Gateways

This week on Gateways, we give you Tracy Corley’s live conversation with entrepreneur Luis Gonsalves during the October 2nd Entrepreneurship For All Leadership Summit in Lowell. Luis is an alum of New Bedford High, the US military, and EforAll, which gave him the tools to thrive in the competitive restaurant industry. A health food aficionado with a passion for barbering, Luis, alongside his wife Stacy, run multiple operations. Three Shear Genius barbershops and a Ms. Shear Genius salon dot the Fall River landscape, and his restaurant featuring nutritious options, Juice’d Café, has expanded to three locations: its flagship in Fall River, plus a storefront in both New Bedford and Newport, Rhode Island. The two discuss Luis’ entrepreneurial journey, running businesses in the community he’s a member of, as well as what the future holds for his businesses, especially considering the imminent arrival of South Coast Rail.

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On this bonus episode of Gateways, we continue the conversation on federal Opportunity Zones legislation. Last episode, our guests broke down what Opportunity Funds can do and pointed out areas where they are failing the highest-need communities in our Commonwealth. In today's show, Tracy speaks with Rob Corley, Joe Kriesberg, and Steve Teasdale, all Gateway City leaders, who sound off on regional cities' efforts to spur economic growth equitably.

When the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was unveiled in 2017, much of the national attention was trained on the debate between Republicans and Democrats over whether the cuts disproportionately helped the rich. Woven in the tax code, however, a federal initiative known as Opportunity Zones promised to incentivized development and job creation in distressed communities. Further inspection by the New York Times revealed that the tax break hasn’t yet yielded much benefit for the most distressed census tracts. Instead, Opportunity Funds have been funneled to the more prosperous neighborhoods that were poised to receive investment anyway. Does this mean that Opportunity Zones are producing state and local investments in places where they’re needed the least? Join Karen Kelleher, Executive Director of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC Boston) and Elijah Plymesser, director of LOCUS Massachusetts as they break down the good, the bad, and the ugly of Opportunity Zones for our host, Dr. Tracy Corley, in this week’s episode.

This week on Gateways, Ben Forman talks with Rep. Antonio Cabral, chair of the Gateway Cities Legislative Caucus, about the state legislature's rollout of a long awaited education funding bill. The bill, known as the Student Opportunity Act, would provide school districts that have high percentages of low-income students and English language learners with significantly more resources. Rep. Cabral says this bill presents an opportunity to finally level the playing field between Gateway Cities students and their peers in higher-income cities and towns. While he sees room for improvement and tweaks, specifically on the issue of charter school funding, the New Bedford representative is optimistic. "It's a game changer, really," he says.

MassINC recently published a report on fare equity that confirmed what most of us already know: the lowest-wealth Commonwealth residents pay more of their incomes to get around the state than wealthier folks. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the MBTA’s commuter rail network, a public investment many moderate- and low-income Gateway City taxpayers cannot afford.

Joining Tracy and Ben on this week’s episode to talk about how commuter rail fares exacerbate inequities is Lee Matsueda, co-executive director of Community Labor United. He has noticed legislators are starting to acknowledge that much more needs to be done to make public transportation environmentally sound and accessible to all. Lee also emphasizes that regional transit authorities should have the same assurances as the MBTA, given Gateway Cities’ reliance on them for local mobility.

Lee, Ben, and Tracy also ask, what do we actually mean when we say 'fare equity'? And what does all this mean for transit-oriented development?

Massachusetts division of Community Labor United: http://massclu.org/

MassINC Fare Equity policy brief:

https://2gaiae1lifzt2tsfgr2vil6c-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Fare-Equity-Policy-Brief.pdf

This week on Gateways, Ben and Juana sit down with Mayor Dan Rivera. Mayor Rivera gives us a behind-the-scenes look at efforts to help the police department become more representative of Lawrence’s diverse population. We hear about the challenges, how they overcame them, and the public safety victories an increasingly diverse department is achieving.

Traffic congestion in Massachusetts has reached crisis proportions. And while some leaders and officials assure it’s a “symptom of success,” that explanation offers little solace to Bay Staters stuck in mind-numbing traffic everyday. To top it off, gas and diesel-burning cars, trucks, and trains dominate greenhouse gas emissions in our state.

This week on Gateways, Jordan Stutt, the Acadia Center’s Carbon Programs Director, and Sen. Eric Lesser of the First Hampden and Hampshire district join Tracy to talk about how they’re addressing this problem. They discuss a bill co-filed by the Senator and House Rep. Lori Ehrlich to promote clean, reliable, and equitable transportation through the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI). This regional collaboration of 12 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states plus the District of Columbia promises to reduce pollution and carbon emissions through a cap-and-invest trust fund. By targeting all TCI revenues to statewide transportation-related projects, TCI could generate billions of dollars for innovations and improvements that will ease traffic, reduce emissions, and improve mobility for people without adding smog- and congestion-producing vehicles to the roads and rails that crisscross our Gateway Cities.

TCI: https://www.transportationandclimate.org/

About House Bill 3008: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59a826e0579fb39e3ef33c2f/t/5c9a4d5c4e17b614a5797328/1553616220168/FS-+TCI+Black+and+White.pdf

State congestion report: https://www.mass.gov/service-details/congestion-in-the-commonwealth-2019

This week on Gateways, Juana and Ben chat with guest Hannah Parker about the importance of high standards in education.

Hannah recently graduated from KIPP Academy Lynn Collegiate, where she said she was shaped by the rigorous courses and high standards. But as she progressed through school and spoke with fellow students of color, she and her peers came to believe staff and administrators should put equally high standards on themselves. Namely, students felt administrators could do more to recruit and retain teachers of color and increase cultural competency throughout the school community. Hannah talks about her experience as a student of color being taught by mostly white teachers, and the steps she and her peers took to speak up and facilitate positive change at KIPP.

When the state budget passed last month, it included provisions that better equip community corrections centers to provide re-entry services. This week on Gateways, Ben sits down with Vin Lorenti, Director of Community Corrections at the Massachusetts Probation Service. We hear about the new role community corrections centers can play in innovative efforts to increase public safety in Gateway City neighborhoods.

In this episode of Gateways, Tracy is once again in the Merrimack Valley, this time exploring how small business development programs are shaping transit-oriented development. She starts in Lowell, where the UMass Lowell Innovation Hub has served as an incubator for budding tech companies. Andrew Shapiro of the City of Lowell discusses how Caide Systems and Peroxygen, two startups, have found permanent homes near the Gallagher Transportation Center. Also, Tracy speaks with Lianna Kushi of EforAll, a business accelerator program. They discuss how technical assistance and mentorship can bring vibrant businesses to vacant storefronts in downtowns and transit-oriented districts. We then hear from four of the 14 entrepreneurs in the 2019 Lowell-Lawrence Summer Accelerator: Sing Thanousith of Hop Sing in Town, Virgilio Velazco of Foodega (formerly known as Spoon and Pork), Jennifer Flores of Jennifer the Traveling Stylist, Karen Vasso of Neighbor's Acre Farm, and Tim Crowley of OurCards.