. So I have a cute little assortment. So if anyone wants a nice running horse on their head, DM me, first one gets it. [00:01:57][19.1]

Steve Koczela: [00:01:58] That could be something about our all that Horse Race trivia points that Ari has been asking how he can spend. So maybe we'll send him some autographed Suffolk Downs hats will start to be our new exchange for horse race trivia points when we get around to kind of turning in all of those. And that's Suffolk Downs, of course, over in East Boston. There's a lot of Boston news, though, and it's not all taking place in East Boston. Jenn, you've been keeping track of news about the Office of Police Accountability and Transparency. What's going on there? [00:02:25][27.8]

Jennifer Smith: [00:02:26] Yes. So as anyone that's looked at anything involving Boston this week probably knows, there's a lot going on right now with the police department. And Acting Mayor Kim Janey on Tuesday named the new executive director of Boston's first ever Office of Police Accountability and Transparency. And this is right after just two consecutive scandals that completely rocked the department. Stephanie, since you covered this in Playbook, would you mind giving us kind of the primer on what's been going on? [00:02:54][28.1]

Stephanie Murray: [00:02:55] Sure, so this new office has a pretty tall order. There's a lot going on at the Boston Police Department. As you said, the Boston Globe reported over the weekend that Patrick Rose, who was the former police union chief, he had been accused of sexually abusing children, something that he was charged with last summer. But it turns out that he was accused of this in 1995 and the department did an internal investigation and concluded that it was likely that he committed that crime and he was able to stay on the job and rise the ranks of the union for decades after that, which has, you know, just exploded in the city, how somebody could, you know, allegedly do that and hold such a powerful position for so long. [00:03:38][43.2]

Jennifer Smith: [00:03:39] And Janey now says that the city's going to release the records from that 1995 internal investigation, which is which is really interesting and pretty unusual. It's not very often that the city kind of comes out on the heels of a scandal like this and says the correct response is to show you all the documents. So kind of fingers crossed on that particular area of transparency, since it looks like it was about, you know, 30 years of sitting on this. [00:04:05][26.2]

Stephanie Murray: [00:04:06] That's right. And that marks the split between the Walsh administration and the Janey administration. The Globe went to Walsh and the city about this last year, and they declined to release the records, saying that it would have been impossible to, you know, redact them. So the victims or survivors, I should say, are not identified. Janey is taking a different approach. [00:04:27][20.6]

Steve Koczela: [00:04:28] I mean, it feels from the sidelines, from a layperson, I'm not a-- you know, a lawyer. I'm not involved, of course, in any part of this. It feels like a complete outrage that this person, you know, has has risen to such a position of authority, given kind of all the allegations that are out there. I mean, of course, you know, all the allegations need to be investigated and so forth. But here we are now with, you know, two of the highest ranking and most visible members of the police department in the union with really troubling things, you know, really troubling allegations about them. [00:05:00][32.2]

Jennifer Smith: [00:05:01] Yeah, you raise a good point, Steve, because, as you might also recall, the BPD does not have a commissioner at the moment, you know, former commissioner William Gross kind of abruptly left. There were brief rumors that he quickly shut down, that he was going to be running for mayor. And then Gross' replacement Dennis White came in and then was almost immediately placed on leave after domestic abuse allegations came to light. So it's it's a really fraught mess over over at the at the BPD from kind of a PR standpoint right now. As you might imagine, Steve and all the other lay people are looking at this kind of going, what the heck is going on over there? And then the journalists are saying, can you give us any information about what's going on over there? So everyone's kind of just stuck throwing their hands up. [00:05:47][46.9]

Stephanie Murray: [00:05:48] It's going to be really interesting to watch what the acting mayor does here. Obviously, you know, these two scandals didn't happen on her watch. The Patrick Rose situation is from the 1990s. Denis White's appointment as commissioner happened as mayor. Walsh was leaving office to head over to the Department of Labor. But, you know, she's got the power of city hall and can release these records if she wants to, which it seems like the city is going to. In the case of Patrick Rose, she said that the Dennis White investigation is going to be wrapping up soon. We might see, you know, some information about that. And it's kind of like this double edged sword when you're the incumbent mayor, especially when you're running for a full term, you've got all of those incumbent advantages, but you've also got the enormous responsibility of city hall when these kind of things come up. [00:06:37][48.9]

Jennifer Smith: [00:06:38] That's a great point. And speaking of the other job of the acting mayor this week, it's budget release week on top of everything else. And one of the things that's been kind of interesting, at least for me to watch, is there seems to be kind of a significant cut to the Boston police budget, specifically just targeted at overtime cuts. So this has kind of been an ongoing effort. It's not just state police. Boston police and other police departments also tend to have pretty ballooning overtime budgets over the years. So there's been an effort to cut down on them. And this year they're proposing what I believe is like around a twenty one dollars million cut just in overtime. So that's going to be an issue. Might be a fight. I'm sure that the police department isn't going to be super happy about that either. But that is the other thing on the city of Boston's plate this week. [00:07:27][48.9]

Stephanie Murray: [00:07:27] It'll also be interesting to see how the city council reacts. Of course, I think Mayor Janey, three of her opponents are city councilors who will be the ones going through this budget and, you know, offering their views on it. [00:07:39][12.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:07:41] You know what we should do? We should talk about the mayor's race a little bit and just kind of get into that, just like comes me, just off the top of my head. [00:07:49][8.0]

Jennifer Smith: [00:07:51] Look at you, Steve. What a segue! Why is that? Are we are we doing something here today? [00:07:53][2.1]

Steve Koczela: [00:07:53] Just so happens that we released a poll today on the mayor's race. So, you know, we just have fresh data out. And just only because we're talking about it already, I feel like maybe we should talk about some polling. [00:08:03][10.0]

Jennifer Smith: [00:08:04] That sounds good. Are we talking about anything else, though? [00:08:06][1.9]

Stephanie Murray: [00:08:07] We're also going to go north of Boston and talk about the debate swirling in Wakefield around their public school mascot, which has Native American imagery, which some in the town would like to get rid of. [00:08:16][9.7]

Jennifer Smith: [00:08:17] All right. Well, let's go and talk about the mayor first, shall we? You cannot make me say it, it's never going to happen, one of you is gonna have to say it. [00:08:29][11.6]

Steve Koczela: [00:08:29] I'm not transitioning. I'm not stopping this segment until they get a giddyup. No, okay. [00:08:34][5.2]

Jennifer Smith: [00:08:35] This is extortion. Blackmail. [00:08:37][1.9]

Steve Koczela: [00:08:38] Yes, let's do it. Let's go. Let's talk about it. [00:08:38][0.1]

Stephanie Murray: [00:08:46] With seven months before the mayoral election, many Boston residents are understandably unfamiliar with the candidates. But among those decided, Michelle Wu and Kim Janey have an early lead. That's according to a new poll out on Wednesday from the macing polling group WBUR and the Dorchester Reporter. So naturally, we're joined by the president of The MassINC Polling Group and Master Sergeant of Municipal Matters, Steve Koczela. [00:09:11][24.9]

Steve Koczela: [00:09:12] Master Sergeant, I'm an enlisted man now. I like that. [00:09:14][2.2]

Stephanie Murray: [00:09:15] Congratulations on your promotion. And now tell us about the scope of the poll. [00:09:18][3.8]

Steve Koczela: [00:09:19] Yes. So this was a poll of registered voters in Boston, and it was sponsored by the Boston Foundation, WBUR and Dot News, which was which was cool. We've never done a poll for the Dorchester Reporter before and The Boston Foundation also really helped make it possible. Jenn, of course, an alum of the Dorchester Reporter. But it was really interesting, really exciting. In addition to looking at just all voters around Boston, there were also over samples of black and Latino voters specifically, which let us break down opinions and a bit more of a fine grained way than we would have otherwise been able to. Stephanie, you kind of gave the headline, which is that there's a ton of undecided voters. You know, this race is still whatever the right horse race metaphor is like. The gates are open and the horses are running, but they haven't even rounded out a go around the first curve or whatever. We haven't tried to do that in a while. We haven't tried to make a horse racing reference. [00:10:09][50.2]

Jennifer Smith: [00:10:11] Like the horses are just like circling around the paddock and we're still talking about who's in the lead. [00:10:15][4.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:10:17] We could do that too, something about the paddock. I like that. [00:10:19][2.2]

Stephanie Murray: [00:10:19] Yeah, we're getting back in the saddle on the horse race puns. [00:10:21][2.2]

Jennifer Smith: [00:10:21] Oh, my gosh. OK, I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to, like, steer this horse back to where it should be here. I'm going to grab the reins grabbing them. So, Steve, this is a pretty recent poll too, right? This is looking at basically last week. [00:10:33][11.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:10:33] Yeah, it was April 7th to the 11th. Those were the field dates. It was it was done done over four days and it found Michelle Wu and Kim Janey with a lead, but a ton of undecided voters. So they are kind of in the high teens. And then about half of voters say that if the election were today, I don't know who I would would be supporting. Part of that comes from the fact that there's just a ton of voters who don't really have any opinion about a number of the candidates that are running. The only candidate, in fact, where more than half of voters have any view of them as Michelle, either positive or negative. Even Acting Mayor Kim Janey you have 59 percent who say they've either heard of her but don't have a view, don't have their mind made up, or they've never heard of her at all. So a long way to go for these candidates in terms of even introducing themselves to the voters in the first place. [00:11:20][46.5]

Jennifer Smith: [00:11:20] I was going to say this makes a lot of sense, a lot along the lines of what we talked about in the past, which is Michelle Wu, of course, now is coming off of two consecutive municipal elections in which she topped the at large ballot. So really, she's kind of come the closest of any of these particular candidates at running a citywide Boston campaign and coming out on top. Of course Annissa Essaibi George has been on the council as an at large candidate, but hasn't been kind of in that top seat. So it's very much a growing game for everyone, I think, of trying to reach these voters who haven't been paying attention to the mayoral races. But I think also importantly and something that makes me a little bit sad is a local reporter is, you know, just paying attention to the city council. You know, if they've been kind of watching the the local legislative body of of their own city, then, you know, a lot of these names would sound pretty familiar. But we see low turnout in municipal races. And I think it makes sense that we're seeing kind of the outcome of that in terms of who actually knows who's running. [00:12:28][67.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:12:29] Yeah, absolutely. That's right. I mean, the candidates are just very broadly unknown. You know, Michelle Wu has both done well in the elections, as you point out, Jenn, and also has been sort of elevating her profile, you know, working consciously to elevate her profile for a longer period of time, I think, than the other candidates. You know, Kim Janey, I think, has an opportunity in some ways unique opportunity in this sense. You know, she's got the power of the office. She's got the power of, you know, all of the news cycles that you get just from doing the normal things that a mayor does. But, you know, that also comes with risks, which is if you have to get into something that's divisive, what she already does, you know, and a lot of voters don't know who you are, you know, that's their introduction to you. They don't have any other stories that kind of in their head, you know, to kind of weigh that against. It's not like someone who's been mayor already for years where you've kind of got a reservoir of other kind of imagery built up about you. [00:13:23][54.1]

Stephanie Murray: [00:13:24] So before we move on, I just want to read, you know, the percentage of voters who were polled who said they'd support each candidate. So Michelle Wu was at the top with 19 percent. Kim Janey has 18 percent. City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George with six percent. City Councilor Andrea Campbell has four percent. And then John Barros and state Rep. Jon Santiago both have three percent. So, Steve, what is that what are those numbers tell you, is it basically just name recognition for now? [00:13:49][24.8]

Steve Koczela: [00:13:49] It is certainly name recognition in some way, but the thing about name recognition is it doesn't always change. You know, it's not something where you're guaranteed to be at 100 percent by the end. You know, we've seen a lot of elections recently where candidates worked pretty hard and kind of never really break through. So people often complain about early polling as being only about name recognition, but it's also kind of sketches out the shape of the challenge that you have. You know, you have to get your name out and you have to do it in a positive way. You can also see in some of the name recognition numbers kind of who's paying attention to which candidate. That's another kind of interesting way to to look at the favorability questions. You know, certain candidates have much higher favorability in certain parts of the crosstabs than others. [00:14:32][43.2]

[00:14:33] For instance, Latino voters, 24 percent have a favorable view of Jon Santiago, twice as many as among white voters or black voters. And you've got similar kinds of trends in some of the other numbers where both Kim Janey and Michelle Wu have their higher favorability numbers among white voters and black voters. And then among Latino voters, they're somewhat lower. Of all of the candidates, though, I'd say Michelle Wu has kind of the most equal across kind of different slices of the electorate. So that, I think, goes back to the fact that she's been at it longer, that she's been even if not running officially, she's been kind of preparing for this, setting yourself up for this for much longer than the other candidates have. [00:15:12][39.3]

Jennifer Smith: [00:15:13] All right. Well, let's meat and potatoes this now, shall we? You asked what people care about as they're looking ahead and at their major concerns for for this race. What do they want their mayor to be focusing on? What's at the top of their mind, I assume COVID. [00:15:28][14.6]

Steve Koczela: [00:15:29] Yeah, COVID right there at the top, 27 percent identified COVID. You know, we let people say whatever they want. This was an open ended question. And twenty seven percent of the comments had to do with COVID. The next highest one was 18 percent. And that was for housing costs. Corvids actually down a little bit. So we compared it to September 2020 poll that we did for WGBH and found that the percent who identified covid had dropped since then. So in September 2020, it was 39 percent. Now it's down to 27. So it's not as overwhelming of an issue as it was. I think the other thing that the poll does have in common with the September survey was that housing costs is number two and that's been stable since all the way back to twenty seventeen. You know, we've got a trend on this question that goes all the way back to the 2013 mayoral election. And housing costs for the last four years or so has been at or near the top of the list of voters concerns. [00:16:28][58.7]

Stephanie Murray: [00:16:29] It is, you know, really cool that you have these comparisons. It's easy to see, at least in the early stages of this mayoral race, it's going to look a lot different issues wise than the race in 2013, where the top issues. Then in the September 2013 poll, the top issues were public education and crime and public safety in both of those have kind of fallen off as top issues this year. [00:16:52][22.6]

Steve Koczela: [00:16:53] That's right. Fallen off in a big way even. I mean, they've gone from, you know, 24 and 22 percent identifying those to now that's down and kind of the mid single digits. So big change there. Of course, we look back at 2013 and it was, you know, John Connolly and Marty Walsh talking about a lot about charter schools, a lot about education and so forth. And that has tapered off a little bit. Public safety and crime also have tapered off somewhat. And then the other thing that's gone down a little bit is the economy and jobs. Less focus on that now than in 2013 when things were emerging from the recession. But certainly we're not kind of all the way back from the recession. [00:17:31][38.4]

Jennifer Smith: [00:17:33] I'd like to dig a little bit into the housing question, Steve, because you always have kind of the hand in hand of how affordable is it, how accessible is it and how does that relate to the amount of development and building that's happening alongside. So you asked about the cost of housing and also how they felt about the amount of development that we're seeing. What came of that? [00:17:54][21.3]

Steve Koczela: [00:17:55] Yes, very few call Boston affordable for "someone like you." We asked the question, how would you describe the cost of housing in Boston for someone like you? We found 71 percent said either somewhat or very unaffordable. But then the follow up question, of course, is always will, what do we do about that fact? You know, what are some of the policies that could actually help? And, you know, one of the things, of course, is we need more housing. But then you ask the question, do you think there's too much, too little or the right amount of development of new housing in Boston? And we had 40 percent say too much. Twenty percent say too little. So more people think that there is too much new housing being built in Boston rather than too little. Some of this, based on our focus groups over the years, gets that the perception of crowding, like people feel crowded, they feel like there's too many. Cars, they feel like there's everything's just kind of getting too dense, they also feel oftentimes like the things that are going up are making it less affordable, like there's this these luxury high rises going up. There's, you know, million dollar condos going up. There's nothing that's going to really address the problem that my family can't afford to live in the neighborhood I grew up in. [00:19:04][68.8]

Jennifer Smith: [00:19:04] Steve, I'd like to point out one thing that really just kind of like knocked me back about this particular issue, which was you guys asked, you know, how much would you support or oppose these series of policies related to housing in Boston? So even though somewhere around 40 percent of people were saying there's too much development happening. Overwhelmingly, people supported allowing more multifamily housing to be built. So so you you do seem to kind of have that interesting paradox that I think you gestured at that when people think development, I'm using air quotes. When they think development, they think things that I or my family wouldn't want to live in. They're thinking of kind of like bigger apartment buildings with maybe micro units being built near them. But then when you ask, should there be more multifamily housing, you know, 59 percent say they strongly support it and 23 percent say they somewhat support it. So that's not just a majority. That's almost everyone. [00:20:00][55.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:20:01] Yeah, that is that's a great point. And certainly language matters. And they you're right to right to point out that when you ask about more multifamily housing, there is strong support for that. There's also support for rent control policies, which, of course, would be something that would be, I think, quite controversial if it were raised in the in the mayoral election, just based on kind of, you know, what we've seen happen elsewhere when that idea is proposed. Building more housing near the MBTA is something that would help with both transportation and housing challenges. I think the one that did not get net support was reducing parking ratios, which, you know, certainly is something that a lot of transportation advocates and housing advocates point out is a serious barrier to being able to add more density, just the amount of land you have to use to store people's cars, but not something that voters are on board with yet. [00:20:52][51.5]

Stephanie Murray: [00:20:53] And Steve, did you ask about any other issues in these surveys? I know that what we've got out right now is the horse race in that polling on housing. Are there other issues that you looked into? [00:21:02][8.6]

Steve Koczela: [00:21:03] Yes, we did. We also asked questions about racism, some very interesting results, definitely worthy of discussion when those come out. And then we also ask them questions about education that I think, will be worth having a conversation about when those are available. Those will be out over the next couple of days on WBUR.org and also Dot News dot com. So definitely check both of those sites if you want more on this poll. [00:21:24][20.8]

Stephanie Murray: [00:21:25] We will be refreshing those sites awaiting awaiting the poll results. Steve Koczela, president of The MassINC Polling Group and Master Sergeant of Municipal Matters. Thanks for walking us through this poll. [00:21:34][9.9]

Steve Koczela: [00:21:35] Glad to do it. [00:21:36][0.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:21:39] A debate about a high school mascot is dividing a town north of Boston. On April 27th, Wakefield will choose by a ballot question whether to keep a logo based on a Native American that some say is derogatory. Our guest today leads the ballot commission urging Wakefield voters to choose no on the question of whether to keep the logo. Nicole Calabrese, thank you so much for joining us. [00:21:59][19.9]

Nicole Calabrese: [00:21:59] Thank you, Steve. It's great to be here. I appreciate you making the invite. [00:22:03][3.2]

Steve Koczela: [00:22:04] So The Boston Globe reported on the story and it sounds like it's already been quite the saga. So first off, where did the idea to change the logo come about and how did the debate start? [00:22:12][8.5]

Nicole Calabrese: [00:22:14] So it's definitely not a new idea in town. It's been brought up in the past. This year is different because it's now on our town ballot. I think the school committee was asked to to reconsider this issue back last summer and through their public meetings, another group in town who strongly supports keeping the logo petitioned town council to have this question added to the ballot. The good news is, is that the school committee did vote last month to officially retire the logo. But our committee is concerned that this town vote in potentially future school committees could could put that at risk. [00:22:57][42.9]

Stephanie Murray: [00:22:58] So could you, you know, describe the logo, you know what it looks like for listeners who don't who haven't seen it and what the problem with it is? [00:23:06][7.5]

Nicole Calabrese: [00:23:07] Yeah, absolutely. So it's it's a caricature of a forward facing Native American, he looks-- it's it's referred to at our high school unlovingly, of course, by the students as the 'angry Indian.' And so it's it's not unique to Wakefield. I have seen the logo be used at other schools across the country. But, you know, our position is really that any stereotypical images, whether it's, you know, somebody who looks angry or somebody who looks honorable is not is not acceptable because we we know that research proves that stereotypes are harmful, whether they're positive or negative. [00:23:46][39.5]

Jennifer Smith: [00:23:48] And getting to the actual process here. You mentioned, of course, the school committee voted in March five to to to retire the logo, but then it didn't change. And so now it's being put to the ballot question. So kind of the elephant in the room there is is this also a binding action? Is there a chance that the same thing happens as before and the logo just doesn't change? [00:24:09][21.9]

Nicole Calabrese: [00:24:10] So the school committee actually met last night. They meet monthly and they they started to lay out the plan for changing the logo. The problem is, is obviously cost, right? So we have a limited school budget and a lot of resources, extra resources are needed now because of COVID, which is understandable. And so I think that, you know, they're looking at ways that they can do things like replace the the school uniforms. Those will be lower hanging fruit. But having hundreds of thousands of dollars to rip up Landrigan Field at the high school or, you know, change a scoreboard, I think that's just going to take more time. And I think that the vote last month will keep that process moving along as quickly as it can be. And certainly, you know, our committee and I think most people would understand that these these types of changes can take time. [00:25:03][52.3]

Steve Koczela: [00:25:04] So how is this kind of broken down in terms of who seems to be in opposition to changing the logo, who seems to be supporting it? I mean, we're reading these articles about how that describe kind of individual divisive kinds of actions and words. But overall, you know, throughout town, who who kind of seems to be lining up on each side of it. [00:25:22][17.6]

Nicole Calabrese: [00:25:23] So I think when you think about the two groups, our group included and the group that's very supportive of keeping the logo. Probably and again, it's a generalization, but I would say long time residents seem more likely to be opposed to changing the logo. Now, that being said, I'm the exception to the rule. I was born and raised in Wakefield and so was my husband. And we were raising our family here. And, you know, I think that, you know, those are not the people that we're trying to reach with our campaign. I think in general, there's a lot of people that just aren't aware. And we have an older logo that is not as angry looking. In fact, I mean, you might even say it's a nice picture without understanding the context. And I think a lot of people, especially if they don't have kids in school now, think of that as being the logo. And so they say, well, what's the problem? It has been very divisive, though. And I and I will say that I think it. Relates, I guess, to, I think, the broader conversation around racial equity and social justice that's happening across the country. [00:26:41][77.6]

Stephanie Murray: [00:26:42] So this isn't happening in a vacuum. You know, this is a trend that is, you know, cities and towns are getting rid of these logos in Massachusetts and nationally. You know, the Washington football team formerly called the Redskins dropped their name. There are lots of other examples. So why is it exploding in Wakefield the way that it is if so many other towns have done it or, you know, things nationally, too? [00:27:07][25.2]

Nicole Calabrese: [00:27:08] Yeah. So I think there's two reasons. One, so we have a lot we have a local Native American family that's very well respected in town and have has they've been huge contributors to our town over decades and that one of these family members had a part in creating the logo or creating the the warrior name with the with the Native American imagery. And he would like to see it kept. And so I think there's a small group of people that feel like it's dishonorable to him to change it. And I think we would say that, you know, we respect that people might like the logo, but we think that there's a way we can honor all Native Americans through improved education, actual monuments or memorials that they all feel really honors them, and not just through a logo that people are really divided on. [00:28:12][63.7]

Jennifer Smith: [00:28:13] And kind of getting at the question of what the response has been. Obviously, we've made sort of reference to it being fraught and controversial. The Globe story says there's been a lot of harassment and cyberbullying. Can you walk us through kind of the animosity that appears to be happening? [00:28:28][15.0]

Nicole Calabrese: [00:28:29] So there's a lot of animosity happening on the community pages. And I think community pages in general have a reputation for being a little bit of a cesspool across Massachusetts and probably across the country and then also in the local paper. So there's a journalist in the local paper here in Wakefield who is very pro logo. There's also been lots of letters to the editor in the daily item. One letter said "rename the town to Woke-field, we're getting a lot of woke liberals coming in here, not understanding the history." Of course, we understand the history. And, you know, we still feel like this should be changed. So, yeah, it's been it's been ugly, it's part of the reason why I got more involved, seeing just a lot of the animosity and people to feel so strongly about keeping something that hurts other people. So obviously, you know, there's there's a whole group of of Native Americans and Native American allies that are pushing for this at the state level. So to see that much animosity and and passion to go against those requests is what motivated me to get involved. [00:29:52][83.3]

Steve Koczela: [00:29:54] And of course, it's also, as you mentioned, taking place at the state level and arguably the state's biggest symbol, which, of course, is the state flag. And there's some imagery on that, that there's potential action in the legislature to change. So certainly something that that that relates there. Have you been contacted by any of the other communities or people interested in doing this in their own community or people doing this at the state level to kind of see what you've done or what you're up against? [00:30:20][25.8]

Nicole Calabrese: [00:30:20] So interestingly enough, not in Massachusetts as far as people who are just starting the process, but some other people, some other groups in upstate New York have reached out because they're going through the same the same efforts right now. So we've we've certainly told them what has and hasn't worked for us and vice versa. We also, Senator Jason Lewis joined a youth council meeting, I believe, where his daughter, they live in Winchester and Winchester recently changed their logo. And Senator Lewis is one of the co-sponsors of of this bill. And so we got to hear from him and his daughter about how they how they manage their campaign in Winchester to retire their logo. [00:31:06][45.9]

Stephanie Murray: [00:31:08] If this does, you know, go through, do you know what the logo would be replaced with is up and decided [00:31:14][6.0]

Nicole Calabrese: [00:31:15] it has not been decided. I mean, personally, I really hope and I think a lot of people in our campaign really hope that there's some sort of contest at the school that gets the students involved or maybe even the whole community. It just feels like, given all of this divisiveness, that would be such a great opportunity to try to bridge the gap between the two different groups involved here. [00:31:38][22.7]

Jennifer Smith: [00:31:39] So I think that's all the time that we have for today. But again, Nicole Calabrese, thank you so much for joining us to talk about the ongoing effort to change the logo and its context. [00:31:48][9.0]

Nicole Calabrese: [00:31:49] Thank you both so much. I really appreciate the time. Take care. [00:31:52][3.0]

Jennifer Smith: [00:31:54] And that brings us to our favorite segment of the week. And by the rapturous applause we hear in the distance, every time we start talking about this, we can only assume yours as well. Trivia. So our question for you is kind of based on the fact that it's warming up a little bit in Boston. We're approaching spring time. It might snow on Thursday, but look, it's Boston still. It's warming up and you might be switching over to your spring wardrobe. And in the spirit of warm weather clothes, which Massachusetts figure said this, "I love my cargo shorts. They are the most comfortable things ever. Who's with me? #CargoGate." [00:32:32][37.7]

Steve Koczela: [00:32:33] I have a guess, but I won't say it on the air because I'm sure that we're going to get a flood of answers on this and probably some pretty funny, funny old quotes and images of this particular person when we post this on Twitter. [00:32:47][14.3]

Jennifer Smith: [00:32:48] Definitely. And that brings us to the bonus question, too, is why did The Boston Globe, bless them, write an entire story about #CargoGate? [00:32:56][7.4]

Stephanie Murray: [00:32:58] Hashtag cargo gate [00:32:59][1.7]

Jennifer Smith: [00:33:03] It's haunting. I think. Look, here's the thing. There's no answer written down on on this particular trivia question, but I, too, feel confident that I could call this. [00:33:12][9.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:33:14] We'll leave it to our listeners to send in your answers. So send us your answers and all the usual ways. And this week, only ten thousand extra trivia points if you hashtag your tweet with cargo. Gates were determined to get this trending on the Twitter machine. Once again, it's a throwback Thursday or something like that. Another throwback. [00:33:31][17.7]

Stephanie Murray: [00:33:32] I'm going to cut it off there. That is all the time we have for this week. I'm Stephanie Murray here with Steve Koczela and Jennifer Smith. Our wonderful producer is libby Gormley, make sure to leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Sign up for the Politico Massachusets Playbook if you haven't, and call The MassINC Polling Group if you need polls done. We will see you next week. [00:33:32][0.0]

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