The QCAN political committee has gotten off to a strong start in 2021. We’ve outlined our goals, including: 

• Try to meet with every Quincy elected official or environmental policymaker and begin a dialogue about collaborating on our shared goals. 
• Alert our network to important climate legislation and the opportunities to contact legislators to ask them to act in favor of our climate.
• Hold community forums to highlight opportunities for positive mitigations for the environment.
• Be a resource to the community, leaders, and other environmental groups.

Some ways we have started working toward these goals:

• We met with Massachusetts State Senator Keenan and discussed QCAN’s goals and our concerns that the MBTA was not moving aggressively enough towards electric buses. Senator Keenan was sympathetic to our position but conveyed the MBTA’s concern with the upfront investment. We pointed out that electric buses will save the MBTA money in the long run as well as be far better for the environment.  We also discussed how Quincy’s population is mostly living in areas with an environmental justice designation.
• We co-hosted, with Thomas Crane Public Library, a very informative and well-attended Zoom discussion on the future of public transportation in Quincy by Transit Matters on April 28.  If you missed this event, you can watch the recording here.

• QCAN’s political committee chair responded to a press inquiry from the Patriot Ledger regarding the signing of “Roadmap for Massachusetts climate policy”:

“It does seem incongruent that the Governor and our legislators seem ready to lead on climate change while still allowing Enbridge to build the Weymouth Compressor station and the MBTA to create a bus depot (at the former Quincy Lowes location) servicing further investment in diesel buses when the technology for electric buses is available.”

We plan to meet next with Councilor Anne Mahoney on May 27 to discuss our agenda, hear about hers, and see how we can collaborate to help our environment and shape policy around it. Please email QCAN if you’d like to attend.

Stay tuned for updates from our meetings with local leaders and policymakers, the debut of our legislative update, and information on a candidates forum before this fall’s election. The QCAN political committee is always looking for good ideas and for people to carry out those ideas. If you are interested in getting involved, reach out to the chair of the committee, Joe Murphy, at joe.c.murphy@gmail.com.