Trippin on the Shoestring

This week on Trippin’ on the Shoestring, cohosts Shelby Lee and Dusty Christensen talk politics in one of our most beloved cities here in western Mass: Holyoke. In recent years, it seems like there have been some big changes happening in the Paper City. Holyoke is often referred to as the most Puerto Rican city on the U.S. mainland, with around half of the city’s residents identifying as Boricuas. In 2021, the city elected its first-ever Borica mayor, Joshua Garcia, and its most racially diverse City Council ever. It was that same year that our guest this week, At-Large City Councilor Israel Rivera, was first elected to office. Izzy sat down to talk about everything from policing to how the newly seated City Council is conducting its business.

Trippin' on the Shoestring cohosts Shelby Lee and Dusty Christensen bring you a dispatch from one of the most important labor struggles happening in western Massachusetts and maybe even the country. Over the past two years, the town of Hadley — best known for its asparagus — has gained fame for another reason: new union organizing. Since 2022, workers at the Hadley locations of three retail giants moved to form the first-ever unions at their respective stores. It all began in July 2022, when employees at Trader Joe's became the first in the nation to unionize at the grocery chain, giving birth to the independent union Trader Joe’s United. And that sparked a nationwide movement to unionize other Trader Joe's. So far there have been three other successful union drives at Trader Joe's stores in Minnesota, California, and Kentucky. On this week's episode, Shelby and Dusty are joined by Jamie Edwards, who serves as the union’s president and has worked at the Hadley store for more than a decade, and Maeg Yosef, who is the communications director at Trader Joe’s United and has been a Hadley store employee since 2004.

Journalists and civic organizations around the country are currently taking part in Sunshine Week, a national collaboration dedicated to spotlighting just how important public records and open government are. So this week, Trippin’ on the Shoestring cohosts and investigative reporters Shelby Lee and Dusty Christensen dig into some of the big stories they’ve broken recently at The Shoestring… and maybe even some of the details that didn’t make it into print.

On Feb. 15, community members effectively occupied the Northampton City Council chambers, ultimately shutting the meeting down as they called on councilors to pass a ceasefire resolution amid Israel’s continued invasion and bombing campaign in Gaza. Jewish Voice for Peace activist Kaia Jackson and radical social worker Lemy Coffin join hosts Shelby Lee and Dusty Christensen to talk about local governments in western Massachusetts debating ceasefire resolutions and what it’s like to be an activist calling for action in front of those politicians.

State Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, D-Northampton, joins hosts Shelby Lee and Dusty Christensen to discuss her work in the state Legislature, including what bills our local lawmakers are working on and which ones are dying quiet deaths on Beacon Hill. Their discussion ranges from her Medicare for All bill to non-police peer-response funding, her stance on opening the secretive House and Senate up to greater public scrutiny, and much more.

Produced by Ático Studios. Music by An Archaeologist.

Over the last few weeks, new City Council members have been sworn in across western Mass. And in a few cities, the first order of business was to fall immediately into disfucntion and bickering. This week, we bring you: City Council Chaos! Longtime local peace activist Jeff Napolitano joins co-hosts Dusty Christensen and Shelby Lee to talk about the municipal mayhem recently afoot in Holyoke, Easthampton, and Northampton.

Produced by Ático Studios. Music by An Archaeologist.

Last year, the United States witnessed a surge in labor militancy as rank-and-file union members worked to transform the labor movement from within. Everyone from actors to auto workers went on strike, leading to more work stoppages involving 1,000 or more workers than in any year in the past decade.

To talk about reform efforts within unions, Trippin’ on the Shoestring is joined this week by Barbara Madeloni, a Northampton educator who has been at the center of a reform movement within the Massachusetts Teachers Association. A decade ago, she stunned our state’s political class when she won election as president of the MTA as part of a rank-and-file caucus within that union. She’s now a staff organizer at Labor Notes, helping workers build power and democracy in their own workplaces and unions.

In this episode, Madeloni talks with Shelby Lee and Dusty Christensen about the MTA’s progressive caucus, her election as union president, how the United Auto Workers strike can spark nationwide organizing, and how teachers unions statewide can provide examples for educators in the 413 to build more democratic schools.

Produced in Ático Studios. Music by An Archaeologist.

The Shoestring co-founder Will Meyer joins hosts Dusty Christensen and Shelby Lee to discuss the legacy of Northampton Police Chief Jody Kasper, who officially stepped down from her post last week after 25 years at the Northampton Police Department to take the same job on Nantucket. A Daily Hampshire Gazette retrospective on her career hailed Kasper as a chief who led the department through "trying times" and put forward "a possible blueprint for what a more progressive version of policing might look like." A look back at The Shoestring's coverage of the department under her tenure, however, raises questions as to whether the chief's signature "progressive" approach to policing — decked out in expensive gear and trainings — actually led to better outcomes for the community. Produced in Ático Studios, music by An Archaeologist.

Sierra Dickey facilitates a live discussion of one of our core coverage areas: policing. Reporters Dusty Christensen and Shelby Lee are joined by Daniel Cannity of Northampton's Policing Review Commission to discuss the state of post-2020 transparency reforms, the role of the media as a resource for communities demanding new forms of public safety, and more. Recorded at Abandoned Building Brewery in front of a live audience on November 16, 2023. Produced by Javier Luengo-Garrido, music by An Archaeologist.

As a follow up to our written series, The Long March 2020, editor Brian Zayatz speaks with Hadley musician Michael Hanson about the ways stimulus checks and expanded unemployment impacted both of their lives in 2020 and 2021. In the second part of the episode, Zayatz speaks with Lin Gen, an organizer with the Franklin County People's Fund, which helped redistribute stimulus checks to those who were excluded from eligibility. Unfortunately, audio from Carolina Peña, a fellow organizer at the People's Fund, was lost to technical difficulties.